Understanding human nature 2 – 4 types of people based on conscience and willpower

[Seminar at College of Vedic Studies, Bhaktivedanta Manor, London, UK ]

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna.
So, broadly speaking, our discussion is about human nature, understanding human nature, and then, transforming human nature. So, I will talk about Duryodhana, and we will continue the story in new course. But, some background for analyzing how things can be changed, how somebody can change, and when somebody can’t change.
So, basically, we could say, I talked earlier about, the more outer power we get, the more inner power we need to use that outer power well. So, now, what does inner power mean? Normally, you might think inner power simply means will power. Will power is, I decide to do it, and I will do it.
Now, that is, important. But, will power is only one aspect of the inner power. Because, will power can also be used for terrible things.
Somebody might be cruel, and they might be determinedly cruel. So, that is what, we will see happen to Duryodhana. His one scheme got thwarted, and then he started hatching bigger schemes.
So, basically, inner power is not just will power. Inner power is actually a combination, if inner power is to transform us positively, if inner power is actually to do good. Inner power is a combination of will power and conscience.
Will power is, if I desire to do something, if I plan to do something, I will do it. Conscience actually tells me what I should do and what I should not. Conscience is like our inner moral compass.
We all have a conscience. We all have this compass. There are certain things which you start doing, maybe I should not do these things, maybe I should not do this, maybe I should not speak like this, maybe I should not do like that.
So, something also prompts us to do this. So, there is this voice within us which prompts us to do this and don’t do this. So, now, if we consider how these two interplay with each other, conscience and will power, that will determine how a person functions.
So, broadly speaking, the conscience and the will power, they could be on a spectrum from weak to strong. So, conscience can be on a spectrum from weak to strong and similarly will power can be on a spectrum from weak to strong. Now, when that happens, let us consider these four possibilities that, so, these four squares, the conscience is weak and the will power is weak.
That means that person is basically doesn’t know what to do but doesn’t even have strength to do it. So, this person basically will be worthless. They will not do anything good.
They might do something harmful but even to cause harm, some amount of application, some amount of determination, some amount of efficiency is required. So, they will, the people with weak will power and weak conscience won’t, they will be irritants but they will not be big troublemakers. Then, if we consider somebody has weak conscience and strong will power, that means that there is no inner restraint for them for whatever they do.
On other side, if they decide to do something, they will go to any extremes to do it and that is extremely dangerous. So, we could say among these four categories, this category, somebody with weak conscience and strong will power is the most dangerous kind of person. We see demons like Ravana and others, they perform a lot of austerities.
They have that strong will power to perform austerities but then they have practically no conscience and that’s why we can just go and abduct somebody else’s wedded wife, we can go and violate anyone and we can do brutal things. So, those people who are the most harmful, those who cause the biggest harm are those with weak conscience and strong will power. Then we could also have strong conscience and strong will power.
They are the most virtues in society. They are the most powerful. They know what is to be done and they will do it.
So, they are best suited to be the leaders of society. They are principled, they are powerful and if they act, they can do a lot of good to society and if we have strong conscience and weak will power that is when we are tormented. Tormented because we know I should not do this, this is bad but still the force comes so strongly, the urge comes so strongly and we can’t resist it and this is where it’s torment, it’s misery.
Now, if you see from an outside perspective somebody might say that what a terrible person, somebody just keeps relapsing into drinking or some bad habit or whatever drugs or whatever and then we may feel this person is, what kind of person keeps relapsing but even among those who relapse there is a big difference between those people who have strong conscience and those people who have weak conscience. Those who have strong conscience they genuinely feel bad about it and they want to do something about it. So, most of us where will we be? What do you think? Tormented, yes.
We are all, especially if we are practicing bhakti, trying to practice bhakti, at least something within us tells us this is good, you should do it. But bhakti has so many principles and they are not so easy to practice. So, if our conscience is strong and our willpower is weak, we live in a tormented state.
Now, when I talk about these four boxes, they are not necessarily static. We can move from one to the other box. So, now those who are tormented and those who are tormented, if they become purified, then where will they go? Powerful, yes.
They will rise from the tormented state to the powerful state where there is strong conscience and strong willpower. That is what we all aspire to. So, when there is this inner torment, generally whenever there is a war between two parties and those two parties are such that they are never going to come to reconciliation, then there are two ways in which that war can end.
A and B are fighting and A and B are never going to be reconciled. One way is that A becomes weak and B wins. The other way is B becomes weak and A wins.
There are only two ways if there is no reconciliation. So, actually, when people are in the tormented state of strong conscience and weak willpower, that torment, it is not very, it is not bearable, it is painful, that can be resolved in two ways. One is by strengthening our willpower.
The other is by weakening our conscience. The other is by weakening our conscience, where we go towards the other direction. Now, what has happened, if you see, in broad western history and the whole world’s history is mirroring western history, as soon as God was rejected, gradually morality started getting relativized.
That means, people’s inner compass started getting fuzzy more and more. So, if there is no God, if we are not accountable for our actions, then, why should I not do what I want for my enjoyment? I should, if I can get away with it. And, if my conscience torments me, then, conscience is just a, is just a, something meant to repress me from my normal behavior, from my natural enjoyment, and, therefore, get rid of conscience.
