Seeing Krishna’s mercy amidst adversity – Bali M pastime analysis

[Congregation program at Denver, USA]

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
And I will speak on the theme of seeing Krishna’s mercy amidst adversity.
So, Nishramad Bhagavatam is a book that is spoken to a person who is in great adversity. In general, even the Bhagavad Gita also we see is spoken to Arjuna when there is, he is facing a dilemma that brings in great distress. So, generally, we look towards spirituality when something at the material level goes wrong.
So, I’ll speak here based on 3-4 verses from the Nishramad Bhagavatam. This is the 8th canto, and this is the Lord speaking. So, I’ll read some verses and then we can move back and I’ll explain the past time.
This is 8.22.24. So, this is the conclusion of the past time, where the overall story of Balibharaj is that he was very powerful, so powerful that he defeated even the Gods, the Devatas. And then, after he was ruling the whole universe, Vishnu came in the form of a small dwarf, Vamana, and asked for 3 steps of land in charity. And with those 3 steps, just the 2 steps, he covered the whole of existence.
And the third step, he put on Balibharaj’s hair. That means Balibharaj gave himself up. And seeing this, when seeing him suddenly having lost everything, at that time, even his own supporters, his commanders, his generals, his soldiers, they rebelled against him.
And he stopped them and that made them even more angry. And he became completely alienated from them. And eventually, Prahlad and Brahma, they all speak and the Lord is interestingly not speaking to Balibharaj.
He is speaking to Brahmaji. So, the traditional societies in general are hierarchical. So, hierarchy can be used for spirituality, hierarchy can be used against spirituality.
It s like we have the caste system in India. The caste system can become discriminatory and it can be used against spirituality to keep people, some people spiritually alienated and suppressed. But hierarchy can create a social structure by which spirituality can also be nourished.
So, Varunanashram was that. So, here, because Brahma is, if you consider, Balibharaj is quite young, Prahlad is his grandfather and Brahmaji is even more senior to everyone. So, when this whole incident has happened, Prahlad has come and offered some prayers to the Lord, to pacify the Lord.
And Brahmaji has also offered some prayers. And now the Lord is responding. Brahmanyam anugrahanami.
Oh, Brahma, I bestow mercy on those people. Tadviso vidanamyaham. So, Divisha refers to material opulence.
I take away their material opulence. Yanmada purusha stabdho. Because by material opulence, sometimes people become intoxicated.
Stabdha. They become intoxicated and impudent. And lokam ma cha avamanyate.
And they disrespect others and they disrespect even me. Avamanyate. So, normally, when we go through our life, we all have a certain set of desirables, which we consider, if this is what I get in my life, I will be happy.
And these desirables, they have some broad general commonalities and there are some individualities. So, we may all want good health, good looks, good wealth, good family, good relationships. And within that, we may all have particular desires.
Okay, I want to develop in this career. I want to develop this art. I want things to be like this in this particular way.
And generally, we equate happiness. It’s how we define happiness is very interesting. In the sense, there’s a philosopher, a European philosopher who said that, the moment you ask yourself, am I happy? From that moment, you stop being happy.
Because, why is it like that? When we start asking ourselves, am I happy? We have a certain conception of happiness. How do I evaluate? Say, if I want to evaluate, is my house good enough? Is my house good? We have a frame of reference. How do I define a good house? Maybe it needs to have enough space for all the family members.
But how do we define enough space? What space is enough? So, we have a certain reference point. The reference point may be that, we see our brothers, our sisters, our friends, our colleagues, people who we would consider otherwise equal to us, and we see what kind of facilities they have. If their house is much bigger than ours, then we feel, hey, this house is not good enough.
So, often, we define our happiness by certain parameters. And those parameters are not necessarily valid parameters. In today’s world, happiness has become an industry.
In the sense that, there are so many self-help books, which describe how to become happy, how to become successful, how to become happy. And there are so many psychologists and psychiatrists who treat people so that when they feel unhappy, they can become happy. And there are so many surveys which are done.
It’s called World Happiness Surveys. Which country is happiest in the world? Which countries are happiest in the world? So now, how valid these surveys are, that itself is questionable. Because there are some countries where people say, some European countries, Switzerland and others, people say we are very happy over there.
But then those are the countries which have the maximum sales of antidepressants and tranquillizers. So now, are they really happy? If they need so much medication just to feel mentally good, then are they happy? It’s a question which begs an answer. So that means that, in a sense, we all want to be happy.
But we have a certain set of desirables, getting which we think will make me happy. And what are those desirables that are determined by our social, cultural and economic context? So, if we become, if you have a metaphor of a pond, if somebody becomes a big fish in a small pond, that person feels, yes, I have achieved something in my life. But if somebody goes to a giant ocean, and even if that person is a big fish, there are still far bigger fishes, fish that are there, that person says, I am very small.
So in today’s world, in the past, most people lived in small ponds. People had their villages, their towns, their particular cities, and they would compare with others in those. But now we compare with the whole world.
And then, when we compare with the whole world, you always feel, hey, when I say, am I happy? And look at others, oh, this person has these things more than me, more than this thing more than me, this thing more than me. And they have it more than me, and how can I be happy? So, we define happiness in certain terms, which are very contextual. And whether those terms really lead to happiness or not, that is open to question.
