3 principles for inner empowerment – Intelligence, Identification, Intention

[Congregation program at Washington DC, USA] Video:

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.

Hare Krishna. Thank you for coming today evening. I'll speak today on the topic of… I'll speak on the topic of three principles for inner empowerment.

I'll speak on the basis of Bhagavad Gita sixth chapter Fifth verse where Krishna says uddhared ātmanātmānaṁ nātmānaṁ avasādayet ātmaiva ya ātmano bandhur ātmaiva ripurātmanah He says elevate yourself with yourself. The word Krishna uses is ātma. So elevate yourself with yourself.

Uddhared ātmanātmānaṁ nātmānaṁ avasādayet. Don't degrade yourself. Why? Because the self ātmaiva ya ātmano bandhur.

The self is the friend of the self and the self is also the enemy of the self. ātmaiva ripurātmanah Now if we consider our own life We all need power to do things. If it's dark, we need electric power so that we can turn on the lights.

If we want to drive somewhere, we need fuel power so that we can drive our vehicle. If we want to buy things, we need financial power. If as a community or in the country, we want to do something, we need political power.

So all of us if we want to do things in life, we need power and most of our life we try to find various means by which we can increase our power. So we may try to develop contacts with influential people so that if I can't do it myself then I will have some influential person. They have that power and they will do it for me.

So we often seek power so that we can get things done and that's understandable. However, our greatest power is not the power we have over others. It is the power we have over ourselves.

Because if we don't have that power over ourselves that even if we get enormous power externally so some people if say they don't have power over themselves, they can't control their anger. They get angry and they're not able to control it. They don't have that inner power.

Then if they they have external power, so they have physical power. There was this boxer Mike Tyson. He was quite physically very powerful.

At one time he was fighting a championship match and he was losing the match and he got so angry that in the fray he got so angry with the opponent that he bit off the ear of his opponent. And then he was disqualified because of that. Nowadays if people get angry and they don't have inner power, so if they have no inner power and they have outer power, it becomes very dangerous.

Sometimes people get angry. Nowadays there are random gun shooters in schools, in public malls and various places. People just get angry.

They're angry with the world. They pick up a gun and they shoot. So for us to do good to ourselves or to good to others we need inner power.

Inner power, it can be a practical situation also. We can say that, say we want to study for an exam and we want to do well in that exam. At that time we may think, oh if I can get this book, if I can get this understanding, if I can meet with this professor, if I can get this.

You may think, oh if I can get this, this, this, this, then I can study better. That's all true. The external resources can help.

But more important than that is whether we can keep a calm mind. If our mind is extremely disturbed, if we are very worried, if we are very fearful, then it's like, even if we have memorized certain facts, we just don't recollect it at that time. In the mind, which is meant to recollect the facts, the mind, that same mind starts blocking us from recollecting the facts.

So thus, if we see at a more damaging level, there is no inner empowerment and the mind starts becoming our enemy. So depression is when the mind starts constantly telling us negative stories. You could, this didn't work out for you, you made a mess of that, that person did like this to you, nothing is ever going to work.

So when this negative story starts coming again and again and again and again, then slowly we start feeling nothing is going to work in my life. So depression can have many circumstantial causes, it can sometimes have some physiological causes also, but essentially depression happens when the mind keeps telling something negative again and again and again and again, and we just have no capacity to resist its negative story. So the ultimate expression of the lack of inner empowerment is suicide, where the mind kills the body.

Where actually, again there can be various factors which may make a person very depressed to the point of being suicidal. But others may go to the same situation and they may not become suicidal. So it is, it can even take our life or it can make us take others' lives, if we do not have power over ourselves.

So power over ourselves means over our own mind. So when Krishna uses the word ātmā over here, he says the word ātmā can refer to the soul, but the word ātmā can also refer to something which we think is me. Something that we think is me.

So what do we mean by that? Many times we do something. Say we want to wake up early in the morning and then we set an alarm to wake up early in the morning. The alarm rings and we wake up and something within us says go to sleep.

And then we just put the snooze and go to sleep. So now this inner voice, at that time we think it is my voice. But afterwards maybe we thought I will sleep for 5 minutes but we end up sleeping for 1 hour.

And then what happens? That same mind, this is the inside voice which we identify as our voice, is the voice of the mind. And the same mind then beats up, you fool, why are you so lazy? You are useless, you are hopeless, you are good for nothing. You will never learn, you will never do anything in your life.

So at first it is the same mind which put us to sleep, go to sleep. And the same mind turns around and says, why did you sleep so much? So basically what the mind does is, it has a very deceptive double role. First it makes us do wrong and then it beats us up for doing wrong.

And inner empowerment means that when the mind starts telling us to do things which are unhealthy, unwanted, unproductive, we need to be able to resist it. So Krishna is telling over here, elevate yourself. Then he is telling us that we should become internally empowered.

So much of society today talks about empowerment. We have empowerment of say women's empowerment or we have people who have been deprived in India, lower caste people, their empowerment or here we have African American people, their empowerment. We talk about some people are disempowered and we need to be empowered.

All these have their importance but the most damaging disempowerment happens because of our own mind. And the most enriching, the most defining empowerment can happen when we can learn to distance ourselves from our mind. So how do we do this? I will talk about three broad principles.

I would like this to be more of a discussion. So if you have any reflections you can also speak this and you have any questions you can also speak this. So here I talk basically about what we mean by inner empowerment.

So any comments or questions about this? Anything, any part which struck you as resonating with you? Yes, one minute. You can be seated. So she is here? So it is your responsibility to interact now.

So feel free now or later whenever you want. Thank you, happy to be of service. You wanted to say something? How do we differentiate between when the mind says something, we kind of like get absorbed in that.

So how do we differentiate that it is a mind playing with it. That is what we are going to do the whole class about. It is a valuable question.

So let us move on. So I will speak to this in three parts, three principles. So I will talk about intelligence, identification and intention.

So intelligence refers to our inner capacity by which we can discern things. There can be different kinds of intelligences. Some people have very good say verbal intelligence, linguistic intelligence.

We are trying to write one letter and we are writing it, should I write this word, should I write that word, should I do this title, should I do this. How do I do this? They sit for two minutes and they get excellent sense. So there can be intelligence in terms of language.