And, for many people, their moral compass is very much fuzzy today. It has become very fuzzy. Probably, say, one example, which, in the mainstream world, would be quite controversial, but in the devotee circle, we can appreciate it, with respect to abortion.
Now, biologically speaking, the child is the, it’s consciousness over there, and it is a child. But, so, all over the world, people were always doing abortions, but it is never considered to be a right thing to do. But, gradually, as social structures started collapsing, as there was in the 1920s roundabouts, there’s something which is called the sexual revolution.
Even the western society, before that, was quite conservative. But, sexual revolution was the idea that free sex is the way to fulfill it. And, because of that, family started, family structure started eroding, multiple factors came together.
And, because of that, basically, sexuality started becoming more indiscriminately indulged in. Then, at one level, sexual morality at least was respected. People might do something extramarital or whatever, but at least they knew it was wrong.
I often, when I give classes, I speak about how the family structure is collapsing, the divorces are going up. So, I was in New Zealand, and the devotee who gives my classes, he told me, you know, you speak about divorces increasing, he said, don’t speak this in New Zealand, because it’s not true. I said, what do you mean? He said, divorces are not increasing? I said, no, they’re not increasing because marriages are decreasing.
People don’t get married only. people’s moral compass has become more and more disoriented, and naturally, because of that, now, when people are not getting married, that doesn’t mean they’re not sexually active. They’re still sexually active, and then, they just feel pregnancy is just something that comes in the way of my being sexually active.
And so, abortion has moved, it has become, it’s not actually a child. It’s not actually a child, it’s just a tissue, and the tissue we are removing. So, what happened, gradually, that whatever sense of wrongness was there, that was removed.
And many people, if actually, if somebody is trying to do abortion, if they’re shown the embryo in the womb, and I can see actually the embryo is like a child, but, it’s literally like a child, it beats like a child, it’s shaped like a child, but, they’re never shown that. In fact, now, according to some laws, there was a movie on, about abortion, it is called Unplanned. I have written a review of that on my website.
It was basically, this woman in Texas, she was herself the head of abortion clinic, and under her like 24,000 abortions were done, but she never knew actually what happens in abortion. So, one day, during, some abortions are, what is the proper word for it? They are guided with, they are guided using some sonography kind of thing. So, because the embryo may be, the embryo fights for life, the suction pump or whatever goes inside, the embryo tries to run away from it, and if they are not able to catch the embryo, then they have a live sonography going on, so that the technician or whoever is operating, they can guide the probe in such a way that they can catch the embryo and then crush the embryo.
So, then, so this woman, she saw this for the first time, and she was horrified, and after that, she got transformed, she resigned and she has become an anti-abortion activist now. So, now, when this happened, she said that I was in this industry for over a decade, but I myself didn’t know what actually happens. So, what has happened now, if a woman wants to do abortion, then some of the anti-abortion activists at least show them what the embryo is, and there are some aggressive pro-abortion campaigners, they say this is violence against the woman, because if she sees that, she’ll be traumatized, and so to protect her emotional health, don’t show it to her.
Now, okay, you don’t want to traumatize anyone, but it’s a matter of life, it’s a matter of life. So, it is, see, from this tormented, do something wrong, you feel tormented, but from there, if things are just allowed to glide on, from tormented, one might go, not only to the most dangerous level also. What is most dangerous? Now, there are some aggressive pro-abortion campaigners, Prabhupada would say that, Prabhupada would recommend sexual regulation, he said, if a man and a woman unite, the man goes away, the woman becomes pregnant, and she has to, she has to do the responsibility.
So, now, what women say, this is an aggressive anti-abortion campaigner says, actually, this is nature’s unfairness to women, and their argument, as is their slogan, is pregnancy is biological slavery, and abortion is technological liberation. Now, this is, pregnancy is not slavery, it is a privilege to bring new life into the world, but this is where things have gone to this, strong willpower and weak conscience. So, where the consciousness has become so dead-end, not only that, don’t think it is something undesirable, something wrong, it’s like, our right, nature has been unfair to us, that, why should we, if we are sexually active, why do we have to bear a child for that? So, abortion is technological liberation.
Now, so basically the point I am making is just one example, I don’t want to go further into this, but the example I am giving is that the states are not static. If somebody, so another way to, did I talk yesterday about weakness and wickedness? No. So see, weakness and wickedness are two different things.
Weakness is where, generally when somebody is in that area of strong conscience and weak will power, that is weakness, they are tormented, we all have weakness within us. Weakness is where, we know what is right, but we are not able to do it. So, sometimes our lower desires, lust, anger, greed, just overwhelm us and then we do something wrong, but after that we regret it.
So, weakness is more or less hot headed. So, what is called tormented, that will be same as weakness, but different from weakness is wickedness. Wickedness is where the person has no conscience at all.
They deliberately do wrong and delight in doing wrong. So, wickedness is extremely dangerous. Weakness can be forgiven, but wickedness to forgive means the person will keep doing the same thing again and again.
So, Duryodhana who had not just weakness, he had wickedness. Weakness is hot headed. Wickedness is cold blooded.
Cold blooded means the person systematically plans, this is what I am going to do, this is how this person can be hurt the most and this is how after doing this, I won’t be caught after doing it. So, when somebody goes to wickedness, to transform them is very difficult. It is possible, but it is very difficult.