But in general, if we get material things, we equate happiness with material things. And yes, at a basic level, there is a correlation between material resources and happiness. But that correlation is linear only up to a particular point.
So, let us consider basic material resources food. Now, we all need food to eat. And if somebody is very hungry, that state of hunger is a state of great distress.
And from there, if we get food, then the more food we eat, the more our hunger will get relieved. However, if our basic hunger is relieved, and then it is the time for desserts, time for delicacies at the end. Now, just having more delicacies is not necessarily going to increase the happiness.
Oh, I like this food, I do not like this food. I like this, but it is not cooked so well. I like this, it is cooked well, but it is too little quantity.
So, only one serving available. So, if we are hungry, from the state of hunger to the state of basic satisfaction of the hunger, food can be can have a straight correlation with direct correlation with our happiness, or we could say our removal of the distress. But once that is done, beyond that specific food items, whether a particular item is provided, whether it will lead to happiness or not, that will vary.
Sometimes we make a we may put a lot of effort in making a delicious item for some some guests who are coming. And then they say, actually, I do not like this item. Afterwards, that means there is at a basic level, there is an objective correlation between food and happiness.
But beyond the basic level, the correlation becomes very subjective. It is no longer objective. Subjective means it varies from person to person, who will experience happiness by what food and who will not experience happiness by what food.
So, all of us are conditioned. So, if somebody is a South Indian, if you have idli, sambar or dosa, oh, very good. Somebody is a Punjabi, parathas, great.
Somebody is Gujarati, Gujarati food items are all explosive, khakra, dhokla. So, then, then it becomes very subjective. Anybody who is hungry, they want food.
But beyond the satisfaction of hunger, the correlation becomes very subjective. And the same applies what applies to food applies to all other resources. It may be, it may be a phone which we get, it may be a car we get, maybe a house we get, it will be the salary that we get.
It all becomes that when it is required as a functional resource, then there is definitely a distress when the functional resource is not there. You know, the functional, if we just do not have any phone, then it is agitating. Now, for the functioning of the phone, whether we have a phone which is worth $200 or worth $500.
I was flying recently from Australia, and the person sitting next to me was showing his colleague. He said, I have got this phone. This is worth $25,000.
What are you going to do with a phone worth $25,000? He said, this is the world’s best smartphone. Okay, this phone may be smart, but I do not know whether the buyer is smart. They spend so much money.
After all, what are you going to do with the phone? So somebody beyond that, even if somebody says, oh, I have got the best phone. Now the pleasure is coming, not so much from the functional utility of the phone, but from the prestige and glamour that comes with that phone. And if this person is very proud and going into a party, yes, see what a phone I have got.
And then somebody else, this is a $30,000 phone. That person, all the happiness will just disappear in one moment. Oscar Wilde is a Western thinker.
He said that fashion is a form of ugliness, so intolerable that we have to change it every six months. So it just becomes unbearable. So the point I am making here is that the Lord says that material opulence makes us intoxicated.
And then I show mercy on my devotee by taking away that intoxication. So what happens? How do we become intoxicated when we have material opulence? We think this is what is going to make me happy. But that happiness is very subjective and very temporary.
And moreover, while we have that, we may have a particular material resource by which we can lord over others. Then we become disrespectful, we may become arrogant, we may become derisive towards others. And one of my friends in California is doing his doctorate in the post-retirement life of superstar sports stars, of sports stars basically.
So when they are in the public eye, there is a lot of glamour. But afterwards, they actually have to reinvent themselves. They have to find a new life for themselves.
Otherwise, they don’t know what to do. The road from fame to infamy is a very painful road. When people want to become famous, they want to become successful, this road is filled with thorns.
But once I get to the top, I will be happy. Yes, the road from infamy to fame is from not being known to anyone to becoming famous. That has thorns in it.
One has to work hard, one has to be talented, one has to do many, many things to rise to the level of becoming famous. But then from fame to infamy is also a road which everyone will have to go. And that road has far greater thorns.
And ironically, even when one is famous, actually, there is not so much pleasure in being famous. One movie star, he said that my whole youth, I worked so hard to become famous. Now when I’m famous, I have to work hard to stay anonymous.
They go out, they wear dark glasses, maybe put on some mask. Otherwise, they’re just crowded by people. And when you’re crowded by people constantly, there’s no privacy left for people.
So here, we are talking about happiness coming from certain activities. We have certain desirables which you think will give us happiness. But do the desirables necessarily give us happiness? To a particular level, yes.
But beyond a particular level, it becomes very subjective, it is very fleeting. And rather than giving happiness, it creates arrogance within people. And then that arrogance is spiritually destructive.
So the Lord says in the next verse, this is 24th verse, यदा कदाचिजीवात्मा संसरन्निजकर्मभी नानायोनिश्वनीशोयं पौरुषिम्गतिमाव्रजेत् And Krishna says here, Bali Maharaj says that actually the soul who’s wandering through different species comes to the human species. And this idea of prestige, wanting prestige is actually there in every species. There are, one of my friends in Australia is an ethologist.
