Pride takes us on a perilous ride

Sunday feast class at ISKCON, Milton, Toronto, Canada]

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna.
Hare Krishna. I am grateful to be here amongst all of you today. And I will speak on how pride can take us on a perilous ride.
And how pride can hamper us materially and spiritually. So in the Bhagavad Gita in the 16th chapter Krishna talks about the qualities of the divine nature and the demoniac nature. So first three verses he describes a list of the divine qualities.
Abhayam sattva-samsuddhi. Jnana-yoga-vibhasthiti. Goes on in the list for three verses.
In the fourth verse he talks about pride. He talks about the demoniac qualities. Dambho tarpo bhimanascha.
Krodha parushya mevacha. Abhyanam cha abhijatasya. Parthasampad masurim.
So, when he gives his demoniac qualities, people of demoniac qualities, list their qualities. Basically he says there are broadly two kinds of people. Some people are wise and some are otherwise.
Laughter. So some people are godly and some people are ungodly. Some people are demoniac.
So now how do we define somebody who is demoniac? It’s not necessary that somebody has to have horns coming out of their head or teeth coming out of their mouth. Actually the essence of a person is not their appearance. It is their activities which come from their qualities.
So when Krishna describes the qualities of the demoniac people, the first three which he describes, he gives a list. Dambho tarpo bhimanascha. He says krodha parushya mevacha.
So krodha is straightforward. What does it mean? Anger. Parushya is harshness.
Harshness especially in speech. And abhyana is what is abhyana? Exertia. Krodha parushya ajnanam cha vijatasya partha sampadamasana.
So these three are quite distinct qualities. But the first three which Krishna describes, they are very striking and what he says essentially over there is dambha, darpa and abhiman. Now all these three can seem similar.
Pride, conceit, arrogance. That’s how Srila Prabhupada translates them. But it can be understood at a deeper level each of them has its own characteristics.
Dambha, darpa and abhiman. So dambha refers to all of these are variants of pride. Now the word pride can have sometimes a positive connotation also.
That means that when it is used in the sense of honour. Say for example a cricket team has lost a series and the last one match is remaining. They say we will play for pride.
That means we don’t want to be whitewashed. We don’t want to lose completely. At least something will be.
So play for pride. So their pride is used positively in the sense of honour. I want to have some sense of honour.
And this sense of honour is not bad. So when Krishna is talking about pride when he uses these words dambha, darpa and abhiman. So now if we consider the common list of six anarthas the six inner enemies described as kama, krodha, lobha, moha, madha and matsarya.
So kama, krodha, lobha, lust, anger and greed. Moha is illusion. Madha is intoxication.
It just comes with pride. Matsarya is enemy. So now in that list the word madha is there.
Sometimes we also use the word ahankara for arrogance, for ego rather. So let’s try to understand what Krishna is talking about here by using these three qualities and then we’ll talk about I’ll talk a little bit about from the Mahabharata how some characters exhibit these qualities and how they may manifest in our life and how we can counter that. So now dambha, darpa, abhiman.
So dambha refers to showing qualities which one doesn’t have. Like pretending to have some quality which one doesn’t have. Sometimes say in India in Mumbai we have our temple in Juhu which is very close to the area where many Bollywood stars stay.
So sometimes Bollywood stars and other celebrities they come to the temple but they come only on janmashtami. Once a year. And some of them might be having a very devoted heart and that’s when they are able to come.
But many others when they come, actually for them it’s primarily a photo op. They’ll take a photo and say on janmashtami I went to his temple. And they’ll put it on their Facebook, on their Instagram.
And people will think, oh such a nice person. So pious also. He or she is so pious.
So now whether they are coming to have darshan of Krishna or give darshan of themselves to others. Who knows that? So somebody may have no piety at all but you see in a pious society it is good to look pious. So then dambha means one doesn’t have quality but one pretends to have qualities.
One pretends. So there could be probably three possibilities. One has qualities and one conceals them.
One has qualities and one exhibits them. One has qualities one doesn’t have qualities but still parades. Acts as if they have qualities.
So that is dambha. Now darpa is where one has qualities and one delights in exhibiting those qualities to others. And where the idea is sometimes say in sports matches.
Many times some sports players say in cricket a team is in a winning position and they just need to play intelligently. Just hit some maybe just in the last few overs just hit some singles and they are in a winning position. They can win easily.
But then sometimes some players instead of playing for the team they play for the gallery. They play for the gallery means they want to hit a boundary, they want to hit a sixes, they want to hit some memorable shots and exhibit those things. And in that they get out.
And the team slides from a winning position and ends up losing. So darpa is where one wants to make an exhibition of the qualities one has. Whether that exhibition is required or not.
Often it is not required but one wants to make an exhibition. And abhiman is where one is very praise conscious. One demands that others praise me.
There are there are VIPs sometimes in some parts of the world where those VIPs if anybody is coming to meet them they have a secretary. And the secretary’s primary purpose is not to organise the schedule of the VIP it is to inform all the guests who are coming to meet the VIP about the glory of that VIP. In case you are not aware you should know this person has done this, this, this, this.
And they actually pay such a person for that. So for eulogising. They are so desperate that people should glorify me.
Sometimes some people they in English they are saying they are fishing for compliments. Fishing for compliments means whatever they have done is want somebody to praise them for that. At one level wanting appreciation for something that I have done, that we have done is just a natural human desire.
But to let one’s whole consciousness be driven just by the desire for appreciation. That can become a problem. In fact, psychologists call this approval addiction.
