Do you need a break from our mind? Bhagavad-gita insights for inside-out change
Krishna Prabhupada ki, gaur bhakta vindaki, tai gaur premande. So I am grateful to be here amongst all of you today.
Thank you for coming. And as mentioned, I will speak on the topic of inside-out change, based on insights from the Bhagavad Gita. Do we need a break from our mind? I will speak this in four parts, about intention, action, transformation and determination.
All of us, at some time or the other, feel that I want to become a better person. Maybe I want to control my anger, maybe I have got some cravings which I need to discipline myself, or I want to cultivate some healthier habits. And when we start this, we start with the intention.
Yes, I want to do this. But there seems to be something which comes in between the intention and the action. A couple of years ago I was invited for a TV talk show on New Year resolutions.
So that time I did some study about New Year resolutions, and I spoke about the topic. So it was found that more than 90% of people's New Year resolutions are not new. The same resolutions we keep meeting again and again, because somehow the resolutions we can't keep.
So there is something within us which seems to bring us down, which seems to stop us from doing what we know is important for us. The Bhagavad Gita is spoken at such a time, where one of the foremost warriors at that time, Arjuna, he has come there to fight a war for establishing Dharma. Normally war is considered unsavoury.
We would like to avoid conflict, avoid confrontation. And the Mahabharata describes how the Pandavas did everything possible to avoid the war. But the opponents, the Kauravas, were so adamant, so obstinate, that they just dismissed all the proposals for peace.
Suppose, say now, sometimes India-Pakistan has some tension. Now when there is tension between India and Pakistan, maybe the Indian government may send some Secretary of State, Secretary of Defence or someone like that to petition for peace. But suppose the Indian Prime Minister went as a messenger for peace.
And when the Indian Prime Minister, the top person goes, that indicates that this is a very very serious proposal. Similarly, before the Kurukshetra war, Krishna, who is the most powerful person, he is God himself incarnate in this world, he went as a peace messenger. And his message was totally rejected.
There are different ways of saying no. Suppose we have some social function, some ceremony, some programme, and we invite a friend for that programme. And they say, I would like to come, but I have this engagement, so I can't come.
So they are saying no to the event, but they are not saying no to the person. But if someone says, even if I die, my corpse will never come to your programme. Somebody says like that, that is not just a no to the programme, that's slamming the door in the face of the person.
It's a no to the person itself. So similarly, Krishna told Arjuna that, actually Krishna went to the Duryodhana and the Pandavas saying, the Pandavas have a right to half a kingdom, but you just give them five villages. And Duryodhana replied, I will not give enough land to even put the tip of a needle through.
So it was just total arrogance with which he dismissed the peace proposal. Not only that, after that what did he do? Imagine the Indian Prime Minister goes for a peace proposal, and the Pakistani government tries to arrest the Indian Prime Minister over there. That would be outrageous.
War would break out just because of that provocation. So the Kauravas, not only they rejected Krishna's peace proposal, but they also tried to arrest Krishna. Of course, Krishna manifested his divine power, and the Kauravas could not even touch him.
But the point is that the Pandavas had tried everything possible to avoid war. Sometimes we say, I have tried everything humanly possible. But the Pandavas had tried everything humanly possible and everything divinely possible also.
But still they were rejected, rebuffed. And before that, the Kauravas had committed many many atrocities. In a public assembly, they had tried to dishonour and disrobe the Pandava's wife.
So at this point, war was the only way to bring order into society. So Arjuna had the intention of fighting the war. But when he was on the battlefield, something happened.
And he lost his will to fight. He came ready to fight. That's what is described in the first chapter of the Bhagavad Gita.
But as he was beholding the opposite army, he lost his will to fight. विस्रुज्ज सशरं चापं शोकसं वीग्न मानसः He became overwhelmed with lamentation. विस्रुज्ज, he put aside.
सशरं चापं, शर and चाप, that means bow and arrow. He put aside his bow and arrow. नयोद्शेति गोविन्दं उप्त्वातु श्रींबभुः I cannot fight.
I can't fight. He quit. He gave up.
So this warrior, who was undefeatable, for whom his bow, the Gandiva bow was a celebrated symbol of his undefeated status. He just himself put aside his bow saying, I can't fight. So what happened? Even before the war began externally, a war had begun internally.
And that war sabotaged him. In that war, the enemy was his own mind. The mind started coming up with this reason, that reason, this emotion, that emotion.
Imagine, say, there's a World Cup final. India and Pakistan are playing in the World Cup cricket final. And India has a champion batsman.
They passed with Tendulkar, now it is Kohli, whoever. And just before that match, when they're about to go and play, suddenly he says, I can't play. I'm too nervous.
I can't play. Where? This is what you prepared your whole life for. This is the moment when you have to perform.