Ethologists are people who study the behaviour of animals in their natural habitats. So he said that actually the higher the species on the scale of consciousness, the more those species are prestige conscious. So if there’s a community of lions, if there’s a herd of elephants, if there is a group of lions, then if there is a particular elephant who is a head of them, then all the other elephants have to be differential.
If there is a gorilla who is the chief of the gorillas, then if somebody is disrespectful to that gorilla, they all have their codes. Now we may say they are all gorillas, but they have their codes. And many of the fights that happen often are their ego driven.
So this is universal. But in the human form of life, we can pursue something higher. We can pursue, all living beings pursue happiness.
But we human beings alone can evaluate our pursuit of happiness. That means all living beings, as soon as they see some food, they’re going to pounce on it and eat that food. If they see an attractive mate, they’re going to go towards that mate.
All living beings, by being in the body itself, are given certain conceptions of what is pleasurable. And they’re all going to operate accordingly. But we humans have the capacity to evaluate whether these things are actually providing us happiness or not.
And what is the, if we look at it at a subtle or a philosophical level, where exactly is the difference between human beings and animals? We say that human beings have more evolved consciousness. But what does the evolved consciousness actually mean? Consciousness is an innate capacity of the soul. It’s an innate feature, not just capacity, the characteristic of the soul.
The consciousness, chetana, is innate to the soul. But if we consider the soul is here, the mind is here, the body is here. Now we could say the body is, the brain in human beings is better developed than in animals.
The brain structure of human beings is far, far more sophisticated than animals. But at the same time, we see certain animals can do certain functions better than humans. If we are just given a pile of straw, we can’t make it into a nest.
A small sparrow can do that. So, it is, so the brain functionality is important, the brain capacity is important. But the brain, but we see all humans more or less have a similar brain.
We might try to analyse in terms of certain parameters or this person has high IQ, this person has low IQ. But in terms of biological substance, all brains are similar. So, the difference is actually not in the body, the difference is not in the soul.
The difference is in the mind. By the mind, I refer to the subtle body in general. So, shorthand to refer to the mind and false ego together.
So, the mind is what covers the consciousness of the soul. And in the human form, the covering becomes relatively thinner. In the Bhagavad Gita, in the third chapter, Krishna gives this example.
In text 38, he says that just as embryo is covered by a womb, just as a mirror is covered by dust, and just as fire is covered by smoke. Similarly, all living beings are covered by their conditionings. So, now, smoke when it is there around fire, if somebody is expert enough, they can just stoke the fire and the smoke really goes away.
So, that smoke covering the fire is the metaphor for human life. The dust covering mirror is the metaphor for the soul in animal bodies. And a child covered by, infant covered by a womb, that is a metaphor for the soul in the plants.
So, when we have this opportunity to rise upwards from where we are. So, in the human form, this consciousness covering is relatively thin. And because the consciousness covering is thin, we, the soul’s consciousness comes out and we can answer, ask life’s big questions.
Life’s big questions means, what is the purpose of life? What is it that will truly make me happy? How can I attain happiness? So, the search for happiness begins by questioning our default definitions of happiness. If we don’t question our default definitions, then we will just go like programme machines. Oh, I want to get this food, I want to get this, I want to get that, I want to get that.
And then our practise of bhakti will also be accordingly conditioned. If bhakti helps me to get better health, if bhakti helps me to get more wealth, if bhakti helps me to make my material life better, then it is useful. Otherwise, what is the use of practising it? So, yes, our spiritual growth will make us happy, definitely.
It makes us happy not by providing us things that we think will make us happy, but by changing our conceptions of happiness. And by helping us realise that happiness does not depend on externals. Externals are needed, no doubt, for functioning in life.
So, Bali Maharaj, if you want to imagine the catastrophe that he, that befell him, it is one thing to lose one’s wealth. Even if we lose a little money, we get agitated. If we had put all our money, a large portion of our money in some stocks and those stocks crash, people sometimes become suicidal, especially if they put invested all their money in a particular venture and they lose everything.
It’s devastating at that time. But on top of that, if it’s a stock market crash, because of which we lose something, okay, we are helpless. But if it’s some friend or some person whom we trusted, and that person steals all the money and takes it away, then it is not that the pain is not just financial loss.
It is also emotional loss. It is a relational loss. It is a loss of trust.
Like we feel, yeah, I lost the money and this person did like this to me. How could anyone be so selfish? How could anyone be so cold hearted? So, the loss of possession causes pain, but greater is the pain because it’s come from a close relationship. If a thief steals money, we feel angry.
Anybody steals money. But if somebody, a loved one, some friend, some person whom we trust, they steal money from us, they betray us, it’s even more painful. So, here, if we give a lot of charity to someone, we help that person a lot.
And then that person betrays us, that person speaks against us. Giving charity itself is an act of we are going out of our way to help. And instead of reciprocating, if they betray us, that is even more painful.
So, Bali Maharaj was in this situation. He actually lost all his wealth. And why did he lose? It was not that there was a whole financial crash or something.
