Self-discipline or self-discovery – Charting our inner journey

[Talk at Hawaii, USA]

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. Thank you very much for coming today.
And I’ll speak on this topic of self-discovery or self-discipline. How to go on our inner journey. Go on what? Inner journey, inner journey.
So, I’ll speak this in three parts and I’ll invite you to, you can also speak any reflections or questions in between. The three points I’ll speak is, first point is that we are not our own masters, but we don’t have to be our own slaves. And second point is that we have to learn to contend with ourselves, learn to contend with, contend with, negotiate and work with ourselves.
And lastly, how bhakti empowers us to best contend with ourselves. So, one of the broad principles that when we live our life, we observe that we, even if we resolve to, we can’t control ourselves the way we want. Last year, I was invited to a TV talk show on the occasion of New Year.
So, I talked about New Year resolutions. I had done some study at that time. I found that almost 90 to 95% of the resolutions that people make on the occasion of the New Year, the New Year resolutions are not new.
So, they had made those resolutions earlier, but they couldn’t keep them. And now, I try to make them again. I’m not talking about people, it applies to all of us.
It applies to me also. So, we find that even when we resolve to do something, but it’s not that we cannot make, we are not our own masters. We want to do something, we do it for some time.
I’m going to change into a new me, maybe a more devoted, more compassionate, more sensitive, more whatever. We want to become a new you, new me, and the new me comes out for a few days. And then when that new me is not looking, the old me comes back.
So, after some time, when we try for some self-discipline and it doesn’t work, we might just quit and think, this is the way I am, and I just can’t change. So, now there is this idea that it can be taken to another extreme, where you say that actually there’s no need to discipline yourself. Just be spontaneous.
Just life is a self-discovery. Just whoever you are, that is what you are. Whatever idea pops up in your mind, whatever desire comes up, whatever image comes up, just go along with it.
Go with the flow, as they say. Go with the flow. So, that is one idea of just be who you are.
We talk about self-acceptance. The way you are, you are perfect. There’s no need to change anything about you.
Now, at one level, when we, so, if we consider that I’ll just be who I am, it might sound very good, but then we will never live up to our potential. That’s like if somebody plays music. If they say, I’ll just go on the stage without any rehearsal and just play whatever comes out of it.
Well, something will come out, but it will be far from our best. So, even somebody who wants to just express their heart through music, they can’t just do it arbitrarily. There is some amount of training, disciplining required.
And in one sense, if you use in the sense of music, I mean, as we practise music, what essentially happens is purification. Purification means those tunes, those sounds that don’t fit in, we gradually start removing it. And those that fit in, they start coming out.
So, one of my main services is writing. So, in writing, it is said that there are two aspects. And this principle applies to various other fields also.
There is the art of writing and there is the craft of writing. So, the craft is about learning the rules of grammar, getting the punctuation, the syntax, all of it right. And art is where there is play of words, there are similes, metaphors, and various literary devices which give language its flourish.
So now, to learn the craft requires discipline. And if somebody has not learned the craft, then the art will not work. It’s like we have to design the house carefully first, according to serious design principles, and then we can decorate it the way we want.
So, writing, there is a craft of writing which requires discipline. Discipline, this is how sentences are to be completed, this is how this punctuation, this is grammar. And without that, we wouldn’t have coherent communication.
But just craft is not enough. If you want to read for pleasure, we don’t take up, say, the manual of a washing machine to read. It’s all written according to grammar rules.
But because there’s no art over there, there’s no pleasure in that. So, the art requires spontaneity. It requires creativity.
That is where self-expression comes out. And great authors have their own personal touch which comes out in their writings. So, like in writing, like in music, and similarly in spiritual life, there is a combination of self-discipline and self-discovery.
So, self-discipline in writing is to learn the craft. Self-discovery is where we use the art, where we bring out the art. And without self-discipline, self-discovery is not possible.
But if you don’t go to self-discovery, just stay at self-discipline alone, then it becomes burdensome. So, with ourselves, the one extreme is, this is what I want to do, this is how I want to be, and I’m going to rigidly discipline myself. Now, a life of rigid discipline might be possible for some people, but for most people, a very rigidly disciplined life seems too mechanical, seems too burdensome.
So, we need some time for spontaneity. But complete spontaneity will also lead to nothing getting done. So, I was speaking at Intel in Phoenix.
So, I was talking about all these big achievers, big performers. So, I asked them, how many of you complete your work just when the deadline is right up at the eleventh hour? Almost everyone raised their hands. And they said, without deadlines, nothing would get done.
So, in a sense, the deadline brings some discipline. It’s only when the discipline is there that work gets done. But then they said that if you want creative ideas, if you want something special, something wonderful to come up, you cannot bring that within deadlines.
That just pops up within us. That’s self-discovery. So, for us, on the spiritual path also, we have certain rules of sadhana bhakti.
We have certain principles that we want to follow. And all that is for self-discipline. But bhakti is not just about self-discipline.
Bhakti is about how we as individuals offer our heart to Krishna. And, yes, there is a certain amount, like, for the craft, learning the craft, discipline is required. Craft of writing.
But then the art comes out. So, Srila Prabhupada was very, very appreciative and enthusiastic about devotees doing book distribution. And there were some devotees who were experts in book distribution.
And they once said to Prabhupada that, we have found out certain lines. If you speak these lines, then people just take the books. So, they said, we want to go around the world, give seminars on how devotees can speak these lines and they can distribute your books in huge quantities.
And Prabhupada became very grave. Became very grave. And he said that devotional service is individual, voluntary and spontaneous.
When a soul is inspired to serve Krishna, then devotional service is performed. So, Prabhupada said, don’t teach the lines to people. Don’t teach the lines to devotees.
Inspire devotees to distribute books. And then they will speak according to their convictions. So, we can learn a few lines.
But the important thing is that our heart needs to be infused with the desire to serve Krishna. And when that desire is there, then the service becomes manifested in a way that is individual and personal for us. So, bhakti has both these aspects.
Now, some amount of self-discipline is required in sadhana bhakti. But discipline is something which can seem like an endless burden. It is like, I just gave a seminar in Singapore as well as in Brisbane on burn anger before anger burns you.
So, burn anger before anger burns you. And I spoke about how sometimes some people are short-tempered and they make a resolution. I will never get angry again.
I’ll never get angry again. Now, when we make a resolution like that, there is no success in that resolution. There is only the possibility of failure.
Because even if I succeed for six months, I’m not really angry. So, I have not got angry for 180 days. But on the 181st day, when I get angry, the 180 days of success, there’s no satisfaction.
That I failed after so long, bad is the dissatisfaction that comes. So, when we just focus on self-discipline, then often it’s like a goal which becomes a burden. I have to achieve it, but okay, I have to keep doing it for the rest of my life.
It can start becoming a burden. So, then in that seminar, I was telling that the mind needs to be tricked so that it can accept it. So, I said, instead of making a resolution that I will never become angry, make a positive resolution.
That I will respect everyone’s right to be spoken to politely. Even if I had done something wrong, I would want that other people speak politely to me. Everyone has a right to be spoken to politely.
So, when we make that positive resolution, then what is happening? The focus is shifting from me and my controlling myself to my extending my thought to other people. Yeah, this person has the right to be spoken to politely. How can I speak politely? So, when we shift it that way, there is a certain amount of channelising of energy that comes up.