Such is the power of the mind that the warrior who could not have been defeated by even the greatest opponent externally was defeated by the opponent internally. That is the mind. So from intention to action, when we need to go, the mind is what comes in the way.
And the mind sabotages us. So what exactly is the mind? And how does it sabotage us? The Bhagavad Gita explains that our existence is three level. Body, mind and soul.
This is like if I have a computer system, there's the hardware, the software and the user. The hardware is like the body. The software is like the mind.
And the user is the soul. So suppose you are trying to make a phone call. And sometimes when we are making a phone, say because of some improper transmission, some hissing noise is coming.
And when the hissing noise is coming, we just can't hear what the other person is speaking. And we ourselves can't speak properly. Now, hissing noise is simply an irritation.
It's a distraction. But sometimes if some lines get crossed, then we are talking with someone, but at the same time some other line is coming over there. How many of you have experienced like this? The lines get crossed.
We're talking with someone, but some other voice is coming in. Now that other person is in their own world, they don't think, what is going on? Who is speaking? Why is this person speaking like this? What are they speaking? Now imagine a little more complicated situation. Say we were speaking with someone, and the line gets crossed.
And suddenly the person at the other end changes. And somehow the person at the other end, the new person has a voice very similar to the person whom we are speaking to. Then suddenly we feel, what happened? This person was speaking so politely to me, and almost the same voice, but suddenly somebody else is speaking.
So what is going on? So if there is interference like this, in the first case what I said is interference, but in the second case it's not just interference, it is takeover. The phone line has been taken over, and somebody else is speaking. Masquerading as the person to whom we are speaking.
So similarly for us, the mind is inside us. And the mind is what we need to use to focus on anything. Say for example, right now you are looking at me, I am looking at you, you are hearing me.
So in this case, how is this process of observing and hearing happening? So you, the soul, are inside your body. I, the soul, am inside my body. Now I, the soul, am speaking with my mouth.
In between is the mind, which is the tool used. In your case, you, the soul, are hearing, the mind is in between, and your ears are getting the sound. Now suppose, in the mind, suddenly some other thought comes up.
I had to do that thing at home. Did I lock my house properly? Where is my car key? Have I forgotten my phone? Why did that person speak like that to me? Next time I am going to show them. That person insulted me, next time I am going to get back at them.
So this mind is constantly speaking things. And to the extent we keep hearing what the mind is speaking, we get distracted. Say, right now you are hearing this talk, but suddenly the person next to you started speaking something, your attention would go there, and you would get distracted.
So actually, a person outside there speaking, at least you will understand that this person is distracting. But if the voice is inside us, and that voice starts distracting us, it will be very difficult for us to identify it also. So the mind is like a software that is inside us, and that software keeps producing distracting stimuli.
Say, if we have a sophisticated phone, but that phone is now, instead of giving us the voice of the other person, or instead of conveying our voice, is creating its own sound. Then, we will just get, we will not understand what is actually being spoken. What is the outer situation, and what is the inner voice.
So the mind is like a voice inside our head, which is constantly speaking, constantly speaking. I used to use another cricket example to illustrate this. Suppose a cricket match is going on.
And now normally, whenever a cricket match is going on, there is a commentator. And the commentator is meant to explain what is happening. And the commentator is meant to tell, okay, this batsman is batting, this batsman has this record, this batsman performed like this, this bowler is like this.
Give more history, more context, so that we can better understand what is happening in the cricket match. Now, nowadays with TV available, we can both see and watch. But suppose it was just a radio commentary, where we can't see, we can only hear what is happening.
Then, in that case, the commentator would be our only link with the cricket match. If it's a video commentary, then we can see what is happening, and we can also hear the commentator's voice. Now suppose, sometimes it happens that the cricket match is going through a little boring phase, say it's a 5-day test match, and the batsmen are just batting, the bowlers are bowling, nothing, no action is happening.
Sometimes the commentator goes off on a tangent. And the commentator starts talking about this and that and that, and the commentator gets lost. The match is going on, but the commentator is in another world.
And now, suddenly the action happens. Now imagine, somebody has got out, and say we are watching the match, and we see this person is out, but the commentator is out. The commentator is somewhere else.
The commentator is speaking something else entirely. Then, the commentator would actually be of no help to us. Or, if the commentator were biassed.
Biassed means, say, India-Pakistan match is going on, India is losing, but somehow one player comes and starts batting very well. And he starts scoring runs, scoring boundaries, scoring sixes, and at that time, his player is batting well, but the commentator gives a negative spin to everything. He hit this shot, but he just got lucky.
Actually, if the ball had gone this way, he would have got out immediately. He is batting well, but all other players are batting poorly. Just one wrong shot, and the match will be lost.