It was he voluntarily gave charity and the person who was taking that charity deceived him in such a way that he ended up losing everything. And for giving that charity, he had actually turned away from his own guide, his own mentor, Shukracharya, told him don’t give this charity. And still he gave.
So, he incurred the displeasure of his guru who cursed him. So, now he’s lost everything. He has no money, he has no… his guru has cursed him and now his associates were there.
So, his associates are the demons and they get angry. They say, how dare this Bali Maharaj cheat like this. Sorry, this Vamana cheat like this.
And they come to attack. But immediately the lord’s associates come over there and they start beating, Jaya, Vijaya and others, they start beating back the demons. And the demons just can’t match the prowess of the Vishnuparshadas, of the associates of Vishnu.
And Bali Maharaj tells them, this is unfavourable time for us. Hold back. Now, this, if somebody is angry and if we tell somebody is angry with someone and then if we tell them, don’t get angry.
Often it happens is that anger wants expression. And when anger is obstructed expression, then it becomes misdirected towards the one who is obstructing that anger. So, sometimes when two people are fighting with each other and somebody comes in between to stop their fight, then both end up beating that person only.
So, physically, we may not beat a person who is coming in between as a mediator. But verbally, often we lash out. Generally, in our devotee community also, we have devotees who train in mediation and they try to do conflict resolution.
So, I was talking with a devotee mediator, he mediates between high level conflicts at different levels. So, he says that actually at the end of the mediation, if the mediation is not successful, then two people come together, both of them have their grudges, their hurt feelings and they want to resolve it. But both of them actually attack the middle person.
So, because of you this didn’t happen. Because of you this didn’t happen. So, it can be a very vulnerable position to be in.
So, Bali Maharaj, when he stops his associates from fighting against Vishnu’s associates, they get angry with him. Now, their anger is not just out of concern for Bali Maharaj. It is also out of concern for themselves.
Because if Bali Maharaj doesn’t have any position, then they don’t have any position. And they are going to lose everything. And they feel that although Bali Maharaj is their leader, we all worked very hard to attain this wealth.
We worked hard to win the whole universe. And you because of your one decision have given up everything. So, at that time, everyone has gone against him.
And on top of that, it appears as if Vishnu is also against him. When no one is with us, Krishna is with us, we say. But here it appears that Krishna is also not with him.
It is Krishna who has taken everything away. So, the Bhagavatam is demonstrating here something which is meant to help Parikshit Maharaj avoid feelings of self-pity and negativity. Whenever we face problems in life, the problems are there, but the mind often makes the problems worse than what they need to be.
I was in Canada a few months ago and there I met a devotee who is a psychotherapist. And he told me for many years I was doing individual psychotherapy. And now I have started doing group psychotherapy.
So, I said, how does group psychotherapy work? Isn’t it difficult for people, if you are a group of strangers, to open your hearts and tell your deepest fears and sorrows and pains? He said, yeah, but we have codes of confidentiality that nobody should reveal. And because everybody is speaking, so everybody knows they are vulnerable, so nobody reveals. That’s what they do.
But he said the big advantage of group psychotherapy is that everybody feels their problems are terrible. And when people hear other people’s problems, my problem is not that bad. So, after one particular session where people opened up and there was a lot of cheering of So, he did a thought exercise towards that.
He said, all of you know the problems of everyone else. If you could take out your problem and put this on the table, would you like to exchange your problem with anyone else’s problem? So, everybody said no. No.
So, generally, the mind makes our suffering much more by making us think that we alone are suffering. That everybody is suffering, but nobody is suffering like me. I was talking to the devotee doctor.
He said that when people are having fractures or people are having some very painful physical situations, sometimes they are admitted to the hospital. There are, especially in the public wards in hospitals in India, sometimes people who are having fractures, say in the orthopaedic ward, they quarrel with each other. He says, my pain is more than your pain.
No, my pain is more. No, my pain is more. Everybody is in pain by quarrel about that.
But somehow, the mind is such a thing that the mind actually magnifies our sufferings. So, problems are there, no doubt. And we cannot deny the problems.
But the mind magnifies, aggravates the problems by making us feel that we alone are suffering, or we alone are suffering more than anyone else. Others are also suffering, but no one is suffering like me. No one has problems like me.
Yes, we can say at one level, no one has problems like us, because no one is like us. Every one of us is unique. So, nobody can have problems exactly like the way we have.
But whatever problems anyone has, their problems are big enough for them to deal with. And our problems are big enough for us to deal with. Big enough means it is not easy for them to deal with their problems, it is not easy for us to deal with our problems.
So, the scriptures often give us narratives by which we understand that, okay, others in the past have also suffered much more than me. And therefore, let me not get mental about these problems. In the Mahabharata, it is described that when Yudhishthira Maharaj went to the forest, he felt so distressed.
He is not only distressed, he was disgusted with himself. He said, how could I have gambled everything and lost everything? Has anyone in history suffered like this? So, he met a sage in Vrishaparva over there. And this sage told him the story of Nala Damayanti.
It is one of the longest stories in the Mahabharata. And I won’t go into that story. It describes how this king Nala, also he gambled with his brother and his brother stole everything away from him.