Because when we say, I won’t get angry, all that is happening, I’m disciplined, disciplined, disciplined. Curve myself, curve myself. I’m angry, I’m upset, but curve myself.
But when I say, I’ll respect everyone’s right to be spoken to politely. What is happening by that change resolution? Okay, how can I be polite to this person? How can I be courteous to this person? So, when the focus shifts to the other person, that they’re also conscious beings, they’re also having emotions. How can I respect their right to be spoken to politely? And that brings a positive channelling of the energy.
And when we do that, each person, each of us, because we’re individuals, we may express our appreciation, our respect, our emotions for each other in distinctive ways. So, in bhakti, this self-discovery is how we can individually find out how best we can connect with Krishna. So, to be our own master means, this is what I’m going to do.
And that is, to want to be our own master means to make self-discipline our supreme value. To be our own slave means to just do whatever feels good, to become like completely sold out to self-discovery. Whatever comes up, I’ll speak that.
Whatever I feel, I’ll do that. So, we need a balance of both of them. And in bhakti, there are certain rules and regulations you have to follow which require self-discipline.
But apart from those rules and regulations, there is a whole universe in which each one of us can find out how best we can serve Krishna. So, each one of us is an individual person. We have our mind, we have our own body, we have our own skills, our own inspirations, our own ideas.
And through it all, we think, how can I serve Krishna? So, when we have this, then bhakti gets an element of self-discovery. I met a Prabhupada disciple in Alachua, some of you may know him, Rochin Prabhu. So, I read about him in the Prabhupada memories.
So, this is a very instructive pastime for me. So, he was in England. And England, London at that time was the European headquarters.
So, devotees from Germany, from France, from Netherlands, various places had come there. And they were giving reports of the outreach happening in those countries. And this devotee thought that everybody has some service for Prabhupada, but I don’t have any service.
So, then he went to Prabhupada, Prabhupada, what can I do for you? And Prabhupada looked at him and said, what do you want to do for Krishna? No, Prabhupada, whatever you tell me, I’ll do. Prabhupada said, I’m asking you, what do you want to, what do you want to do for Krishna? So, he thought, maybe Prabhupada is testing me, testing my surrender. Whatever you tell me, I’ll do.
And Prabhupada said, very bravely, understand our philosophy. Just find out something that you like to do and do it for Krishna. Find out something that you like to do and do it for Krishna.
So, this is self-discovery. He said, I never thought of Krishna bhakti like that. He said, Prabhupada, I’ve got to think about it.
And then he went and thought about it a couple of days. He said, Prabhupada, I like to make things with plaster of Paris. So, I’m thinking that we have these Mrudangas which we get from India.
Sometimes they break. So, I will use locally available material and make Mrudangas with that. And Prabhupada said, very good.
He says, your western godbrothers are very passionate. He says, make a Mrudanga that even if they throw it down, it will not break. So, this is what Prabhupada taught.
This is what? Yeah. Oh, wonderful. So, you have a demonstration of that.
So, that’s self-discovery. So, when we understand it, okay, there’s self-discipline, but there’s also self-discovery in bhakti. Then bhakti doesn’t become all just about, I have to follow this and I can’t follow it.
Oh, I’m useless. I’m hopeless. I am so fallen.
We all need some amount of encouragement and stimulation in our devotion. And when we have this aspect of self-discovery, so what Prabhupada said, find out something that you like to do and do it for Krishna. That is where self-discovery comes up.
So, this was the first point I was going to make, that just as in writing there is art and craft, for us to deal with ourselves, we can’t be our own masters, sticking only to self-discipline, but we can’t be our own slaves, just giving in to whatever we feel like doing in the name of self-expression or self-acceptance or self-discovery. We need a balance. So, the rules and regulations of bhakti bring about self-discipline, but the principle of individually serving Krishna gives us opportunity for self-discovery.
So, any comments or questions? It’s very interesting that you mentioned that Srila Prabhupada told the book distributors that devotional service is individual, voluntary and spontaneous. He also told that to Karandhar in a letter in 1972. Karandhar, who was GBC for California, and he was saying how the same principle that devotees should be engaged according to their propensity, how they would like to serve Krishna.
And he said it’s your duty as managers to inspire them to want to serve Krishna. So, this is the first time I’ve heard individual, spontaneous and voluntary in another relationship. Because to me, that was very profound what he said.
So, thank you. Thank you. Yes.
When you say it was a revealing finding, generally we think about, do these rules, follow the instructions of the spiritual master. And that’s, of course, important. But if the spiritual master is not there, then we have to find out how we best can engage ourselves.
And that’s where the self-discovery aspect comes out very helpful in making our own devotional service sustainable. Because if it’s something we like to do, then we can ourselves do it without anyone pushing us or anyone having to remind us. That’s how it becomes sustainable.
Thank you. Yeah. Thank you very much for making this visible.
Because I just retired. I’m trying to find myself. You know, I’m very in a very flux.
So, I want to discipline myself to increase my number of rounds and so forth and discipline. But I also want to discover myself. So, thank you.
Oh, thank you. Yeah. In 1975, my son was in Dallas, Minnesota.
And she was one of the teachers there and the school closed. And Prabhupada said, okay, we will take all the children to India. And they will go to Gurukula in India.
And the temple president in those states, devotees were like deck of cards. So, they were dealing the devotees. Okay, you go here, you go there.
So, I went to Mayapur festival. And I attended one of Prabhupada’s darshans. And I heard he likes macadamia nuts.
So, I had a great basket of macadamia nuts. And on the top, I wrote a little letter. Because I couldn’t go through his secretary and his bodyguards and the GDCs.
And on the letter, I said, I just wanted to thank you, Tom, for the daughter of Gurukula. Because I’ll be thinking about that because that’s where my son is. They were going to send me to Gurukula for it.
And Shri Krishna Maharaj, at that time, he was very high up. And he came and he found me and he said, Shri Prabhupada said, yes. So, we formed a woman’s party.
And we distributed books with the Brahmachandra. That was the second time. In India or in America? Oh, over in America.
Oh, okay. But it’s in that same room. Prabhupada facilitated your desire.
Thank you, Bhishay. Yes, thank you. Thank you.
Yes. When the Chaitanya Bhagwat, the Qazi, the Muslim Qazi and other Muslims, they’re speaking to Haidas Thakur. And they’re telling, look, you know, you took birth in a Muslim family.
Now, you have to return to the fold. You have to recite the Kalmashah. You have to come back to where you were born.
So, what did he tell them? So, he told them, look, everybody worships the same Ishwar. And how, now, the word that’s used is lawa, to take. But in the first instance, the meaning is that, however, Krishna, the Ishwar, however, Ishwar is inspiring everyone.
They’re acting according to that inspiration. But now comes the important part. Just like the rain falling during the Swati Nakshatra, it lands on the ocean, it becomes pearls.
It lands somewhere else, it becomes another kind of jewel. So, Krishna is inspiring everyone. But according to where the inspiration lands, that person will have a certain bhav.
And Krishna will reciprocate with that person’s individual, how they have accepted this inspiration. Just like Prabhupada was saying, what do you want to do? Beautiful. And then finally, he says, I am simply acting as I’ve been inspired by the Ishwar.