Approval addiction means somebody in their childhood say there were two siblings and one of the siblings was compared unfavourably with the other sibling. And then throughout their life that sibling who was unfairly compared by the parents or other relatives is trying to gain the approval of that person. And their whole life gets driven simply by that need.
So we may have called this demonic. It’s not demonic in the sense that these people are going to do terrible things. But it’s just that when our emotions start making us lose perspective of things.
What is more important and what is less important. So when that happens that is the time when we start acting out of proper boundaries. In every relationship there are bonds and there are boundaries.
Bonds means what brings two people together. But even when two people come together each person needs to have their individuality, their space. And that space is defined by the boundaries between them as well as the boundaries around them.
If we enter into any relationship these bonds and boundaries are important in that. If somebody gets married. Then marriage means a bond between two people.
But there is also a boundary. Before marriage maybe a man can hang out with different women or a woman can hang out with different men while dating or whatever. But after that there are some boundaries that come.
So what differentiates between the godly and ungodly is not as I said some external demoniac, ungodly appearance. It is the respect for the boundaries. For example if you consider in the Ramayana Ravana was also ruling Lanka quite reasonably.
He had made Lanka prosperous city. Prosperous kingdom in fact. And he was sharing the prosperity with his citizens.
Of course he had the biggest chunk. But he was sharing it. But then he did not respect the boundaries wherein Sita was already wedded to someone else.
When he was captivated by the desire for her this lost sense of all perspective. And not only was he acting unrighteously but he was also acting cowardly. He did not confront Ram.
He went behind Ram’s back hatching a whole conspiracy for that purpose. So basically all of us have certain boundaries within which we are all meant to function. Now the specifics of the boundaries may vary from person to person.
But broadly speaking these boundaries are what enable a society to function in a civilised way. If you look at the Mahabharata Dhritarashtra was as much a victim as a victimiser. He was a victim in the sense that he was born blind.
And thus he could say victim of fate, victim of circumstance and he had to learn to accept that. This is the limitation that has come in my life now. He as a blind person could not become the king.
Now that did not mean that he did not have royal privileges. He did not have royal comforts. He did not have royal honour.
He had it all. He just could not have the royal throne. But some people they crave for some particular honour so much that their whole life goes in that itself.
Some people spend their whole life fighting battles that have already been lost. Fighting battles that have already been lost. When I sometimes address people I have a physical handicap, I have a polio.
Sometimes I address people who have physical handicaps and I try to share some spiritual wisdom. And when I talk with many of them one thing that strikes me is that many of them after years of getting that handicap or that issue they are still fighting that battle. Why did this happen to me? They are still unable to accept that.
And that wastes so much of their emotional energy. There are two different congenital deformities and then there are adventitious or those which are gotten in the later course of life. Generally if somebody is congenitally limited in any way whether it is they can’t see properly, can’t walk properly, can’t hear properly then they have never known any better life.
So for them to accept it is not that difficult. But somebody has lived normally and then they lose. Then it’s very difficult for them.
And sometimes if that desire any desire in principle we can say no desire is intrinsically bad. But it is only when the desire crosses boundaries that it becomes bad. That everyone we all have a desire to eat.
It’s a natural desire. And we all have our preferences in eating. But when for our food we start hurting and killing other living beings then that is unwanted.
When we start eating so much that our health gets spoiled by that. That is a problem. So desires are just a feature of the living condition.
And similarly a desire to be accepted, a desire to be respected that is also a normal desire. And as we grow in our life we all want a sense of identity. Who am I? Not in the ultimate philosophical existential sense that we understand I am a soul.
But while going through our life we want a functional identity. Okay I am an engineer, I am an NRI I am this and that. I am a student, I am a software engineer, I am a doctor.
We all need a sense of identity. That is natural. But where it becomes unnatural is when it starts crossing boundaries.
So all of us at one time were just small unison as organisms. Organisms in our mother’s womb. Just one single cell.
From there we have grown millions of cells which comprise our body right now. And continuously we keep growing. So growth is natural to the living condition.
But cancer is also a type of growth. If growth is natural then why is cancer unnatural? It is because in cancer the growth crosses boundaries. The growth becomes disproportionate.
So one set of cells start growing so much that they start damaging the overall body. First the immediate vicinity and then they spread throughout the body and damage and even destroy the body. So growth when it becomes disproportionate when it crosses boundaries, it becomes destructive.
Similarly our need to be accepted and respected when that crosses boundaries. What do I mean by the need crosses boundaries? That means that craving becomes so strong that we become ready to do anything and everything to fulfil that craving. That is when it becomes unhealthy.
It can even become disastrous. So in Dhritarashtra’s case when he had the desire I should get the royal throne. And he said if I can’t get it then at least let my son get it.
And his son, for all parents, their children are their dreams. For him Duryodhana being his first son was his dream. And he just somehow or the other wanted to satisfy Duryodhana.
And in that desire to satisfy Duryodhana, he ended up becoming, he ended up going along with Duryodhana’s demonic schemes. So we could say in the Mahabharata Dhritarashtra is the consenting villain. He gives consent.
Whatever you want to do, he is the consenting villain. Shakuni is the scheming villain. He comes up with all the schemes.
Do like this, do like that, do like that. And Duryodhana is the you could say the star villain. If you want to have a… is the main villain who actually is the executing villain.
He is the person who actually acts. He does various things. He has his sidekicks.
Dushasan is like his sidekick who does some of his demonic plans. So Duryodhana when he wants when he wants the honour of being the prince and then the king and then the emperor this craving is natural. But as I said, when he starts crossing boundaries that’s when it becomes dangerous.