Some people are very good at music. Some children without anyone training them they pick up a ghartal and start playing it and they play it so beautifully. So that is musical intelligence.

Some people have very good you could say aesthetic or visual intelligence. They come into a house and as soon as they come into that house, you know you move the sofa here, you put this picture here, you move this curtain here and it will look very beautiful. And somebody has stayed in that house for many months, they did not think about it.

As soon as they come in, they can do it. So we can have different kinds of intelligences. Now all these intelligences are valuable.

But when the Bhagavad Gita talks about buddhi, it talks about a more foundational kind of intelligence. It is, in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna talks about buddhi in the 18th chapter, intelligence in the three modes. He talks about it from 18.30 to 32.

And then in 18.30 he states, intelligence means pravrttimcha nivrttimcha karyakarye bhaya bhaye bandham mokshamcha ya vetti buddhi sapartha sattviki This is healthy intelligence, the intelligence in sattva guna. That is intelligence which can understand what to do and what not to do. karyakarye bhaya bhaye This is to be done, this is not to be done.

bandham mokshamcha ya vetti This will lead to bondage, this will lead to freedom. So intelligence in terms of making life's decisions. We all have particular kinds of intelligences.

Some people may be very good at music, at language, at aesthetics and this is valuable. But the intelligence that will define our life the most is our capability to take responsible decisions. Taking responsible decision means we should be able to see.

If I do this, this will be the consequence. If I do this, this will be the consequence. And therefore I need to be careful.

I need to consciously think and act. The mind often brings impulses to us. Eat this, watch this, touch this, buy this.

And if we keep doing it, at one time when we do it, it seems harmless. You just take a little bit. Oscar Wilde was a British thinker.

He said, giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I have done it over a hundred times. So what happens is, I gave up smoking, but smoking did not give me up.

So usually when we do an action, we think of that action just in isolation. I feel like doing it, so I will do it. But every action is unconsciously a commitment to the similar actions in future.

Every action is an unconscious commitment to similar actions in future. That means somebody smokes once. Somebody drinks once.

Somebody takes drugs once. It's not just a one time event. It is a one time event, but what happens when the mind prompts us Each action like that will cause the mind to prompt like that again.

And more forcefully. More forcefully. And when it keeps prompting more forcefully like that, it becomes stronger and stronger and stronger.

So we could say that the mind is like a software. Say if you have your browser, and suppose somebody has visited a particular site in that browser repeatedly. Say somebody has visited Bollywood.com. So they visited again and again and again and again.

And then now they come to a spiritual program. They hear about Bhagavad Gita. Hey, Bhagavad Gita sounds interesting.

Let me find out what is this Bhagavad Gita. And they go in their browser and they type B. And what happens? Yes, Bollywood automatically comes up. Now they had no intention to go to Bollywood.com. But because they had chosen that repeatedly, that gets stored in the history.

And that comes as an autocomplete. So, just as the browser's history, the software there, stores each choice, and then makes that choice easier for us in future. Similarly, whenever we do any action, that action creates an impression in the mind.

And whatever is an impression, it's like here is an action, every action creates an impression. And that impression comes as a proposition. Do it again.

Just like Bollywood.com comes as a proposition. Now we can still go to Bhagavad Gita.com. But we will have to consciously type the full word. But if you don't type and just keep B, it will go to Bollywood.

So like that, each action we do is an unconscious commitment to similar actions in future. And that's why, if we don't choose our actions carefully, if we don't use our intelligence to understand that an action is not just an isolated action. An action is a part of a chain by which that action gets repeated again and again and again.

If we don't understand, intelligence means to see the consequence of the action. Intelligence means what? This action is going to lead to this consequence. But when we are not very intelligent, we see that action isolation.

Once I do, what is the big deal? Nobody ever thinks that I want to become a drunkard. Nobody thinks that I want to become an alcoholic or a drug addict or anything. Let me do it once.

What is the big deal? But at once can become again and again and again. So intelligence means to understand what the mind prompts us. It's a proposition that is coming from the past impression.

From the past that create an impression and that impression is coming as a proposition. So when that proposition comes, I have to be conscientious enough to recognize that this will lead to this consequence and therefore I don't want to do this. Conversely, positively also, sometimes we may not feel like doing something.

Say, we may not feel like studying scripture, we may not feel like doing some exercise, we may not feel like doing mantra meditation, but if we do it, each action is an unconscious commitment to similar future actions. So when we do it once, that starts becoming stored as an impression. So intelligence, we need to equip ourselves with intelligence to be able to see the consequence of our actions.

Sometimes people say seeing is believing. Have you heard this saying? Seeing is believing. Now, seeing is believing is actually animal philosophy.

Why animal philosophy? Say, there is a deer or some other animal lost in a desert and they see a mirage. They believe the mirage. And they believe the mirage, they keep running after it, running after it and they never get to water.

The oasis might be in the opposite direction but they keep going in that direction. So actually, we don't just see with our eyes. We see with our intelligence that enables us to make sense of what we are seeing with our eyes.

Suppose somebody has no understanding of stock markets, of the way how modern business works and they come into a stock market when there is a sudden crash in the market and there is a big screen on which the stock index, India AWA or India BSE or whatever is there, that has crashed down. And now, as it crashes down, everybody catches their head. Some people start getting hyper-mentality, some people start getting heart attack.

And this person says, what is this? Just a line went down. Why are you so worried? So, yeah, suddenly a line went down but intelligence enables us to make sense of what we see. If there is no intelligence over there, it is just a line going down.

Intelligence means, what does it mean? What does it imply? What will it lead to? So, similarly for us, we need to equip our intelligence so that we can understand how our mind works. So, intelligence means to see the consequences of our actions and thereafter to choose our actions wisely. That part I will come to a little later.

But at this time we are talking about intelligence means to take decisions responsibly. To not just give in to some prompting which comes within, I feel like doing it, so let me do it. No, we have to create positive impressions within us and avoid creating negative impressions.

And this intelligence is, sometimes we may feel, oh, I don't have very good memory, I don't have very good verbal skills, I don't have got public speaking skills or whatever. We may all feel I am deficient in this or that or that. That may be there.

That intelligence we may or may not be able to develop. But this intelligence to discern and decide is something which each one of us can develop. And how do we develop it? By studying scripture.