Generally, somebody can be helped if they want to be helped, but if there is nothing within them telling them that they are doing something wrong, then how can you help them? If they understand I am doing something wrong and I want to correct it, then they can be corrected. I am not doing anything wrong, I am okay. So, when somebody starts saying like that, then it is very difficult to help them.
Duryodhana eventually, he, when Krishna comes as the peace messenger to him and just avoid the war, give the Pandavas their kingdom back, give the Pandavas his father, his mother, the sages over there, they all say except Krishna’s proposal, don’t be foolish, don’t be demoniac and he starts saying, why are all of you criticizing me? He says, even if I introspect, I don’t see any wrong in what I have done. I only protected my interests and if I have done, he says, I have simply acted according to my nature. So, if anyone is to be blamed, the creator who gave me my nature should be blamed.
This is very perverted reason. This is, did God give us our nature? Well, it depends on what you mean by nature. If we talk about lust, anger, greed, envy, pride, illusion, that God didn’t give us.
That is, by our own actions we have got that. Of course, God can still redeem us, he can still help us to reform, but to blame that which we have acquired by our own misdeeds. If somebody is an alcoholic, and he says, God made me an alcoholic.
Well, God didn’t make you an alcoholic. If God had made you an alcoholic, then you would have been born from your mother’s womb with a bottle in your mouth. Not a milk bottle, a bottle of something else.
But nobody is born like that. So, at this stage, when somebody goes to the level of wickedness, they are almost irredeemable. Still, they can be redeemed, they can be saved, they can be reformed, but it’s very difficult, very, very difficult.
So, of course, when we are dealing with people, most of the people around us in our relationships, they will broadly be in the level of weakness. Some people might be strong, some people might be tormented, some people might just be incompetent. So, basically, by understanding this categorization, if somebody is weak, we need to support them.
So, then they can get elevated. Then, weakness, if it is fanned, if it is, so, weakness and wickedness, they are different, but still they are on a spectrum. If somebody, generally, wherever there is weakness, wickedness will not be far away.
Wickedness will come to exploit weakness. Say, for example, in America, in several states, the drugs, there is a drug epidemic. Is it there in UK also, or not so much? Is there? So, several states, it has been declared as a state emergency.
Now, what happens, there are students in colleges or schools, life is stressful. Sometimes, they have exam pressure, sometimes, their relationships are not working out and whatever, they feel depressed, they feel lonely, that is all weakness. So, weakness, it is there and there are drug peddlers.
They have wickedness. They are just waiting. They might even give some free samples initially so that the people, youth get hooked.
Once they are hooked, they will be driven, they will be dragged. So, wherever there is weakness, wickedness is often nearby. And then, if weakness and wickedness come together, the wickedness it drags the wickedness down.
The wicked person, gradually starts making the weak person also wicked. So, the same person, the same student would never ever have thought of lying or stealing. Once they get hooked to drugs, they will get it somehow.
They will lie to their parents, they will do some shoplifting, steal from their home, steal from their relatives, start doing all kinds of bad things. So, weakness and wickedness, that combination is very bad. Because then, now, if weakness is associated with goodness, that’s good.
Then, that person can rise upwards. Any, so, I’ll now, with this typograph, with this broad perspective, broad framework, we’ll go ahead with the story of Duryodhana. But, any questions about this framework till now? Yeah.
I’ll talk about this, all of these at the end. How to end to all of these. Is that okay? Yes, any question? It depends on what your duplicity is about, you know.
If it’s duplicitousness, will it come with weakness or wickedness? It depends. Sometimes, there are small things which are, people cover up. You know, say, somebody steals some prasad, and says, I didn’t steal it.
Okay, it’s not very harmful. You might say that duplicitous, but that’s not a serious thing. But, maybe somebody steals a lot of money, and then they try to deny it.
That is, so, that is quite serious. So, let us say, duplicitous is basically, you are not, we are not transparent about what we are. And to some extent, that is there in everyone, unless we are pure devotees.
So, but it differs in what it is about. So, the wicked people are, both weak and wicked will be duplicitous, but the activities about which they are duplicitous is big difference. Yes, I would say that duplicitous, that duplicitous will refer to wicked.
They don’t feel like chanting. They don’t feel the need to transform themselves. They feel, I am good already.
And they feel, devotees, they are looking down upon them, they are wasting time. What are they doing so much? So, they cannot chant because they have no impetus to chant. They don’t feel its value at all.
A medicine has value when I am aware that I am sick. so, when you say duplicitous can’t chant, everybody has a tongue and everybody’s tongue has the capacity to chant that way. But they have no impetus to Just as a person who thinks they are not sick, they will not even value the medicine.
Even if the medicine is there in front of them, they will not care for it. Like that, the duplicitous will not care for the holy name at all. Yes? Association.
Yes, association. Okay. Okay, yeah.
So, if somebody is at the level of dangerous, then, are they almost irredeemable? Well, again, sometimes, even wickedness also, I will give you one name, but it’s also spectrum. Sometimes, some people might occasionally do something wicked, and some people habitually be wicked. There is a difference in that also.