Now, the match is actually moving towards the winning direction for India, but the commentator is giving a false spin, a misleading spin to it. Such a commentator would actually, far from helping us enjoy the game, obstruct us from understanding the game. So, the mind is that kind of commentator.
The mind is in between us and the world. We the soul are here, the world is here, and the mind is in between us. When the mind is in between us and the world, the mind constantly keeps speaking, constantly.
Even when we are silent, the mind is speaking. When we wake up, tell the moment when we sleep. Say, if we decide to wake up early in the morning, we set an alarm for a particular time, the alarm rings telling us, wake up.
And the mind inside says, go to sleep. Sleep more time, go to sleep. And most of the time, although the alarm sound is quite loudly audible, and the mind sound is not physically audible, but because the mind is inside us, we often hear it.
And when we hear it, we listen to it. And in that way, again just go to sleep. So, the mind is something we can say, which is always producing a sound.
And it is not just random hissing sound. It is speech. It is speech that is either distracting or even misleading.
Distracting means that the cricket match is going on, but the commentator is talking about something else entirely, not about that match. Or misleading means, the team is playing well, they are moving in a winning direction, but the mind is giving a negative spin to it. So, basically, the mind is meant for us to be able to experience and enjoy the match better.
But, the mind can drive us mad. The mind starts telling its own stories. And once this story starts, it just makes us unendingly miserable.
Today in the world, mental health problems are among the biggest problems in the world. If we consider the mind to be like an inner commentator, let us from this perspective understand what causes mental health problems. The two major mental health problems in the world today are depression and anxiety.
Now, if we consider we are here, the world is here, our physical situation is here. Now, when a person goes into depression, what exactly happens? Yes, some bad thing has happened to their life, but basically the mind starts off a commentary. You see, that went wrong in your life, that person did like that to you, you made a mistake over there, see this happened over there, that happened over there.
The mind starts telling the story comprised of all the bad things that have happened to us, all the things that have gone wrong, all the ways people have treated us wrongly. And then the mind says, this is your life till now and in the future the same thing is going to happen. And in this way, we become disheartened, we become distressed, we become depressed.
So, when the mind starts telling us a tragedy story of all the terrible things that have happened to us in the past, this voice keeps speaking, then we become depressed. Yes, there is a problem but life's problems, today's problems are always manageable today. But when the mind piles up yesterday's problems and day before yesterday's problems and the day before yesterday's problems, all on top of today's problems, then it becomes unreal.
If you have to lift a 5 kg weight, it's possible, 10 kg weight, that's possible, but if somebody piles 10-20 kg weights, will not be able to move it also. So, today's problem is like a 5 kg weight, 10 kg weight, 20 kg weight, it's manageable. But, when the mind piles up all the problems of the past, that's when it becomes unbearable.
Anxiety, depression happens when the mind, the inner commentator starts telling a tragedy story and in this tragedy story, we are not the spectator. You know, we are the tragedy character to whom everything else is happening. Conversely, sometimes the mind starts commenting about the future and when the mind starts talking about the future saying this may go wrong, that may go wrong, that may go wrong, when it starts telling about this may go wrong in the future, that is when the mind, we start getting anxiety.
The mind starts telling a horror story, this, this, this, this, this, and we just, actually there may not be any much problem right now, but the mind's horror story makes life miserable. One of my friends in America is a suicide helpline counsellor. That means when people are about to commit suicide, they call on a number, a helpline and say I am about to commit suicide and the counsellor is supposed to speak something inspirational to deter the person from committing suicide.
So he told me that he got a call once from a girl who had already committed suicide and not that she had died and her host called, but that she had taken a heavy overdose of sleeping pills, enough to kill her and then she called her. So, actually what happens for all of us, the mind's voice keeps speaking, keeps speaking, keeps speaking and sometimes it makes us do something and after doing it, the mind's voice temporarily calms down, becomes silent and then we say what did I do? What did I do? So we may sometimes shout at someone, and then after that anger gets deflated, what did I speak? One of my friends is a very nice person, but when he gets angry, he just goes wild and starts speaking all sorts of crazy things. So then another of his friends, when he became angry, he immediately started his phone recorder and he recorded everything that he had spoken and then after that person calmed down, he played the recording.
I spoke this? He himself couldn't believe I had spoken. So what happens? The mind really starts speaking, speaking, speaking, speaking. We start believing it and we start acting accordingly and when the mind starts becoming silent, he says what did I do? So for her, she committed suicide and then what have I done? So she immediately called the helpline and fortunately ambulance was nearby and she was saved.
So when she was saved, later on they asked her why did you commit suicide? So she said that she had been in a relationship with a boy and she had called that boy and that boy didn't pick up her phone and because of that, he committed suicide. So many times, they call someone and they don't pick up the phone. I said what is the reason to commit suicide just because of one unanswered phone call? No, but it is not just one unanswered phone call.