Studying the Bhagavad Gita, studying Shastra that nourishes our intelligence. Shastra helps us to see the connection between action and thereby, this is how my mind works, this is what I should do, this is what I should not do. Without scriptural knowledge, if we are told to do rules, do this and don't do this.

It just seems restrictive. Why should I not do this? Why should I do this? So rules can simply seem restrictive if our intelligence is not nourished. If somebody is told, don't take drugs.

You may feel high after that. You may feel high after that but you will feel terrible after that. Many times people take drinks and literally when Krishna says that which tastes like nectar in the beginning will taste like poison in the end.

So people take drinks, they go high. But after that, they have a hangover. They get a splitting headache.

And it's miserable. So to be able to see the consequence of their action, that is intelligence. And with all our education today, we are not provided this intelligence.

We get intelligence of science, of technology, of IT, of this, that. We get all that intelligence that is useful. Functionally it's valuable.

But foundationally, this is the intelligence that is going to define our life. And this intelligence is provided by scripture. The more we study scripture, and then we can evaluate and we can correct ourselves.

So the the the mind will, when the mind starts disempowering us by making us habituated to unwanted things or by being reluctant to desirable things. Then if our intelligence is strong, then we will understand, this action is what I should do even if I don't feel like doing it. This action I should not do even if I feel like doing it.

This action I should do even if I don't feel like doing it. This action I should not do even if I feel like doing it. Whatever, the particular actions.

So nourishing the intelligence is vital for us to be able to live life effectively. So any comments till this point? Or questions? Yes. Correct, yeah.

Ok, yeah, I get the point. So, especially when we are young and somebody, the kids, they will not read scripture. That's why scriptural principles are taught through scriptural stories.

And if we hear the Mahabharata, we hear the Ramayana, but we don't hear them just as stories. If we study the Bhagavad Gita and we study the Mahabharata, we will actually see the Mahabharata as demonstrating the principles of the Bhagavad Gita. So if we have the philosophical understanding, then we study the the stories.

The stories are much more entertaining. So that way, that can help. I have given a series of about 75 classes for all the characters, 30-30 minute talks.

And I have explained their lives, the biographies, and certain controversies resolved. Why did this happen like this? Why did that happen like that? And I have given practical lessons for our life also. So there are other devotees also who have explained the epics.

So basically we talk about ethics from epics. We just talk about ethics, it is not very interesting. It seems too didactic.

But when we talk about epics and talk about ethics through epics, then it becomes empowering. That is one way. And also, we need to, it is not, generally, most, if you look at even the tradition itself, the tradition has been primarily an oral tradition.

You see, before Gutenberg invented the printing press, books were very rare. So there was no, people would hardly ever read books. Mostly people would, the spiritual wisdom was disseminated through the oral tradition, through speaking and through hearing.

So now, we have many, if you look on the internet, there are many devotees, not every devotee has the vibhuti of speaking very attractively. But some devotees have that. So if we find some devotees who speak attractively and they can connect with the youth, then we can encourage them to hear that.

Generally reading a scripture, reading and studying is required, but it is much more difficult. It is hearing scriptural wisdom from scriptural teachers, from contemporary scriptural teachers. That is what helps.

Yes, Navani? Can I answer? This will be answered later on as we move forwards. There is a problem of purification. Yes, Navani? Yeah, that is true.

How can we enforce? I understand what you are saying. So at one level we say we should not enforce anything on children, but at the same time their intelligence is not good enough to understand things. Actually, we will be surprised at how intelligent children are.

We presume that they are not intelligent enough, but if we try to explain things properly to them, see the problem is often not that they are not intelligent enough, that they often feel that when we explain certain things to them, we have an agenda behind that. That you are telling me this because you want me to do this. So when I started practicing Bhakti about 20-25 years ago, I asked Senior Vaishnava, how do I preach to my parents? So Maharaj told me that by letting anyone except you preach to them.

So what happens many times when there are certain things, I have a particular dynamic in my relationship. So everything that I speak will be filtered through the dynamic of that relationship. So that is why we need to have, there is, you could say, there is vertical education, there is lateral education.

Lateral education means that if we can have or we can have other programs where kids can interact with other kids and they can have somebody whom they can connect with, some other devotee in the community who is not necessarily the parent generation but not necessarily of their generation, somewhere in between, somewhere whom they can connect with, somebody who is successful in their career in terms that the kids can relate with. So then we may have to have the education of our children but we don't have to think that we alone have to do it. So in general, if our children feel that we care for them, that it's not just that we are following this culture and therefore we want our children to follow this culture.

Actually they feel we care for them and if they feel that if they themselves feel that why this should be done and this should not be done, then it's much easier for them to practice it. So Srila Prabhupada told one of his disciples who was going for college preaching, he said that the worst thing that you can do in your college outreach is present Krishna Consciousness as a set of rules. Krishna Consciousness is a profound philosophy.

Children have a disadvantage in a sense. They have advantage that they grew up in a devotional culture with devotional impressions. But the disadvantage is that for most of us the philosophy came first and the practices came later.

We might even have been in a pious family where we are doing some amount of bhakti but now we are practicing bhakti much more seriously and we are practicing it because we got convinced that the philosophy came first the practices came later. But for the children the practices come first. Even when they go to classes they may even sit and hear classes.

Generally in a Sunday school you may just talk about some Krishna stories or memorizing some shlokas which also seems to be like another to do. I have to teach. Generally maybe 13, 14, 15, 16 at that time their intelligence started developing quite a bit.

But they need systematic educational philosophy. It may be that I have met with devoted children and I talk with them privately that parents are preachers who have hundreds of people who come for their programs and the son has doubts whether even God exists and it is not that the son is a bad person. It's just that that was never rationally explained to them.

So we need to have, just like we have for new people, we may design some courses or have some systematic presentation of the philosophy. So like that, there needs to be a time when there is an intellectual engagement with the philosophy and intellectual acceptance of the philosophy. There is for them, it's more of their, all engagement in bhakti is largely cultural engagement.

Now worship this deity, offer this lamp, play this kartal and all that is good. That's nice. But there has to be an intellectual engagement with the bhakti tradition.

Now how exactly we create that, that's up to them. That depends on our situation. But it's important to do that.