So, if somebody is addicted to something which is seriously wrong, and they are just going on with it, sometimes they say they want to reform, but again they came to relapsing, and especially if they start justifying, concealing, rationalizing, then, I have given some seminars on spirituality and addiction. So, one of the things is that there is something called codependency. Codependency means, say, one person is addicted, and then the other person starts protecting, doing a lot to protect the other person.
But then, what happens, say, somebody is alcoholic, and then their partner, or their sibling, or whoever, their parent, this person has an episode, there is something crazy because of alcoholism, and then their codependent comes and picks up the pieces all the time. And then what happens, they just keep doing it again and again. So, sometimes, when somebody is going from that weakness toward wickedness, going from that, where they just, they don’t even feel I’m doing anything wrong, then sometimes some hard decisions are required.
And one hard decision is that sometimes we have to stop protecting people from the consequences of their actions in the name of love. We have to stop protecting people from the consequences of their actions in the name of love. So, I was, I was in America at one place, and then for my talk one, one middle aged man had come along with a very small girl.
So then, after that they were talking, this is, this is my granddaughter. This is, my daughter was a, my daughter became a drug addict. And then, she would take money from me, beg money and steal money, small, small amount of money.
But one day, she, she broke into my house when I was not there. She stole all my life savings. All my life savings, whatever, thousands and thousands of dollars.
And then, at that time, she was so frantic that she left her child alone at home. And somehow maybe she had not switched off the oven or some gas or something and a fire broke out over there. Fortunately, the neighbors saw that and they alerted and they called and then she was saved.
But both these things happened. She stole all my money and then she endangered her child also. So till that time, I was helping her.
She said, now nothing will happen. I filed charges against her and I filed for custody of my granddaughter. And then, because this was the first big crime, stealing, so she was not sent to a jail but she was sent to a rehabilitation center.
And she was furious. She said, how dare you take my daughter away from me? What kind of father are you? And she cursed me and it was very painful for me. What are you saying? Now, as she’s becoming rehabilitated, they had a phone call and she said, what you did was the best thing for me.
Of course, whether she will be reformed fully or not, we don’t know. But the point is, sometimes, the consequences are what create the desire within the person to change. Not the desire, I would like to give this up.
I have to give this up. It’s not just a casual desire but a serious desire to change. So, then, after that, we can talk about resources.
Resources can help only when there is the desire to change. Sometimes, the desire to change has to come because of witnessing the terrible consequences of our actions. And the resources can be manifold.
Basically, the resources for transforming, they will be not just spiritual, they can be social also. Social support system can be there. Like, same thing.
See, among these factors, the past karma, we can’t change. The upbringing we can’t change. But, the association we can change.
And even with our past karma and our upbringing, these are all factors which push us. They don’t force us. When they push, we can counter-push.
The precise English words I use is, they impel us. They don’t compel us. Impel is pushed, pushed, pushed.
And it can be a very strong push. If we want, we can counter-push. And if we have the right resources, we will be strong enough to counter-push also.
But, if we have no will only to counter-push, then we will just go away with the pushings that come from inside. So, what we are talking about is at least creating the will to counter-push. And then after that, how to counter-push.
That is something which will come later. Does that answer your question? So, any other questions at this stage? now, with this typography framework, now, even if we give Duryodhana the benefit of doubt and say that initially what he had was weakness. Now, of course, Vidura said that from the science, this child is very strong negative impulse, strong tendency towards vice.
So, even if we say that he was not born wicked, it’s a little difficult for us to think of children as wicked. Children are generally considered innocent and mischievous. And even if we agree to that, but still, his conspiring to kill Bhima was not just weakness.
It’s understandable when he feels envious, or he was respected, suddenly he started being respected. Understandable when he felt angry, when he felt peeved, when Bhima just threw him away like that. But then he is gliding towards wickedness.
And the world is such that in a sense, what we desire to do, often the world facilitates us. If somebody wants to take drugs, they will find places where drugs are available. Or even drug dealers will come to them.
So what happened for him? He was already moving towards wickedness and then something terrible happened to him. There is another wicked person who came in his life. Who was that? Shakuni.
So now Duryodhana had the association of virtuous people like Vidura, like Bhishma, like Drona. But unfortunately, whose association we have is not as defining as whose association we value. I might have very virtuous people with me.
You people are just moralizers. You speak big big things. You just criticize me.
Then that’s not very helpful. Whose association we have matters, but whose association we value matters far more. And when Shakuni met concerned about the welfare of the He was very concerned about of the He was very concerned about of the had come to the Gandhara kingdom with a proposal that I want your daughter to be married to the Kuru dynasty.
So the Kuru dynasty was a very prominent dynasty and they said it’s their honor. They agreed. At that time, Shakuni thought that Gandhari will marry Pandu and she will become the queen.
But when her hand was, now Bhishma, this is the first match that Bhishma had sought and Bhishma felt that first the older brother has to be married. So naturally he had Gandhari married to Dhritarashtra. Now Gandhari, she is relatively speaking a virtuous lady, although she is strongly attached to her son and not entirely virtuous but at least she accepted her fate.
And she started serving her husband and living reasonably with him. There is no incident, there is no description anywhere in the Mahabharata that Draupadi resented her marriage to Dhritarashtra. So not Draupadi, Gandhari resented her marriage to Dhritarashtra.
She accepted it and she lived with him. But Shakuni felt cheated. Shakuni said a great injustice has happened against my sister.
