How to deal with distress through devotion

[Sunday feast class at ISKCON, Baltimore, USA]

Video

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
I’m grateful to be here amongst all of you today and I’ll speak on the topic of from distress to devotion and I’ll speak this in three parts and after each part I’ll pause briefly and if you have any reflections or questions you can ask and at the end also we’ll have so three points I’ll be speaking is distress is life’s one undeniable truth second point will be our purpose determines the magnitude of our distress and third will be devotion minimises life’s distress so the first point is that distress is life’s one undeniable truth reality there are people can have many different beliefs some people believe in god, some people don’t believe in god some people believe they themselves are god you can have many different ideas some people believe in soul, some people don’t believe in soul we can believe and disbelieve many things in life but there is one thing we can’t that is belief and that is distress everybody experiences distress in life and even if people are very famous and successful I have travelled across the world I have talked with many people very successful and if you just scrape a little bit below the surface you find that they are all working through their own tragedies life is tough for everyone and to some extent in the modern times we have learned various means of covering up the reality of distress so through entertainment we see so many people enjoying life in such big ways, we start thinking that is the way real life is and then we can’t reconcile the way we are having life ourselves few things make us as unhappy as the belief that everyone else is happy so few things make us as unhappy as the belief that everyone else is happy if we have a disease and everyone else is healthy why do I have a disease? not that we want everyone to be unhappy but it’s just that we live in a democracy so if distress is democratic then we feel it’s ok there is epidemic, everybody is sick over here why me alone? but actually everybody is facing distress sooner or later and there have been existentialist philosophers in the 20th century who came up with very gloomy reflections of distress there was a philosopher Albert Camus he said that life is distress therefore the only philosophical question worth asking is whether to commit suicide today or tomorrow that’s all so the distress is universal and this is what the Bhagavad Gita also tells us dukkha leya masyashvata now at one level this can seem pessimistic but it’s not necessarily pessimistic it’s actually realistic and we may go to many motivational talks and you do this and you become happy and you do this we may feel good temporarily but at the back of our mind a wiser part of us knows that this is just painting a rotten building just putting a nice coating if you put nice fresh coating the building will look like new but it is a rotten building and that’s why if we come to shastra, we come to the Bhagavad Gita and we hear the world is a place of distress it’s actually not pessimistic it’s actually gives a lot of relief why relief? that means I am not abnormal why are there so many problems in my life no you are not abnormal everybody has problems just that different people may have problems in different ways but distress is life’s one undeniable reality and recognising this does not mean that we resign ourselves to a distressful life the point when the Bhagavad Gita says this world is dukkhalaya the Gita is not telling Arjun that ok this world is dukkhalaya so stay dukhi now this world is full of distress so stay distressful no that’s not the point the Bhagavad Gita has spoken to Arjun at the start of the Gita he was in great distress tam tatha krupaya vishtam ashru purna kulekshanam his eyes were brimming with tears normally no matter how distressed we are we don’t cry in public and especially somebody who is like a warrior kind of man like Arjun for him to cry in public means he must be in great distress so at the beginning of the Gita he is in distress, at the end of the Gita he is calmed down nashto mohasmati labdha tvat prasadamaya chuta sthito smigata sandeha karishe vachanam tava so he says my doubt is gone my delusion is dispelled, I have calmed down so his distress has to a significant extent gone so when we say distress is life’s undeniable reality that doesn’t mean that we are all meant to be always distressed it’s like recognising that the world is like a hospital so if in a hospital all the patients are in denial then neither can they take the treatment nor can the doctor give the treatment so what we do when we begin this is one life’s undeniable reality distress, we acknowledge the world is like a hospital and let me see how I can move out of it what can I do to deal with it how can I deal with the distress, how can I overcome the distress what can I do about it as long as we deny distress we can’t deal with it at all that is the first point I was going to make the distress is life’s one undeniable reality so any questions or comments at this point a few things, unhappy I said not healthy, unhappy few things make us as unhappy as the belief that everyone else is happy thinking that you feel yeah, so you’re better than so it’s vice versa what you think is challenging in your life about this thing that you want to achieve something and you fail that’s the next point, I want to talk about purpose that’s the next point there has to be some challenge in life to achieve something in your life and it is possible you can fail