Bridging the gap between what we are and what we want to be

[Talk at Perth, Australia]

Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEtqKydeZW8

Hare Krishna.
Thank you for coming today evening. So today I’ll speak on this topic of bridging the gap between what we want to be and what we are. We all want to be better human beings, better professionals, better devotees.
We all want to be better than what we are right now. And this distance, this gap between what we want to be and what we are, that is what gives dynamism and direction to our life. But sometimes when this gap seems to become too much, then it leads to discouragement.
So I will talk this class in three parts. First, I’ll talk about how this gap exists for all of us in various walks of our life. Then I’ll talk about a story from the Ramayana of a good character who did something bad and then how they reformed after that.
And then we’ll talk about how the principles and practises of bhakti can help us to bridge that gap as well as to live with that gap while the bridge is being built. So there are two kinds of love. Say, if we consider parents and children.
For parents and children, there can be two kinds of love. One is the love that guards and the other is the love that guides. So, for example, say your child is playing with other children.
And in every group of children, sometimes there are some kids who are bullies and they start teasing or they start needling and they start pestering your child. At one level, the natural instinct is to intervene. Oh, my child should not get hurt.
Now, and especially when the children are very small, the parent’s role is to offer the love that guards, to protect the children from all dangers. And that is the way, especially an infant will survive. The infant doesn’t even understand what is the danger.
So, especially when the child is very small, we need the love that guards. But as the children start growing, not in the case of serious bullying, but in the case of small, small differences, the children, they may fight, they might quarrel. In India, they say, katti, I will not talk with you anymore.
And one day they say, I’ll never talk with you. And next day, maybe next, after one hour, they’re chatting and friends with each other. So, children also learn to work out among themselves how to deal with things.
But if the parents keep intervening, then that is where the parents may become overprotective. And then if a child comes to be known as, oh, my parents, anything we do, parents will come in between. And other kids don’t want to interact with that child also.
And then what happens, the child may get isolated. So, overprotection can also be a problem. So, what applies for us with our children also applies with ourselves.
What do I mean by applies with ourselves? We all face troubles in life. Now, some troubles may be caused by people outside us, who do, who unnecessarily make our life miserable. Scientists say that there are 10 million nerves.
Of course, this estimate keeps varying. But there are millions of nerves in our body. Some people seem to have done a PhD in how to irritate each nerve in our body.
So, we all have such people who are a bit pain. Now, when this happens, that’s something we just have to, we have to decide how to deal with that person. But sometimes we ourselves don’t do the right thing.
We know I should do like this, but we act in a different way. Now, when this happens, when the problem is self-created, because of our own mistakes, then how do we deal with that? So, in this case also, we need, we can offer ourselves both the kinds of love. The love that guards and the love that guides.
That means sometimes we know I should be doing like this, but we end up doing something entirely different, maybe opposite of that. When we do that, at one level, we need to correct ourselves. Why was I so foolish? I should not have done like this.
And that is the way we will be more alert when we act next time. When we remember the past, recently some of our ISKCON leaders asked me, because I write many books, they asked me whether I can write a history of ISKCON. We have the history of Shri Prabhupada’s life in 1977, but there is no history of ISKCON after that.
Of course, there are different people who have written different projects, so then I did a little bit research about it. I found it’s an extremely complicated subject. Because what happens when historians say that history is like permanently disputed territory.
So, for example, if some conflict happened, in every incident, every story has how many sides? No, three. My side, your side and the right side. Now, it is not that I will deliberately tell something wrong or you will deliberately tell something wrong.
It is just that life is very complicated. So we focus on certain things in life. Say for example, right now you are sitting.
Now, if somebody after this programme asked you, where was the programme? Can you describe the room? Now, because you are sitting here, primarily you will be describing how spacious was the room? Was it very crowded? Was it too cold? Was it too hot? Now, you may not remember, say for example, how many windows were there in the house? Or how many doors were there? Or how many drawers were there? You could have so many details of the house, which are irrelevant for us. So just as even in the present, each of us focusses on some aspects and neglects other aspects. And that we do based on a functional need.
So just as we, this is not intentionally that we want to forget some things. Sometimes it may be, but most of the times, we just focus on what is functional. So similarly, when we recollect what has happened in the past, our recollection is also functional.
So the purpose of memory is not to recollect the objective past. It’s almost impossible to find out objectively exactly what happened here and there. Now who said this, they said this, and they said this.
It’s very difficult. You have to actually do some kind of investigative journalism to find that out. The purpose of memory is not so much to recollect the objective past, as to prevent the repetition of the destructive past.
That means in the past, something bad happened to me. Now did I do anything because of which that bad came upon me? And if I can learn that, then I can prevent it. So ultimately, we can’t have an exhaustive record or even an objective record.
We can’t have objective record because we are subjective beings. And we have particular ways of looking at things. Of course, some ways of looking at things are more accurate than others.
Some people might just remember out of ten things only one thing. And somebody might remember seven things. So just because everything is subjective doesn’t mean nothing is authoritative.
Some points may be more authoritative than others. Now why I am talking about this in our context of bridging the gap between what we want to be and what we are, is that whenever something bad happens in our life, and that happens because we have done something wrong, then at that time we have to use our intelligence and our memory to look back at what happened. So I talk about the love that guards and the love that guides.
And there are sometimes we make some mistakes and just, there is a conditioning, maybe we decide I will not get angry. And then sometimes some people make a resolution, I will not get angry. And then they start getting angry.
And then somebody tells them, you know, say, you are getting angry now. I am not getting angry. So even the reminder that you are getting angry makes them angry.
So basically what happens? That when we are trying to overcome something but we are not able to, then, okay, I tried, I didn’t succeed. But at that time I can’t afford to get totally discouraged and disheartened and just quit. So if we are getting too disheartened, then we need the love that guards.