So Dambha, Darpa, Bhimaan, all of these the result of these are all different variants of that same disproportionate desire to be recognised by the world. The desire to be recognised by others is fine. But the disproportionate desire that is dangerous.
So let’s look at 2-3 different incidents from the Mahabharata to illustrate how this cancer spread within Duryodhana and through Duryodhana it affected many many others. So when the anarthas come within us lust, anger, greed, envy, pride, illusion, when these come within us the they all first of all hurt us and they make us act hurtfully towards others. So they hurt us initially how they are hurting us we may not be able to see it.
Initially we may just end up hurting others because of that. But I’ll talk later about how they hurt us from a spiritual perspective and a material perspective. But the as this generally normally when cancer appears cancer is very easily detected.
It’s only when it starts going disproportionately and then it starts impeding normal functioning of the body. Then we start feeling some pain, we start sensing some swelling, we start feeling something wrong. And that is not just the presence of the cancer, it is the cancer as it affects other parts of the body.
And some cancers they don’t affect other parts of the body till they go to a very advanced stage. And that’s why it’s very difficult to detect them. So similarly these Ananthas, unless we are introspective to check their presence, check as two senses, check means evaluate whether they are present and check means to restrain them.
Both. If we are not introspective it is only when they start coming out in destructive ways, that’s when we notice them. So the most heinous way, the most reprehensible way in which Duryodhana’s pride came out was when he tried to dishonour Draupadi.
The desire for wealth is greed. The desire to have an attractive partner, we could say is lust. But underlying all of these is pride.
So now, if you see, Duryodhana had swindled through a rigged gambling match and had got all the property of the Pandavas. So he could have been satisfied with that. The desire to have money, you could say it is natural.
The desire to have money when it becomes so great that it dominates our life and it drives all other important things out of our consciousness, then it becomes greed. But the desire to have more money than someone else and thereby get more recognition than them, that is not greed, that is pride. That is pride.
So now, when he Dhritarashtra told Duryodhana before the gambling match, he said, why do you want to gamble with the Pandavas? Gambling will lead to fighting. He said, what are you lacking? You have a kingdom. At that time, the kingdom was divided into half, the Pandavas had their half, the Kauravas had their half.
He says, you have kingdom, you have followers, you have everything that a person could dream of. His reply is very revealing of his pride. He said, how can a person be happy when his rival is more successful than him? It’s a very sad situation to be in.
How can a person be happy when his rival is more successful, more prosperous, more well-known than him? So I once saw an advertisement, it was of a car and there was this young man driving a car and there was a young girl looking at him with admiring eyes and in the background there was another young man looking glaring at him frowning and glaring and the advertisement was ride this car and enjoy the envy in your neighbour’s eyes. Now it is such a sad kind of enjoyment. It is not even enjoy the car ride.
It is enjoy the envy in your neighbour’s eyes. And tomorrow if your neighbour gets a better car than you, then the neighbour will enjoy the envy in your eyes. Where will this end? There is this kind of this kind of happiness.
All of us have to get happiness from somewhere. Where we get happiness from depends on our definition of happiness. So for somebody who defines their happiness in terms of proving their superiority over others for that person, it is a very unstable situation.
So when Duryodhan got he had his own wealth but he wanted more wealth than the Pandavas. It was not just more wealth than the Pandavas. We could say there are three gunas in material nature.
Three gunas. Which are the three gunas? Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. So I explained this in terms of this possessiveness.
We could say to want our share is Sattva. To want the biggest share that is Rajas. If there is property being divided say parents passed on or whatever.
Let’s all of us divide equally. That is Sattva. I want the biggest share.
That is Rajas. I want everything. That is Tamas.
That means I don’t even want the other person even to exist practically. I want everything for myself. So that is what Duryodhan did.
He, what did he do? He defrauded the Pandavas of everything through the gambling match. Now what was he going to gain by it? It was not that he was going to enjoy that kingdom. He already had a good enough kingdom.
But he wanted to see the misery of the Pandavas. And then after that he had Shakuni pressure and manipulate Yudhishthir. So they gambled the Pandavas themselves.
The Pandavas became slaves. Then Draupadi was gambled. And then Draupadi was also lost.
Now Draupadi and the Pandavas became the servants, the slaves practically of the Kauravas. Now after that was what he did was most heinous. Everything was reprehensible.
This was most reprehensible. As I said that the demoniac nature means those which are normal human drives, they go beyond all civilised boundaries. Then he tried to dishonour Draupadi by disrobing her.
Now actually, if you consider this, if at all, now before Draupadi swam well, Duryodhana had also been a suitor at that time. He had also been a competitor to Gyanakeda and he had been defeated. So he might have had still some desire for her.
She was very beautiful. But if that had all been involved, then he could have sated that desire in private. When he wanted to dishonour her publicly, that was not so much lust as pride.
This is how much I can humiliate you. That, I can dishonour your wife in public. So when pride goes to such extent, it can make people forget even basic human decency.
People can become bestial. Similarly, when there is sexual violence, it is not so much about lust. Lust is there.
But when people have lust, they can just go to some places where they can pay some money and get their lust fulfilled. But when there is violence, aggressive sexual assaults, it’s not so much about lust as about pride. It’s about power.
This is how I can dominate you and I can use you. So basically, pride is, you could say, all the anarthas are present, but pride is what makes all these other things go beyond all limits. Lust is there.
Greed is there. Anger is there. We all get angry at times.
But when our pride is wounded, then when we become angry, it becomes disproportionate. It becomes outrageous When a person feels caught, then the anger that results can cause devastation because it’s wounded pride. So we can see across the world, even in today’s world, it is pride in a negative sense, not in the positive sense of honour, but pride in the negative sense of arrogance.