What happened from that her mind started telling a commentary maybe he has left you. Maybe he is with someone else. Maybe you will always be alone.
Even if you form some other relationship, that person will also leave you. In future, all your friends will be in happy, healthy, long-term relationships and you will always be alone. They will all have pity on you.
Your life will be pitiable. What is the use of such a pitiable life? Just end your life now. So from one unanswered phone call to end your life now.
The mind can tell such a story that it can kill us. So the mind can be very dangerous. The Bhagavad Gita says that As long as the mind is uncontrolled, as long as the mind is uncontrolled, it can be our worst enemy.
There is no enemy which can do us more harm than what the mind can do. So between our intention and our action, the mind comes in and sabotages our action. Conversely, the mind makes us do something which we, in our normal intelligence, would never do.
So what do we do to deal with such a situation? In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna gives Arjuna knowledge. Knowledge of his inner world. If we are in dark and suddenly somebody attacks us.
Some thief comes and steals our purse. And if it's dark, we won't be able to see who is coming, from where they are coming, and we won't be able to protect ourselves. Somebody turns on the light, Oh, this is a thief over here.
Let me move this way. Let me do this to defend myself. If the light is there, then we can identify and we can do what is required to protect ourselves.
Similarly, the Bhagavad Gita is like a light for our inner world. It illumines our inner world. It explains to us what is happening inside us.
Science is like a light for the outer world. Science can explain why, say, objects fall down. I was in Cambridge University, I suppose.
I was invited to speak on science and spirituality there. So at that time we passed by a tree where Newton is said to have seen the fruit falling. Now, when Newton saw the fruit falling, some people say it fell in front of him, some people say it fell on him, whichever way.
So he uses observation of what made this fruit fall. And from there he inferred the law of gravity. So science offers us a torchlight to understand how things happen in the outer world.
Einstein is attributed to have said that gravity can explain the falling of objects, but it can't explain people's falling in love. Gravity can explain the falling of objects, it can't explain people's falling in love. Emotions, they don't follow the laws of physics.
The thoughts come inside us, emotions come, our intentions happen. There is a different kind of knowledge that is required for that. So science may offer us a torch for the outer world.
But spirituality is meant to offer a torch for the inner world. That torch is the Bhagavad Gita. So when Arjuna lost his determination to fight, now by the end of the Bhagavad Gita, after he had heard it, it is described that Arjuna picked up his bow.
And was ready to fight. He said that wherever there is Krishna and wherever there is Arjuna, there is victory over there. But here while describing Arjuna, this is the last verse of the Bhagavad Gita, 18.78, there Krishna says that, the Bhagavad Gita says that Arjuna is the wielder of the bow.
That means the same Arjuna who had put down his bow at the start of the Gita, has now picked up his bow. So Arjuna's bow represents our determination. I am going to persevere in this.
So how did that determination come about? Arjuna had lost his determination at the start of the Gita, but he got the determination by the end of the Gita. That happens through the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita. So the spiritual wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita is like an inner torch light.
And by that inner torch light, we identify that inside us, there is not just our voice that is speaking. Inside us, our voice is there, but also our mind's voice is there. And we and our mind are there.
So to the extent we study the Bhagavad Gita, to the extent we start understanding. This constant world is just saying, oh this person is like this, life is rotten, things always go wrong, my destiny is spoiled. So many negativities it may speak.
Of course the mind may not just speak negative. Sometimes the mind may speak unrealistically positive things. That means the mind may say, somebody drinks a lot, and he says, even if I am drunk, I can drive.
Well, you can drive, but it is extremely dangerous. So if somebody is a brain surgeon, and they say, I can drink a lot of alcohol, and still I can do brain surgery. I think you need brain surgery first then.
So, the mind can make us, either it can make us unnecessarily diffident by its negative talk, or it can make us unrealistically confident by its positive talk. So it is not that the mind will always speak negative. It may also speak positive, and sometimes that positive may be good, but sometimes that positive may be entirely bad.
If a pilot has not slept adequately, has not eaten adequately, and has drunk a lot of alcohol, and that pilot says, I can drive, I can fly a plane, then it is going to endanger the lives of so many people. So the mind can work both ways. More often than not, it is the negative voice of the mind that troubles us.
The, when the mind starts giving a negative spin to everything, we become disheartened. So, how do we, if we understand, this is a software inside me, this is, the mind is like a software, and the software has its own voice. So when I am speaking with someone, suppose, the other person speaks, and, instead of me speaking, some other voice starts speaking.
Hey, stop this, stop this, I am not speaking that. When we sometimes hear interference, so the interference could be that the other person's voice we don't hear clearly, or the interference could be that instead of me speaking, suddenly somebody else is speaking on our behalf. Now, as soon as we hear that, we won't mutely let that person speak.