Okay, you tried, you couldn’t do it, but keep trying. You will be able to do it in the future. That is the love that guards.
Okay, we are our only resource. And if we beat ourselves so much that we become disheartened, then who is going to improve us? Even if somebody else gives us guidance, it is we who have to improve ourselves. So if our morale is going very much down, then at that time we need the love that guards.
Yeah, it was a mistake on my part. But that’s what happened. I tried my best.
Somehow I overlooked some things. I made some mistakes. Let’s move on.
That is the love that guards. But there are times when we need to have the love that guides. That means we look back at ourselves.
Okay, at that time, what made me do such a thing? Sometimes we say, oh, why did I do that thing? If some alcoholic is trying to recover, and then they have a relapse and they drink. And I say, why did you drink? Oh, it was my conditioning. Now, saying that we did something because of our conditioning, it’s an explanation.
But what kind of explanation is it? It’s like suppose a plane crashes. And then the aeroplane company and the airline authorities do some investigation. And they come to the conclusion.
Why did the plane crash? It crashed because of gravity. Well, that’s true. But although gravity is an explanation, it is not a satisfactory explanation.
Gravity is always there. So why don’t all planes crash? The whole art of riding an aeroplane or flying an aeroplane is that in spite of gravity, we should be able to get the plane to fly. So if somebody says that, oh, the plane crashed because of gravity, that would be an utterly unsatisfactory explanation.
Isn’t it? So similarly saying that, okay, why did you have a relapse? It is because of my condition. Well, that’s not a satisfactory explanation. The conditioning is there.
But what were you doing to try to protect yourself from that condition? And how did the protection break down? Were there some situations, provocative situations, in which you put yourself because of which you had a relapse? So we have to analyse. So sometimes when our morale is very much down, when we are very disheartened, we need the love that guards. But if somebody is becoming nonchalant, it doesn’t matter, it’s just becoming very utterly, as if it’s no problem at all.
Some people tend to rationalise things. Now rationalise. What is the spelling of rationalise? R-A-T-I-O-N-A-L-I-E-S Rationalise.
So, when we rationalise, we often give rational lies. So, we try to justify what we are doing. You know, somebody, we tell them to do something, and they just don’t do anything throughout the day.
And then, we say, what did you do today? I had a very busy day. Really? What did you do? You know, 18 hours a day, I was transforming oxygen into carbon dioxide. Well, that everybody does, isn’t it? So, the point is that, if somebody is justifying and rationalising, then they will never improve.
So then, at such times, we need the love that guides. This is not a proper answer. Find out what exactly happened.
How did this mistake occur? So, there is a time when we need to accept ourselves. Oh, I made this mistake. It requires courage to accept our mistakes.
And if we are rationalising, we don’t accept our mistakes at all. So, when we have made a mistake, which we should not have, which we have corrected, at that time, we need the love that guides. Okay, in this situation, if I had not done this, then I could have avoided this.
This, I did this A, I thought it was a small thing, but then it started a domino effect. A, B, C, D, and zoom, everything went out of control. So, we need the love that guides.
But sometimes, if we are feeling very disheartened, then we need to accept ourselves with our mistakes. So, there are times, so the love that guards is the love that accepts ourselves with our mistakes. Yes, you have these issues, but still, you are your only resource, so accept yourself.
Don’t beat yourself down, so that you become discouraged. But, if we are being very indifferent, then we need the love that guards. Oh, you have to accept your mistakes, so that you can work on them.
So, basically, this is the first point I was making, that when there is a bridge between how we want to be and how we are, at that time, to bridge that gap, we need to see what is required. Do I need encouragement at this point, so that I at least keep striving? Or, do I need chastisement? Why did you do something so stupid? And then, administering what is appropriate will be the key to move forward. So, this was the first point.
Any questions or comments about this till now? How do we get the courage to accept the mistakes that we make? Two, three different ways. First is that, as I said, we are our only resource. Suppose, you have a car, which is old, and which makes a lot of noise, which consumes a lot of fuel, which doesn’t even go very fast, and it’s very irritating.
But, if that is the only car we have, and we don’t have a chance to buy any other car, if we get angry with that car, and in a burst of anger, we take a stone and hurl it at the car, or we take a hammer and smash the car, then we won’t even have that. So, if you understand, I am my only resource, then I don’t have anyone else. So, it is just, we could say, it’s basically, simple, realistic common sense, that I am my only resource.
Secondly, we can also look at ourselves, and see some other area, in which we have, in the past, improved ourselves for the better. Because sometimes, we might feel, I am worthless. I’ll never be able to change.
All of us have our personal demons. So, sometimes, some demons hold on us very strong. And it might take a lot of effort for us to overcome that.
But, we might have some other issues, which we have worked on, which we have overcome. And if we look at those, then that will encourage us. Yes, I am not succeeding in this, but in this area, I have succeeded.
And that will help us to move on. Then, I am going to talk about this, in the third part of the talk later. But, what spiritual wisdom tells us, that each one of us is a spark of the Divine.
Each of us is a part of God. And, if God has made us, that means, to dislike or detest ourselves, is to detest a part of God. So, that is unhelpful.
In fact, one of the examples given by one, our Acharya, Bhaktivinoda Thakur, he says that, sometimes, some people get angry with God. They resent God. They start hating God, or loathing God, because of the bad things that have happened in their lives.
But, that is like, he says, you know, resenting God is like spitting at the sky. What happens? That spit will come back on our face only, isn’t it? So, it’s no use. So, just as resenting God is of no use, resenting a part of God is also no use.