and then you get into distress but it doesn’t stop yourself good point, yes, thank you yes, sometimes when we are in a lot of distress if we meet somebody who is in greater distress than us then we start feeling my situation is not so bad sometimes when we are in too much distress we may feel that my life is helpless I am completely trapped, I can’t do anything have any of you felt like that I am in such a trap right now I can’t do anything about it have any of you felt like that anyone yes, some of you have you felt like that you can jolt yourself by one counterintuitive question counterintuitive question ok things are bad now and I feel I am powerless but no matter how bad things are can I make them worse who wants to make them worse they are already bad that’s not the point whether we should make them worse of course we should not but can we make them worse yes, no matter how bad things are we can always make them worse we might slip and fall and get a fracture and may be bed ridden for the next one month and we will be frustrated but then I feel I am helpless I can’t do anything but I can always take a hammer and crack my other knee is it so the point I am making over here is that no matter how bad things are we can always make them worse and that means we are not as powerless as we think if we can make things worse then we can make them better also so that feeling of powerlessness can prevent us from doing something which we could do to change the situation for the better so we do need some challenge and purpose in our life that’s my second point so the first point was that distress is universal now if we look at our own lives it is I am talking about the second point our purpose decreases our purpose determines the magnitude of our distress so we are not afraid of distress itself we are afraid of we don’t, we dislike especially purposeless distress say if you are walking along a road somewhere and suddenly a thorn pricks us in the foot we will be annoyed, we will be irritated we will be infuriated also but if we go to a hospital and we take an injection the injection, the dose is also going to prick us but then it’s a pain but it’s not that big a pain why? because we know it has a purpose this is going to treat me, this is going to heal me so it’s not just the experience that determines our pain or how much we suffer because of that it determines what is our purpose our purpose determines the magnitude of the distress so when I see something as purposeful then we are better ready to tolerate it say if somebody just tells us ok I got this 30 kg suitcase, you carry it ok I have to carry it, what to do but if we are going to a gym to train our body and there we go and lift maybe we lift more than 30 kg weight and we feel proud I lifted so much weight because there we see it’s purposeful so now most of us probably think that the purpose of life is pleasure we all want to be happy however pleasure is too cheap and too fragile to sustain us through life’s troubles if we make pleasure as the purpose of our life, it is too cheap and too fragile what do I mean, these two words are important, too cheap cheap means what say most of us probably have some children in our close or extended family and sometimes when you have to have fun with children, you might tickle the child, isn’t it now when you tickle someone especially the child, you tickle them and they start laughing laughing now they start laughing like a child now, is that happiness what do you think, is that happiness well maybe some kind of happiness but if that itself if that’s the happiness and happiness is our life’s purpose, then we all could get our own perpetual tickling machines and we can tickle ourselves for the rest of our lives or some people like to watch comedy shows now in today’s internet connected world we could if say, if we had enough financial security we had no obligations we could sit and watch comedy from morning to night now we might do it for maybe a day or two, after that what would happen I want something to do with my life somebody say for the rest of your life you just watch comedy I want to do something bite our teeth in something, do something challenging so pleasure although we all want pleasure pleasure is too cheap a purpose for our life again what we want is some meaningful pleasure if you consider the happiest moments in our life look back it’s not just when you went to do something for enjoyment and got some enjoyment the most deeply happy moments are when we did something worthwhile something was difficult, something was challenging but when we took the trouble did that and then we feel some fulfilment so happiness is best experienced as a byproduct not a product a product means I do something to get happiness byproduct means that I am doing something meaningful happiness comes as a result not even the main result but as a byproduct so happiness is best experience as a byproduct not as a product and what is the byproduct of a meaningful life suppose somebody decides to become a doctor and then study very hard lot of competition somehow they survive they succeed and then they are able to treat someone and heal someone they feel some satisfaction if you have family and then you work very hard and you take care of your family and your child grows up and becomes a good human being a good person then you feel fulfilment so happiness is best experienced if we take responsibility to do something meaningful in others and this is where wisdom is differentiated from knowledge knowledge you could say knowledge means to know that tomato is a fruit wisdom