And because this injustice has happened against my sister, I will get back on her. And how? He said Bhishma is responsible for this. And he could see Bhishma loved the Pandavas.
So he says, by creating dissension between the Kauravas and the Pandavas, by destroying the Pandavas, I will get back at Bhishma. And then he also thought that okay, even if Gandhari could not become the queen, she can at least become the queen mother. And if she becomes the queen mother, then I will have royal privilege and power because I am so close to them.
So he had his own agenda. And unfortunately, what happened is that he had his agenda and Duryodhana just lapped it all up. Duryodhana, he felt, oh, my scheme didn’t work.
Maybe I need somebody who is smarter than me. Here it’s not just smarter, it’s wilder, more vicious, but not just vicious, but also more cunning. And that combination, it was horrible.
And then that, Duryodhana himself was on the path of ruination. But when he coupled with Shakuni, it was, as you could say, almost his faint was sealed. And so much so, that even when Draupadi was dishonored and attempted to disrobe her in public, actually, not only did that time he not feel he was doing anything else, he was laughing maliciously, but afterward also, there was not the slightest remorse.
His conscience had practically died by that time. So even when the Pandavas came, he was asking for five villages. Krishna came, just five villages.
Now, what did Duryodhana reply? If he had a little bit of conscience also, he would have said, no, what is the five villages, I will give you half the kingdom back. And even giving the half the kingdom back does not actually undo the offenses that he has done. But leave alone seeking forgiveness, he was not even acting according to basic decency.
So when he told Krishna that I will not give you, I’ll not give even enough land to put the tip of a needle through, that what is he doing? That is not just a saying, no, it’s like a banging load, like banging the door in the face of someone who is asking us something. Like say, suppose we invite somebody for a program, and they say, actually, I had to go here at that time, I had to do this, I can’t come for the program. That’s one kind of no.
At this point, maybe they have a desire to come, but they are unable to come. But if somebody says, even if I die, my dead body will never come to your program. If somebody says something like that, that would mean that it’s not just that they are unable to come, they have no desire to come, they are completely averse to it.
So Duryodhana by that time, by Shakuni’s association, by his repeated wrongdoings, he had gone to that level. And at that level, when Krishna said, even he spoke this, I’ll not give enough land to put the tip of a needle through. Then Krishna said, oh Duryodhana, war is inevitable, and your destruction is also inevitable.
So if somebody stays on the side of wickedness, they will cause a lot of harm to others, and they will ultimately destroy themselves. This is what Duryodhana did, unfortunately. And I was trying to talk about several other characters also, contrasting Arjuna and Karna or Yudhishthira, but we won’t go into that right now.
So let’s consider, what could Duryodhana have done right? And based on that, we will discuss, if we are in the zone of tormented, in the zone of weakness, how can we go from there to strength? So like I said earlier, first thing, he could have valued the good association. But he did not do that. So basically, there are four broad steps by which we can strengthen our conscience.
Now the same steps can also work for strengthening our willpower. So if we are either of these, if our willpower is weak or willpower is strong, but main thing is, if our conscience becomes strong and our willpower becomes strong, then that will be very well situated. So what are these four steps? The first is action.
Action, association, education and purification. A-A-E-P-I-O. First action means what? See, all of us, even if our moral compass is fuzzy, still we do know certain things are good and certain things are bad.
I was giving a talk in Amazon in America. So there, somebody asked this question about moral relativism. Actually, all morality is relative.
I said, okay. Then I said, is there anyone in the world who is doing something that you think is wrong? Of course. There are terrorists killing so many innocent people.
There are sexual predators who violate people. There are child abusers. There are many people who are doing terrible things.
Now, I said, let’s talk. Do you think that many of the, not do you think, but many of the terrorists don’t think that they are doing anything wrong. They think they are doing something right.
So now, if morality is entirely relative, if you think it is right for you, it is right for you. If you think it is wrong for you, it is wrong for you. Then, what it would mean is that what they are doing is right.
Terrorists are blowing up innocent people. They think it is right, that it is right. No, no, that’s not right.
That’s horrible. So I said, okay, you are saying morality is relative. But then, you are saying that in this case, morality is absolute.
Isn’t it? Even if they think it is right, it is wrong. So, the point here is that there can be some aspects of morality which are debatable. Some people say this is wrong.
Some other people say this is not wrong. But everybody has a moral compass. And now whether their moral compass points to the true north, that means that whether their innate moral compass says this is right and this is wrong, whether actually that is right and that is wrong, that is a matter of discussion.
But everybody has these moral categories. Everybody has a moral sense. So, even if our conscience is weak, even with the weak conscience, we know that certain things are right and certain things are wrong.
And with that weak conscience, we start doing what is right. Because of the weak conscience, we may not be able to do certain things. But certain things we can do.
Say for example, when lust comes upon us, when anger comes upon us, when greed comes upon us, we may not be able to resist. But these voices, they do not torment us constantly. It’s like if you consider the graph, say if somebody has anger, nobody is 24 hours seething with anger.
Even if somebody has lust, lust levels are also different. So, if you consider the graph versus time, it’s like sometimes this surges up. After that it is down and again it might surge up.