So, no matter how many mistakes we have committed, no matter how many mistakes we are still riddled with, still we are parts of God. We are parts of divinity, and there is a potential for divinity always within us. God’s love for us is not based on who we are presently.
His love for us is based on who we are potentially. Presently, we might have lots of conditionings. But, God sees who we are presently, but also he sees who we are potentially.
And, everyone of us has a potential for purity. Everyone of us has a potential for godliness. So, God sees that, and he helps us.
So, by looking at ourselves from the God-centred worldview, that can also help us to come to a greater level of self-acceptance. So, when we make a mistake, then we need some sympathy from someone, somebody who will understand and still encourage us. If we don’t get that, we tend to get angry or resentful.
What to do? Yes, all of us, in our social circle, we need to identify which people will provide which of our needs. See, maturity means to recognise that no one is obliged to satisfy our needs. It’s like, say, a small infant.
The infant feels hungry and starts crying. And, immediately, the mother, the father, the caretaker runs and offers some food. But, if an adult is hungry, and the adult starts crying, well, nobody may come running to feed the adult, isn’t it? Now, that doesn’t mean the adult’s hunger is a less serious need than the infant’s hunger.
But, what it means is the adult has to take responsibility to get that need fulfilled. It means, okay, I had to cook food. Maybe I had to go to someone and ask them to provide me some food.
I had to go and buy something. I had to make some arrangements. The need will be fulfilled.
But, no one is obliged to fulfil my need. If somebody is doing that, that is good. But, in one sense, to be mature means to recognise that no one is obliged to fulfil our needs.
We have to take responsibility to fulfil that need. And, of course, it means we may have a relationship in which we act responsibly in a particular relationship. And, the other person may fulfil that need also.
So, if we tend to become discouraged after some mistake has happened, something has gone wrong in our life, and we need encouragement, then we have to find out in our friends, in our social circle, who can offer us that. And, quite often, it is the dāti pratigrahanāti, as the Upadesa Amrit Dector of Instruction says that, what we give, we will get back. So, when others are in trouble, others are in distress, if we give them encouragement, then they will give it back to us.
Now, it may not be that the same person whom we encourage, they will encourage us. It might be that somebody who is younger to us, or junior to us, we might encourage them. And, we might meet somebody senior to us who might encourage us.
But, we need to find out who is it that will encourage us. And then, we need to invest in that relationship, so that when we have that need, they will fulfil that need. So, if we have not done that, then we will have more difficulty going through that difficulty.
The difficulty will come, but the difficulty for us to go through that difficulty will be much more. So, if we understand this, that this is my need, and I need to have it fulfilled. It’s nothing wrong or deficient to have a need.
Some people, when they are having some difficulty, they just want their space. Just leave me alone. And, they think through things while they are alone.
We have two relational needs. One is space, and the other is connection. Now, primarily we need connection, but there are times when we need space also.
So, we have to see what is our need, and then we have to take responsibility to make arrangements so that that need is fulfilled. And, if there is a kind of mistake which we tend to make repeatedly, then it is good that when we are ourselves in good spirits, at that time we can write a letter to ourselves. When you get, see, right now things are going well, and you are doing well also.
Sometimes you go through difficult times, so write it down. This is how we can apply what Bhagavad Gita 6.5 says that, uddhare dātmanātmānaṁ nātmānaṁ avasādayit. ātmaiva yātmano bandhur ātmaiva ripurātmanaḥ.
Krishna says, elevate yourself with yourself. Don’t degrade yourself with yourself. For you can be your friend, and you can also be your enemy.
So, that way, if we, when we are in good spirits, we write down what all is good in our life, what all is right in our life. And, how despite the tough times that we go through, still life is worthwhile. The struggle that we are going through in life is worthwhile.
It’s meaningful. So, we treat ourselves like someone we care about. And, we write down.
If somebody, if some friend of mine would be discouraged, how would I encourage them? In that mode, write a letter down and keep it with you. And then, when you are in low spirits, if you don’t have someone who can offer the encouragement, then we can make an arrangement to offer ourselves encouragement. But, if we have to think about those encouraging thoughts at that time, it will be very difficult.
Because the mind’s emotions have completely blocked our thinking. That’s why we need to do that thinking beforehand and keep things written down. Then, when we read it out, then we will be able to dissipate the fog that the mind has created.
The fog of negativity can dissipate and then again we can have some more positivity in our life. So, first I talked about how the love that guards and the love that guides. We need the appropriate kind of love when we find this gap between how we are and how we want to be.
Now, in our epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, broadly there are two kinds of characters. You can say there is a white and there is a black. So, for example, Ram is virtuous and who is the opposite of Ram? Ravan is, you could say, vicious.
So, you could say that if we had a continuum, then Ram would be on the white side, Ravan would be on the black side. But, not all characters are like that. So, there are many who are at various positions in the shades of green.
So, for example, let’s look at somebody among Ram’s relatives and somebody among Ravana’s relatives. So, somebody among Ram’s relatives, that person did a terrible thing. Who was that? Kaikeyi.
So, that’s a shade of green. Somebody on Ravana’s side did something wonderful. Who was that? Vibhishan.
So, we can’t have black and white as absolute categories that we impose on everyone. There are shades of green. So, let’s look at what happens to Kaikeyi and how she deals with it.
So, now Kaikeyi is, she is the youngest of the queens of Dashrath and she is very attractive. So, naturally Dashrath spends more time with her, special affection to her. And she is misled by Manthara.
At that time, Manthara, she poisons the mind of Kaikeyi, that actually when Ram will be enthroned as the prince regent and then the king, you and your son will be deprived. And then once Ram becomes the king, Ram will see Bharat as a threat. And he may imprison Bharat based on trumped up charges.