The impressions that we have given, they will definitely stay. But if there is no intellectual engagement with the practices, understanding the practices, then one starts feeling, why should I do this? Because we start feeling, okay, there is so much, so many ways to do this, I can do this, I can do this, I can do this, so much enjoyment is there. Why should I deprive myself? So we cannot impose the philosophy, but we do have to present the philosophy in a way that they can connect to it.

That's true. That's a good question. So how rigid should we be? See, in general, in today's world, as soon as something is forbidden, it becomes more fascinating.

As soon as you tell, don't do this, why should I want to do it? It's in India, in fact, there was a whole controversy, there was some movie about some Rajasthani king, Padmavati. So there's a big agitation to ban it. And then it came in the news.

Why this should be banned, this should not be banned, this is against Rajput pride and this all that. And eventually, when it was released afterwards, it came out that actually the producers themselves had orchestrated the whole ban to create publicity. And that's why that same organization which had agitated against the thing, this is against Rajput pride, they said no, it's actually not against Rajput pride.

So they withdrew their agitation. So the point is that actually banning something in today's world just doesn't work. As soon as they said don't do this, why not? That's the question that comes up.

So it's best to provide education. Broadly speaking, we can provide people only three things. Anyone, each soul has free will.

And every soul will use their free will in their own way. What we can provide them is three things. We can provide them enlightenment, engagement and encouragement.

Enlightenment means if you do this, this will happen. If you do this, this will happen. Just give them the knowledge of what are the consequences.

So actually, I would say that with respect to food, talking about why meat eating is bad, that is becoming vegan is quite cool in today's culture. So if you provide resources to them, they can themselves make the decision. It's quite, it's emotionally, logically, it's all quite persuasive.

There are a lot of resources over there. So first is enlightenment. Just tell the consequences of the actions and help them, not just we tell them, but help them see it for themselves.

It's like I tell you, this is a ditch, don't go there. But if you are not seeing the ditch, you still want to explore. But say if I take my specs out, you see this, wear this, and oh, there's a ditch, I should not go there.

So basically, it's a don't tell me, show me. So that's enlightenment. Second is engagement.

Engagement means, okay, if I should not do this, what should I do? So we need to, if somebody wants to eat cakes, then have equally tasty alternatives, which do not have eggs. So basically, if you tell somebody don't do something, what can I do? We need to have adequate devotional engagements. So there is drama, there is music, there is art.

So if we create devotional engagements, then there is something for them to do. Okay, I don't want to do this, I want to do this. But what is the facility for me to do this? And third is encouragement.

Encouragement means, in general, we tend to catch people when they do wrong. But we need to catch them when they do right and appreciate. So it's like sometimes, in parenting, we become like spectators and the child is like a goalkeeper.

Then the goalkeeper is there, the goalkeeper may save 100 goals. But people remember only the goal that passes by them. You missed that ball and that goal was scored.

So sometimes it becomes like that, they may be doing the right thing 100 times. But one time they do wrong thing, immediately, why did you do that? So if we appreciate them when they're doing the right thing, and then we provide them the inner support, the moral encouragement, then it becomes easier for them to do it. Yeah, correct.

Yeah, so if one thing has gone wrong, then how can we and that makes it that spoils our whole day for us. So how do we avoid that? Yeah, I have tomorrow evening in Baltimore, I'm speaking on this topic of counting our blessings. So I'll give you a preview of that.

So basically, we can look at, I use the acronym ACE, ACE your life with gratitude. ACE is ACE that whenever anything bad happens in our life, it's very difficult to be positive about the bad thing. We can't be grateful.

We can't be grateful for all situations. But we can be grateful in all situations. How? But if something bad has happened, look for A is around.

Look for the good around the bad. This bad thing happened, but all these things also were right in my life. So we have to make a habit of counting our blessings, writing down the things that are good in our life and keep that ready with us.

So okay, you know, my health is good. This is good. This is good.

My financial situation is okay. I'm, I'm practicing bhakti. I'm culturally I'm in a good situation.

Note it down because at that time it will be very difficult to remember. So one is count your blessings and keep them ready. The good around the bad.

Then C is, A is around, C is counter. The good that helps us to counter the bad. Okay, this bad thing has happened.

But okay, even this bad thing has happened. I got this, I got this disease, I got this bad diagnosis. But overall my body is healthy.

I got health insurance. I got a supportive family. I got a good community around me.

I've got a good doctor. The disease is curable. So what is the good that helps me to counter the bad? And E is emerge.

What is the good that may emerge from the bad? This bad thing, we can't imagine the bad to be good. But we can wait and watch. We can be patient.

Rather than judging the situation, labeling the situation, is this bad thing happened? But let me wait. Something good might emerge from it. So basically, even if we can't be grateful for all situations, we can be grateful in all situations.

Thank you. Yes ma'am. Like what? How opposite? It's a practical challenge, practical problem.

Suppose in the education system, we get to learn something which is contrary to what they learn in our tradition, or the children don't like that, then how do we go ahead? I would say that in some ways, the education can broaden our vision also. But in some ways, the education, what we learn in the syllabus in schools or what we learn from teachers, maybe actually, maybe a few decades behind the latest science. It is not that today's science will come in tomorrow's textbooks.

It may take years. So specifically with respect to protein, there is well documented research that we can get abundant proteins, even from vegetarian food. In fact, there is protein and there is what doctors call the protein utilization factor.

So when we take in meat, we take in a lot of protein, but the body still cannot process that much protein. That's why it passes out. So it's possible that there can be protein deficiency in vegetarian food.

But there are supplements and there are specific items within vegetarian food, which if we take, we get adequate proteins. So it's a specific, as far as facts are concerned, naturally, what we learn from school will be authoritative. But it may not be conclusive.

It may not be definitive. There is some amount of authority in it. So we need to, we can't just say this is what our tradition says, and that's why we do it or don't do it.

We have to find out similar sources, which will also support what our tradition is saying. And I have an article on my website, The Spiritual Scientist, where I talk about help the world with your food. How what we eat can help the world.

So H-E-L-P is the acronym. So I talk about how vegetarian food is better for our health. It is better for the environment.

It is better for livestock. The animals themselves don't have to suffer. And P is actually a way to decrease poverty in the world, because the existing natural resources are better utilized.

So there are, whatever objections are there, there are rational cases to counter that. So let's move on now. So we discussed about, what did we discuss about? Intelligence.