Wait, wait, wait, this is not me speaking, this is someone else speaking. So that, we all have to, with the torchlight of the Bhagavad Gita, we can become more introspective. And understand, okay, this, one of the commonest ways in which the mind troubles us, as I said, two ways is, depression and anxiety.
So as soon as the mind starts saying, okay, this is not me speaking, this is not me speaking. Worry is like a tax that we pay on loans we haven't yet taken. The problem is not there, but still, we are worried about it.
This may happen, that may happen, that may happen. Krishna says, in the Bhagavad Gita 18.35, that the mind that is negative is always fearful. This may go wrong, that may go wrong.
It is always morose. So many things have gone wrong. It is always lamenting.
Never sees anything positive. And it holds on to this kind of thought patterns. So when we identify that this is the mind, it is separate from me.
It is not me. It is a voice different from mine. So at one level, we can do this through self-observation.
As I said, through knowledge. Sometimes we may get carried away and we may yell at someone, we may shout at someone and afterwards, why did I do that? I didn't want to do that. Something made me do that.
That is my mind. So like that, by vigilant self-observation, we can catch the mind when it starts speaking. And we can prevent the mind's voice from becoming our voice.
From letting ourselves identify with the mind. So we need to identify the mind, not identify with the mind. And the Bhagavad Gita offers us something much more empowering than self-observation, than the knowledge for self-observation.
It also offers us a spiritual connection. A spiritual connection with the supreme spiritual being, Krishna. What does that mean? Arjuna's mind was telling him, this war is a disaster, everybody will be killed and you will be responsible for all this bloodshed.
And you will get terrible karma, you will go to hell, you will be the cause of all this. Now Arjuna was not the cause of it all. Duryodhana was the cause of it all.
Arjuna had done everything possible to avoid the war. But when his mind was telling a story like that, it was at that time Krishna spoke. And by Krishna speaking, by hearing Krishna's message, that's when Arjuna calmed down.
Similarly the Bhagavad Gita says that the bodies of every one of us is like a chariot. And inside us there is God who is present. We are not God, we are parts of God.
We are small souls. We are the Atma. But inside us there is also the big soul.
It's called the Paramatma. A super soul. So Krishna, God is present inside us.
And the more we become tuned to his voice, the more we start becoming spiritually conscious, the more the mind's voice becomes silent. The more we can neglect the mind's voice. So going back to the commentary example, suppose there is one commentator of a cricket match and that commentator is just distracting or misleading.
Now I'm not going to pay attention to this commentator. I'm actually going to focus on the match and understand the match myself. But if there were some other commentator who is reliable, who is commenting properly, and now if this commentator is speaking and we can't block out the sound, then to focus on the match and to neglect the sound is difficult.
The difference between our eyes and our ears is that our eyes we can close. But our ears we can't close. And even if we could physically put a earplug or something still, the mind is inside us.
So it's going to keep speaking. So we can't literally silence the mind from speaking. This inner voice which keeps speaking, keeps speaking.
But if we turn towards Krishna, if we connect with Krishna, that is like connecting with a reliable commentator. And that reliable commentator will help us to better understand reality and better navigate with reality. So the process of connecting with Krishna is called as Bhakti Yoga.
Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita that if you become unflinchingly devoted to me, if you practise Bhakti, then by that practise of Bhakti you will get connected with me. And that connection will help you to distance yourself from the mind and all the thoughts, emotions that are coming within. So the determination that was restored in Arjuna was by the transformation within.
The transformation was instead of hearing Arjuna, the mind's voice, he started hearing Krishna's voice. Similarly, for us, if we start practising Bhakti, then we start tuning our consciousness to Krishna. And then we start hearing his inner voice.
We start becoming calmer. We start experiencing peace and joy, streaming into us from a higher level, from a higher level of reality. And that calms us down, that calms us down.
So the process of Bhakti Yoga is not just a matter of doing some religious rituals, not just a matter of doing some religious rituals, it's a matter of spiritualising our consciousness. So, we may go to a temple and take darshan of the deities, we chant the holy names, we do our puja, we do our seva, we come to satsang. All this is meant to spiritualise our consciousness.
Just as the mind has a sound which troubles us, its voice troubles us, similarly, we can protect ourselves from the mind's voice, from that sound, by a higher spiritual sound. And that higher spiritual sound, among the most accessible forms of the higher spiritual sound, is the sound of the holy name, of sacred mantras that are centred on the name of God. We, based on the Bhakti tradition, chant the Hare Krishna mantra.
Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Ram, Hare Ram, Ram Ram, Hare Hare. This chanting of sacred mantras connects our consciousness with Krishna. It starts a flow of higher energy coming to us from within, and that slowly starts pacifying the mind.
prashantamanasam jnanam yoginam sukham uttamam upaitin shantarajasam brahma bhutam kalmasam prashantamanasam jnanam The mind becomes peaceful by the chanting of the holy names, or by the practise of bhakti yoga. And when the mind becomes peaceful, yoginam sukham uttamam the yogi experiences the sublime peace. And the mind which is always speaking upaiti, shantarajasam becomes peaceful.
And that's the time when we realise our spirituality. Brahma bhutam kalmasam becomes sublimely peaceful. We realise that we are at our core spiritual and indestructible.
Beyond the changes that keep happening in this world, we are secure, because we are beyond all these changes. So I'll conclude with one story, a real life story about how bhakti practise can change the inner voice within someone. The last several years I've been travelling across the world, the first time when I went to America, I had gone to a university and there I spoke on the topic of regulating our mental diet.
It was a vegetarian society. We need to regulate the intake in our mind also. And after that, one boy came, an American boy came and told me that just before this talk, he had been contemplating suicide, that he had been in a relationship with a girl and she had suddenly broken up and he was depressed and he was gloomily wandering around in the campus.
He saw a poster of my programme and something within him said, just go for this programme. So he came there and he said, now I've understood, it is not I who wanted to commit suicide, it is my mind which is telling me, commit suicide, commit suicide. So, he said that, I told him that this is a life-saving insight that you've got.
I encouraged him to, we had a bhakti yoga club, a vegetarian society exactly the same situation which I had faced seven years ago. Again, I was in a relationship with a girl and suddenly she broke up. She sent a text to me saying that, I'm breaking up, I'm blocking you, don't try to contact me.
I was shocked and in the days, I just went straight to my room, locked the door, shut the windows, pulled down the drapes, turned off the lights and he loved spiritual music, he loved music in general and he had developed a fondness for singing the Hare Krishna mantra. So, he picked up a violin and started singing Hare Krishna, pouring out his heart. He told me that for six hours continuously I was singing and in those six hours, I experienced a sublime light permeating my entire being.
I felt like a divine warmth was enveloping and comforting me. That experience which could have been the extremely depressing experience of my life, it became one of my most enriching experiences. And this happened because he was spiritually connected.
So, the spiritual connection through the practise of bhakti yoga, at that time, he was shocked when the breakup happened and the mind was still speaking its own things, but instead there was a higher voice that spoke. Instead of committing suicide, instead of becoming depressed, turn towards higher spirituality, chant the holy names, do the kirtan, sing the music and that voice transformed a potentially depressing experience into a sublime enriching experience. Just as Arjuna was transformed from depression to determination, similarly, this boy also was transformed.
And it's the same way all of us can also be positively transformed. So, we don't have to break up with our mind, but we do need to distance ourselves from it. We can't just allow the mind to keep speaking and we keep submissively hearing.
When we observe the world dispassionately, we understand the mind is here, the world is here and Krishna is here. When the mind starts giving a negative spin to things, we turn towards Krishna, spiritualise our consciousness and then we'll be able to understand this is the mind, this is the reality. I can neglect the mind, focus on the reality and move forward positively.
So, life determines our problems, but we determine the size of those problems. We means our mind determines the size of the problems. All of us face problems.
The problems are in the physical reality out there, but when the mind keeps harping on the problem, why did this happen, why did this happen, why is this like this, why is this like this, the more we think about the problem, the more we keep hearing the mind speaking about the problem, complaining about it, resenting about it, the problem seems to become bigger and we start feeling smaller and smaller and do anything, but if we turn towards Krishna, connect our consciousness with him through the practise of bhakti, then we understand, I may be small, this problem may be big, but there is a far bigger reality with me. With Krishna, whatever problems I may face, I can overcome them. Bhagavad Gita says, if you become conscious of Krishna, you will pass over all obstacles by divine grace.
So that grace is available for each one of us. If we study the Bhagavad Gita and equip ourselves with the practise of bhakti yoga for strengthening our inner connection with the divine. I'll summarise, I spoke about the theme of how we need to discern, Bhagavad Gita incites for inside out change.
Do we need to break up with our mind? Talk about how we all make resolutions, but somehow something within us stops us from becoming a better me, from changing ourselves for the better. So what is that? Most people's new resolutions are not new because something sabotaged it last year. Then I talked about the three level model of the self.
Something within us stops us to understand that. What is the three level model? The body, mind and soul. These are like the hardware, software and user.
So suppose our phone is also like a software. It's filled with software. We're talking with someone, but when talking with someone, instead of that other person, someone else starts speaking.
Or when we are speaking, instead of we speaking, some other voice interferes and starts speaking. Then what will happen? We'll not be able to have proper conversation. Similarly, the physical reality is here.
We are here. The mind is in between. And the mind interferes with our perception of physical reality, our practical action in response to physical reality.