So, without that magic ingredient, inspiration, then how the self-discovery can come? Needs a spark. So, it’s a question or a comment? I don’t know. It just came out of my mouth.
Yeah. So, Hridayastrakul says that the way the Lord inspires, everybody approaches Him accordingly. So, without that spark coming from the Lord, can we have that self-discovery ourselves? Yeah, I think it’s a reciprocal process.
It’s whatever little we know about ourselves, we are ourselves also quite complex beings in the sense that we have different kinds of desires, different kinds of interests. So, whatever we understand about ourselves, we use that and act accordingly. And then over a period of time, yeah, this works well, this doesn’t work so well.
We understand. So, I have a whole seminar I give in colleges about how to discover your purpose in life. People are not interested in hearing about the ultimate purpose of going back to Krishna.
They say, okay, how can I act and how can I contribute in this world? So, I talk about the ultimate purpose, but I also talk about this. So, in that, I talk about three things. And then there is purpose, sorry, problem, potential and process.
That means, is there something wrong in the world which you feel needs to be fixed? It could be something very simple. Oh, books are not being, in our devoting moment, books are not being distributed. Kirtan is not happening so nicely.
Preaching is not happening. The deities are not being worshipped. The cooking is not done so well.
Is there some problem out there which you feel, oh, this should be fixed? Something we feel that needs to be fixed? No. It could be in our small world and then that’s a problem. Then second is potential.
Do I have the ability to fix it? So, broadly speaking, if we are good at something, then we say work according to our propensity. That propensity comes out in two ways. That’s competence and comfort.
So, competence and comfort. So, competence is when we are working, we are good at doing it. And comfort means we feel nice, we feel happy doing it.
That’s the potential. And then third is the process. So, is okay, this particular thing is not happening.
I have the ability to do it. Now, is there a way I can work to fix it? So, if you look at these three things, now, we might ask, okay, this is not working well. So, then, okay, let me try to do it.
It’s a self-discovery, doesn’t have to be like one day I wake up and I know this is what I am meant to do for Krishna. Now, we may have to try different things and eventually find out something that works. And we continue that.
So, Krishna’s inspiration didn’t have to come like one life-changing insight. Krishna’s inspiration can also come as a gradual orientation of our life. This is where I am meant to go.
This is how I can best contribute. So, it can come both ways. I have a question.
Yeah, please. Sometimes it’s kind of confusing to figure out what you’re supposed to do. Because, like, if you have a lot of, maybe, some different types of talents.
And then, you also, in the Gita, it says, even if you’re good at something, you should just do the thing that you’re supposed to do. Even if you might be better at somebody else’s duty or something like that. It just, it makes it confusing because you’re like, you want to do your duty, but what is your duty? How can you tell what your duty is? And in Gita, it’s actually saying that you, even if you do it better, you should still do your actual duty.
Like, even if you do something else better. So, it makes me feel like a little bit confused because I’m thinking, what’s my duty? And then, there’s so many different things that I can actually do. Yeah, okay.
So, I think there are two separate points over here. So, what does the Gita say that we should stick to our duty even if we can do something else better? So, actually, let’s look at the exact verse. Krishna speaks this twice in the Bhagavad Gita in 3.35 and then 18.47. 3.35 says, śreyāṁ svadharmo vighunāḥ paradharmāt svanuṣṭhitāt svadharme nidhanaṁ śreyaḥ paradharmo bhayāvah So, śreyāṁ svadharmo vighunāḥ Do your own dharma, even if it is faulty.
paradharmāt svanuṣṭhitāt As compared to others’ duty, our own duty, it is better to be situated in your own duty. svadharme nidhanaṁ śreyaḥ Even destruction in one’s own duty is better than paradharmo bhayāvah paradharmo bhayāvah To do another’s duty is fearful. And same thing Krishna repeats later in 18.47. śreyāṁ svadharmo vighunāḥ paradharmāt svanuṣṭhitāt svabhāva-nīyataṁ karma kurvan nāpnoti kilvisham If you work according to your nature, then you will not be bound.
There is no bondage that will happen by that. So if you look specifically at the context of the Gita, Arjuna is a kshatriya and he is about to fight a war. But he thinks that, let’s forgive the Kauravas for whatever they have done.
I will live in a forest and let everything be as it is. So forgiveness is a brahmanical virtue. And brahmanas at an individual level can and should be forgiven.
But a kshatriya is meant to manage his state. And if a kshatriya starts forgiving wrongdoers, the wrongdoers will simply keep doing more and more wrongs. So Arjuna is a kshatriya.
And the Kauravas have repeatedly, again and again, done not just wrong, but more and more brazen wrongs. And not even the slightest repentance at all. So they had to be punished.
So when Arjuna says, I will not fight the war, he is acting like a brahmana. And Krishna tells him, Arjuna, you have the nature of a kshatriya, you cannot act like a brahmana. So even if you think that, okay, in fighting this war, you may have to kill your relatives or you may yourself die.
He said, it is better for you to act as a kshatriya. Because that is your nature. So even if it is viguna, even if there is some fault in doing your kshatriya duty, still do your duty.
Because then you will be in accordance with dharma. And Vishwanath Chakradhakar, in his commentary, the same thing comes later also in 18.58-59-60, where Krishna says to Arjuna that, that everyone is forced to act according to their nature. And if you give up your nature, it will not work.
And Vishwanath Chakradhakar there in his commentary says, oh Arjun, you are saying that you will live like a mendicant, like a brahmana, on charity. But it will not work. Brahmana takes charities like this, stretch out their hands and take some alms.
A kshatriya takes taxes. It’s like this. Taxes, taxes, taxes.
You know, he is going to take it. The people want to give it or not, the government will come and take taxes. So, as they say, after death, the thing that is sure is taxes.
So now he is saying that, you have that nature of kshatriya. If you go and beg for alms, and somebody says, no, we will not give you alms. So he says, immediately your hand will go to your sword and will take out a sword.
How dare you don’t give me alms? And he says, when you take up alms like that, you will be doing adharma. Because you are acting, you are taking on the role of a brahmana, but you are acting like a kshatriya. And for a kshatriya to take up weapons is fine.
For a brahmana, it is not. So Krishna is telling Arjuna that, you will not be able to sustain your kshatriya, your brahmana activities. And that’s why eventually you will do adharma.
So therefore, the stress of the Gita is, for Arjuna to act according to his nature. And that means, when he is saying that, it is better to do your own duty, he’s not so much talking about the capacity to do it better, but rather the capacity means the expertise. What is the mentality, psychology? He says, you don’t have the nature of a brahmana.
You will not be able to sustain yourself if you act as a brahmana. So that’s the primary meaning in the context of the Gita. Now, specifically in our situations, if we have many different talents, and then we may be confused of what is the duty that we should do with our various talents and disabilities.
We just stick to our duty. We live in an age which is significantly different from, say, the Vedic times. And desha-kala-vibhaga-vaita desha-kala-dharmagya Bhagavatam says that, according to the time and place, we have to perform our duties, our dharma.
So basically, for each one of us, our duty refers to, we have certain social roles and certain responsibilities or expectations according to those roles. Now, we act according to those roles. But in today’s world, the roles themselves may not be fixed.