So second part I said is? Yeah, engagement was something else. It was enlightenment, engagement and encouragement. Good, you remember that.

Thank you. Then we will talk about identification. So what do I mean by identification? See, for us, the mind tends to be tricky.

It's not easy for us when the mind prompts something. Immediately, eat this, watch this, do this. Then at that time, to immediately say, oh, this is the mind speaking and this is undesirable.

All that processing is not that easy. So we need to identify typical ways in which our mind tricks us and then catch it that time. Some people, when some people, they are not morning people.

When they wake up, they are irritable. They are not normally irritable people, but when they wake up, maybe for a half an hour, one hour, two hours, then they are in a bad mood. And if somebody knows that this person is not a morning person, then they wake up, whatever they speak, they will not take it very seriously.

If they grumble, if they yell, they moan, then they will overcome it. So, you know, when we understand that, okay, this is the character of this person, then we learn to accept and move on with life. So similarly, if we identify our mind as typical patterns, so the mind can trick us in many ways, but it is not that the mind tricks us in a new way every time.

There are some standard ways in which the mind tricks us. So some people have a tendency to get depressed. So one thing goes wrong and the mind starts saying, this went wrong, that went wrong, everything is going to go wrong.

Everything is going to go wrong. Or some people, for them, their mind makes them feel lonely. Now, if we call someone, and that person doesn't respond to the phone, maybe they don't care for me, nobody cares for me, I am all alone.

So, what happens, the mind has typical ways in which it tricks us. So, if we can identify that, identify that means, give it a label. Like this is, okay, now the mind has started telling its loneliness story.

There are some people, they are very autobiographical hearers. Autobiographical hearers means you tell them, no, actually, I went there and I got lost. It's so difficult for me to find my way back.

And you start off, I got lost, and they say, you know, 25 years ago, I got lost. And then this happened, this happened, this happened. So this is what autobiographical hearing.

That means, anything that they hear, that is a stimulus for them to start their autobiography. Okay, this happened to me. So, now, if we know, sometimes some people have told the same story 50 times.

And again, they want to repeat the story. So what happens, as soon as we start hearing that story, we turn off mentally. And this is what they want to say.

I've heard this story so many times. So just as we turn off from people who keep repeating the same old thing, similarly, we can turn off from our mind, identify. This is the mind telling the story.

Now the mind is telling the loneliness story. The mind is telling the depression story. The mind is telling the resentment story now.

Our mind is telling the craving story. I feel like eating something or watching something or buying something. So sometimes some people are shopaholics.

Shopaholics means shop, shop, shop, shop till you drop. Just keep shopping, keep shopping. And then they go into a supermarket and then buy one thing.

That's also nice. That's also nice. And just keep buying like that.

So then instead of labeling ourselves as shopaholics, when we start getting, let me buy this, let me buy this also. And that voice starts coming. This is the mind starting a shopaholic story now.

So basically, when that thought comes within us, identify it as the mind telling a particular story. Or sometimes you just feel bored. Something is just going on so long and you just feel so bored by it.

So now sometimes some things may be boring but they are important. We need to do them. So instead of, instead of I am feeling bored, just precede that with the mind is saying.

The mind is saying I am feeling bored. Immediately our attitude will change. Say if we are attending a class and somebody comes to us or we are doing some work and something, I am feeling bored.

Then if somebody else would tell us that, we would immediately give them some counsel. Yeah, but you know, it's important. Just do it.

It will become interesting now, whatever. So what we do is identification means treat the mind as another person. Identify the mind instead of identifying with the mind.

Identify the mind, don't identify with the mind. So sometimes you may say, I am feeling so tired. So instead of accepting that, the mind is saying, I am feeling so tired.

Now we are not denying. The mind is feeling like that. And you process it.

Yeah, okay, I am tired. But you know, maybe suddenly I have 15 minutes more. I can, I can take rest after that.

Or I can take a break after that. Just identifying like this, that is a very powerful way in which we can create a distance between us and the mind. And then we can evaluate.

Say, we have urge, you know, I want to, I want to watch a movie. I want to serve the net. I want to do this.

I want to do that. Instead of, if we say no to that, why should I say no? The mind is saying, I want to do this. The mind is saying, I want to do this.

So if we are preparing for an interview or an exam, and then something within us says, I am going to fail. I remember the first time I gave a public speaking engagement was almost 40, no 30, 35 years ago, something like that. 30-35 years ago.

So my tendency is that when I become nervous, I start speaking fast. And the more nervous I become, the faster I start speaking. So the first time I was giving a public speaking talk, and then just as I was climbing on the podium to speak, something within me said, you are going to make a mess of everything.

So I didn't know what was that. Now I understood it was the mind speaking. So then I just became so nervous.

And it was supposed to be a six-minute talk. And I started speaking. And I started speaking very fast, because I was nervous.

And because I was so fast, people just couldn't connect what I was speaking. It's like sometimes we sit inside a car, and immediately the person zooms off. We are not even sitting properly, we don't put our seatbelts, and zooming off.

We suddenly started off. So then nobody was connecting with what I was speaking, so people were not paying attention. People were looking at the watch, people were looking at the door, looking at each other.

And that made me all the more nervous. I started speaking even faster. And the result of that was, it was a six-minute talk, and I had prepared it properly for six minutes, rehearsed it several times, but I finished everything in three minutes.

And there's nothing more to do. So I remember that, that actually just one voice came over there, you're going to make a mess of everything. So now I realized that this is the mind saying, the mind is saying, you're making a mess, you're going to make a mess of everything.

So as soon as we identify it is the mind, then okay, this is the mind saying, I'll be cautious, I'll deal with it. But I don't have to take the mind as an expert prophet, who's going to tell what is going to happen in the future. So basically, the Bhagavad Gita helps us to understand that everything inside me is not me.

Inside me is another voice. And by introspection, if we typically understand, okay, this is the way the mind tricks me. It makes me feel angry, it makes me feel lazy, it makes me feel bored.

Then we label that this is a boredom story. This is the anger story. This is the depression story, just identify that.

And that can help us to deal with it. So this is the second point about identification. Any comments or questions about this? How do we know where the intelligence is coming from, where the mind is playing its tricks? In general, where something is coming from is very difficult to know.