Or he may send Bharat to exile, or he may even kill Bharat, have Bharat executed. Now, none of this has any remote connection with reality also. Because Ram and Bharat, they were brothers and very close friends.
And Ram treated Bharat, because Ram was the eldest, so he treated him like a fraternal as well as paternal relationship. Brotherly at the same time, Ram was also like a father figure. So, it is out of question.
But what happened is that Manthara had her own vested interests. She was a hunchback. And because of that, sometimes the other palace staff would sometimes tease her.
She was the butt of friendly jokes. But when she came with Kaikeyi to the kingdom of Ayodhya, So, she was Kaikeyi’s favourite maid. And when Kaikeyi became the favourite queen of Dashrath, so she became the favourite maid of the favourite queen of the king.
And thus, her position became very high among the palace staff. And with that high position, then everybody was very deferential towards her. And she thought, if Ram becomes the king, then Kaushalya will become the queen mother.
And then, Kaikeyi will lose her position of influence and I will lose my position of influence. And thus, what happened is, she out of that insecurity, poisoned the mind of Manthara. See, whenever people tell us something, you know gossip, what is gossip? Gossip happens when we hear something we like about someone we don’t like.
So, we all have our likes and dislikes among people. And if someone we don’t like, and we hear, they have done something bad, Oh really, tell me more, tell me more, and I will tell others about it. So, when we hear something we like about someone we don’t like, that’s when gossip starts.
So, naturally, there was some tension, because they were co-wives. Oh, thank you. Thank you for coming.
So, there was natural tension among them, little bit, but it was friendly. There was still very enabled relationship among them. But, Manthara exploited the tension.
So, when somebody speaks something to us about someone else, we can hear what they are speaking, but we also need to think, why is this person speaking this? Because, nobody, very few people you can say are very purely motivated. Everybody has their interests, some of them are, some of them may be very bad, and most of them are not very bad, but it’s just that, especially if we hear something negative about someone, it’s important for us to evaluate, who is speaking this, and what are they getting by speaking this. Somehow, Kaikeyi got carried away by this dystopian picture, dystopian is like a very deadly, horrible picture that Manthara painted, and she became so hard-hearted because of that, because of that influence, that he just, even Dashrath begged her, what harm has Ram ever done to you? He said that, even if you want Bharat to become the king, but don’t, why should Ram have to go to the forest? Let Ram stay with me, I cannot live without Ram.
But she just couldn’t accept it, because Kaikeyi had been told by Manthara that, if Ram stays in the kingdom, Bharat himself will not accept becoming the king. And even if Bharat accepts, the citizens and the courtiers will not accept. So therefore, she insists that he has to go.
Now, she just carried on and on and on, with this, Dashrath begged her, but she didn’t listen. Vasishtha implored her, but she didn’t listen. And Ram went to the forest, even after that, Dashrath was so heartbroken, that his heart stopped beating, literally.
And even then, her heart didn’t shift. It was only when Lakshman came, it was only when Bharat came back, and Bharat heard from Kaikeyi all that had happened, and Kaikeyi told it in a way as if she had done a great task to protect his interests. And Bharat, he was aghast.
You cannot be my mother. You are the goddess of destruction, incarnated in our family to destroy our whole dynasty. And he excoriated her, with very very strong words.
And it was then, that her mental bubble burst. She was living in her own bubble, where she had created an image of Bharat. And she was thinking, I am doing all this for Bharat, and Bharat approves all this.
But when that imaginary Bharat collided with the actual Bharat, that’s when she came to him. What have I done? How could I have been so heartless? How could I have been so cruel? But by that time, it had become very late. But she still felt very very remorseful at that time.
So what did she do? When Bharat decided, I cannot accept this kingdom. I am going to go to the forest. So then Kaikeyi said, can I come with you? Initially Bharat was so angry with her, he was inclined to say no.
But then Kaikeyi told her that it was my desire because of which Ram had to go to the forest. So if I request him, that request will have greater force. And then he agreed.
And then when he went to the forest, she also requested Ram, please come back. But Ram said no. He said actually my father had given me this instruction.
Now why he gave me this instruction, that is entirely between him and you. But he had given me this instruction, I had given the word, I cannot change that word. So what happened, she could not change it.
But at least she expressed that I should not have done this. And she regretted it. She did what was in her power to change it.
And we see that in the Ramayana, later on, Kaikeyi is never demonised. When Ram comes back to the forest, at that time all the three mothers are there to welcome him. And Ram doesn’t hold it against Kaikeyi.
In fact, Ram specifically tells Lakshmi, tells Bharat, while they are going back, that don’t hold on to your anger towards Kaikeyi. Ram takes a more philosophical view of things and he says that it was the will of destiny. And Kaikeyi was simply an instrument of that destiny.
So don’t hold it against her. So Kaikeyi regrets, but Bharat doesn’t hold it against her. And Ram doesn’t hold it against her.
What has happened has happened. And afterwards when Ram comes back, Kaikeyi doesn’t object at all to Ram’s coronation as the king. And life moves on.
So it was a terrible mistake on her part, but it is not held against her forever. That mistake had its consequences. But they all moved on.
She did what she could to correct it and everybody moved ahead. It was very painful what she did. But it was not held against her forever.
So of course this is a very drastic example of somebody, it’s like they do not only something bad, but they do something horrible, horrendous, horrifying. But even that is not held against them. So similarly for us, this was the second part.
The last part I’ll talk about is, I’ll especially focus on this idea of how Ram saw this whole situation and how Ram dealt with Kaikeyi. And based on that we can draw some lessons about how we can deal with ourselves. So if we consider in our life, we all sometimes do things that we are not proud of.