And not only that, he was even separated from his wife. He was all alone. So, at the end of this, the sage says, oh Yudhishthira, don’t think you are suffering so much.
Although you have also lost your wealth, but you have your wife, you have your brothers with you. So, he pacifies him over there. Similarly, over here, Parikshit Maharaj, he was a great king.
And in just one moment, because of one tiny mistake, he lost everything. He lost his kingdom and he was cursed to die in seven days. So, when a problem comes, it is almost natural and inevitable to feel sorry for ourselves.
And at one level, yes, that emotion will come and it can be there for some time. But then we have to see things in perspective. We have to see things not just based on our emotions.
We cannot deny the reality of our emotions. If I am hurt, I am hurt. But we cannot make our emotions as the only reality.
There are two extremes. One is to consider, yes, emotions, don’t be so sentimental. Don’t feel hurt.
What do you mean don’t feel? I am hurt. We are hurt, we are hurt. But we can’t let that hurt alone drive our whole actions.
We can’t deny the reality of emotions, but we can’t make, we can’t let the emotion become the sole reality. Yes, I am having this pain. But how do we see it in context? So, when we hear scriptures, so Parikshit Maharaj is being told the story of Bali Maharaj.
And there he said, just see. Now, for you, a Brahmana came and cursed you. An immature Brahmana boy.
And that also is difficult to bear. Why it has happened to me? But for Bali Maharaj, what happened? It was Vishnu himself who came and took everything away from him. But then what do we do? What do we do at that time? I was at a temple and one devotee said to me, but actually, initially when I was coming to the temple, the temple was a source of so much peace and joy for me.
But now, I have taken some responsibilities in the temple and now that service causes so much anxiety. So, when I come to the temple, I am filled with tension. Do this, I have to do that, I have to do that.
Has this person done this? Has this person done that? So, I said, actually, am I advancing or am I regressing? Yes, actually, we are advancing. We are advancing because we can relate with Krishna at different levels. So, it may appear that actually the temple is now taking away my peace.
Because I have to do this, I have to do that, I have to do that. But the temple is actually, temple or not just temple specifically, our services. If you take up some responsibility for Krishna, then that causes anxiety.
If we decide I want to cook this prasad and bring for this programme, cook this bhoga, then we have to make sure that everything gets done in time, done in good quality. If you’re going to coordinate a programme, make sure that everything happens properly. Service requires taking up responsibility and that causes anxiety.
And if you know I just give up this service, I’ll be free from anxiety. Yes, we will be temporarily free. But the nature of the mind is such that it will create anxiety about something else for us.
If we don’t take up anxiety for Krishna, the mind will create the anxiety for something else. This person said like this to me, that person said like this to this. So now, I was at a mental health conference on science and spirituality in New Jersey.
So there we were discussing historically, is it that people had so, why is it that people didn’t have so much mental health problems in the past? Why do we have so many mental health problems now? So that could there can be many, many reasons for this. But one reason is that actually in the past, as compared to the present, the more we have relative material security, the more we have the time and the mental space to dwell on small things. If I’m struggling just to maintain my life and struggling to maintain my basic necessities of life, this person said like this to me and this person did like that and that person did like that, we don’t have time to obsess over it.
But if our if we don’t have much pressing things to do, then what happens the mind starts saying, Oh, you know, this person is like this person like this, this person is like this. So that’s why when we take up responsibility for Krishna, we become purified. Externally, it may appear as if we are losing, but we are gaining.
So Parishad Maharaj is being told the story of Bali Maharaj to assure him that there are people who have suffered much more than you. But eventually they were redeemed. Eventually the Lord brought them to perfection.
And then take one more verse and then conclude. Here the Lord says that janma karma vayoroopa vidyaishwar yadhanad bhi yadhyasya nabhavan stambhas tatrayam adhanugraha. So he says that if somebody gets wealth, power, prestige, and if after getting all these, if somebody doesn’t become proud, somebody doesn’t become arrogant, then on that person also I have given my special mercy.
I’ve given my special mercy. So sometimes there is this verse which devotees quote, that those people who might give special mercy, Krishna says I take everything away from them. So sometimes devotees say that Krishna, you give me your ordinary mercy, not your special mercy.
Don’t take everything away from me. So actually that does not necessarily mean that those who are prosperous are not having Krishna’s mercy and those who are poor are having Krishna’s mercy. It’s not like that.
Krishna’s mercy is not dependent on the material situation. It is dependent on the inner disposition. So if somebody can maintain that purposefulness to serve Krishna, no matter what happens, whether there’s prosperity or there’s adversity, if somebody can maintain that, then Krishna doesn’t want to deprive his devotees.
Krishna wants to give the devotees more and more so that they can use it all for their and others good. So now most people think of God’s blessings in terms of the external possessions. Somebody’s got a lot of wealth, somebody’s got a lot of externals.
Oh, people will say this person is blessed by God. That is the idea that is driving America in its early days. It is called the prosperity theology.
Prosperity theology means that the very fact that we are wealthy proves that God has blessed us. And the fact that countries in Africa and Asia are poor, that proves that they are cursed by God. And we are meant to give the blessings of God to them.