In a cricket match, a commentator is meant to explain what is happening. When the commentator starts speaking something else entirely, the commentator distracts. Or the commentator starts giving a negative spin to it, the commentator misleads.
So the mind can be both a distracting and misleading commentator. And for us, this mind is the cause of the huge variety of mental health problems that people face. So when the mind starts telling a negative story based on all the bad things that have happened to us previously, we go into depression.
When the mind starts telling a story about all the bad things that may happen to us in the future, it is a horror story that we go into anxiety. So today's problems can always be managed today. But the mind piles up yesterday's and tomorrow's problems and makes life unbearable.
So if an enemy were attacking us, first we need to identify the enemy. Then we can defend ourselves. So just as science illumines the world outside, the spiritual knowledge of the Bhagavad Gita illumines the world inside.
It helps us to understand that we as souls are different from the mind, speaking various things. And thus, once we identify the mind, then we can distance ourselves. This is not my voice, this is the mind's voice.
Through self- observation, we can distance ourselves from the mind, but a much more powerful way is through spiritual connection. So when one commentator is giving a misleading commentary, and we can't mute that commentator, then if we don't want to be misled, then if there is some other commentator who is giving a reliable commentary, then connecting with that and focussing on what that commentator is speaking, by that automatic misleading commentator, we can put in the background. That reliable commentator is God's presence within our own hearts.
So there is a higher voice which guides us from within, and we need to connect with that voice, that presence, by the practise of Bhakti Yoga. To the extent we become spiritually connected, to the extent we can become, we can observe the mind objectively and see whether it is telling us a reality or a distortion of reality. The mind may distort by giving a lot of negative things or by giving unrealistically positive things also.
So the process of Bhakti Yoga, by connecting us with Krishna, empowers us to understand, to discern what is the reality, what is the mind, and to respond appropriately to both. I conclude by the story of this boy who initially was suicidal on a breakup, but then he became spiritual, and through the kirtan of the Mahamantra, the holy name, he was able to transform a depressing experience into an enriching experience. Life determines our problems, but our mind determines the size of those problems.
If we can distance ourselves from the mind by our spiritual connection, then whatever problems life may send our way, we can deal with them effectively. So our intention is transformed into action if there is determination. But the determination is sabotaged if we keep hearing the mind's voice.
But the transformation is that we learn to hear Krishna's voice. Then our intention will transform, will be able to transform our intention to action through determination and fulfil our potentials in life. Just as Arjuna, when he was about to fight the biggest war, his mind attacked him and made him give up the bow.
But by hearing the Gita's wisdom, he picked up his bow and fought and emerged victorious. Similarly, our determination can also be restored by the spiritual wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita and the spiritual process of Bhakti Yoga. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. So any questions or comments? Sure, everyone. It was a beautiful lecture.
I really love it. If you have any questions, please. How do we differentiate between the voice of the mind and the voice of the Supersoul? Or is it always the voice of the mind? So how do we differentiate between the voice of the mind and the voice of the Supersoul, voice of God then? In general, it is, we can't know the source, but we can see the effect.
Look at the result. If listening to that voice is going to make us act in an adharmic way, in an improper way, in a way that is impulsive, in a way that is self-destructive, then from that result, we can understand that this is not the healthy voice, this is the voice of the mind, which is misleading. If the action is going to make us act in an uplifting way, in a way that is healthy for us, then we understand this is the Supersoul's voice.
There is a broad parameter, and there can always be specifics when the result also is not clear for us. So how do we decide? Then we have to go back to that feeling, and then we learn. In that time, this happened, I acted this way, but this was not the right thing.
We will have to learn by experience, but in general, the more we practise Bhakti Yoga, the more we become tuned to Krishna's voice, and then it becomes easier to discern when the mind is speaking. And to the extent, we make the right choice when we can. To that extent, we will be guided toward the right choice when we don't know what is the right choice.
There are many situations in our life when we know this is right and this is wrong. If at that time, we make a wrong choice, then we are showing by our actions that I am not interested in making the right choice. I just want to do what I want to do.
Consequences go to hell. I don't care. If that is the way in which we are acting, then if we are showing we don't want to be guided, then we will not be guided.
Then we will become even more confused, which is the higher voice, which is the divine voice, which is the mind's voice. But during the situations when we know what is the right thing to do, if at that time we do the right thing, then by that we will be showing our actions that I want to be guided. And then we will get further guidance.
Then it will become clearer when the minds, when the different voices start speaking within us, which is the right voice. Yes? Yeah, as I understand, the spiritual knowledge is one of the tools to control or calm our mind rather than mind controllers. But the people or the community who doesn't much aware of the spiritual knowledge are into this side of it.