means to know that tomato should not be put in a fruit salad so what is the difference that technically something might fall in this category but it is not belong practically over here the fruit salad you cannot put that so similarly for us when we are going through life at that time we all have certain purposes but if pleasure is the purpose of our life the pleasure means what? whatever I am doing I should be able to enjoy it just about 10 days ago I was in Stanford I gave a talk over there after that American lady came and she was telling me that her daughter she is in Stanford obviously to be in Stanford she is brilliant but she says she has changed her major for 12 years now so she is around 29 and she is still in the first year of her major I said why? she says that she feels she does not feel happy studying her subjects I want to find out what study will give me happiness so now ok studying we don’t want to study a subject which we utterly dislike but if you just make pleasure the purpose of studying you can’t sustain you can’t sustain at all because what will happen is that even if we like something there are times when we will not like it nature of the world and the nature of the mind are such that even if there is something which we really like to do but there will be times when we will just not like it one of my main services is writing I have written about 25 books some of them will be available outside after the talk so I get a lot of absorption when I write but still there are times when writing can be so exhausting frustrating because nothing seems to be coming or at least whatever is coming is not good enough so we get into what is called a writer’s block there is a writer who said that writing is very easy all that you have to do is just sit in front of a computer and glare at the screen till drops of blood form on your forehead even if you like to write there will be time when you will not like it so if we start living only for pleasure then what happens? when the pleasure stops why continue this so pleasure is too cheap a purpose and secondly pleasure is too fragile a purpose if I think the purpose of education is pleasure then if I have to study a subject which I don’t like, will I give it up? pleasure as a purpose will not sustain us, it is too fragile because sometimes life will put us in distressful situations nowadays relationships are breaking down quite a bit in the past we had joint families, then there were nuclear families and now we also have nuclear fission and electrons and protons are orbiting around alone in the concrete jungles this is of course a complex and sad occurrence now there could be many reasons for it but one reason is that in the past people understood that relationships are obligations is this my responsibility to form a relationship? let me go through it but now relationship is seen not as an obligation but as an option so yeah okay I don’t enjoy this, why should I continue it when that is the attitude, in every relationship there will be difficulties one of my friends is a marriage psychologist so he told me there are only two kinds of couples I have met one is couples who quarrel among each other and the other is those whom I don’t know very well those whom I don’t know very well so that means there are differences among everyone two people are going to live together, it is never going to be always a smooth flow so if pleasure is the purpose of the relationship after sometime the pleasure stops why am I here? so pleasure is too fragile a purpose to sustain us through life’s troubles and that’s why we need a higher purpose in fact when pleasure becomes our purpose then distress seems to be the entirely opposite of that why should I have this distress, why should I tolerate this and the worst situation comes when we think pleasure is the purpose and when we get distress and then we become, we feel we are victimised I am a victim, this person did like this to me that thing happened over there, this person did like that now many people go through their lives feeling victimised it’s true that sometimes bad things do happen it’s terrible when it happens but in one sense everyone is a victim sometime or the other so life victimises us all and distress if pleasure is our driving purpose in life then what happens when distress comes we feel victimised and once we feel victimised then we become resentful resentful and then revengeful why is this suffering coming in my life, why is this person so happy and when we become resentful and revengeful then it’s a very dangerous track to go on we can become aggressive, we can become violent we can become hateful and many of, I was just came from, I came from Australia so about 15 20 days ago, so there the whole, that continent Australia New Zealand was shaken because there was this brutal shooting in Christ Church where in a place of worship a race married person just went and shot indiscriminately now he published his manifesto and his own manifesto, why he did it all people want publicity, see what happens sometimes people feel that my existence doesn’t count so I want it to count in some way or the other now to become famous by doing something good is very difficult but to become famous by doing something bad is relatively easy so we can become hateful and we can become terribly violent so whole of New Zealand was shaken because of that and basically we might think such a horrible person but if we look at our own thoughts, sometimes we also get horrible thoughts about other people we all can’t see each other’s thoughts and that’s a great blessing if