That is the cause of so much violence, whether it is between the family, between siblings, between castes, between religions, between countries. It’s often a matter of pride. And I want to prove my superiority over you.
And now from all this, we’ve just been discussing from a material perspective. Even materially, pride will make people do terrible things. Extremely destructive things.
Some people even say that the current president of America, he had no interest in being the president. But the previous president of America, in a public event, humiliated him. And because of that humiliation, he decided, I am going to get your post.
And he started working. And then he grabbed that post. Although whether he is really qualified for it, whether he can actually work, that’s all debatable issues.
But from a businessman, he came here just because of wounded pride. Of course, I’m not commenting on politics here. I’m just giving examples of how pride pervades all aspects of our life.
And when people become proud, there are three things over here. One is, we all have a natural desire to, as I said, want recognition. But when that desire goes beyond normal limits, civilised limits, that’s when it becomes dangerous.
So there’s a need for appreciation, need for recognition. But then it becomes a craving where it makes us do terrible things. And if somebody refuses to fulfil that craving, then how dare you do this? If he refuses to fulfil that craving, people go mad after that.
So people can do anything. When you consider European history, then Germany was able to, Hitler was able to make all of Germany into Nazis. Nazism is primarily because after the First World War, when the Allies won, they imposed the Treaty of Versailles, which had a lot of humiliating terms for Germany.
And the humiliation from there, that made them very vulnerable to be manipulated. So when he triggered Nazi pride, we are the most powerful race and we are meant to rule the world. Germany is a small country.
For it to be able to rule the whole world, it’s quite unrealistic. But then somehow, because people’s pride had been wounded, they wanted some way to get a sense of honour again. That went beyond all human limits where they started destroying Jews and other people and then the bloodiest war in recent history happened.
So from a spiritual perspective, what is pride? Pride, as I said, pride can take us on a perilous ride where once we get caught in pride, how far we’ll go, where we’ll fall, what we will do, we ourselves cannot know that. From a spiritual perspective, among all the anarthas, lust, anger, greed, envy, pride, delusion, pride is often considered to be the most dangerous. Because all the other anarthas, they actually make us feel humble.
And they make us feel the need for God. If we become too angry at times, if we become too lusty at times, if we become too greedy at times, then we understand, this is not good. And I need to purify myself.
And how do I purify myself? I have to take shelter of Krishna. So all the other anarthas, they make us feel the need for Krishna. Whereas pride, it actually kills or sabotages, destroys our need for Krishna.
I am so good. Why do I need anyone else? Why do I need anyone else? I am good. So, pride in that sense is the one anartha that is the most vile, most damaging for devotion.
Because the very basis of connecting with Krishna, feeling the need for him, that itself is sabotaged by pride. That itself is, you could say, a bomb is put under it and explodes from below. Okay, I’ll come to that, yeah.
So, answer towards the end. So, now when we talk about pride, at one level, we need to recognise that these, whenever we do any kind of analysis, and we give any kind of names, this whole field is called taxonomy. Taxonomy is a system of classification.
Now, taxonomy is never watertight. On a map, we may see that, okay, this is America, this is Canada. This is Canada, this is America.
Here, there is Mexico. Here, there is this country. Now, on the map, we may see neat dividing lines.
But actually, if you go to the land, there are no lines. Often, a river may separate two parts. But then, which half of the river belongs to whom? There is no line in the river also.
So, any system of classification, it is conceptual. When we translate the conceptual conceptual classification into literal reality, there are always nuances. So, is this part of Canada? Is this part of America? There can be disputes about that.
Is this a part of India? Is this a part of Pakistan? There can be disputes about that. Similarly, when we talk about pride, anger, greed, envy, pride, envy, illusion, last anger, all these, these are basically, we could say, systems of classifying human behaviour. Names or labels which we use to contextualise and analyse human behaviour.
Now, which particular behaviour specifically originates from where? Now, we could say, envy and pride are two sides of the same coin. When I have a great overpowering craving for recognition, and if somebody else is recognised, recognised more than me, then it becomes unbearable. Then, I may, so, Durudhan is often associated with envy.
So, if at a particular frame of analysis, we could use Durudhan as a symbol of envy. Sometimes we could use Durudhan as a symbol of, as I said, pride. Arrogance especially, I was talking about pride and arrogance, because he was not ready to take any advice from anyone else.
So, dambha means to act, as I said, we don’t have any qualities to pretend that we have those qualities. So, he was not very wise. But, he rejected the advice of the wise.
He was advised by Bhishma, by Drona, by Vidura. He was advised even by Vyasa and Maitreya and even Parashuram came and so many other figures advised him. And, if you consider the sages, he might have thought Bhishma is Parashuram to the Pandavas, Drona had been Parashuram to the Pandavas.
But, the sages from the forest, they had no vested interest at all. They were not going to give anything based on who ruled the kingdom. So, at least he could have considered their advice.
So, now, if we go deeper into this, that as I said, pride is what fundamentally disconnects us from Krishna. And, all other anarthas, they can make us feel the need for Krishna but pride makes us feel, I don’t need Krishna. Why do I need Krishna? So, when that happens, when Krishna even showed the Vishvaroop to Duryodhana, when he came as a Samthitot, Duryodhana simply said, Okay, Krishna just shows some magic.
Krishna just shows some magic. And, he paid no attention to Krishna at all. He did not recognise Krishna’s power at all.