What we can know is where something is taking us. So if I do this, it's going to lead to something undesirable. If I do this, it's going to lead to something desirable.

So by looking at the consequence, we can understand this is the mind speaking, this is the intelligence speaking. Now there is no inner flashlight which will reveal this is a label, mind speaking, intelligence speaking, there's nothing like that. So we can look at the consequence and we can learn from experience.

Last time I did this, this happened. Therefore, what this is, who is saying this is the mind speaking, this is the intelligence speaking, like that. Any other questions or comments? Yeah, that's why I talked first about intelligence.

That is true. That is true. Yeah, so identification requires intelligence, no doubt about it.

The identification becomes easier when we have done, use our intelligence to do some introspection. The intelligence is always functional. There is knowledge which is at the back of our consciousness, the background of consciousness and the knowledge in the foreground of our consciousness.

Say with respect to vocabulary, it said that we have active vocabulary and we have passive vocabulary. So sometimes we want to use a word, just can't think what is the word I should use to speak this. And then somebody uses that word, yeah, that's exactly the word I wanted to use.

So when they use the word, we understand the word, we also understand this is the right word. But we can't think of it. So that means that word is there, but it is in the passive vocabulary.

It is we could say, it is a part of a passive vocabulary. But active vocabulary means we can use it. So quite often for us, philosophy and scriptural knowledge is like our passive knowledge.

It is there in the background, but it is not there in the foreground. So to get it in the foreground, we have to hear regularly. We have to hear regularly, read regularly.

That's how it will come into the foreground. And also speak it to others. Maybe if you hear some class, find some point inspiring, just speak that.

That will bring it in the foreground. Then we will be, when that knowledge is in the foreground, when the intelligence is active, then the identification becomes easier. So we will go to the last point now.

Last point was what? Intention. Ultimately, changing our mind will take time. See, if we expect that our mind should change, our desire should change, our habits should change, and all that takes time.

So even if we can't change our desires, we can change our attitude towards our desires. What do I mean, change our attitude towards our desires? By desire, it can be a proposition coming from the mind. Instead of self-judgment, I'll explain that.

Intention means, what it means is that when a particular proposition comes within us, eat this, touch this, watch this, whatever, do this. At that time, if our intention is to live a moral life, our intention is to live a principled life, then that intention will give us the force of momentum. Simple example, say, if this is our office, this is our home, and here there is some holding, some billboard of maybe some drink, some eatery, some restaurant or whatever.

Now, earlier we might have gone there and used to eat a lot, but now, okay, that's not vegetarian food, that's not food, that's not healthy food, I don't want to eat it. Because we have made that decision, that doesn't mean that the billboard is going to disappear. We may have decided I'm not going to eat this, but the billboard is still going to be there.

So, when the billboard is there, initially, if say it's like an electronic billboard where every day they display, it's a restaurant along the way and they display, what is there? What is on the menu today? So earlier, while passing by, I would eagerly look, what is there? I want to go and eat it today. But now, if our intention is to get to work straight or get from work back to home straight, then that intention, okay, this is a distraction, I will not do this. So, in general, spiritual life or any kind of positive activity, it's not so much about saying no to things.

More important than saying no to something is to have something better to say yes to. If we have something better to say yes to, then if what we had to say no to becomes easier. So, in the past, we might have been sitting and looking at that, standing and looking at the billboard, what is going to come tomorrow? What is there tomorrow? But now, if you're busy, I'm going from here to here, going from here to there to here, then that intention enables us to avoid distraction.

So, another example to illustrate this point, that suppose somebody invites us for some social event at their home. Now, we are not interested in going there at all. Maybe just a waste of time.

We're not interested in going there. But saying no to them, okay, they'll feel bad. How can I say no? It's a waste of time.

So, at that time, we have some other engagement. Oh, I got this program over here. I got this event over here.

When we have something to say yes to, then saying no to something becomes much easier. If we have nothing to say yes to, then saying no to things becomes very difficult. So, similarly, if we strengthen our intention about what are the positive things that we want to do in our life.

So, in general, saying no to anything creates a sense of deprivation. So, nowadays, some people get device addiction. Just every five minutes, they want to look at any new message, any new message, any new message.

And on average, even in the workplace, I find that almost a lot of people, a lot of time of people goes in just surfing emails or surfing for the latest updates on their social media or on their whatever apps they are using for communicating. So, now, to avoid this kind of distraction, if we are doing something which is important, and our intention to do that is very strong, then saying no to the other things becomes much easier. So, ultimately, bhakti yoga, when we practice bhakti, it's not about saying no to things.

It's about saying yes to things. Krishna says, saying no as a policy will not work for a long time. Nishaya vini vartante, niraharasya dekhina, rasavarjam rasopyasya, param drishtvani vartate.

When we say no, we always feel deprived, it's like a niraharasya, we feel as if I'm not getting food. I'm starving. But param drishtvani vartate, when we get something positive to do, then it becomes easier.

So, instead of saying, I don't want to do this, I don't want to do this, we can try to strengthen our intention of what we want to do. That means we all feel that there are so many things I could do in my life. I can read this, I can learn this, I can do this.

So many things we want to do in our life. And many of them are positive. We just feel if I had time, I would do it.

But let's see how we can create that time for ourselves. And how can we create that time? By ensuring that our time doesn't get distracted. So much time goes in distraction.

And to avoid that, we need to strengthen our intention. So, try to think of what is it that I can say yes to. Now, we may say, okay, in bhakti there are so many activities, there is chanting, there is hearing, there is this, that.

It's all good. But I'll conclude with this point. Rupa Goswami says, in the Bhakti-lisana-amrita-sindhu, he talks of a concept called uddhipan.

Uddhipan means spiritual stimulus. So, each one of us is an individual. And we all, because of our individuality, we are attracted to different things.

So, everybody likes to eat. But depending on where they are coming from, they may get excited about a particular food. Say, South Indian may get excited about dosa or idli sambhar.

Punjabi get excited about parathas. Gujarati get excited about dhoklas. So, now, if somebody is from some other place where they don't know about that food, then that may not trigger so much desire in them.

Okay, that's nice food, but okay, I don't want it right now. So, just as with respect to material life, there are certain objects that excite us. And certain objects don't excite us so much.

They are all food, they are all nourishing. But certain things excite us, certain things don't excite us. Similarly, in Bhakti, we can find out, in the positive activities that we are doing in our life, we can find out what excites us.