we could start seeing each other’s thoughts not a single relationship could be sustained you think like this about me you have that kind of desires, this is your opinion about me it would be impossible so nature has given us some natural buffer between our thoughts and our actions so the point I am making is, this is the second point that pleasure is too fragile what is the purpose? the purpose will determine the magnitude of our distress so if the purpose itself is pleasure then it will be very fragile why am I doing this? there is no pleasure, just let me give it up and let me hit out at all the people who are having pleasure because if I am suffering what right do they have to be happy? it can become a very very dark mindset so by our purpose if we have made pleasure the purpose of our life, when distresses come, we will increase the magnitude of our distress we will make ourselves more miserable than we need to be but if we have some higher purpose for our life then we will see that that pleasure is not there that distress is there but it’s a part of my life let me do something meaningful let me do something worthwhile and when we say purpose, so I was talking with that mother and her daughter so I told him that it’s not that you have to you will be sitting and one day you will discover a purpose the purpose comes not by discovery but by responsibility purpose comes not by Sunday you are sitting and some light goes off in your head ya this is the purpose of my life this is what I meant to do now purpose comes not by some mystical discovery but by conscious responsibility conscious responsibility means ok this is the situation I am in this is what I know about myself these are my abilities, these are my needs these are my limitations in this situation how can I take responsibility how can I act in a responsible way so to the extent we take responsibility to that extent it gives us a purpose in our life, otherwise is thinking one day I will find my purpose and what is the idea of my purpose, something which makes me feel good but no matter what makes us feel good today, tomorrow will not make us feel good if we ask our mind what is the purpose of my life the mind will give us one answer whatever you are doing right now, that is not the purpose of your life that is not the purpose even if we go to paradise the mind will say yes but you will find something to complain about so this was the second point I made that it is purpose that determines the magnitude of our pleasure or pain and if pleasure is the purpose of our life then we can increase our distress because pleasure is too cheap and too fragile to sustain us through life’s troubles any comments or questions about this so let me go to the last point now the last point was first I talk about distress is unavoidable purpose determines the magnitude of the distress third point is a devotional purpose can decrease our distress what do we mean by devotional purpose most people think of devotion or religion or worship as a means to some purpose say I am in some trouble and I come to god and I pray to god oh god please help me solve this problem so what is happening over there when we come to god we have some other purpose and to fulfil that purpose we want god to help us in that once a person purchased a lottery ticket and it was worth a million dollars the first prize so he came to a temple and said to god oh god if I win this ticket I will give you 50% and then after that it was after one week that result was going to come everyday he was praying and waiting and then when the results were announced he saw that his name was there as a winner he was delighted and suddenly he stopped he noticed that he had won the second prize it was half a million dollars so he thought about it and then he came to the temple and he said oh god you are so clever you took your share before me so what happens over here in such situations we are treating god as a means to some purpose it’s good that at least we are coming to god it’s good that at least we are worshipping and connecting with some higher reality however the defining difference between religion and spirituality many people like to say I am SBNR SBNR means I am spiritual but not religious so this religion is narrow minded, it is dogmatic whereas spirituality is open minded, it is experiential that’s good we don’t want to be narrow minded or dogmatic but at the same time the main difference between religion and spirituality is in our purpose when we are pious or religious we see god as a means to some end in the world whereas when we are spiritual we understand that god is the ultimate end Bhagavata says after many lifetimes of spiritual evolution we understand that Vasudeva Krishna is everything he is the be all and end all of life whatever joy we might get in obtaining anything connecting with anyone achieving anything all that joy and more we will get if we become connected with Krishna and devotion everything attractive everywhere manifests a spark of Krishna’s splendour in 1041 in the Gita Krishna says that everything attractive manifests a spark of his splendour a spark of his splendour so what does it mean that whatever it is attractive different people are attracted to different things I don’t know when A is attracted to something and B is not attracted what is this what do you find so attractive in this yoga yoga has come from India but it is much more popular in the west than in India now I have gone to yoga studios and I have given talks on yoga wisdom so I came to know recently there is another new form of yoga which has no scriptural