So this is the idea that people have. That if I have got all these material things, these are God’s blessings on me. Yes, they are God’s blessings, no doubt.
Just to have wealth, to have intelligence, to have various, to have prestige and position, this is blessing. But a bigger blessing is to have all these and to still have humility. Then if we have humility, that humility makes us feel the need to connect with Krishna.
That humility makes us feel the importance of bhakti. And that humility makes sure that whatever materially we have, it doesn’t obstruct us on our journey to Krishna. If we have material resources, we use them to serve Krishna.
And if we don’t have material resources, we still serve Krishna with what we have. When we are going through difficulties, I’ll conclude with this point. When we are going through difficulties in our life, at that time, often, why is this happening to me? That is the question that bombards us.
It’s like auto-repeat is going, why is this happening? Why is this person doing like this? Why is this person doing like that? So generally, we have these three kleshas that we face. What are the three kleshas? Adhyatmik, Adhidaivik, Adhibhautik. Yes.
So environmental, social and physical, you could say. So the soul is in these three coverings, the body, the society and the environment. Now among these three, anywhere problem comes, it’s trouble.
If it’s too cold, it’s too hot. If we are having some pain or the cough or cold, it’s painful. But among these three, the most frustrating often are the second.
It is what comes from people. Like say, now this hurricane Florence is coming to the North Kerala and South Kerala. It’s a big problem.
But we accept I’m helpless. People plan to board their houses or to evacuate. Just accept I can’t do anything about this.
And we prepare for it. If we get flu, we are annoyed. Okay, I can’t do anything.
I’ll just take my medicine, take some rest. But with respect to people, we have the illusion that we can be the controllers. Why are you not doing like this? Why is this person doing like that? So every relationship begins with the promise to make us controllers.
And every relationship soon gives us a realisation we are not the controllers. So when these problems come, at that time, if we just take a step back and understand that, okay, whatever resources I have, if I’m meant to use them for serving Krishna, then I can serve them, serve Krishna if I have those resources. I can serve Krishna even if I don’t have those resources.
Because it is Krishna who I’m meant to serve. So if we have a greater capacity to control things, if we have more wealth, if we have more position, we have more contacts, we have a greater capacity to control things. And then by controlling those things, we can do more for Krishna’s service.
But if we don’t have that capacity to control, still, we can control our consciousness, we can still maintain our service attitude. And Krishna, how can I serve you in this situation? And if we do that, not only will we grow spiritually through that adversity, but Krishna will guide us to a better situation in future. This is Bali Maharaj.
Krishna took everything away from him. But then he made him the king of Sutala and not only made him king of the whole planet, but also he became his own personal associate. Vamana became his guard.
So I stole everything away from you, but I will make sure that nobody steals anything away from you. That is the mood of the Lord. Why does he become a guard? What does a door guard mean? That means nobody can steal anything away from you.
So when the Lord rewards, he rewards profusely. And his reward will be all round for our entire well-being. So by looking that ultimately my purpose is to serve Krishna with or without the resources that I think will make me happy.
If we focus on that mood of serving Krishna, then the resources that we have, we will use them for serving him. If we don’t have the resources, still we’ll keep serving him. So humility amidst prosperity is Krishna’s greatest mercy.
And if prosperity is taken away and that brings humility, that is also Krishna’s mercy. So Bali Maharaj demonstrates to us how we can receive Krishna’s mercy by the journey from prosperity to adversity and again from adversity back to prosperity. So I’ll summarise.
I spoke on this theme of how to see Krishna’s mercy amidst adversity. I took three verses from what the Lord speaks at the end of the Bali Maharaj pastime. The first verse says that material wealth and material resources will make us intoxicated.
I started by talking how we all want to be happy and we define happiness in terms of getting the desirables. But whether those desirables will translate into happiness is open to question. At a functional level, absence of food causes distress.
Presence of food removes distress. But beyond the functional need to satisfy hunger, then how much food will lead to how much happiness that becomes very subjective and unpredictable. It’s like which desert will make whom happy, we don’t know.
So similarly, whatever material resource we have, we do need material resources for functioning in life. But beyond a particular basic level, if we start seeing them not as functional needs, but we start seeing as sources of happiness itself, then we make, we blunder. So sometimes Krishna may take, when these make us proud, thinking, I’m so great, I have all these things, I can control so much.
And Krishna may take those away to help us realise what is it that actually makes us happy. The second verse, Lord says that actually all living beings seek pleasure at the material level, but rarely a soul gets a human body. I talk about the human body, everybody, all living beings search happiness.
But human beings can evaluate whether their search for happiness is leading to happiness or not. We can re-examine our definition of happiness. And the covering is in the subtle body, the human body, the subtle body is less covered.
And that’s why when we have more developed brain, we can use that more developed brain for better functioning. And if we use our intelligence to evaluate, what is it that I actually need for my happiness, then we realise that what we need the most is our connection with Krishna, our attitude of service towards Krishna. And it is not that for practising bhakti, we have to lose everything materially.
Rather, it is, we have to make sure that we stay connected with Krishna. So if there is humility in prosperity, then that is also Krishna’s very great mercy. And I talked about how when we face problems, the mind makes the problem much worse.