How to get them connected so that they can also like overall we have a control on the mind? Okay. So if people who are not spiritually interested, how can we help them to also get some, give them some tools for controlling the mind? Yeah, there are different levels at which we can seek to control the mind. It's like if we are considering health.
So if somebody is very sick, then home remedies or something like that may not work. We may need to go to a doctor and take proper medicine. If somebody says how can I be cured without going to a doctor? That's not going to work.
You have to go to a doctor to get cured. But to some extent for some situations, there are various kinds of home remedies may also work. Similarly, the spiritual connection is the most thorough way of calming the mind.
But along with that, deep breathing itself is one way to slow the mind down. When the mind is making, starts making this, this, that, that, slow the mind down, slow the mind down. The more we slow our breath, the more the mind becomes slow also.
So similarly, having the structure and order in our life, wherein we have commitments and responsibilities, then even if the mind starts speaking this is bad, that is bad, that is bad, that sense of commitment and responsibility will keep us persevering in what we are doing. So both these are basically what the Bhagavad Gita calls the mode of goodness. The mode of goodness is Sattva Guna.
Sattva Guna is the social and psychological structure that sustains things. So socially, if there is order in our life, then that will sustain us in what we are doing. So that is Sattva Guna.
And psychologically also, if we have an inner sense of responsibility, of maturity, then that also helps us to sustain. And the most important thing is that when people don't seem spiritually interested, it is often because either they don't know what spirituality is or because they have certain preconceptions or misconceptions about spirituality. So the most effective way to actually connect, help equip people to manage their minds is by connecting them spiritually.
So then we can also try to find out what it is that is obstructing these people from becoming spiritual. And if we talk to them, then we understand them a little bit. Then whatever misconceptions they have, if we address them, then they become more willing to practise spirituality.
That's why we often offer classes, have question answers. On my website, there are several thousands of questions answered. So whatever preconceptions we have, when those preconceptions are removed, then people become more equipped, more inclined, at least more open to explore spirituality.
Yes please. Just one question which was going on in my mind when you were saying, let's say if somebody had bad experience, okay, bad experience, I mean, okay fine, if somebody has cheated couple of times, or somebody has tried harming couple of times, and the mind is telling, don't trust that person, in that situation, what should we do? Hope says trust, mind says no, experience, so don't trust. Okay, good question.
So if somebody has cheated us a number of times, and then we may still hope, hope may say trust them, but then our mind says no, can't trust them, so what should we do? See basically here, nomenclature has its limitations. So when something within us is saying trust that person, something within us is saying don't trust that person, now we don't necessarily have to, we may not be necessarily right in identifying, which is the voice that is saying us don't trust, there can be higher voice or the lower voice. Some people tend to be super suspicious, and for them, because being suspicious is the default nature, so for them it may be well be the voice that always casts suspicion, that is the lower voice, because that is the voice that will get them into trouble, because they will always stay, in name of being safe, they will always stay alone, they will never connect with anyone, they will never trust anyone, so in that situation, the lower voice is the voice which makes them, keeps them excessively suspicious, and keeps them lonely, but on the other hand, some people may be too trusting, and they are too trusting, then the voice which says just do it, that will be the voice of the mind, and that will be the lower voice, and the higher voice may be that which tells you no, you have been cheated in the past, you have to be more cautious, so rather than getting too much into labels of which is the voice of whom, we can focus on the purpose, our purpose is we want to have a healthy relationship, at the same time we don't want to be lonely, but at the same time we don't want to be gullible, so then if we have been cheated, it is intelligent to not be naive and trust immediately, so we can just like if an unfamiliar person comes to our house, then say if we are alone, we may just look to the people, who is there, now a days the security camera is there, who is there outside in our camera itself, and then if they want to talk, we may just talk without opening the door a little bit, I don't know who that person is, or we may open the door and keep the chain on, and then talk, and then gradually this person is a trustworthy person, I know them, or they know someone whom I know, then we may open the door and let them inside, so like that with relationships also, we can't just trust anyone unthinkingly, we can take steps, ok, in the past I have been cheated, now people can change also, but we can't assume they have changed, we have to see the evidence for that, so we can forgive people for the past wrongs that they may have done, we don't necessarily have to hold the past against them, but at the same time there is a difference between forgiving and trusting, forgiving is for the past, trusting is for the future, we will always be forgiving, no need to hold people's wrongs against in our head and keep resenting what they have done, ok, it's done, it's done, it's over, but we can't naively trust them, so we could create, just like we open the door partially and talk with people, so like that we can relate with them in a limited way and see whether they have changed, whether they are really worth our trust or not, and then if they have changed as we will experience over a period of time, then we can open the door of our heart more and connect more with them, so there is no set formula, but according to our particular disposition whether we tend to be too suspicious or too gullible, too trusting and according to the particular situation when the person is reciprocating then we can decide how to move forward.