mention it is called doga what is doga doga is yoga with your dog actually they are yoga teachers they are doga teachers because some people are so much in love with their dogs say I want whatever I do in my life I want to do it with my best friend so if I want to do yoga I also want to do yoga with my dog so even the dog has to learn yoga and then the doga teacher come and people do yoga with their dogs so now we may find what is there so attractive about a dog somebody who is not a who has never had dog as a pet who is not experienced what is there so attractive in this now somebody else who might be mad with their dogs somebody is mad after some sports stars some cricket stars, some basketball what do you find so attractive in this person so sometimes we may not be able to comprehend why people are mad after this person or that person or this thing or that thing it is because they are experiencing the spark the spark of Krishna but it is only a spark if we are in dark even a spark will give some light but the spark cannot give much light it cannot give light which will illuminate the whole room that’s why whatever we get attracted to we may get some pleasure, some connection some joy in that but it won’t last for long if you understand that ok this is attracting me so much but what is attractive about this it is Krishna now what do we mean by Krishna, Krishna is not just some some image we see in the temple Krishna if you understand this is the source and reservoir of everything attractive that is the meaning of God, God is the best in our conception of everything and even beyond our conception of everything so in Bhakti when we understand that God is my purpose that means that means that whatever I do I do it ultimately for the purpose of connecting more with Krishna of learning to love Krishna more of becoming more absorbed in Krishna so we do have some practical purposes, when we are working at our job we are taking care of our families we have some practical purposes but the practical purpose is not our ultimate purpose just like a student who is studying, say the child is learning to write now at one level the child is learning to write the child’s purpose will be ok I want to pass this exam, I want to do this assignment otherwise my teacher, my parents will will be unhappy that’s one purpose but there is a much bigger purpose the child learns writing that is going to be lifelong asset so every activity can have multiple levels of purposes if a child thinks only completing the assignment is my purpose, then the child may never learn writing similarly for us whatever we do in our lives there is some immediate purpose for us but there is a bigger purpose the bigger purpose is ultimately we want to connect with Krishna what we are is Krishna’s gift to us and what we become is our gift to Krishna what we are is Krishna’s gift to us we all have certain abilities, certain talents certain capacities certain interests, certain passions so what we are right now is Krishna’s gift to us and what we become with what we have, what we become is our gift to Krishna so we want to use our talents not just to have big achievements so that the world can know how big I am some people say I have many hidden talents the problem is they are hidden even from me so some people they are interested in the talents not just so that they can do something meaningful they are interested in the talents so that they can get the world to praise them the world can know how great I am that’s one purpose but that’s a very fickle purpose if you understand our talents our abilities are gifts from God and we can use them in a mode of devotion and service yes I want to make a contribution in this world in the best way that I can but I also want to make a connection with Krishna you have given me these gifts, let me use them in your service if we are in relationship with family our children, our spouses, our parents we see that relationship not just I do this for this person, this person will do this for me we don’t have this transactional attitude towards the relationship a transactional attitude means that basically both partners or both people in the relationship are simply manoeuvring in a power game to gain more control it’s like a transactional interaction is where you go to a shop and you want to buy something now the customer wants to pay as less as possible and get as much as he wants and the seller wants to sell as less and get as much money as they can so both of them are manoeuvring for control so that kind of relationship cannot be very steady or fulfilling once there was a marriage counsellor he was counselling people, so he said all the men over here, all those men who are controlled by their wives come on this side and all the men who are in control of their wives come on this side so all the men went on one side, only one man went on the other side so he asked him are you in control of your wife? actually my wife told me to come here laughing laughing laughing laughing laughing so basically sometimes people are just manoeuvring for control in a power game and if that is the case, then there cannot be much fulfilment in that relationship yes, we all have our weaknesses, but if we see that my relationship with this person is not only my relationship with this person ultimately by relating with this person and by doing my responsibility in this relationship, I am connecting with Krishna it is ultimately by Krishna’s arrangement that I am in this situation and by doing my my role in a responsible way I will grow toward Krishna and to the extent we take