So, now by action what we mean is, even if we can’t resist our urges, we can persist between our urges. Persist means, you may not be able to do the right thing when the urge becomes very strong. But the remaining time, do the right thing.
So, we may not be able to overcome our anger or lust or our greed or whatever. But okay, I can come to the temple. Maybe I can come for some satsang.
I can do something positive as much as is possible for me. So, our moral compass is like a muscle. If we use the muscle, that muscle will grow.
So, even if somebody has been fractured and they can barely move their hands. One of my friends is a bodybuilder and his hand was fractured. And then the doctor told him that, you have to now start exercising.
He said, I cannot lift my hand. What exercise can I do? Doctor said, can you lift your little finger up? He said, yeah. He says, okay, ten times every hour you just move your little finger up.
That’s your exercise. Exercise! Exercise is like pumping oil in the gym. This is not exercise.
He says, no, this is your exercise. He started doing that. And then within a day, he was able to move all his fingers.
Then his palm. Then his forearm. And then gradually, full mobility came back.
Now, at that point, that simple finger moving up and down would seem insignificant. But actually, it is also insignificant. This is what I yesterday also talked about that in a different context.
In terms of dealing with different situations. But one discouraging situation can be our own inner problems which you are not able to overcome. So, the same point.
S-S-S. Does anyone remember? Was anyone there yesterday? Yes. Small, simple steps.
S-S-S. So, action means, just start with, okay, with your weak moral, weak conscience. Still, what is the good thing that you can do? Start with that.
Small, simple steps. Once you start doing this. That’s the first part.
Action. Start doing the good that you can do. And try to avoid the good, the bad you can avoid.
Now, there may be some good you may not be able to do. And there may be some bad you may not be able to avoid. That’s fine.
But at least do the good you can. And avoid the bad you can’t. Start with the action.
With a little, little lifting of a little finger. That’s the first thing. A is action.
Second A is association. What association essentially does is, that association fuels our desires. In fact, the essence of association is the transfer of desires.
When do we know whether we are associating with someone? It is when their desires become our desires. You might spend a lot of time with some person. But if you’re not even talking with them, you’re not spending much time with them, there’s not much sharing, then it’s not really association.
Association is transfer of desires. So, if we associate with those who have virtuous desires, then gradually their desires will start coming upon us. Our desires are not just linear, they’re also triangular.
Linear means that I see a particular thing and I desire it. See a particular object and desire it. Triangular means we see somebody else doing that and then we desire it.
So, often virtuous behavior, I might say, I want to be honest. Okay, that’s good. I want to be truthful.
I want to be self-controlled. That’s okay. The desire is there.
But sometimes, see what happens, self-control, honesty, truthfulness, we can’t really see them, unless we see them embodied in someone. And so, in the world, many of the world’s promises, world’s objects, many science objects are visibly attractive. And we see them and we get the desire for them.
That’s a linear desire. I see the object and I get the desire. But our desire is also triangular.
That means you don’t just get the desire by seeing it, we get the desire by seeing someone do it. So, I’ll give an example for this. Does any of you know what is baklava? Okay.
How many of you know? Okay. Most of you. Four, five years ago, when I first went to Australia, five, six years ago, I think, I didn’t know what was baklava.
So, I had gone to Australia. I had gone to a devotee’s house. And the devotee, we had gone for prasad.
And then the devotee said, for dessert, we have got baklava. Would you like to have? Now, I’d never heard of baklava. And the name baklava is not very sweet.
Baklava. So, I said, maybe later. And then there’s another devotee with me.
He said, yeah, give me. Then he took the baklava, and he was eating it, and he was savoring it. And I look at it, and I said, give me also one.
So, just hearing or seeing the baklava did not create the desire. So, there was no linear desire. But there was triangular desire.
Seeing somebody else eat the baklava, I also want to eat it. So, similarly for us, virtuous desires very rarely develop linearly. Virtuous desires usually develop triangularly.
Just by hearing an abstract, oh, we should be honest. We should be self-controlled. That doesn’t really trigger that desire so strongly.
But we see somebody who is virtuous. Somebody who is honest. Somebody who is self-controlled.
Even if you see a Bhagavad Gita. How many of us after seeing a Bhagavad Gita, oh, I want to read a Bhagavad Gita? Maybe a few of us. But if you associate with somebody who is reading the Bhagavad Gita, relishing the Bhagavad Gita, deriving fresh insights from the Gita, oh, I want to read this.
So, association. Association taps the triangularity of our desires. Quite often, vicious desires also develop triangularly only.
But vicious desires or lower desires, lust, anger, greed, they might develop even without the triangularity. I might just see something and when I see an alcohol, I want to drink it. Of course, if they have alcoholics, then it’s going to become worse more.
But this is the second point. So now, our conscience can develop even through association. If somebody has a strong conscience and we are with somebody and they are in some trouble and they have that situation where they can get out of that trouble by speaking a lie and then they refuse.
They refuse to speak that lie. They speak the truth. And they get into some trouble but they take that up.
They say, oh, really? I should also speak the truth. So, basically what happens is triangular desires. So, association.
There is, first thing was action, second is association, third is education. Education means that, what is right, what is wrong? Sometimes there is a lot of moral haziness. It’s like a moral mist.
We don’t know that. But when we study scripture, study books like the Bhagavad Gita, study bhakti texts, then they educate us. Now, each of these, what I am talking, it applies to willpower also.