And, thus, he ended up ruining himself. So, how do we deal with pride? Conclude with this last part and then we can have some questions. So, fundamentally, pride arises from what? Half an hour more.
Okay, I’ll finish and then we can have question and answers. So, pride arises fundamentally from insecurity. Insecurity means that when we feel that I am not good enough, that nobody values me or nobody will value me, that is the time when we start seeking valuation by others.
Most of the people who are very arrogant and abrasive externally, often they are very insecure internally. And, it is that insecurity that needs to be addressed. So, Duryodhana, if you look at his story, the Pandavas initially were living in the forest because Pandu had retired to the forest and Pandavas were born in the forest.
At that time, it was not even sure whether Pandu would have any children or not. Even if Pandu had children, because Pandu had retired to the forest, whether his sons would come back and rule the kingdom, nothing was clear. So, when Duryodhana was born, he became the presentive heir.
It was expected that he will become the next king. And, naturally, because of that, he grew up as a pampered child. He enjoyed the attention that everybody gave him.
But, when the Pandavas came back after Pandu’s untimely death, at that time, because the Pandavas were new in the family, in the kingdom, and because along with that, the Pandavas, because they had grown up in the forest, where they had associated Brahmanas and sages, the Pandavas were also very gentle and cultured. So, on one side, they were new. Second, they were gentle and cultured.
So, because of that, very quickly, the attention and affection of the courtiers and the citizens shifted from Duryodhana to Yudhishthira and the Pandavas. And, therein lay the seeds of Duryodhana’s animosity. Of course, Duryodhana had an envious mentality from the past also.
In that terms, he was of an ungodly bent of mind. But, in his previous life, he was actually sent by the Rakhtanavas to take over the earth. But, we can analyse from a human perspective, for our purposes.
So, from that point of view, he started going forward. So, it was his hurt pride. I was getting this honour.
Why is he getting this honour now? From that point, he went on. He tried to poison Bhima. Fed him a poison food and tried to eliminate him.
This actually happened even before Shakuni came in his life. So, he had the demoniac mentality before. Shakuni only fanned it further.
Then, it just grew, grew, grew. Now, even for his desire, you have taken my kingdom. It was never his kingdom.
He was expected to get it. But, he didn’t get it. It was never that he lost the kingdom.
He got his half of the kingdom. But, he was not happy with the half. I want more than what you have.
In fact, I want all of it. So, it is that insecurity which is the cause of pride. As long as the insecurity is not addressed, no matter what we do, we will not be able to deal with pride.
We will not be able to heal pride. Sometimes, some people do things to increase their self-esteem. Last month, I have spoken at Stanford.
I was in Silicon Valley. There, I was speaking with a professor. And, this professor was talking about the psychology of students who are in the Ivy League universities.
He said that, he was taking an interview of a student who was very depressed. So, basically, this professor was a part of the mental health counselling team. He said that some of these students, they basically go through two emotions, broadly speaking.
One is megalomania. Or, you could say, megalomania means, I am so great, grandeur. And, other is depression.
So, one student told him that, half of the time, when I can see how I am better than other students, I feel good about myself. And, half of the time, when I see that other students are better than me, then I feel miserable. So, now, we live in a competitive world.
We can’t avoid that. And, we will be ranked by society, by our education system, in competitive terms. That’s also a fact of life.
Everybody cannot come first in the class. But, and that will be a part of our identification. But, if that becomes our whole sense of self-identity, then it becomes very, very difficult to have any steady sense of confidence, steady sense of self-worth.
So, when we start working as professionals, for many of us, our self-worth may become equal to our net worth. Depending on how much I am earning, that’s what I am earning. And, if I lose my job, or if a competitor starts earning more than me, people start feeling very insecure because of that.
So, this insecurity comes because we have identified ourselves with something material and external to us. The Bhagavad Gita helps us to shift our sense of identity back to where it belongs. The Gita explains that every one of us is a soul.
As a soul, we are a part of the whole. The whole is known by different names and different traditions, and is known by the name Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. So, we have an eternal relationship with Krishna.
And, Krishna is eternally with us. We don’t have to do anything to attract Krishna’s attention or affection. Krishna always loves us, no matter what we do or what we don’t do.
Sarvasya chaaham rtisan nivishtham. He says, I am in the hearts of all living beings. Surdham sarva-bhutana.
I am the well-wisher of everyone. Krishna is not just the lover of his devotees. He is the well-wisher and benefactor of all living beings.
And, this relationship with Krishna has to be the foundation of our identity. We have two kinds of relationships in the world. One is horizontal relationship with others, and vertical relationship with Krishna.
And, pride comes when in our horizontal relationship with others, we seek to prove ourselves to be better than them. And then we do various things to prove that we are better than them. But, if we are secure in our vertical relationship, if we are sheltered in that, then we won’t be so dependent on external trophies, external markers, external medals.
And, the connection with Krishna is not just an abstraction. Oh, I am a soul, I am a part of Krishna. This connection is a living experience.
And that living experience is provided by the process of bhakti. So, bhakti pareeshaanubhava viraktir anyatra cha Krishna says, bhakti is the process that delivers experience of Krishna. Paraeeshaanubhava The experience of that Lord who is transcendental.
We get that by the practise of bhakti. And, anubhava, experience. So, when we experience Krishna, what does it mean? We experience peace, we experience love, we experience security, we experience joy.
Right now, all of us are like spiritually asleep. So, we can’t perceive Krishna directly with our eyes. Say, there is a small baby who is sleeping.
Now, when the baby is sleeping, suddenly it becomes cold and the baby starts shivering. Now, the mother sees it and the mother will put a comforter on the baby. The baby is still asleep and she has not opened her eyes.