this responsibility in our lives, to that extent we will find that the distress will get minimised how does that happen? I will conclude with this point and then we can have questions that we may have to live with pain but we don’t have to live in pain we may have to live with pain that means pain is a part of my life but to live in pain means, pain completely consumes my life now what is the difference between the two and how can we move from so where should we live, should we live with pain or in pain better without pain laughing sorry through pain yeah we have to live through it, that’s true good point best would be if there were no pain but if at all pain were there, it is better that we live with pain rather than in pain so now what will determine this so if we think that my current situation is my permanent situation if if in present I have some pain and if we are too obsessed with only the present then we will feel this pain is going to be always there in my life and how can I live laughing what is the point of my life if I have to live in pain like this but if we see that the present is there but it is not permanent now what you said live through pain see what happens is sometimes when we are going through a dark phase in our life we start thinking that this is like a dungeon in which I am going to be permanently trapped but actually it is not a dungeon, it is a tunnel it is a tunnel if we keep walking no matter how dark it seems, the darkness will end we can look back at our own lives in the past we have all gone through dark phases at that time it might have seemed overwhelming but now they are over so what seemed overwhelming in the past is over now so what seems overwhelming now will also be over in the future so rather than getting overwhelmed what we see, our spirituality helps us understand that we are souls we are eternal we are much bigger than our present situations and therefore this present situation is not our permanent situation seeing that perspective I may be in pain right now but I don’t have to obsess over it another point is if we have a satisfying object of thought then our pain can become minimised a great need for all of us is a satisfying object of thought in fact entertainment people are so obsessed with it because they are nothing satisfying to think about therefore ok let me just watch some movie I want something satisfying to think about so the most satisfying object of thought is Krishna so when we start thinking about Krishna our problems may not go away but many times if we keep thinking about the problem the problem starts becoming more and more and more if you see a graph of problem solving capacity with time if I have a problem and I don’t think about the problem that is a problem, I have to think about it so that I can solve it so when I think about it you can see the graph moves straight up my capacity to solve the problem as I think more and more ok I have got this issue, I’ll do this, I’ll do this, I’ll do this I get some clarity but if you keep thinking about it after sometime it just comes to a flat you keep thinking, keep thinking there is no solution that comes up and after sometime the graph starts going down the more we think the more confused we become, the more overwhelmed we become the more disheartened we become some people say I was confused earlier now I am not so sure I was confused earlier now I am not so sure same thing overthinking is often a big problem so when we are practising Krishna Bhakti what are we doing when we make Krishna the purpose of our life ok I have nothing to I have this problem I have thought as much as I can about dealing with it but no solution is coming so let me turn my thoughts towards Krishna and thinking about Krishna will give us relief, it will give us strength even if the problem is not solved still we will get relief because the mind is being obsessed with the problem, the mind being tormented by the problem will not happen it’s like say outside there is a lot of heat and we come to air conditioned room the heat outside has not gone away but we feel relief similarly we may have problems in our life but when we become conscious of Krishna then we feel relief, unfortunately what we do is we come to the door of air conditioned room we open the door and we wait for the air conditioning to heat up the world outside to cool the world outside that is not going to happen that means we come to Krishna but when we come to Krishna we are still thinking about our problems instead of becoming Krishna conscious we remain problem conscious instead of reminding ourselves how big Krishna is if you remember how big Krishna is the problem will become small but we come in front of Krishna and we keep remembering how big the problem is so don’t tell God how big your problems are tell your problems how big God is so when we become conscious of Krishna then we will find that even amidst stress we will get relief if we are just thinking about the problem we will be living in pain but if we think about Krishna the problem will still be there we will be living with pain not in pain and that’s why we need to make a habit of becoming conscious of Krishna the more regularly we become conscious we may chant Hare Krishna come in satsang, do some puja study the shastra we make a habit of being conscious of Krishna then when distress comes we can direct our consciousness toward him and then we can experience relief amidst distress also and gradually by Krishna’s guidance we will get the intelligence to move out of the problem to solve the problem to outgrow the problem so thus