By action, if we do a little, if we exercise a little self-control, say, I can’t fast whole day, but let me fast at least till noon. If I do that, then gradually I am exercising some self-control. So, action also applies like that.
For willpower also the same thing applies, education also. Then after that, sorry, action, association apply for that. I mean, education at one level, education clears the moral mist.
Okay, this is right and this is wrong. Now, how does this happen? Especially scriptural education gives us, helps the vision to see the consequences of our actions. Earlier I said that love means sometimes you stop protecting the loved ones from the consequences of their actions.
But another aspect of love could be help others to see the consequences of their actions. In general, I was with one of the most leaders of our movement, he is a sanyasi guru. So, he was telling Prabhupada, he was doing college preaching in Prabhupada’s times.
And Prabhupada told him, he said that the worst thing that you can do in our college programs is present Krishna consciousness as a set of rules. Nobody is interested in following rules. He says, what we need to do is give people a multi-dimensional explanation of why to do something and why not to do something.
And that’s the whole mood of the Bhagavad Gita. At the end of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says, yathe chita kuru, do as you desire. But before that, vimrishaitan ashe shena, deliberate deeply and then you do as you desire.
So, the Bhagavad Gita doesn’t hand out rules. One of my friends wanted to write a book on the Bhagavad Gita for a western audience. So, he said, I am writing the book The Ten Commandments of the Bhagavad Gita.
So, I told him, please don’t write a book like this. Because the Gita’s mood is not a mood of commandments. The Gita’s overall mood is the mood of choices and consequences.
If you do this, this will happen. If you do this, this will happen. So, now, education, basically, scriptural education can give us this vision of choices and consequences.
And then that can inspire us to act in the right way. And the last is purification. So, purification essentially means bringing ourselves in contact with the all-pure Krishna.
So, Krishna is all-good. And if we connect with Him, then by that, we all can move towards virtue. We all can move towards goodness.
The more we connect with the all-pure, the more we become purified. And the whole process of bhakti yoga is about… The essence of bhakti yoga is bringing our consciousness in contact with Krishna. The more our consciousness comes in contact with Krishna, the potential for virtue will start manifesting more and more.
And the propensity for vice will start getting cleansed. It is darkness. The best way to remove it is by turning on the light.
Similarly, the best way to combat vice is not to combat it directly, but rather to connect with God. Within us, whatever lower desires are there, if we try to say no to them, it always creates a sense of deprivation. Why can’t I do this? Who says I can’t do this? But instead, instead of focusing on saying no, we focus on saying yes.
We may feel, oh, this is a terrible thing and I don’t want this. I want to be saved from this. See, what we are saved from is not as important as what we are saved for.
What we are saved for. Okay. If you became free from this, we have anger, we have greed, whatever we have.
If I become free from this, what will I do after that? What do I want to do? What are the positive activities that I want to fill my life with? So if we focus on those positive activities and use our imagination to see how we could grow in those positive activities. So if somebody, maybe I’ll conclude with one or two examples, and then I won’t go over time much, that somebody has a habit of spending a lot of time maybe on their phone, on their internet, social media. Maybe somebody spends one, two hours every day just surfing the net.
And then somebody says, Oh, I’ll stop doing this. I’ll stop for some time. What happens? If you make a resolution, I will not do this.
The mind comes along sneakily with an eraser. And it erases the not. So I will not do this becomes, I will do this.
So what happens? Okay, I don’t want to spend so much time on social media. But instead of thinking what I will not do, think of, okay, I spent two hours on that. What will I do with the two hours? What is the meaningful thing that I want to do? And try to channel yourself in that direction.
Once we do that, maybe I want to read the Bhagavatam, maybe I want to attend this class, maybe I want to do this course, maybe I want to do this. So focus on the positive. And the more we connect with the positive, the negative will fall aside.
So purification also doesn’t mean just give up the impure. Purification means primarily connect with the pure. And the more we, if you understand that, I don’t just want to give up this life of weakness or wickedness.
I want to have a life of goodness. I want to have a life of purity. I want to have a life of godliness.
And we pursue that. And we can pursue it even when we have weakness. Because weakness, as I said, doesn’t trouble us all the time, 24 hours.
So as we start filling our life with Krishna, with the positive, things related with Krishna, gradually the darkness within us will start going away. So the weaknesses within us cannot be driven out. But they can be crowded out.
Driven out, get out, get out, get out, get out. No, it will not work. So, but crowded out.
Just fill your life with positive things. And the more your life is filled with positive things, with pure things, the impure will automatically go away. And thus, the potential for virtue that is there within us, that will manifest.
And that will help us to become powerful, principled human beings who can do a lot of good during our life journey in this world. And ultimately, we can attain Krishna at the end of this world, at the end of our life. Thus we can make a contribution and a supreme destination.
Both coming forward, if we rise from wherever we are to this level of strong conscience and strong will power. So I’ll summarize what I spoke over the two sessions. I started by talking about are people innately good or innately bad? There are two different theories.
And if we look at our own lives, we start as babies who are naive, thinking people are innately good. And if we have bad experiences, then we might go towards cynicism. People are terrible, people are bad.