They may be fluid. And the roles are fluid. We have to see, the whole principle of sticking to duty is that we can be in harmony with our material nature while we are striving to come into harmony with Krishna.
I’ll repeat that. We live in harmony with our material nature while we strive to come to harmony with Krishna. Come to harmony with Krishna means develop pure service attitude.
But live in harmony with our material nature means whatever it is that we naturally love to do. So a Kshatriya likes to manage, to delegate, to get things done. A Brahmana likes to intellectually analyse, write, teach.
So if you’re in harmony with our nature and then we are pursuing to be in harmony with Krishna, that is a relatively joyful way of practising bhakti. So regarding our duty, we just see that there is something which we have to do because of our particular role in society. But there is something which we may inspire to do also.
So it’s not that we give up what we have to do to take up what we are inspired to do. But we try to create a balance between the two. It’s not that because I have this duty, that is what, that alone I have to stick to life.
That it is, say, one example of Prabhupada’s resourcefulness was with respect to gender roles. When Prabhupada was in India, he generally encouraged women to take up traditional roles of being homemakers. But when he was in the West, his disciples, all the devotees, they observed that they were all very resourceful, men, women.
So he didn’t tell them you have to conform to this. So our nature doesn’t just come from our past lives. Our nature also comes from our upbringing.
So if somebody has been, say, Prabhupada encouraged people to build farm communities. And devotees. Now, if somebody has always lived in a city, and then we tell them to go and live in a farm.
Now, for some people, they’re bound up with city life and they find farm very good. For some people, living in the farm itself is so exhausting that instead of having more time to practise bhakti, they have no energy left to practise bhakti. Along with austerity in the farm.
Austerity of living in the farm. So the principle is that we don’t have to make bhakti more difficult than what it needs to be. If somebody has lived in a city environment where they have some basic comforts and that’s what they need, so then their mind will be peaceful and then they can practise bhakti.
If somebody has lived in a relatively austere place, relatively austere place in a rural setting, now if they get city luxuries, that might distract them from Krishna. So we have, we could say like a particular optimum level of material engagement which helps us to focus on Krishna. If it is less than that, or it is more than that, it becomes a problem.
So what is that optimum engagement? We need to find out for ourselves by our intelligence and our experience. By intelligence, we observe ourselves experiences, we work on things. Yeah, this is good.
This is not very fulfilling. Then gradually we gravitate towards that optimum engagement. Does it answer your question? It was the general and the crocodile.
Yeah, excellent. He was in the water and he couldn’t fight over there. It’s a good example.
Thank you. So that was the first point I made that we are neither our masters nor our slaves. Actually, the second point came up in the discussion itself, but I’ll just make it personal.
We have to learn to contend with ourselves. Content, content. Not content.
Contend with ourselves. Contend means like you have to say, if you have to work with someone who is not very obedient, then we have to bargain with them. Okay, you do this, I will do this.
So we have to contend with ourselves. That means we can’t, because we can’t force ourselves to do whatever we plan to do. But at the same time, we can’t let ourselves do whatever we feel like doing.
So we have to contend with ourselves. Okay, this is what you like to do. You do this.
But this is what you have to do. You do this also. So if you do this, then you can do this.
So basically, the whole idea of contending with ourselves is that Krishna says, for example, in the Bhagavad Gita 6.5, he says, He says, elevate yourself with yourself. Don’t degrade yourself with yourself. Actually, the Sanskrit word is Atma.
And Prabhupada translated it as the mind. And it becomes a little more understandable. Otherwise, you say, elevate yourself with yourself.
Don’t degrade yourself with yourself. The self is the enemy of the self, and the self is the friend of the self. What is the self? You might get confused by that.
Now, we can separate it. Okay, Krishna is saying, elevate yourself with your mind and don’t degrade yourself with your mind. But it’s interesting, when Krishna is saying, elevate yourself, he is not saying, elevate yourself simply by controlling your mind.
Elevate yourself with your mind. It’s not that we keep the mind down and we rise up. The mind is always with us.
And we can’t just abandon the mind. So, the mind is a part of the vehicle that we have. So, the body and the mind are the vehicles the soul has.
And Krishna said, elevate yourself with the mind. That means, use the mind as a tool to elevate yourself. Not that you just throw the mind aside and then you rise up towards Krishna.
It doesn’t work like that. The mind is our constant companion. So, yeah.
I’m neophyte with the philosophy, but my understanding is that the true intelligence is in our heart, from Krishna, from me comes all knowledge and knowledge and forgetfulness, and with that intelligence to control the mind. No? Yes, correct. See, but my point here is, with intelligence we control our mind, with intelligence coming from Krishna, that is true, no doubt.
At the same time, we don’t have neat little boxes inside us. This is the mind, this is the intelligence. The mind is saying this? No.
Intelligence is saying this? Yes. There are no easily identifiable boxes like that. So, when something comes up within us, how do we know whether it is an impulse coming from the mind or it is a guidance coming from the intelligence or coming from Krishna? So, it’s not that we can look at their source and identify it.
What we can broadly do is focus not on where something is coming from, but where something is taking us. So, okay, if I act on this, is it going to take me closer to Krishna? Is it going to help me become a better person, a better devotee? Or is this going to pull me down? So, based on the result of where something is taking us, we can broadly infer. So, when Krishna, if you see in that section 6.5 and 6, Krishna is probably just talking about we and our mind.
We and our mind. Elevate yourself with your mind, don’t degrade yourself with the mind. So, that means, here Krishna is saying, you, we, he includes intelligence.
Use your intelligence to engage the mind in the construct. Say, for example, right now, and we’re trying to have this discussion. So, now the mind might be distracted, but we are focussing the mind.
So, one way to understand this is that if you have a big computer screen, and sometimes when people have big monitors, they may have multiple windows open. Or I was in many places, but I was in London at a big building. So, they had a security office.
So, that building had five different doors and there were CCTV cameras at all the doors. And from there, the camera input was coming on a big screen. And the security in charge was sitting and looking at all the windows.
And any place, any door, he would see somebody suspicious coming in, press the button, zoom in, and that particular window would zoom out and fill the whole screen. So, we could say our mind is like that big screen. And on that mind, there are different windows.
Say, for example, right now, when I’m speaking something, the sound window is open. The sight window is also there. But then, you might be feeling, oh, it’s a little too hot, a little too cold.
So, when you feel that, okay, it’s manageable. Just for some time, I can manage it. But if you feel it’s become too cold, I need to get some cloth, I’ll cover myself, then I’m ready.
So, basically, when some other window opens up, when that window pops up, then we decide. If we pay attention to it, it’ll zoom out. But if we don’t pay attention to it, it will stay minimised.
And then we can focus on that particular window. But the point is that even to concentrate on Krishna, we need to use the mind. So, that’s why Krishna says, fix your mind on me.
So, we can’t leave the mind behind and go toward Krishna. If we use the mind, so the mind is like that screen. On that screen, all kinds of temptations can come.
On that screen, Krishna can also come. So, instead of thinking of the mind as one thing, it’s like one screen with many images on it. Many windows open.
So, our expertise or our intelligence is to know which window to zoom out and which window to minimise. So, that is where our control is. So, ultimately, we can’t do our duty.
We cannot be thoughtful unless the mind is somehow involved. But the thoughtfulness is in making sure that the window which we want opens up. So, I write on the Gita every day, an article on my website called Gita Daily.