Now that is just a simple, that is a more polite way of saying that we are embarrassed of or we are ashamed of. When we do such things, at that time, it’s how do we deal with it. So basically, I talked earlier about the love that guards and the love that guides.
So we need to try to make sense of ourselves. Why did I do such a thing? What made me do such a thing? So she recognised, Kaikeyi recognised that it was her naive trust in Mantra that made her do such a thing. And she did not let Mantra think for her.
She did that protection. So for all of us, when we do something wrong, we have to see, we have to look back and learn. What made me do this? And then we try to create protection from that repetition.
So there are some things which are just circumstantial. And say for example, if a house is made of wood, then even if somebody leaves a small spark over there, maybe a small lighted candle or a lit cigarette bud or whatever, the whole house can catch fire. That’s inflammable and extreme caution is required with respect to even a slightest spark cast carelessly anywhere.
But if the house is made up of say concrete or something, unless somebody is going to really pour oil or inflammable material or deliberately cause arson, it’s not going to burn. So in our case, if say some fire breaks out, we have to look at what caused that fire. If we understand that actually with respect to this, my house is inflammable.
That means my consciousness is such that I am vulnerable to this. That this can happen. Then we have to exercise extreme caution that if the house is made of wood, then we have to make sure that nowhere there is any sparks left carelessly.
So if we understand that, okay, this is a particular area where I am vulnerable. On many occasions, the best way to deal with temptation is to not deal with temptation. That means if somebody is an alcoholic and they are trying to recover, and their house is on top of a bar, then no amount of willpower is going to be enough.
Why? Because even if we have strong willpower, sometimes we all have urges. And those urges have surges. There are urges which come up and suddenly they rise.
So even if the urges have surges, at that time, if the indulgence is very easily available, then willpower is not going to work at that time. So we need to create some distance. Now, of course, from some provocations, we cannot create distance.
In the sense that, say, some situations are just a part of our life. And if those are part of our life, then we need to create a buffer for ourselves. If, say, we know there are some people who just tend to press our buttons.
Then, if we have already had a difficult day, and maybe 5, 6, 10 things have gone wrong, and then, if at that time we try to deal with that person, we are setting ourselves up for trouble. Sometimes we might decide, let’s deal with this later. We have to learn, we have to understand ourselves and protect ourselves accordingly.
So for KK, there was some tension with Kaushalya, but it was mostly that she let herself hear submissively from a wrong source. So that was the mistake. She pinpointed the mistake and she dealt with it.
So similarly, if we can look back, this is the situation and this was the trigger. So, we try to stay away from our triggers. And that might not be a trigger for someone else.
So, say, if Mantara had gone and spoken the same thing to Kaushalya, or Kaushalya had made and she had spoken something to her, she might not have taken it seriously. She would most likely not have taken it seriously at all. Because at one level, it’s a preposterous idea.
But if that is a trigger for her, then she has to be aware of her triggers. And we don’t have to beat ourselves up. Why am I so vulnerable? Well, that is how I am.
When I talked earlier about accepting ourselves, what it means is that if we are vulnerable to something, we don’t have to feel guilty about being vulnerable. This is how I am right now. So, in some ways, it is good to treat our mind like our body.
What do I mean by treat our mind like our body? Our body has certain physical limitations. And there are certain bodily or physical reactions to life events. Say, for example, if some people are very vulnerable to cold, little temperature drops and they need 2-3 warm clothes.
Some people, they seem to be almost invulnerable to cold. It seems to be freezing and they just go around in single dress. So, when somebody starts saying, I am feeling cold, Why are you feeling cold? Don’t feel cold.
What do you mean, don’t feel cold? I am feeling cold. So then, if I am feeling cold, then I understand that this is a physical reaction of my body to this event. So then, I have to deal with that physical reaction by appropriate preparation.
Maybe I don’t go out in cold or I get adequate warm clothes. So, similarly, just as there might be particular physical reactions to life events that we need to deal with. Similarly, there might be particular psychological reactions to life events that we need to deal with.
So, some of us may tend to get depressed. Some of us may tend to get angry. Some of us may tend to become resentful.
Some of us may tend to become judgemental. Whatever it is. If you understand, this is a typical reaction that I tend to have.
Then, it’s important that we prepare ourselves for it. So, it’s not that we can’t change it. But sometimes changing may require time.
Sometimes some changes may not happen even in this lifetime. So, if somebody is very vulnerable to cold, then that’s the body they have, that’s the way they have to live with it. So, sometimes if somebody is very vulnerable to depression or anger or whatever, actually, anger and depression are two sides of the same coin.
When that anger is directed outward, it becomes aggression. When anger is directed inward, it becomes depression. When I beat myself up, why am I not good enough? Why am I like this? Why am I like that? That gradually leads to depression.
But if that is the way we are, it may change gradually. But we understand this is my trigger. And we need to guard ourselves from it.
Of course, after the trigger comes, it’s not irrevocable that we have to become triggered. We can also prepare to protect ourselves. But one part of protecting ourselves is keeping the distance.
So, if somebody decides, somebody is an alcoholic, goes to a bar, and then they beat themselves, why did I drink? Well, why did I drink is the wrong question to ask. The right question is, why did you go to the bar? Isn’t it? So, why did I do this thing? That is not a very helpful question. If the situation is such that in that case we are very vulnerable, then why did I go into that situation? Could I have done anything to avoid that situation? So, we need to sometimes, we can’t always take responsibility for our actions.
In the sense that in certain situations, certain actions will just happen from us. So, then we need to take responsibility to ensure that we don’t go into those situations. Or at least we try to minimise our exposure to the situations.
The human will is not omnipotent. Not omnipotent means in the sense that we cannot resist provocation or temptation unlimitedly. So, we have to understand our limits and stay within our limits.