So if we can be purposefully fixed in service to Krishna, then the mind’s magnification of the problem goes down. The mind makes us feel sorry for ourselves, thinking that nobody is suffering like me. But when we study scriptures, then we understand that so many people have suffered much more than me.
Bali Maharaj’s suffering was that he lost his wealth, he lost the grace, he fell out of the good books of his guru, his own associates turned against him, and he is left with nothing. Because of wanting to serve the Lord, the Lord also seemed to be against him. So through this extreme example, Parashit Maharaj had been told, don’t feel sorry for yourself.
Just focus on Krishna. Just as Yudhishthir, when he felt sorry for himself, he was told a story of Naldamayanti, that at least you have your family with you. Nala had nothing with him.
So by studying scripture, and by seeing how even those, even devotees who are far greater than us, have gone through distresses greater than us, and have been taken to safety by the Lord eventually, we can gain heart to keep moving onwards. And the Lord may take away our material resources, but that is not his purpose. His purpose is to take away only those things that take us away from Krishna.
If we don’t let the material things intoxicate us and take us away from Krishna, start using those for Krishna’s service, then that humility will ensure that we will go through material, go through our life. If we have prosperity, we use it for Krishna’s service. If we don’t have prosperity, still we keep serving Krishna.
And thus, we can march towards Krishna, seeing his mercy in whatever situation we are facing in life. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
Are there any questions or comments? Yes, please. You mentioned those three things, body, gross body, mind and the soul. You were talking about, actually, nothing to do with the gross or the soul.
This has to do with the mind, the covering of the mind. And you mentioned mind is the covering too. So is there a difference when you say mind is the covering or is there consciousness which is covering the mind? How do we understand? Sometimes we hear that the mirror of mind is covered by dust.
Okay. So when we say that the mind is the covering, but then we say the mirror of the mind is covered by the dust. So isn’t the consciousness that is covering, what exactly is it? Yes.
So there are terms and there are concepts. It’s important to not get confused about this. The terms are verbal tools.
Concepts are thought units. So concept is like a suitcase. A term is like a handle for lifting the suitcase.
Now sometimes, say I may have a, when we are at the baggage claim, sometimes if we, once it happened that I was travelling from one place to another, just when I was going out of the house where I was staying, the bag handle broke. It broke. And then the devotee said, we don’t have time.
So the devotee gave me another suitcase. So when I got a new suitcase, now generally, because I can’t physically carry my suitcases, so others carry it. So by the time I came to the next place and came to baggage claim, I had forgotten what my suitcase looks like.
So I only remembered the handle. It was a red handle. So in all the suitcases, the red handles, I was taking out and looking at the number.
Is this my suitcase? This is my suitcase. So what may happen is the same kind of handle might be attached to many different suitcases. So the handle is like the term and the suitcase is the concept.
So sometimes, the same term may refer to different concepts. And in English, the word run, yeah, I read an article that has run run amok, has run run mad. The word run has almost like 700 meanings to it.
So this is, you know, are you running for elections? That is very different from are you going for a run? Is the machine running well? Well, the machine is not running physically. There are so many different meanings. So basically, let us focus on concepts rather getting on terms now.
So the soul is the source of consciousness, just like say this bulb is the source of light. The consciousness, however, refers to two things. Consciousness refers to the observer of the territory, as well as the light that helps you to observe the territory.
That means when the light is coming, here the light is simply illuminating and we as another person are seeing. But with respect to consciousness, it is consciousness that is the light and consciousness is also the seer who uses the light to see. So in that sense, the word consciousness has two different meanings.
Since my consciousness has gone down. Now, what is consciousness gone down? The soul always has consciousness. But the reason consciousness has gone down means that the light is getting directed towards lower things, more sensual things, more self-centred things, more tamasic things.
So that means, I, as the observer can see that okay, there is this big room. But my torchlight is not looking at what is above in the room, it is all looking down, down, down. And if I want to look at some object which is above, then I have to lift the torchlight.
So the consciousness is both the holder of the flashlight and it is the light of the flashlight, both ways. Now, when this light is coming out, what makes it go up and down? That is, normally we could say the way we hold the flashlight, we can look it up, we can look it down. But in the case of this flashlight, the flashlight itself has a covering to it.
And that covering sometimes if we have some movable glass structure in front of a flashlight, then if that movable structure moves up, then you start seeing what is above. The bulb, basically the bulb angle changes. And sometimes it can move downwards.
We are holding the flashlight the same way. But if the front panel changes, then the focus can change in order to move it physically. So like that, for the soul, in front of it, covering it is a subtle body.
And the subtle body which acts as a covering can cause the soul’s consciousness to move up or to move down. Now, when we say that the mind is like a mirror which is covered by dust, that is making things a little more complicated. So we could say the mind is a covering, but the mind is a dual function covering.
That means the mind has, it’s like say, if now I have these specks, the specks are also covering on my eyes. But this is a covering that enables me to see better. But on the other hand, if somebody puts blindfolds on my eyes, that’s also covering.
But that is a covering that prevents me from seeing. So there is some covering that can enhance vision, there is some covering that can block vision. So similarly, for us within the mind, there are different impressions stored.