So, there I wrote an article recently. Since we are always full of thoughts, but we aren’t always thoughtful. So, we are always full of thoughts.
That means on that inner screen, there are many windows that always open. The inner screen is never blank. But we are always thoughtful means the window that is important, it’s not that we always give attention to that.
Sometimes some unwanted, some casual idea comes up and we spend a lot of time on that. Something important, we neglect it. So, we need that inner screen.
We need the mind for our functioning. That’s the point I was making. So, this also reminds me, in the Gita, it’s also saying that the uncontrolled mind becomes one’s enemy.
And Krishna’s talking about how to make your mind your friend. So, when your mind is your friend, then it can be your greatest friend and help you in so many ways. That’s true.
So, that means on the inner screen, if the images that are good for us, that comes, then it’s our friend. The unwanted images keep popping up again and again. Then it becomes like our enemy.
So, with respect to, we need to contend with ourselves means that I was talking about that point that contending with ourselves means recognising that, you know, this is the kind of screen I have right now. These are the windows that are open. And I can’t suddenly want that some other window, these all windows disappear and some other window comes over it.
These are the windows that I have. Okay, among these, which should I focus on? Among these, which one should I focus on? Okay, this one. This one is good.
It may not be the best one, but this is what I have. Okay, it’s got discharged now. Can you turn that on? It’s on.
Can you put this for charging somewhere? Thank you. You can take this. You can take this one.
You can find this in the charger. Okay. So, we need to contend with ourselves means that this is the screen which I have right now.
These are the windows that are open. Among these, which is the best I can use? And sometimes we want our life to be very different from what it is right now. I want to do this.
I want to be like this. I want this kind of relationships. I want this kind of service.
But we can’t begin in our life unless we begin with our life. We can’t begin in our life. Okay, I want to go there.
Say, if I want to drive somewhere and then I have taken a wrong turn. I have got somewhere else. I can beat myself.
What a fool I am. What a fool. I didn’t take a wrong turn.
But if I have to get where I want to go, I have to begin from where I am. So, we can’t begin in our life unless we begin with our life. See, if our mind is in some ways uncontrolled, mind has certain likes, certain dislikes, we need to acknowledge this is where I am and from there we move forward.
Okay, this is what I can do right now. This I will do later. We need to contend with ourselves.
And so, when we decide, okay, I want to do this for improving myself. Sometimes we try to take up too many things for improving ourselves. And then, okay, I want to improve my chanting also.
I want to improve my study of Shastra also. I want to do my deity worship better. I want to chant my rounds better.
And we try to do everything better. We do it for one day, two day, one week and it becomes such a burden that we give up everything after. Okay, let me plan for the next one month, I am going to focus on improving myself.
Then maybe next one month, I will focus on studying Shastra. And then next one, okay, I will focus on more my relationship with devotees. So, when we do that, okay, one thing at a time, then we feel that we are achieving something in that direction.
And then we can shift also. So, we need to contend with ourselves. That is the second point I was speaking on.
That rather than expecting that I should be able to obey myself or that I will just go along with whatever I feel like doing, we contend with ourselves. This is where I am. And from here, let me move forward.
So, any comments about this point? Okay, so I will move on to the third point. The last one. Lord Krishna helps us to bring out our best.
So, continue with that travelling example. Say, if we were using a GPS and GPS told us turn right, but we turned left and we went far away from where we wanted to go. Now, if we want to turn right and we turn left, then what does the GPS do? It reroutes us.
Does the GPS say, you didn’t obey me, get lost. GPS never says that. And Krishna is like the ultimate GPS.
So, no matter how many wrong turns we may have taken, no matter how many mistakes we have made, so Krishna still is there with us to guide us. So, sometimes we think that we think of Krishna’s plan like one line. If I go along this path, I am calling that Krishna’s plan is working in my life.
And I have gone off that path, that means now Krishna’s plan is not there. But it’s not like that. No, Krishna’s plan is too big to be thwarted by our mistakes or our wrong rules.
So, even if we take some wrong turns in our life, that doesn’t mean that Krishna’s plan stops acting. Now, there’s a difference here between, I’ll talk between this, there’s a difference between Krishna’s plan and Krishna’s purpose. What do I mean by difference? Let’s take an example of a classroom or a school.
Now, in a school, there are exams. If the student fails in the exam, the school has a plan for it. If you fail in one subject, you go to the next level, but do this subject again.
You have failed in three, four subjects, better stay in this level and do this year again. So, now that means, even if a student fails, the school has a plan for the students. Just because of failure, the student doesn’t go out of the school’s plan.
But the school’s plan, the school has a plan for those students who fail, but the school’s purpose is not that students fail. The school’s purpose is that the students pass and move to the next level. So, Krishna doesn’t want us to fail, Krishna doesn’t cause us to fail, but if we fail, we don’t go out of Krishna’s plan.
So, similarly, some of us, we may, because of our conditionings or conditions, have taken some wrong turns. And those wrong turns may have consequences. It’s like in Google Maps also, by using GPS, if we take a wrong turn, it’s not that the wrong turn doesn’t matter.
The wrong turn does matter in the sense that getting to our destination will take time, more time, more fuel. But just because we take a wrong turn doesn’t mean we are lost for it. The guidance of the GPS is still there for us.
So, similarly, even if we happen to take some wrong turns in the past, even if we resolve to do something and we made a complete mess of our lives because of some things that we did, still, we are within the purview of Krishna’s plan. It’s like even if I take a wrong turn, still, we are within the purview of the GPS. And from there, the GPS can guide us.
So, Krishna doesn’t reject us because of our mistakes. In fact, sometimes our mistakes may make us want to connect with Him more. So, when we are contending with ourselves, I want to do this, and I will not do this.
But sometimes we are not able to stick to what we plan to do. But even if that happens, rather than getting disheartened, we rise and resume our connection with Krishna. Okay, I took a wrong turn.
Let me now take the right turn. Let me take the right turn and let me move on. And if we persevere on that journey toward Krishna, then we start understanding ourselves better and start connecting ourselves with Krishna better and better.
So, Krishna always loves us. And He is… Can you guess how far Krishna is from us? He’s in our hearts. He’s in our hearts, right here.
So, He is just one thought away. One thought away. The soul and the super soul, the bridge between them is just one thought.
If you think about Him, that we are connected with Krishna. Even if we don’t immediately feel His presence, that connection is there. Even the person who loves us the most, they hug us in the tightest of hugs.
But still, they can’t come as close to us as Krishna always is. So, Krishna never forsakes us. No matter whatever mistakes we might make.
In the Gajendra’s prayer, it is said, माद्रुप्रपन्नपशुपाशविमोक्षणायः मुक्तायः भूरिकरुणायः नमोलयायः So, the Gajendra is praying that, my dear Lord, please release me from this. Pashupashi is caught by a crocodile and we are also caught by the crocodile of our conditionings. So, he says, पशुपाशिमोक्षणायः Lord may say, why should I liberate you? Why should I free you? Because, मुक्तायः My dear Lord, because you are free.
When somebody is bound and somebody else is free, naturally a bound person will say, I want to free you. मुक्तायः But the Lord may say, you are bound by your own karma. So, it is you only that mistakes and as a consequence you are bound.