And this is where our spirituality can help us immensely. If we understand that we are souls, we are parts of Krishna, then what happens is our connection with Krishna can give us inner strength. I’ll conclude with this metaphor now, which maybe in a future class I’ll elaborate more.
But our urges, they can come like waves. When the waves come, at that time, it’s very difficult to fight against the wave. If we are in the ocean and a wave is coming, I’ll not move, I’ll not get swept away by the wave.
That’s almost impossible. But what we can do is find an anchor. Now, even when we have an anchor, some immovable object that we can hold on to, even then when the wave hits, it is going to be difficult.
Because we have to exert our energy to maintain our hold on the anchor. But it is relatively easier. If you compare the likelihood of ourselves just resisting the wave as compared to the likelihood of holding the anchor, it’s much more likely if we can hold on to the anchor.
So what Bhakti Yoga does is, it provides us the ultimate unimmovable anchor. Who is that? Krishna. Now the wonderful thing is that normally an anchor is something that we hold on to.
But Krishna is the anchor who also holds on to us. So in that sense, He is a person God cares for us. And because of that, if we try to hold on to Him, we do as much as we can, then Krishna will do what we can’t.
Sometimes we feel, oh I can’t hold on to this. We just do what we can. If we do what we can, just try as much as possible, Krishna will do what we can’t.
And we have to have a healthy vision of God. Now God is not a critic, He is a coach. God is present in our hearts, His purpose is not to catch us when we do wrong.
His purpose is to catch us when we fall and to lift us up. It’s like say, if a child is learning to take the first steps in walking, and the mother is nearby, and the child starts walking and the child starts falling. Now at that time, the mother is not clapping and laughing, hey you fell down.
No, the mother will run there and catch the child. So Krishna is like that. His purpose is not to catch us when we do wrong.
I caught you, now I am going to punish you. Not like that. His purpose is to catch us when we fall.
He is there to help us. And we try as much as possible to connect with Him by practising Bhakti Yoga. And we try to find out how we can best connect with Him.
So what can be an anchor for us? For some of us it might be Kirtan. We feel agitated but we just hear some music, devotional music and we feel good. For some of us it might be hearing philosophy.
We feel agitated but as soon as we start hearing some class, we get absorbed in it, the agitation goes out. For some of us it might be worshipping the deities, coming to the Lord, praying to the Lord, worshipping Him. It calms us down.
So there might be different things which might work as anchors for each one of us. So we have to find our anchor and we make sure that we hold on to that anchor. And when we hold on to that anchor, then even when the waves come, the waves won’t sweep us away.
Or even if we get swept, we won’t get swept too far away. If we are here, we hold on to the anchor, we might get swept this much. But because we are holding on to the anchor, we will again come back onto it.
And Krishna as I said, not only is an anchor that holds on to us, but Krishna is also the anchor who lifts us up. If we stay connected with Him, that connection not only gives us resistance to temptation, resistance to provocation, that connection also gives us gradually transcendence to provocation and temptation. Because Krishna is all pure, the connection with Him purifies us.
And when we become purified by that connection, then gradually the effect of the provocation starts decreasing. The distance that is there between us, how we want to be and how we are, that can be bridged if we keep holding on to Krishna. So what we want to be is here, how we are is here.
If we hold on to Krishna, Krishna will help us, Krishna will act as the bridge and Krishna will take us across the bridge. And gradually we’ll find by the power of Krishna Bhakti, we can become better than not only what we are, but we can even become better than what we thought we could become. That is the power of truth.
That is the transformational power of Krishna’s mercy. So I’ll summarise. I spoke on the topic of bridging the distance between how we are and how we want to be.
So I started with the example of parenting. That parents, there is a love that guards when the child is very small and has dangers that the child cannot deal with. But there’s also love that guides that, OK, how can you deal with this danger yourself? The parents should not be overprotective.
So for all of us in various areas of life, whether it is our personal life, our relationships, our spiritual life, we all would like to be someone better. Though we try, often there is a big gap between the two. So while dealing with that gap, we need to parent ourselves.
And if we are feeling very discouraged, then we need the love that guards. OK, just accept yourself. And because we are our only resource, we can’t afford to be demoralised.
But there are other times when if we are just being casual and nonchalant about our mistakes, and then we need the love that guides. Understand what made you do this? You say if somebody has conditioning, then they say attribute their relapse to their conditionings. That’s like attributing an aeroplane crash to a gravity.
That is an explanation, but it is not a helpful explanation. So we need to understand, OK, what made me do this? And then we try to correct ourselves. So I talk about the story of Kaikeyi in which the main theme was how, because of her naive trust in Mantra, she did something horrendous.
But after she realised what wrong she had done, then she did what she could to correct it. And neither Ram nor anyone else held it against her forever. Anyway, she didn’t hold it against her forever.
She resumed her normal virtuous behaviour. And then I talked about how this can be applied in our lives. That when we do something which we know we shouldn’t be doing, then we have to look at what happened exactly.
So we need to analyse. I talked earlier about how the purpose of memory is not to understand the objective past. Because we all have different perspectives.
So we need to focus our memory to correct or to prevent the repetition of the destructive past. OK, don’t get lost in the head. Why did this happen? Why did this happen? Why did this happen? Just focus.
OK, what went wrong and what did I do to make that thing go wrong? And then check how we can prevent it. So sometimes we need to use our willpower to resist provocation. And sometimes we need to use our willpower to resist going into a provoking situation.
So we need to find out our triggers and stay away from those triggers. And if we have certain triggers, we don’t have to feel guilty about them. We see that that is just a psychological reaction to life event.
That’s how our mind is. Just like we might have a physical reaction to a life event. Our body might be vulnerable to cold.