But suddenly, at one moment she was feeling cold and now she starts feeling comfortable. Now, she infers from that, Oh, my mother must be here, my mother must have put the comforter on. She has not seen anything, but based on the feeling, the experience, she realises Oh, my mother is here.
Similarly for us, because we are spiritually asleep right now, we can’t perceive Krishna’s presence. But when we strive to remember Him, when we strive to practise bhakti and chant His holy names, hear His kirtans, hear His katha, do His puja, at that time by that we start feeling an inner sense of comfort, an inner sense of calmness, an inner sense of clarity. The problems of this world are causing us to get agitated and as we remember Krishna, we start feeling peace.
And when we feel this peace, we have not seen Krishna, but that sensation of peace is our experience of Krishna. Just like for that baby, the stopping of the shivering, the feeling of warmth, that is the indicator of the mother’s love, mother’s presence and mother’s love. Similarly for each one of us, if we strive to remember Krishna, we will experience that calmness, we will experience some clarity, some security.
And that is we need to infer with the eyes of knowledge given by sculpture, infer by that this is actually Krishna’s presence. And as we keep practising bhakti more and more, then we will also realise that this presence is so enriching for me that I don’t need other things. Not that I don’t care for other things, but I don’t need them as a source of my self-identity.
In the Vijanasmaya Bhamsanasmita The Gopis say that if your devotees become proud in the time, Krishna will just smile and their pride goes away. Now what does that mean? That means when Krishna smiles, at that time the devotee beholds Krishna’s smile and gets so much pleasure through that. And the devotee thinks, why do I need this pride business? I am doing so many things to get some pleasure by somebody appreciating me.
But why do I need this? Just beholding Krishna is so joyful. I don’t need this. That way the pride decreases.
Bhamsanasmita About 20-25 years ago, when I was introduced to bhakti through the study of the Bhagavad Gita, before that I had been studying to come to the West, to come to America. I gave my GRE in my third year engineering. And at that time it was out of 2400, so I got 2350.
So I was first in the whole state of Maharashtra. Throughout my life, my goal in life was to be a topper. And I was always among the good students, but sometimes I was second, third, fourth, sometimes joined first.
Never the first. And that was my dream throughout my life. And when I got this GRE score, my dream had been fulfilled.
I was so happy. But, after a few hours, I got that letter by mail, telling me about the marks. At that time, I didn’t have any mail.
After that, I realised just looking at this mark sheet doesn’t give you much pleasure. So it’s only when people congratulate, we feel it. Oh, you’ve done so well.
That’s where we get some pleasure. And somehow it happened that three of my close friends, one after another, they forgot to congratulate me. I don’t think it was any negative intention.
Everybody knows about it. Everybody is congratulating. Why to congratulate? We all know about it.
So when the first friend didn’t congratulate, I was a little annoyed. The second friend didn’t congratulate, I was angered. My third friend didn’t congratulate, I was infuriated.
I still controlled myself and I was about to… How do you tell somebody? Why are you not congratulating me? You can’t even speak anything at that time. So, I was just so angered. And the third time when it happened, it just struck me.
I sort of looked at myself from above. Hey, you did all this to become happy. You thought that by coming first, you’ll become happy in life.
But here, instead of becoming happy, you simply become more dependent for your happiness on others. That, earlier you just meet people and talk with them, but now there is this overpowering need. So, at that time, it struck me that tomorrow I can give another exam.
I can again try to get good marks. But, where is this going to end? Where… I’ll still be more dependent on others for my happiness. That was the time when I got the Bhagavad Gita from a friend and I started reading it.
And in the 6th chapter in the 22nd verse, I read about the fruit of absorption in Krishna. When we become absorbed in Krishna, Once we become absorbed in Krishna, then we don’t crave for anything else. And then, even if distresses come, we are not shattered by those distresses.
So, at that time it struck me, this is the real achievement in life. If I can achieve this, then there will be no more craving, no more lamenting. We are absorbed.
So, of course, I am still on the journey towards that. But, the point which I made is that, that external validation is simply an endless and often fruitless journey. We all need to get internal validation.
Internal validation means, that comes by our spiritual growth. Now, of course, we have association of devotees. We have association of people around us.
We have a role and a responsibility in the world. We do have to act in those roles and responsibilities properly. But, we don’t let our sense of self-identity and self-worth come from that.
Even if tomorrow, today I am respected and so on, tomorrow that respect is not there. That may change my situation. That doesn’t change my identity.
I am always a part of Krishna. And if I can connect with Krishna, I can experience shelter and security in that. And then, we all have been given certain gifts.
With those gifts, we can work. We should work. We should make contributions.
And they may give us some appreciation also. But, we don’t crave for it. We don’t depend on it for our self-worth.
So, our gifts, whatever we have, if we use them, we use them in a mood of service to Krishna. Krishna, you have given me this gift. I will use it.
And if I get some praise for that, yes, I am grateful for that. But that is not. When I don’t get it, I am doing this in a mood of service to you.
So, this vertical connection that we have, we can develop it internally through the practise of bhakti. And we can also develop it externally by using whatever talents we have, whatever resources we have in a mood of service to Krishna. So, we have family, we have jobs.
We work a lot. And we work diligently, but in a mood of service to Krishna. And if the success comes in that, we get some appreciation for that, that’s good.
That doesn’t come if you are working in a mood of service to Krishna. Then, even through those activities, our vertical connection will grow. And we will develop spiritually by that.
So, to have gifts is To have gifts is good. To know that we have gifts is better still. But to know that our gifts, to have ability is good.