And some impressions, they can deaden our vision. And some impressions can sharpen our vision. So for example, if somebody is good at music, and we say what does it mean somebody is good at music? What is it? Is it that their hands are better? They will play instruments better? But it’s not just physical hands.
It’s the subtle mind. If they have practised music in this life, or maybe in previous life, those impressions are stored, then their musical instincts become very strong. So in the subtle body, again, putting terms aside, I’ll use English terms over here, that among the impressions that are there in the mind, you can say there are two kinds of impressions.
There are instincts and there are impulses. So instincts are like programmed intelligence, just know it. If somebody has very good, say, home design or interior design instincts, just come to a house for the first time and they say, if you put the curtain of this colour over here, if you put this picture over here, you move the sofa over here, your house will look much better.
Somebody may stay in that house for six months till they can’t figure it out. So where is this? This is actually the instinct that is stored in the mind. And similarly, there are impulses also there.
Impulses are, we could say, instincts are positive. They are programmed. Impulses are short term and unintelligent.
So somebody is, say, somebody has taken drugs. And as soon as they come to a particular place, oh, where can I get drugs? If somebody is very attached to cricket, then as soon as they are travelling somewhere, they come to a home, they say, where is the TV? I want to see the cricket score. I want to see the cricket match.
So their vision gets directed to particular things based on what the impulses are stored. So we could say, if you want to become more specific, it is not that the mind is the covering, but what is in the mind is the covering. But for a functional purpose, to make it, make the analysis simple, although the mind can also have positives in its covering, but prominently we are troubled by the negatives within the mind.
That’s why we equate the mind with its negatives sometimes. So that’s why we often say the mind is the enemy. But actually it is not the mind which is the enemy.
It is the impressions stored within the mind that is the enemy. But for functional purposes, we say mind is the enemy. Just like we may say that, say, Pakistan is the enemy of India.
Now, it is not that every Pakistani is an enemy of India. There may be many Pakistanis who are peace loving. But overall, the way the state of Pakistan functions is hostile to India.
So in a functional sense, we say the mind is the covering for the soul. But when we say cleaning the mirror of the mind, what that means is, removing the negative impressions in the mind, the impulses from the mind, so that we can function positively. Thank you.
Anything else? Yes. Once you mentioned about the desire, I think the positive desire is always good. But sometimes, you know, there are negative desires, and based on the desire of a person, Krishna fulfils the desire, right? So if somebody has a negative desire, say somebody wants to kill somebody, and he kills the other person, the person got killed does not have a desire to get killed.
What happens to that person? What happens to the victim? Yes, if there are two people, and say A desires to kill B, and A kills B. So Krishna allows that based on the desire. So then what B didn’t desire to be killed, so why did that happen to him? There are different levels at which this can be understood. One level is that this world is a place of distress.
And everybody faces distress sooner or later. And then now A may have a desire to kill B. Now it’s not that every time A desires to kill B, A will be successful. Sometimes A may be successful, sometimes A may not be successful also.
That means that now why is A successful at some time? That is because A, by the past karma, has been given a certain circle of control. That is Sanskrit is called as Kshetra. So all of us have different magnitudes of Kshetra based on our karma.
So somebody might be a very physically frail and weak person, somebody attacks, they can’t defend themselves. Somebody very hefty and well built, trained in fighting, then they can defend, they can even counterattack. Just as we can have physical prowess, which can determine our circle of control.
Similarly, we can have financial prowess, we can have political prowess, we can have intellectual prowess, which can extend a person’s area of control. We can have martial prowess in terms of weapons somebody possesses. So based on karma, certain people are given a certain circle of influence, circle of control, the Kshetra.
If somebody else falls in that Kshetra, then this people can influence, can affect them substantially. So for somebody who is a very, very cruel dictator, by the past karma, that person was meant to become a head of state. And all those people who are under that in that state, they’re meant to be in the control.
But that person by using their free will in a particular way, can use their capacity to control positively or negatively. Negatively means, positively means they can do good to others, they can do harm to others. So, we from our social perspective, should see that if somebody is abusing their power to hurt others, then the other person is a victim.
And society should have structures by which victims can be protected, or those who have been victimised, their grievances can be redressed. Of course, somebody is killed, that’s brutal. Then there has to be severe punishment, capital punishment may also be required for that.
So from the social perspective, we look only at the point that this person has abused their power. If you want to go further and look at karma, we could say that the person who was victimised also had some karma because of which they were victimised. But generally, that is not the stress.
The stress is on who is doing right or who is doing wrong. When Draupadi is dishonoured by Dushyasana and Duryodhana, nobody tells Draupadi, it was your own karma because of which this happens. When Sita was abducted, nobody tells Sita, it was your karma because of which you got abducted.
No, at that time, both the Pandavas and Lord Ram, they work to redress the grievance. They work to correct the situation. So in general, the karmic perspective is for philosophical understanding.
But we don’t know who has done what karma in the past. So we can’t judge people who are victims based on some unknown karma from the past. If we are functioning in this world, we should see that those who are victims are actually victims and their victimisation has to be stopped and the victimiser has to be punished.
Does that answer your question? Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you very much.