Similarly, we might be vulnerable to anger or depression or resentment or whatever. So when so once we understand our triggers, then we can guard ourselves. And then I talk about the law that guides in terms of we focus not so much on fighting against temptation or fighting against provocation as holding on to the anchor.
Provocation is like waves which will keep coming. And Krishna is the ultimate anchor. He is not just an anchor that we hold on to.
He is the anchor who holds on to us. And his love for us is based not on who we are presently, but also on who we can be potentially. And thus he doesn’t catch us when we do wrong.
He catches us so that when we start doing wrong, he picks us up. He doesn’t let us fall. So we find out how we can best connect with Krishna and make that anchor readily accessible to us.
And if we keep holding on to Krishna steadily, then he will take us along. He will be the bridge for us and he will take us along the bridge from where we are to what we can be. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. Any questions or comments? Most of the times, as you said, there are places where you don’t put yourself on that road. Sometimes you are put in situations like at work or places, you know, that you have to deal with certain people.
And in those cases, how do you kind of, there will be triggers, of course, and you know what the triggers are. But it’s not always possible to, when you are 24-7 sometimes in that situation. Yeah, we know that we get triggered, but we can’t avoid the provocative situation.
And what do we do? Yes. That is. You could say that is the challenge that destiny has put in our life.
So, you know, dealing with some people is such a joy. Dealing with some people is such a pain. It’s like there are two kinds of people.
Some people bring happiness wherever they go. And some people bring happiness whenever they go. So I would say that we just need to prepare ourselves as much as we can.
It’s like, say, if we know that a road has potholes. Then it would be wonderful if we could avoid that road or the potholes could be fixed. But if we can’t do either, then we just have to drive more cautiously.
And at the very least, we can say if we are driving cautiously and slowly, the potholes won’t jolt us that much. Similarly, sometimes we just have to go in our life journey through people, through paths, or we have to interact with people where the jolts can’t be avoided. But if we are cautious, they can at least be minimised.
And to be forearmed, to be forewarned is to be forearmed. So we can try to prepare ourselves. Now, what can we do? Say, for example, if we are going to have, in our workplace or somewhere, we are going to have a difficult interaction.
Then maybe before do that, if you do that, take a pause, take a few deep breaths, maybe pray to Krishna, chant a few mantras. Do something to calm yourself. Even in the workplace context, you can have a little space for ourselves and do some things.
So we find out what can give us some strength and at least try to do that. And then beyond that, at one level, we can seek Krishna or seek strength from Krishna to deal with that particular difficult situation or difficult person. But another level, we can see that actually, even through this person, Krishna is giving an opportunity to grow.
How is that? See, normally, our interactions are reciprocal. Now you do like this, then I’ll do like this. So if you are good to me, I’ll be good to you.
If you are rude to me, then why should I be polite to you? It’s like that. And that’s an understandable, normal way of reciprocating. But if we are trying to grow spiritually, to be Krishna conscious means to see that in all our relationships, we are interacting not just with that person, we are also interacting with Krishna.
So for a devotee, Krishna is always present as a third person in every interaction, in every relationship. And we act in that relationship in a way that will serve Krishna and that will please Krishna. So suppose somebody is working in a mall and they are selling clothes.
So sometimes it may happen that there are some customers who come and they want to look at maybe 500 clothes and they don’t take anything of that. And then after that, the attendant over there gets irritated. Normally, whenever any customer comes, all the attendants come to the customer because they want to get the credit for making the sale.
But some customers come and all the attendants go away from them. So now, if there is a customer like that and an attendant is attending to them. Now this attendant, despite the customer being cranky, still the attendant attends.
And finally the customer says, I don’t know, everything is useless, I am going and then buy everything. You could say that that interaction was still a failure. The attendant couldn’t make that sale.
But the attendant also knows my salary is not coming simply from this customer. It’s the boss, maybe there are cameras over there and the boss is watching. So if the boss sees and the boss also knows, this is a difficult customer.
So although the attendant may not make the sale, the boss may come and say, you know how to deal with tough people. You stay cool. And the boss may promote this attendant.
You take care of this whole floor and you train other attendants how to deal with tough customers. So although that interaction may still remain a failure, despite all the tolerance and all the patience of the attendant, but the attendant will succeed in getting promoted because the attendant plays the boss. So when we are with difficult people, we need to know that Krishna knows the difficulty we are going through.
And if we try to have that attitude, even in a professional situation, family situation, wherever it is, ultimately, if we are trying to practise bhakti, everything we are doing is in a mode of service to Krishna. So if we have Krishna, how can I serve you in this situation? If we have that attitude, then we don’t just let that other person walk over us. But we don’t let that person’s actions alone determine our actions.
Sometimes we may have to take a firm stand because that person is being domineering and abusive. But sometimes it might be that the person is irritable, but it’s a small thing. We can tolerate it.
So if we see that not just as a quid pro quid, you did this, so I’ll do this, but rather how can I serve Krishna in this situation? Then sometimes by being with difficult people and working with difficult people, we may actually grow more in tolerance and devotion. We grow in tolerance, not intolerance. So we may grow in tolerance and devotion, in devotion and tolerance.
So by being with difficult people and working with difficult people, rather than we might by being with some person who is always pleasant and nice and kind, we might not develop virtues so much in their association. So of course that doesn’t mean we deliberately seek people who are unpleasant. Sometimes if situations put us in that kind of service or obligation, then we can see that also as an opportunity for spiritual growth.
We are not afraid of trouble per se. We are not afraid of pain. Of course nobody wants pain.
But what we really dislike is pointless pain. It’s like say if you’re walking along the road and suddenly some thorn or nail goes into our leg, we’ll feel furious. But if you go to a hospital and a doctor gives us a shot, an injection, that’s also, sensation is the same.