So, some of us may find, okay, reciting verses, I love it very much. Or hearing kirtans, I like it very much. Singing kirtans, I love it very much.

Or maybe hearing this devotee's talks, memorizing these quotable quotes, this is very stimulating. So, when we find out something which is a uddhipan for us, uddhipan means a positive spiritual stimulus, then doing that becomes easy for us. We just say, chant Hare Krishna, worship the deities, read Bhagavad Gita, all that is good.

But it does not feel like doing it. We need to find out within Bhakti, this is a circle of things which are of Bhakti. And this is a circle of things which I like.

Find out somewhere where the two intersect. And if we can situate, if we can make that as an activity, that is our default activity. As soon as I get some time, I will do this.

Then what will happen? We will have something to say yes to. So, last year when I had come to America, I was at a devotee's house and they are telling that their son, young boy, maybe 8-10 years old, 10-12 years old, he is brilliant at robotics. He is brilliant at robotics.

And he is participating in national competition in robotics and he has won awards. So, they are telling that he is so good at robotics, I was talking with him, brilliant he was. But then they said that when we try to interest him in spirituality, he has no interest at all.

We tell him about Bhagavad Gita or anything, no interest, what to do? Then I told him that, okay, I was talking with him, so I asked him that when you have this robotics competition, how do you decide what robo you will make? Since most of the time we make robots which will lift up things efficiently, because Amazon is the biggest user of robots right now for their packing. So, I said, okay, that is interesting. So, I said, would you like to have some new idea for making a robot? He said, okay, yeah, what is it? Now, you could make a robo of Krishna and Arjuna.

Krishna speaking the Bhagavad Gita and Arjuna asking questions. First I said, no, it is not. And then we talked for a few minutes, he walked away.

And then I was talking with his parents. And then after 15 minutes, he came back, 10-15 minutes and he said, actually, that is a good idea. He says, nobody will do like this.

So, I will be doing something unique. Then, okay, and then we talked for some time about what questions he could ask, what questions he could answer. And then after that, when his parents called me once and we were talking, so he told me that now he started reading the Bhagavad Gita so seriously.

Because Bhagavad Gita is not interested so much in what Bhagavad Gita says to apply in his life, but to apply in his robotics. So, the point is that everybody has some interests. So, Krishna consciousness is not just a set of activities, do this, do this, do this, do this.

It is, there are some activities. But Krishna consciousness also means that we become conscious of Krishna through what we are naturally conscious of. What we are naturally inclined to be conscious of, we become conscious of Krishna through that.

Everyone's deepest experience is their experience of Krishna. They may not know that they are experiencing Krishna. Somebody, some musician is there, they are playing music.

To get one note right, they may spend hours. Now, what is there in that music? Actually, they are experiencing Krishna. They just don't know it is Krishna.

So, rather than telling people your experience, what are you, this is material, you are attached to it, just give it up. Chai dhari Krishna. Whatever is their deepest experience, help them to connect that with Krishna.

So, Prabhupada did that expertly in his kirtans in the early days. All kinds of people playing all kinds of musical instruments would come and Prabhupada would welcome all of them and participate in the kirtans. So, that way, we can have this dynamic understanding of bhakti that sometimes the uddhipan can be directly devotional.

Sometimes the uddhipan may not seem to be devotional, but it can be devotionalized. And when we do things in this way, that we try to create a positive intention for us to do something constructive, not just say no to something destructive or destructive, then our energy becomes channeled positively. And as this intention becomes stronger, then that creates positive impressions within us.

So, it's going back to that example of Bhagavad Gita versus Bollywood. So, if somebody chooses Bhagavad Gita once, twice, thrice, four times, five times, then eventually what is going to happen? Bhagavad Gita will become their default choice. So, as soon as they type B, Bhagavad Gita will come.

So, like that, what we need to do is, we need to make our intentions strong to do something positive. We keep saying, I will not do this, I will not do this, don't do this, don't do this. If we tell others, it's not going to work.

But if we focus on do this and encourage them and not just do something which they don't feel like doing, find out something which they feel like doing and start doing that, then that positive intention will bring a positive connection for us and that will bring satisfaction. And once that we experience some satisfaction in doing something positive, then the sense of deprivation that comes because of not doing something negative, that will go away. And then doing the positive will become much more easier, much more effortless.

That's the time when Krishna says, the mind will become our friend instead of being our enemy. So, I'll summarize. So, I spoke today about the theme of equipping of three principles for inner empowerment.

I talked about how we work so much to increase our external power, whether it is fuel power, electric power, financial power, political power. But the power that matters most to our life is our inner power. Because this inner power enables us to use outer power properly.

Otherwise, without inner power, the more the outer power we have, the more we will hurt ourselves or hurt others. Like somebody may shoot someone else if they get a gun. Somebody may bite someone's ears off in their anger.

Or if you don't have inner power, you may get depressed, you may hurt ourselves, you may even become suicidal. So, inner power means that we learn to manage our mind better. And I talked about three principles for that.

First was intelligence. So, intelligence can be of different kinds. But we are talking about the decision-making intelligence.

And intelligence means to see the consequences of our actions. And with intelligence, we understand that every action is not just an isolated action. It is an unconscious commitment to similar actions in future.

It's like the software of our mind, a particular option is chosen, it becomes stored and it comes as auto-complete in future. Like somebody going to visit Bollywood repeatedly and then wanting to go to Bhagavad Gita but Bollywood comes as auto-complete. So, intelligence is nourished by scriptural study.

And scriptural study largely means hearing in a way that we can connect with and appreciate. And second was identification. That means the mind, we can treat the mind as a person different from us.

Let's say some people may be always negative when they wake up in the morning. Then we identify, okay, this is just they don't behave like that. So, we identify the typical stories of the mind.

This is the depression story. This is a loneliness story. This is the hunger story.

And like that, whenever some feeling comes up within us, we can say, I am feeling angry. No, the mind is saying, I am feeling angry. That way we can, by distancing ourselves from it, we can process it properly.

We can counsel the mind and choose a proper decision. And last was intention. And then I talked about how the focus should not be on don't do this, that creates deprivation.

But focus we can on doing something positive. And the mind is like our like an advertising agency, advertising agency. Just because we stop eating a particular food doesn't mean the billboard for that food will go away.