To recognise that we have ability is better still. But to recognise that our abilities are gifts, that is the best thing. Because when we recognise that our abilities are gifts, we will use them nicely.
But we won’t become proud of them. We won’t become agitated if some of the results are not coming. These are gifts given by Krishna, let me use them in this service.
Thus, by internally connecting with Krishna and externally using our gifts in a mood of service to Krishna, we will find that gradually, that internal connection with Krishna, that spiritual connection with Krishna will give us a satisfaction that can get us off the ride of pride. So, I’ll summarise what I spoke today. I spoke on the theme of how pride can take us on a dangerous ride, on a perilous ride.
I started by explaining how Krishna, when talking about the ungodly qualities, he mentions thrice some qualities related with pride. Pride can have a positive connotation when it refers to honour. A sense of honour which makes us act honourably.
But pride has a negative connotation when pride makes us go beyond boundaries in acting. In every relationship, there are bonds and there are boundaries. So, the demoniac people, the people who are not wise but otherwise, they basically go beyond boundaries like Ram did when trying to get Sita.
And growth is natural. The desire for growth is also natural. But cancer is unnatural because it is disproportionate and destructive.
So, when the desire for appreciation and recognition which is natural, when it becomes disproportionate and destructive, when it makes us give up our boundaries in terms of civilised behaviour, that is when it becomes dangerous. And Dhritarashtra spent his whole life fighting battle that he had already lost. He couldn’t get the kingdom and he just kept craving for it.
And Duryodhana was Dhritarashtra was the consenting villain. Shakuni was the scheming villain. Duryodhana was the acting, active or executing villain.
So, here, Duryodhana represents, he had this pride which was what made him not just not be satisfied with his own kingdom but not just gain the Pandavas’ kingdom but gain all of it. Sattva means let us share equally. Rajas means I want the biggest share.
Tamas means I want everything. So, he tried to dishonour and disrupt Draupadi not because of lust but again because of pride. I can humiliate you so much.
And this pride, how do we deal with it? Talking about it, pride arises from insecurity. Duryodhana had been the centre of the eyes of the community and then when he found that it was all taken by the Pandavas then he couldn’t tolerate it. So, when we analyse the Anarthas, they are psychological categories.
So, in literal life we have to recognise the nuances, borderlines which will fall there. But essentially, Duryodhana’s pride made him hostile even towards Krishna. The other Anarthas make us feel the need for Krishna.
But pride makes us feel I don’t need Krishna. That’s why it can be the most dangerous. And to deal with it we have to address the inner insecurity.
And insecurity comes because we have wedded our sense of self-worth to something external to us. So, if we think our self-worth is equal to our net worth, self-worth is equal to our CGPA score, whatever, then we will be very insecure. But if you understand that my self-worth comes from the fact that Krishna is always with me and Krishna loves me.
That vertical relationship is the basis of my self-worth. And how do we know that Krishna loves us? It’s like a baby knows when the cold is removed by suddenly the baby understands my mother has put this comforter on me. Similarly, when we practise bhakti and remember Krishna, we experience calmness, clarity.
That is an indicator of Krishna’s presence and love for us. So internally by the practise of bhakti yoga we can develop that connection with Krishna. And externally by seeing the abilities that we have as gifts and using them in a mode of service to Krishna, then we won’t be dependent for appreciation on others.
Rather, we will do in a mode of service. We get appreciation, it’s good. If we don’t get it, still we grow in our devotion.
To have abilities is good. To recognise that we have abilities is better. To recognise that our abilities are gifts is the best.
And bhakti helps us to get that sense of self-worth both by our internal connection with Krishna and by external contribution for Krishna. And thus we can free ourselves from pride. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. So, are there any questions or comments? I think I answered your question about what Duryodhana motivated by the desire for revenge. As I said, the desire for revenge also arose from an inner insecurity.
I was entitled to be the sinosure of all eyes. Why had they become the sinosure? And that was from pride that had been wounded. So, that’s how that wounded pride led to envy.
And that envy eventually led to all kinds of terrible schemes which he did. And eventually he felt that the Pandavas had dishonoured me, that Draupadi had dishonoured me. And he wanted to take revenge.
Now, Draupadi had no particular intention to dishonour him any time. It happened circumstantially whenever it happened. And he felt dishonoured by that.
And he sought revenge for it. So, even there is a often quoted incident that when in the Maya Sabha, Duryodhana slipped on some land which was watery, but he didn’t recognise it to be watery. So, at that time, Draupadi is attributed to have said that, Andhe ka beta andha, that the son of a blind person is blind.
But actually, the Mahabharata does not give any record of this. It’s a critical edition of the Mahabharata which has been made by scholars looking at whatever words in the Mahabharata we have. But Draupadi has never spoken a statement like this.
So, yes, the Pandavas and Draupadi, they all saw and they all laughed when he did that. But that laughter was not malicious. The laughter was just funny.
That was just out of fun. And he could have just brushed it off. Sometimes people just… See, normally if somebody falls, we will want to help them.
But if somebody is normally known to be very arrogant and proud and then they fall, it’s just normal human nature. It’s funny. You think you are so great and just see you fell down.
So, it is not that the Pandavas were making a mockery of him. It was just fun. Yes, we could say that they could have avoided it.
But in the dynamics of the relationships which they had, it was definitely not malicious. But he perceived it like that and he sought revenge for that. But there were no words spoken of that kind where he was labelled in terms of his father or anything like that.
Any other questions? Can we talk after the class personally? We have some time. Anything related to the class we will discuss now. You talked about Ramana’s desire to have Sita was not right.