So, why should I free you? भूरिकरुणायः Yes, my dear Lord, because you are very compassionate. Although I don’t deserve to be freed by my karma, I deserve to be bound. But because you are compassionate, so in spite of our, my bad karma, you free, please free me.
And the Lord may say, I have been trying to free you for so long. But you never, you didn’t get free. You chose not to get free.
I free you and you bound yourself again. So, then he says, my dear Lord, you never get tired of us. You never get tired of trying to help us.
So, therefore, we are untiring. And therefore, oh Lord, please release me. So, Krishna is like that.
He is untiring. He is present close to us in our hearts and his purpose is not to catch us when we are wrong. Ah, you made that mistake.
Now suffer the consequences. That is not Krishna’s way. Krishna’s purpose is to catch us when we fall.
It’s like a mother is helping a child learn and the child takes a few steps and falls. Now, when the child falls, the mother doesn’t clap happily. Hey, you fell down.
But the mother runs over there and catches the child. So, Krishna is like that. Krishna, his purpose is to catch us when we fall.
And that’s why he is always there with us. So, we talk about various kinds of faith. There is faith in Krishna’s existence.
There is faith in Krishna’s intelligence. There is faith in Krishna’s divinity. That’s faith.
The greatest faith that can help us move on always in our life is faith in Krishna’s benevolence. That Krishna always cares for us. And Krishna will never abandon us.
So, if we can have that faith that Krishna will never abandon us, then we will never lose heart and we will never abandon Krishna. So, if we don’t lose heart, if we just keep taking steps forward, whatever steps we can in our journey towards Krishna, sometimes the steps will be small, sometimes the steps will be big. With small steps we keep going towards Krishna and Krishna will bridge whatever distance remains.
So, sometimes in our spiritual life, if we become proud, Oh! I am so spiritually advanced! Then we can look ahead. Look at the Goswamis, look at Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, look at their exalted levels of love and then understand, I have a long way to go. There is nothing to be proud of.
But if we become discouraged, then we can look behind and see how far we have come. If we look at ourselves, how we were 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago, there is definitely a difference. The difference in our values, difference in our purpose in life.
So, despite our conditionings, despite our half-heartedness, despite our offences, despite our wrongdoings, Krishna has brought us a long distance. That same Krishna has brought us so far that Krishna will take us all the way again also. So, when we become discouraged, we look back and see that yes, we practise bhakti, but most of the times we have advanced not because of ourselves, but in spite of ourselves.
We have this attachment, this distraction, this offensiveness. But in spite of that, we have come so far. So, if we have come this far by Krishna’s mercy, surely Krishna will take us in our inner journey ultimately towards Him.
That is our hope and that is our confidence. So, I’ll summarise. I spoke on this theme of self-reciprocity and self-discovery moving in our inner journey.
And I spoke about three points. The first point was that we are not our own masters, but we don’t have to be our own slaves. So, be our own masters means have rigid self-discipline.
But that is not so sustainable because we are not like machines that will just operate according to our discipline. But then the other extreme is self-expression. I’ll just be who I am.
That’s self-discovery, self-expression, self-acceptance. If that is taken to an extreme, then we’ll never improve. If a musician, they want to express themselves.
But before that, they have to learn the basics of music. A writer may want to express oneself. So, then writing has a craft which requires self-discipline and writing has an art which is self-expression or self-discovery.
So, for us also in our spiritual life, there is the rules of bhakti which are the part of self-discipline. And the self-discovery is how we, according to as Prabhupada said, bhakti is individual, voluntary, and spontaneous. Find out something that you like to do and then do it for Krishna.
So, we look for some problem that we feel needs to be fixed, the potential that we have and some process by which we can deal with it. So, we can link the potential to the problem. So, that way, we can be making our offering to Krishna.
Then the second point is that we need to learn to contend with ourselves. Contend with ourselves means like we would get some other person to do certain things with a to and fro kind of negotiation. Similarly, we need to elevate ourselves with our mind, not that we can leave our mind behind and become elevated.
So, whatever is there on the inner screen, I talk of the mind like the inner screen on which various inputs are coming in from the senses and other places. Whatever is there on the inner screen, we have to choose the best among those options. And we can’t begin in our life unless we begin with our life.
And like if we have taken a wrong turn, wherever we are, from there, we try to find the best path forward. And then the last point I said is Krishna helps us to bring out our best. So, Krishna is like the ultimate GPS.
Even if we take wrong turns, Krishna is still there to guide us back. So, no mistake can ever take us out of Krishna’s plan. Krishna’s plan is not that we make mistakes.
Krishna’s purpose is that we move towards it. But Krishna’s plan is big enough to include our mistakes. And Krishna is just one thought away from us.
He is, his purpose is not to catch us when we do wrong, but to catch us when we fall like a loving mother and help us rise again and move on. So, if we feel proud, we look ahead and see how far we have to go. But if we feel discouraged, we look behind and see how in spite of ourselves, Krishna has brought us so far.
And that same Lord, who has brought us so far, will also take us all the way, along all the way, ultimately to be united with Him. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
Thank you. Real quick question. When you speak to non-devotee groups, do you utilise the name Krishna as God, or do you use the generic God? Do I use Krishna when I speak to non-devotees? It depends on which audiences they are.
If it’s a corporate audience or a college audience, that they want us to be secular, then I use the word infinite or simply the whole. So, the source, the whole, the infinite. Some of them, the word God is, has fallen out of favour.
So, it’s like the Star Wars they have, may the force be with you. Now, if they had said, may God be with you, theatres would become empty. So, actually, I think the source, infinite, the ultimate reality, or the whole and the part is quite fine.
Be in harmony. So, how I explain chanting is, that this is an affirmation. O part, return to harmony with the whole.
Same thing. It’s the same Krishna, but O part, return to harmony with the whole. Now, when I’m speaking to yogis, they are interested in yoga already, and they’re open to bhakti yoga.
So, rather than presenting Krishna as God, I present Krishna as the object of loving yogic meditation. So, rather than presenting Him as a religious deity, or even as the supreme, there are great yogis in the past, as they move forward in their yoga, they meditate on this conception, this vision. So, Krishna is the object of loving yogic meditation.
And if we present Krishna as, even if we present Krishna as God, if we just present the Krishna conception of God, God is all-attractive and Krishna is all-attractive, then many people are ready to accept it. But you know what GPS means, right? He was telling that. God is a generator.
God’s positioning system. Oh, okay. God’s positioning system.
That’s good. I think I taught it many years ago. I’ll use it in future.
Thank you. Yes. Any other comments or questions? Yeah.
I’ve heard that the only defence that can check your progress is Vaisnava, Ninda, Vaisnava. Let me start the call. Yeah.
The only offence that can stop us progress is Vaisnava, Ninda. Yeah, basically, the whole idea is that we want to love Krishna. And to love Krishna also means that we love those whom Krishna loves.
So, if we are criticising devotees, then we are not really acting in our mood of loving service to Krishna. Krishna takes away our taste. So, it’s best to try to avoid as much as possible offence towards us.
And especially, the offence, it’s not just criticism. Sometimes, circumstantially, if somebody is not doing the service well, and has to be done on time, we may even yell at someone. We can apologise afterwards.