by making Krishna the purpose of our life we will be able to minimise the distress instead of living with pain we will live in pain when Prabhupada was asked what is Krishna consciousness he gave different answers one answer he gave was that when we come in front of the deities if we feel Krishna is asking me what are you doing for me that we are the servants of Krishna so we are meant to do something for Krishna what are you doing for me if you feel like that then we are Krishna conscious but most of the times we come to the temple and we ask Krishna what are you doing for me I have this problem, this problem, this problem what are you doing for me so if we come with that attitude we will never reap the full enriching power of Krishna consciousness when we make Krishna our purpose we will discover that we are tougher than what we thought that whatever faces us is never as big as what graces us whatever faces us is never as big as what graces us Krishna graces us from within the world has a huge power to hurt but greater than the world’s power to hurt is Krishna’s power to heal greater than the world’s power to hurt is Krishna’s power to heal so instead of turning toward the world we turn toward Krishna and thereby we gain relief even amidst our distress I will summarise what I spoke today so I spoke on the topic of how we can experience distress from distress to devotion how we can move so I talked about it in three parts the first part I spoke was that distress is life’s undeniable reality everybody has distress distress is democratic and we can argue about the non-existence of God soul or whatever we can’t argue about the non-existence of distress and few things make us as unhappy as our belief that everyone else is happy so when we say life is distressful that doesn’t mean that we are meant to live a life full of distress it just means that the world is like a hospital so we begin with a realistic starting point the second point I talked is that our purpose determines the magnitude of our distress if somebody is somebody gets an injection it’s pain, somebody gets a thorn that’s also pain but one is purposeful, the other is purposeless and our irritation is significantly lesser when it’s purposeful most of us think pleasure is the purpose of life but pleasure is too cheap and too fragile we could always get a perpetual tickling machine or just sit and watch comedies for the rest of our life but we’ll be bored, it’s too cheap and too fragile because if we are to have a meaningful life sometimes we will have to face distress so if we think I’m studying only for pleasure we might end up spending 12 years just going from one major to another if we think that relationship is only for pleasure then we might just keep jumping from one relationship to another to another but when we take up when we have a purpose then we see okay, this pain may come but it’s a part of life, I’m doing something purposeful and purpose comes not through some mystical discovery but by conscious responsibility then I talked about how devotion devotional purpose can minimise our distress then I spoke that devotion is not just doing some ritual of worship devotion means making God the purpose of our life, not that we use God to achieve some other purpose not like that lottery ticket where he said that oh you already took your share we understand that everything that is attractive in the world it’s attractiveness comes from Krishna so whatever joy I get in connecting with that all that joy and more I’ll get in connecting with Krishna so to make Krishna the purpose of our life means to see that whatever we are doing, we are doing it for the purpose of connecting so what we are is God’s gift to us, what we become is our gift to God and when we do our when we do our work, it’s like a child can study for just getting the can learn writing to get the assignment done or can learn writing to be able to write well so we all have particular purposes but we need a bigger purpose also, so in our relationships in our jobs, we understand ultimately I am doing this in a mood of contribution to connect with Krishna, he has given me this ability, he has put me in this position, let me serve him and when we have that ultimate purpose even if there is some distress at the immediate level that bigger purpose will keep us moving and we may have to live with pain but we won’t live in pain the bigger picture expands our consciousness if we are too present obsessed then the present is all that will consume us we think I am in a tunnel I am in dungeon and I am trapped but we understand it’s a tunnel if I keep moving on, I will come out and when we we don’t tell God how big our problems are but tell our problems how big God is come to God not to ask what are you doing for me but ask what am I doing for God when we make it a habit to fix our consciousness on Krishna then amidst problems when we think too much, the problems become worse by overthinking, so we need a satisfying object of thought, when Krishna becomes our satisfying object of thought then we will be able to rise beyond distress thank you very much, Hare Krishna any questions or comments, we have few minutes yes, please second point, purpose yeah like, which your friend is correct, yes, that’s true so he didn’t talk much about what was the purpose but he talks about, yes, purpose is what helps us to move forward in life yes, thank you good question good question so if somebody has pleasure as the purpose of their life how can we help them to make God the purpose it’s not that you have to give up pleasure to make God the purpose