I was reading or rather hearing, there was this demon called Dhrumala who had this desire to enjoy the wife of Maharaj Puri Sena. And then when he did that act, he came in the form of Maharaj Puri Sena. And then he said, for us, there is no, the rules and conducts of human does not apply to us.
So, from human point, I understand in general, it’s just bad, whatever he did. But how to understand when this demon says like this, all these rules does not apply to us? How to understand it in context of Ramana in particular? Okay. Well, if there is some story where Dhrumala came in the form of Ugrasen, or assumed the form of Ugrasen and tried to try to cohabit with his wife, so, at that time, I would say that, first of all, you have to look at where the story comes.
And, if at all the story is, many of the Puranas and Itihasas, some interpolations have come in them. Generally, you can’t just look at a story, you have to look which scripture, whether it’s actually there and if you go and check in that scripture, whether it’s actually there. And, especially if it has been quoted and addressed by an Acharya.
Because, something like this is quite provocative. And it seems to be very strongly in violation of the normal conception of Dharma that we have. So, surely, the Acharyas would have addressed this.
Because they have also studied the scriptures. So, if they have not addressed it, a logical inference could be that it was not present in the scriptures when they wrote the scriptures, when they read the scriptures. So, it could have been added at other times.
Generally, those books on which commentaries have been written, like the Bhagavad Gita, even Sanskrit, there are hundreds of commentaries. So, when commentaries are written, whoever writes the commentary, their followers preserve the commentary and along with that, the original book also gets preserved. But those books on which commentaries have not been written, those books are not preserved that much.
And that’s why some verses can be added somewhere. So, we have to check whether this is an interpolation. But even if it’s not an interpolation, still, it is, to say that the rules of the demons, rules of human society don’t apply to us, now, in general, if we consider there is the godly society, human society and there is the demonic society.
So, now, in the demonic society, certain rules may be a little more relaxed. In the sense that there are certain things which are not allowed in human society, which may be allowed over there. But those rules, they may, they can interact with other demons that way.
If they are interacting with humans, taking on the garb of a human being, then that is improper. That is improper, because in human society, as they do in Rome, as Romans do, if you say that, okay, I come from India, we drive the car in a particular, in one side of the road. And I come to America.
I say, I am an Indian, so I am driving the same side of the road. And the police will come and say, get out of the road. That’s the least they will say.
They will put us in jail also, give us a ticket, whatever. So, we have to act, in whichever society we are acting, that’s how we need to act. We have to follow the rules of that particular society.
That’s why when Arjun went to the Swarga Loka, and this was the argument Urvashi gave to him. Arjun said to Urvashi, I cannot unite with you. So, Urvashi said, no, no, don’t worry.
He said that. Now, these rules don’t apply to us. He said, Anu, I see you like my mother.
Because you have united with Pururava, who is my ancestor. So, he said, I cannot unite with you. She felt, no, these rules don’t apply.
He said, no, no, I cannot change my vision of you. So, when Arjun went to the Swarga Loka, he did not actually, simply, arbitrarily started adopting the rules of Swarga Loka and acting that way. Sorry, he did not.
So, when he went to Swarga Loka, he knew he was a human being. So, he acted in a way that was proper for him. So, that means, even for the Swarga Vasis in Swarga Loka, he can act in a particular way.
They can act in a particular way. But for those who are human beings in human society, they have to act in a particular way. When the demon comes in human society, if he is acting in a demoniac way, he says, this is the way I always act.
Here also I will act like that. But then the problem with that would be, why does he have to impersonate? Why does he take the form of aggressive income within the story itself? And, another point is, he doesn’t apply that way to Ravan. Because, Ravan did not just try to cohabit with Sita.
He abducted Sita. He took Sita away for himself. And, if you see, Ravana’s wrongs were many.
First of all, he took on the garb of a sage. For his own very he took on the garb of a holy person for extremely unholy purposes. That itself is an offence.
Second is that he hatched a whole scheme by which somebody like Jatayu was victimised and slaughtered eventually. Even Maricha was slaughtered for that. Maricha had to be killed for that.
And then on top of that, he did not follow the Kshatriya code. He did not confront Ram directly. That is a cowardly act.
That is what Jatayu told him. You are a coward basically. So, I would say that these particular ideas of somebody saying these are our rules and we will apply them.
When they speak like this, it is often they using but what they speak is not necessarily standard philosophy. It is not standard dharma also. When a demon is quoting some dharmic code, is that actually the code of dharma? For example, in the 7th canto Bhagavatam, Hiranyakashipu says that if we destroy all the yajnashalas on the earth, if we assert the position of the gods, then the result of that will be all these are what nourish Vishnu.
Yajna nourishes Vishnu. When you stop yajna, then Vishnu will not be nourished. Then Vishnu will die.
This is in the Bhagavatam. And he is speaking it. But is it true? So, we have to see in general what is the conclusion of scripture.
And whatever is given in scripture, if it doesn’t harmonise with the conclusion of scripture, then we have to hold it at some level of scepticism. And this applies not just to the words of demons, even to the words of Krishna. In the Govardhan Lila, when Krishna tells the Vrajavasis, actually if we do good karma, Indra has to give rains.
We don’t need to worship him separately. That is karma of imamsas. But Krishna is speaking some words and we don’t accept Krishna’s words.
Why? Because Krishna, in a particular context, may speak certain things which may not be in harmony with the conclusion of scripture. So, let’s talk personally about this after our class. So, essentially the point is that we cannot take demons’ words as authoritative.
Can we stop here for now? So, we can talk now.