But because the context is different, here we will actually maybe thank the doctor and give money to them. So what is our challenge? So the point I’m making here is that, we are not afraid of pain, we are afraid of pointless pain. So similarly, whenever there is any trouble in life, the trouble itself doesn’t trouble us as much as the apparent pointlessness of the trouble.
When the trouble seems pointless, that’s when we feel much more troubled than otherwise. So, bhakti, wisdom helps us see that everything ultimately has a point. That we may not immediately understand, why is this person behaving like this? But if we see that this is an opportunity for my spiritual growth, for me to grow in spiritual virtues, then when we can create a context which makes that trouble meaningful, which helps us to see that purpose, that trouble as purposeful, then we can better navigate through that trouble.
Thank you. So, any other questions? Yes, please. Yes.
So, when we are the puppets of the three modes, how can we anchor ourselves to Krishna in all modes? See, better start with what we can. That means at least anchor yourself to Krishna when we are in goodness. Because sometimes unrealistic expectations can dishearten us so much that we end up not doing what we can do also.
So that means there will be situations in which it might be very difficult for us to connect with Krishna. So, we have to understand that we are human beings and we are fallible. We are finite.
We are weak. So, we may not always be able to connect with Krishna. But at least when we can, we should.
So, for example, we may not always be able to think about Krishna. That’s what the scripture tells us we should do. But there are times when we are directly with Krishna.
In the sense that we are hearing about Krishna, we are chanting Krishna’s name. We are praying to Krishna. So, if at that time we consciously try to connect with Krishna, by that we are showing Krishna that I want to connect with you.
Say if we are in a class, that’s the time when we have opportunity to focus on Krishna. But that time we start fiddling with our phone. That time we start doing everything, other things which will distract us.
Then we are showing I am not interested. So, if we don’t connect with Krishna when Krishna is directly available to us, then to expect to be able to connect with Krishna when he is not directly so easily available to us, it’s unrealistic. So, start with what we can.
And generally in the mode of goodness, whenever say if we wake up in the morning and do some sadhana, that time to connect with Krishna is easier. At least make sure we do that. And secondly, it’s more that rather than expecting that we should always be able to connect with Krishna, we need to create some structure for our life.
See, the lesser the structure in our life, the greater the rupture that our mind can cause in our life. What do I mean by this? Say that suppose we wake up in the morning and we have nothing planned even the whole day. The whole day is like blank.
Whatever you want you can do. Then we might just wake up and let me look at the news. And I pick up the news and then from the news you might go to some movies and go here and go there.
And you might spend 12, 14, 16 hours just surfing on the net. So, when there is no structure, one impulse can create a rupture for the whole day. But if you have some structure, okay, I have an hour now, but after an hour I have to do this, I have to go and do this, I have to go and do that.
Then, if we are committed to that structure, okay, I have to go and take care of this, I have to go and do that, we are committed to that, then what will happen? Even if some rupture happens, even if we get caught by the mind and dragged away, because of that structure, we will come back. We will come back and we will be able to make sure that we, so we may go away from Krishna, but we won’t go very far away from Krishna. That structure will ensure that we come back.
So, we can’t create, we can’t make our life, entire life into a rigid structure. But having some structure in our life, say maybe in the mornings we do some spiritual activities, in the evenings when we come back, then we spend some time for some spiritual activities. Maybe in the daytime during lunch or something like that, we try to hear something or read something.
So, create some structure. And that structure will act as the boundary for us. So, we will, even if we go away from Krishna, we won’t go too far away from Krishna.
And that’s why our past culture makes a lot of difference. If somebody who has come from a very materialistic culture, where they have done all kinds of unwanted activities, then what happens, because of that kind of culture, there is practically no structure in their life. And when the mind takes them away, it takes them to horrifying extremes.
But if we have come from a relatively good culture, that itself also creates a structure. Even if we have not come from a good culture, but still we can try to at least presently be with people as much as possible, who have some decent culture. And that itself can create a structure for us.
So, that way we have to be patient, at the same time persistent. Patient means, okay, in some certain situations, say, if I have an urgent deadline in a project or in some work or something like that, then I might just have to focus completely on that. At that time to think about Krishna consciously may be very difficult.
I remember that once I was in India, in Pune, I had organised a programme for an international preacher. And he had come, his flight came early. So, he messaged me and I told the driver, we have to go and pick up the devotee.
And the driver was also a devotee. He was just walking very gently. And I said, come on, hurry up.
He says, no, I am practising being in goodness. So, I said, you know, being in service attitude is more important than being in goodness. So, if sometimes something urgent is required, we have to do that.
And that time we may not be consciously thinking of Krishna, but we are doing it for Krishna. So, gradually what will happen is, if we keep connecting with Krishna, initially Krishna may be in the background, but gradually Krishna will start coming in the foreground. Say, first time if you start talking about Krishna, start giving classes.
First time you give a class, you are so conscious, how are people, what are people thinking about me? How am I speaking? We are very, very self-conscious. But gradually if you keep speaking, then where you are speaking, you are conscious of that. What you are speaking, you are conscious of that.
How the audience is responding, that we are also conscious of. But beyond all of it, we are conscious that I am speaking about Krishna. I am speaking for Krishna.
So, that comes gradually. So, if you just keep practising bhakti, then from the background of our consciousness, Krishna will come to the foreground. And then even if we go into the lower modes, so when we are in the higher modes, Krishna will be in the foreground.
Then even if we are in the lower modes, Krishna will be in the background. He won’t be completely out. So, let’s begin with what we can do and create a protective structure by which Krishna will gradually come from the background to the foreground.
Thank you. So, thank you very much. Shila Prabhupada ki, Gaura Bhakta Vrinda ki,