In between the two is the courage to trust. And how do we develop that courage to trust? So we need to understand human nature. So I talked about are we innately good or innately bad? The communist, leftist idea is that people are innately good, society makes them bad.
The Judeo-Christian idea to some level is that because of the original sin, we are all innately sinful. But the Gita’s understanding is that there are two levels of innateness. That at the level of the soul, we are all good because we are parts of God.
At the level of the mind, depending on the impressions there. The mind, left to itself, the mind gets very easily impressed by vice. So we have a potential for virtue and a propensity for vice.
And the potential for virtue has to fight against the propensity for vice to manifest. And when the Bhagavad Gita says some people are demoniac from birth, they are ungodly, that means not that their soul is ungodly, but rather there are a lot of negative impressions within them. The propensity for vice has come from their previous births.
Then we talk of the case study, the story of Duryodhana. That based on the symptoms at his birth, it indicated that he had a lot of vice from the past life. And that’s why Duryodhana’s father was told, abandon him.
And the more outer power we have, the more inner power we need to use that outer power responsibly. Otherwise, the amount of outer power we have, that much havoc, that much damage we will cause externally. So that’s why Duryodhana was told that Duryodhana can live, but don’t let him live in the royal heir.
Because he will use all the royal resources to wreak havoc. But unfortunately Dhritarashtra didn’t listen. And then we saw how initially he was pampered.
We talked about the contrast between growth. A certain amount of deprivation is helpful for motivation and character formation. Like I talked about immigrants, children doing well, but once they get naturalized in a new country, in 2-3 generations, the advantage goes away.
So similarly, Duryodhana grew up as a pampered child with all comforts. The Pandavas lived in austerity and they grew up to be much more cultured. And when Duryodhana saw that, after the Pandavas came back, all the attention and affection is now going to Yudhishthira.
And Bhima is stronger than me. He just became very envious. At that teenage, he plotted to kill Bhima.
So, he, there is not just weakness, but there was wickedness. Because it’s not just that he felt envious, but he acted in a diabolical way, making a whole conspiracy. Weakness is hot-headed, wickedness is cold-blooded.
And what he did was cold-blooded. But it backfired. And Bhima came back stronger.
So now when we do something wrong and it does not give the desired result, either we can stop doing it or we can do it more. And if we keep doing the wrong things, then things will become much worse. So, for him, Shakuni came over.
So, I talked a little bit earlier about how for us, there is this potential for virtue and the propensity for vice. And we need social checks for it. That is, society has a system of justice and law and order.
That is social check. But beyond that, there is a spiritual check. So, for the propensity of vice, the spiritual check is fear of God.
And for the potential for virtue, the spiritual fan, which will make it manifest forth, is love for God. So, in his case, he had no fear because he thought, I am the king. And then, on top of it, as our behavior is shaped by our past life karma, our upbringing and our association.
So, he already had bad past life karma. All those vices were there. His upbringing pampered him further.
And then, when he got the association of Shakuni, he just became even more wicked. We talked about how wherever there is weakness, wickedness lies nearby, waiting to prey. And then, the wicked can make the weak also wicked.
Then, we talked about this four boxes. That somebody has strong conscience and weak willpower. They are tormented.
Somebody has weak conscience and weak willpower, they are just incompetent. Weak conscience and strong willpower, they are dangerous. That’s where wickedness is.
And strong conscience and strong willpower is the virtue. They are powerful. They are principled.
They are the best in the four categories. So, we talked about how we can move up. If we stay in weakness, we will go towards wickedness.
These categories are not static. If we keep indulging, we will keep getting worse and worse. But, we talked about how we can be transformed positively.
So, we talked about four principles. A, A, E, D to R. A was what first? Action. So, within, nobody is an absolute moral, nobody is a total moral relativist.
You all have a conscience. So, within whatever compass we have, we try to do the good and avoid the bad. Small, simple steps.
Just the exercise of lifting up your finger, little finger. Start with that. Second A was? Association.
Our desires are triangular. Especially, virtuous desires are not triggered linearly as much as they are triggered triangularly. Another example of McLeod for that.
And then, third was? Education. Education is, it is essentially meant to give us the vision to see the consequences of our actions. Codependence, they sometimes guard their loved ones from the consequences of their actions and thus their things become worse for them.
Now, we shouldn’t guard others from the consequences, but we can give them the eyes to see the consequences. So, rather than giving rules, scripture is not just about commandments. That is, Bhagavata is not about that.
Bhagavata is about choices and consequences. So, when the education comes, okay, this will lead to this, I don’t want this. Then our conscience can become stronger.
And the most important way for changing ourselves is, last one, P was? Purification. We connect with Krishna. He is the all-pure.
And the more we connect with him, we will become purified. And that’s why bhakti is not so much a process of saying no to vice as saying yes to the supreme virtue. Our lower desires can’t be, can’t be driven out, but they can be crowded out.
Rather than worrying about what we need to be saved from, we can focus on what we want to be saved for. What do I want to do with positivity in my life? Once we focus on that, whatever negativity is there, gradually it will be driven out of our, it will be eliminated from our consciousness and becomes filled with the light of Krishna. And that’s all of us, in our life journey, if we can come to that level of strong willpower and strong conscience, then we can do valuable things in the world.
Can make worthwhile social contribution and at the end of our life, attain the supreme destination. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.