So, the mind will keep promoting it. But if we have a positive intention, go from here to there, then we don't pay much attention to whatever is there on the billboard. So, to create a positive intention, we have to look at not just what is important, but also what we like to do.

So, the intersection between say bhakti and our likes, that can be our uttipan. And then when we make it a habit to do this, then because we like to do it, so we'll do it easily. And we do it once, we do it twice, we do it thrice, then that will become the default impression within us.

And then when the healthy option becomes the default impression, our mind will become our friend. And then we will become internally empowered to act constructively and successfully in our life. Thank you very much.

Hare Krishna. So, is there any one question anyone has? How much time do we have for questions? It's 8 o'clock now, 8-7. We all have different degree of intelligence.

And based on that, we make decisions at some point. And those decisions lead to think, oh, why did I do this? And that creates an impression in mind, saying that, oh, I did that. So, what are some of the things we can overcome from those negative impressions? Because the degree of intelligence every individual has a different one.

See, intelligence doesn't just mean knowing what to do. Intelligence also means knowing what to do when we don't know what to do. That means intelligence means knowing our limitations.

So, sometimes we need to consent others. Say, for example, if you're driving along a familiar road, I don't need any GPS, I don't need any map, just go along. But suppose there's a new road construction and the road is now somewhat unfamiliar, confusing, then we need to consult a GPS.

So, for certain decisions, if we just look at our own life, we understand, I'm good at these things. These decisions I can make soundly. But these, I need to consult others.

I need to take input from others. And then I can decide. So, one aspect of intelligence is recognizing where we need to consult someone else.

We can say that, of course, we should consult our spiritual guides for everything. That's true. But there are certain functional things which we can do with our own God-given intelligence.

So, acknowledging our limitations is also part of our intelligence. And in general, intelligence can help us in three ways. Say, intelligence helps us to prevent mistakes.

This is not a healthy thing to do. Intelligence helps us to repeat, helps us to prevent repetition of mistakes. And the third is, intelligence helps us to recognize when we have repeated a mistake.

Sometimes some people keep doing the same thing and they don't even learn from it. So, it's, we don't have to, we cannot, we don't have to expect that we will never commit mistakes. The very essence of being human is being finite.

And being finite means sometimes we go wrong. So, sometimes we make the right decisions and sometimes we make the decision right. What does it mean make the decision right? Okay, I took a wrong decision.

But now, how can I make the best of this? So, it's like sometimes we are supposed to take a right turn on the road, but we take a left turn. Then we don't keep beating ourselves up. Why did I take the right turn? Why did I take the left turn? Okay, now take the right turn and move back.

So, we don't have to see any particular decision as catastrophic. At that time, a wrong decision can seem catastrophic. But in the long run, we realize that life goes on.

And it's not, it may have consequences. And if you could have avoided that, that's good. But if you can't, it's not that anything is life ending, you can still do course correction and move on.

And in general, if there are certain situations in which we know that we make wrong decisions, we tend to do wrong, then it's good to try to create a pause button for ourselves. That means when somebody does something like that, I get angry and I yell at them. I don't want to do that.

So, then whenever I start noticing I'm going to get angry now. Okay, let me move out of the situation. Let me chant Hare Krishna.

Let me recite some verses. Let me just maybe do something else. It's like when you're driving first time on the road, we don't know there's a bump, we'll get jolted.

But second time when we near that, near that bump, okay, there's a bump over here, we'll slow down. So, like that we learn from our experience. And we try to create a pause button for ourselves.

Does that make sense? Yeah. So, most kids are into video games and TV like that. I think we are moving to that direction.

There are TV shows and TV programs that are spiritual. We had Little Krishna, which was made by some devotees. So, there are some devotees who are also working towards making video games, which are more of a Krishna-centered.

There's one devotee who's working on a video game which involves like going through the 8.4 million species. You take this decision, you'll go here. You take this decision, you're going to this species.

And then there are, you can become a various, it's quite a creative game. He showed me, he's working on it. So, I think if we could, if some of the creativity that we use to create facilities like that, or just create a challenge.

I was at a temple and the kids were not interested in coming to the temple very much. But then the temple, the youth leader, they told them that, we need, we want to, we plan to make our temple green. So, can you do that? Children learn a lot about environmental consciousness in the school.

So, they took that up. And they started coming to the temple just to make sure. They will come to the temple and make sure that everything is green over there.

There's another place where I went for a program, where he's telling that this devotee is doing a college program. And there are a lot of people coming to the college for the program, coming to the college program, but they've never come to the temple. Tell them, we have this program, we have this program, but you never come.

And one day, then he told them that, would you like to come to the temple to serve free vegetarian food to 300 people? So, now, almost 90% of the kids came for it. They did not come to hear a lecture. But in today's youth, there is a zeal for activism, that I want to make a difference, I want to do something positive.

So, they came to the temple and many of them like the atmosphere. They came not to hear a talk, but they came here to do something. So, although earlier I said that, we need philosophy, we need philosophical education, but that is systematically catered for them.

It's expected them to hear normal classes. It's not that easy. But in general, if there is no involvement, there is no commitment.

So, we need to create ways for involvement. And kids themselves are actually quite creative. So, if we sit and talk with them and ask them and discuss with them, rather than judging and telling you're playing so much video game, that's bad.

And just put that judgmental attitude aside and try to understand what in the video game interests them. And then we can come up with ideas. I'm sure that devotees are working in this direction.

And sometimes even the kids themselves when they grow up. At the age of 15, I'll conclude with this, I told you yesterday in this quote. I think it is Mark Twain who said this that, when I was 15, my father was a fool.

Now I'm 25 and I'm amazed how much the old guy has learned in the last 10 years. But the way the child person thinks at 15 and the way the person thinks at 25 itself is different. So, in one way for us to think of creative engagements for say 15 year old kids is difficult.

But if somebody who has gone through that and has now become a little more mature, stable, then they can come up with this. So, that's what I said earlier that the world has changed so much in the last 20, 30, 40 years. It's almost like half a generation is like two generations now.

It's radically changed. So, sometimes we cannot even connect with the way other people think. So, we need a little bit of a bridge where those who have gone through that phase, but now they have outgrown it.

They can come up with ideas. So, thank you very much.