even in connecting with God there is pleasure but it is not that always there will be pleasure, sometimes we will go to through dry phases in our devotion also so generally we humans have this capacity it’s a remarkable capacity to negotiate with reality that means we can forego of pleasure in the present for a brighter future that’s the whole principle of sacrifice a student could be playing but the children they could be playing but they say, no, I will forego the pleasure of playing so that I can have a brighter future so this is build into every fabric of life that we need to give up forego something in the present so that we can get to something in the future something bigger in the future if you understand that point then we can start with that point and nobody will deny that principle you want to learn anything even if somebody wants to enjoy music yeah, you can enjoy music but if you want to practise music, it’s hard work to get this right again and again to get this right, it takes time it takes effort so that principle if you understand the major difference is that when we apply that principle to spirituality then the result is eternal in any other area the result will be long term somebody spends throughout their childhood and youth hours and hours day after day learning some physical skills they discipline themselves to become cricketers they might succeed but they will get it for 10, 15, 20 years if somebody wants to become a musician somebody wants to become software engineer that also requires sacrifice so I feel the word sacrifice people may not use but that principle is universal and then if you tell them that pleasure is the purpose but there are different kinds of pleasure you could just sit and watch movies right now and get some pleasure but you could work hard and learn some skill and then get absorption contribution to that skill and you will get better pleasure so devotion is also like that so the same principle but expanded to the scale of eternity ok any one more last question yeah ok that’s a good point see I didn’t go much into how specifically in Krishna consciousness we can see the distress so yes you could say that past distresses helped us to grow up spiritually and it’s almost always true that it is tough experiences either voluntarily chosen or involuntarily imposed that help us to grow physical growth happens automatically it’s like suppose somebody is going for weight lifting now if they look at the weights such a big weight I can’t lift it but if they look at somebody who has a very attractive physique I want to have physique so depending on our vision where our vision is our motivation is determined accordingly of course this is a material example but the point is that if we look at the distress alone this is so terrible but if we understand in general distress is the way to growth in life or in nature also things are broken down to be made better clouds in the sky can look very beautiful but clouds have to break apart so that rains can come then when soil the soil may look very good but you have to put a plough through it to break the soil only then you can use it for irrigation for cultivation agriculture then when grains come grains have to be broken so that you make flour so that it becomes cookable then when the food is cooked you get chapatis, you get parathas you get so many items you have to break them so that you can eat sometimes when devotees serve prasad the plate is arranged so artistically you feel as if eating this is doing violence to this artistry but how will you get nourishment otherwise so sometimes, not sometimes, most of the times the existing order needs to be broken so that a better order can emerge and that’s why in our lives we may have some order in our life and a distress comes why does distress come the distress means chaos it’s confusion it’s panic, it’s fear but often nature order has to be broken so that a better order can emerge so if you understand this principle this is how in general nature works and ultimately controlling nature is Krishna this is how Krishna works so then we can we may never we may never be able to welcome distress it’s almost impossible but what we can do is at least we can not resent distress so yeah this distress is there but I don’t want to resent it I won’t resent it, let me see how I can move on so just looking at how Krishna how past distress has helped us grow spiritually how being conscious of Krishna has helped us in the past to go through distress and how through the distress we have learned something better so I use the acronym ACE ACE is when distress comes look for the good around the bad look for the good that can help us to counter the bad and look for the good that may emerge from the bad so ACE if you look at it this is bad but what are the good things in my life many good things in my life look for the good around the bad suppose I lost my suppose say I suddenly lost my job, that’s a bad thing but look for the good around it look for the good that can help you to counter it ok, I am young, I am healthy I have some experience, I have some credentials look for the good that can help us to counter the bad and an E is look for the good that may emerge from the bad just like when the cloud is broken that’s bad, but from that the rains which are usable, which survive which leads to sustenance of life, they come so if we have that attitude that the order of things in life is that order is disrupted so that better order can emerge then we can face distress more positively thank you very much Mr. Prabhupada Ki Gaura Bhakta Vindaki