But that kind of circumstantial strong speech is not as serious offence as is intentionally wanting to pull down a person because we feel envious of them. Say, somebody gives a very good class. Somebody gives a very good class, and everybody is appreciating the class.
Yeah, malice is tied in with envy. Exactly. Prabhupada uses it like, he said that Harinikashipu is envious of Prahlad.
Yes. So, in that case, it’s malice. It’s much more than that.
It’s not jealousy. It’s not jealousy. It’s very actively expressed envy, which leads to enmity.
It wants to bring the other person down. So, that’s serious. But then, the discussions, they can be taken.
Then, there’s the other extreme, where sometimes a discussion needs to be taking place, and one shouldn’t be too hypersensitive over having a discussion about what’s proper and what isn’t. Yeah, that’s true. Otherwise, how will we maintain standards? How will we be able to make sure that things are on track? There’s definitely an aspect where we have to point out if some things are wrong.
So, generally, it’s best if we focus on the actions and not on the person. Not say that you are a deviant. That has become too direct an attack on the person.
This action, is this in conformity with Prabhupada’s teachings? How can we make sense of this action? Basically, the more closer we get to the person, it’s like cutting close to the nerve. You cut the hair, there’s not much pain. But, if you cut a nerve, a person screams.
So, questioning an action of someone, it may hurt, but it doesn’t hurt as much as like questioning the character of a person. Say, this action, that this action is not what Prabhupada will do. This action is not what Prabhupada would ever do.
That’s saying one thing. You are a deviant. That is quite another thing.
So, if we can keep it as objective as possible, then even those difficult discussions can also be done among devotees. There’s a lot of talk today in circles, people trying to cultivate this about loving oneself. On the other hand, we have the example of Krishnadevaraya Goswami saying, I am a worm in school, I am more sinful than Dalai and Madhai.
And then we have some people who are so devoid of self-respect, self-esteem, that they develop a coping mechanism to put everybody else down, that they’re all idiots and myelodies and whatever they may be, and all that. In order that they can feel better about themselves. So, the question is, is it that for some people to cultivate self-respect and self-esteem is a good thing, a positive thing? Whereas the ultimate objective is that my opinion of myself is just going to get worse and worse as days go by.
So, I end up like Krishnadevaraya Goswami. Is it that as we grow up spiritually, that our opinion of ourselves becomes worse? Like Krishnadevaraya Goswami thinks that I am lower than a worm on a stool. But some people, they feel so that they have no self-respect and then they try to pull down other girls.
So, is self-respect necessary to be developed for some people? Okay, let’s talk about this in three parts. First, let’s talk about Krishnadevaraya Goswami. The fact is, although he speaks like that, that, oh, I am lower than a worm, but still, he is writing the Chaitanya Charita Amrit.
That means, he doesn’t consider his fallen state a disqualification from performing devotional service. So, there is a, I tend to say, we may be unqualified, but we are never disqualified. So, we may be unqualified.
Yes, I don’t have necessarily purity, knowledge, maturity to serve Krishna, but that’s that lack of qualification. But disqualification, you’re not allowed to participate. So, his humility does not make him feel I’m disqualified.
His humility does not stop him from rendering service to Krishna. Rather, with that humility, he actually is more prayerful, more dependent, but still, he is serving Krishna, wholeheartedly. So, I put it this way.
These are five fingers. So, this is the soul. This is Krishna.
And this is Maya, or this is disconnection from Krishna, temptation, illusion. So, our humility should come here and connect us with Krishna. Okay, not humility.
You could say, let’s put it as the opposite of humility. I am very fallen. So, I feel guilty.
I feel full. So, guilt should come here, in between us and wrongdoing. Oh, I have committed so many wrongs.
I’m so fallen. But guilt should stop us from doing wrong. But guilt should come between us and the wrongdoing.
But sometimes, it comes over here. It comes between us and Krishna. You are so fallen, that I cannot practise bhakti.
I’m so fallen. One person, I took a taxi once to go from the airport to the temple. I told the taxi driver, come to the temple.
He said, I’m so sinful. If I come to the temple, the temple will become contaminated. Now, that is not humility.
That is actually a perverse ego. It’s like saying, you know, I’m so unclean. If I take bath in the river, the river will become unclean.
You are not so unclean. Don’t think like that. So, our impurity can never be bigger than Krishna’s purity.
Or Krishna’s purifying potency. So, if any emotion is coming between us and Krishna, then we have to see that that is a form of Maya. So, this is guilt.
But here, what is there is pseudo guilt. Pseudo guilt. Pseudo guilt.
Pseudo false guilt. So, pseudo guilt is where we feel that I’m so fallen, but we feel fallen and then we stay fallen. But the great devotees, they feel fallen, but they don’t stay fallen.
They are very enterprising in rising toward Krishna. So, they never feel disqualified for their work. And then, if they are such great souls, then why do they speak like this? Obviously, they’re not more fallen than a worm in a stone.
Why are they speaking like this also? So, I was asked once a question that, does humility have to come at the cost of honesty? You should be honest. Why are you speaking like this? But actually, the fact is, that his scale of perception is entirely different. He’s so absorbed in love for Krishna and he’s so absorbed in feeling Krishna’s love for him that in contrast with the ocean of love that he feels Krishna is giving me, what am I doing for Krishna? So, when he feels that ocean of love for Krishna, then, and he feels, actually, I’m not doing anything.
Because he feels I’m not reciprocating at all with Krishna, that’s why he feels I’m so fallen. So, his scale of reference itself is very different. And we don’t have a scale of reference.
We don’t really feel, oh, Krishna is doing so many things for me. Now, Prabhupada says in a lecture, how do you know whether you’re Krishna conscious? He says, if you go in front of the deities, and you feel that Krishna is asking you, what are you doing for me? What are you doing for me? If you feel that Krishna is asking us that, then that means we are Krishna conscious. Now, most of us, when we go for Krishna, or at least most people, when they go for Krishna, they ask Krishna, what are you doing for me? So, we don’t usually feel that Krishna is showering love on me and I’m not reciprocating.
We feel I’m doing so much struggle to serve Krishna, Krishna is not reciprocating. That’s what we feel. So, we can’t artificially imitate that level.
So, the scale of reference itself is different. It’s like if you’re travelling in a plane and you sit right next to the wing, and then if you look outside, and it seems that the plane is moving very, very, very slowly. You can see the wing and you can see, it’s almost like it’s going for a stroll.
But it may be moving at 500 miles per hour. So, from that perspective of the sky, the background is simply like one vast sky is there. So, in the background of that vast sky, even the super fast movement of the plane appears like a very gentle motion.
But then when you start looking down, and as the plane starts coming down, you see how big buildings, bridges, road is. So, when the scale of reference is the ground, then we can see how fast the plane is moving. When the scale of reference is the sky, the plane seems to be moving very slowly.
So, our perception depends on our scale of reference. So, for great devotees, their perception is entirely different, or rather the scale of reference is entirely different. And we don’t have a scale of reference.
So, we can respect Rahita Shankar’s humility, but we can’t artificially imitate that. Now, let me complete this. Now, at our level, we need the confidence that even I can serve Krishna, that I can do something worthwhile with my life.
And that much self-esteem, or self-respect, or whatever word we want to use, we need that. Otherwise, how are we going to serve Krishna? It’s like, we are our only resource. Nobody else, I cannot replace myself with someone else.
So, I am my only resource for serving Krishna. And therefore, it’s like say, if I’m an author and I have a laptop, now that laptop will be old, that laptop will be slow, that laptop may be messy. But if that is the only laptop I have, if I throw it away, I’ll have nothing.
So, if that is my only resource for writing, then I have to use it as well as I can. Time for Gayatri. Similarly, for all of us, we are our only resource.
And we need to at least have that much respect that this resource can be used in Krishna’s service. So, even if you sometimes feel, I’m good for nothing. I’m hopeless.
I’m useless. I’m a terrible person. My life is terrible.
Everything that I do is terrible. And all bad things are happening in our lives. You know, when we feel that we are hopeless, and we are helpless, we are powerless, there’s a good counterintuitive exercise that we can do.
What is that counterintuitive exercise? My life is hopeless. I am powerless. I can’t do anything.
Just turn and ask yourself this question. No matter how bad things are, can I make them worse? You say, who wants to make them worse? That’s not the point. But can I make them worse? Think of any situation, we can surely make it worse.
I might fall and fracture my foot. And I can take a hammer and break my knee also. So, whatever situation I am in, I can make it worse.
So if I can make it worse, that means I’m not as powerless as I think. If I can make it worse, that means I can make it better also. So therefore, each one of us has that potential to make things better.
So that much respect at least we need. And if we understand that I’m a part of Krishna, then a part of respecting Krishna is respecting his parts also. He says, I want to respect other living beings, I want to respect myself also, because I’m a part of Krishna.
So some amount of self-respect is required so that, yes, even I can serve Krishna. Even I have some abilities, some gifts, which I can use for Krishna’s service. Now, acknowledging our ability, that is not necessarily lack of humility.
Somebody can sing well, somebody can speak well, somebody can manage well, somebody can cook well. Acknowledging that is not lack of humility. It is attributing that ability to ourselves alone.
It is thinking that this is my ability. Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita that ability in people is his gift. So actually, to have an ability is a gift.
To know that we have the ability is a greater gift. And to know that that ability is not ours is the greatest gift. So if somebody is the first level, they don’t even know that they have an ability.
That is not humility. That is simply inferiority, low self-esteem. So inferiority complex is false ego frustrated.
Whereas humility is false ego rejected. So false ego frustrated means I want to be great, but there is nothing great about me. So I feel frustrated.
But false ego rejected means, yes, I have this ability, and I can gloat about that ability, but I have something better to do than that. I use this ability to serve Krishna, to glorify Krishna, and I don’t care about how much praise I get out of doing it. So that is false ego rejected.
False ego frustrated is inferiority complex. False ego rejected is humility. So acknowledging that we have ability is not lack of humility.
So if we have some ability to acknowledge that, and we use it in Krishna’s service. So not just some devotees, every one of us needs self-respect. And what happens, regarding the last point of devotees pulling people down, that’s what happens many times, say if some devotee gives very nice classes.
And some other devotee can also give good classes, but the devotee says, I’ll be humble. So if I give classes, then I’ll become proud. So I’ll not give any classes.
But then what happens, that still that pride is there. Then what happens, that same devotee, somebody else gives good classes, and then everybody’s praising that such a nice class he gave. And this devotee says, yes, did you see how much prasad he eats? So what is happening, that pride is now coming out as envy.
So the cure for pride is not the suppression of talent. It is the purification of intent. If I have pride, it is that, okay, it is not that, after I do some praiseworthy service, after that I become proud.
It is actually the pride is already there. After I do some praiseworthy service, I get some reason to express that pride. It’s not that the pride is not there.
The pride is already there. But if I’m not doing praiseworthy, what am I proud of? So it’s not that doing some service well will make us proud. The pride is already there.
But when we do that service, two trajectories are possible. One is that we do that service, we get that praise, and then we drink in that praise, and then our pride comes out explicitly. Or we do that service, and we connect with Krishna.
And when we connect with Krishna, that gives us satisfaction. And then over a period of time, we start realising, actually, that absorption in Krishna is far more satisfying than my own glorification. I remember it happened once to me.
I had prepared a class very well, every single point well thought out, flowing. And I gave a class, gave the class, and I expected that everybody will appreciate that class. And not one single person appreciated.
So I was feeling so agitated, and then suddenly struck me that while I was preparing the class, I was absorbed. While I was delivering the class, I was absorbed. But now I’m dissatisfied.
So I realised that even if somebody praises me, that praise will last for a few moments. But the absorption in Krishna is something that can last forever. So now if I had not given the class, I’m not saying at all that I’m free from pride, I’m still struggling, but at least I got that realisation.
Okay, if I speak so that people will praise me, that may or may not come. But if I speak so that I can be absorbed in Krishna, then that can always be with me. So that is, so by such connection with Krishna, by such experience of absorption in Krishna, gradually the purification of intent happens.
Okay, I’m not doing this so that people will praise me. I’m doing this so that I can glorify Krishna and become absorbed in Him. So the cure for pride is not suppression of talent, but it is purification of intent.
So even if somebody becomes proud of their service, that’s okay. They’ll become proud for some time. The material world is such that it doesn’t allow anyone to stay proud for very long.
So whatever pride they develop, that will end soon. But the connection with Krishna which they have established, that will stay forever. When we are taking prasadam, we don’t need anyone to tell us, now you are full and are you satisfied? We don’t feel that also.
Similarly, when we are absorbed in Krishna, we just get so much satisfaction. We don’t feel that anybody has to tell me that. So Maharaj has two books, but he’s only got one copy of each.
Some of his devotees have seen these. Actually, I have to say, Chaitanya Chandra Prabhu, he’s like a transcendental Mark Twain. He’s got these quotes, just a book full of just one-liners that are just sparkling.
They just sparkle. What’s the title? This is Gita Wisdom Through Quotes. So is Ramananda going to be the contact for us? Is that how we’re going to get these books? Yeah, that would be fine.
Okay. So the other book is on the Ramayana. It is Wisdom from Ramayana on Life and Relationships.
So I’ve taken 20 incidents from the Ramayana and analysed them, narrated the story and analysed them from practical life lessons. So why do good people sometimes do bad things? So Kaikeyi, she was a wonderful mother, but suddenly she conspired to send Rama away. So why did that happen? Or Swalya and Sugriva, they were brothers and friends, but suddenly they became enemies.
So why do misunderstandings occur? Why do friends become enemies? When bad things happen to us, at that time, when do we accept it as destiny? And when do we endeavour to change it? So when Rama was exiled to the forest, he accepted it as destiny. But when Sita was kidnapped, he didn’t accept that as destiny. He fought to get her back.
So when to accept as destiny, when to challenge? So what is destiny? How it works? That’s explained through various essays. And of course, there is the elaborate explanation of that very disturbing pastime in the Ramayana. Why did Rama send Sita away? To the forest.
So these two books are available and they will be shipped within a week or 10 days from India. I came from Australia and somehow the books which are supposed to get here, there was a new temple Bhumi Poojan in Sydney and they wanted to distribute those books to the guests over there. So I couldn’t get the books here, but I’ll ship them as soon as I can.
So thank you. From Amazon you can order, but these are books published by mainstream publishers. So the Ramayana book is available on Kindle,