2 Seeking Karuna Amidst Corona seminar

[Princeton University Hindu Life Program]

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you very much for joining today. And I’ll do a quick recap of what we discussed in the first session. And we’ll move forward from there.
So basically, we are trying to make sense of this enormous tragedy that we are experiencing in terms of the coronavirus. And we look at what can spirituality help us to go through with it. So the first part I talk about is the spiritual wisdom that comes from the divine in terms of helping us understand who we are at our core that can give us inner shelter, that can give us an inner sense of calmness.
So that was look within. I talked about how we have focused a lot in the recent years, in recent centuries, in gaining outer power, but not in gaining inner power. And that’s when we are put in a situation of outer powerlessness, we feel as if there’s nothing we can do.
But there is much we can do. And that is we can grow internally. And now I look at, yes, we may talk all about growing internally, but we still need to face the outer world.
And how do we go about facing that? So that’s what I’ll discuss. So I’ll be talking in three broad parts. Does God will everything? Does God help us? And if he helps us, how does he help us? So firstly, does God will everything? Will means is it that everything that happens, including, say, the enormous disaster that is happening, is this God’s will? This is one of the most fundamental questions that we face when we consider, when we try to adopt a theistic or a spiritual worldview, that how do we make sense of the enormous suffering that is there in life? Or we could put in a more common terms as there are so many good people.
And why do good people have terrible things happening to them? So let’s go to the next slide. So believe that. So there are broadly, does God will everything? No.
There are three factors which shape the way things happen in the world. We could put them as God’s will, free will and evil. So God’s will is, of course, the supreme cause.
Without that, nothing would happen. But God’s will is not the cause for specific things that happen in the world. So we could say that God provides the framework within which we function.
The example given in the Bhagavad Gita is in 9, chapter 6 verse, yathaakashisthito nityam vayu sarvatra go maha tatha sarvani bhutani matthani tyopadharaya that there is an ocean that if you consider vast sky, in that sky, the wind moves up, down, left, right. But while the wind moves in this way, essentially the sky doesn’t determine the specific movement of the wind. The sky determines the area of the movement of the wind.
If you consider wind moving in the sky. So similarly, we have our free will and God doesn’t control our free will. So our free will operates within God’s will, but our free will is not determined by God.
So it’s like a framework is given for us. Within that framework, we choose what we do. So another example to understand this could be, say, rainy season.
And now the rains are the cause of the growth of all vegetation on the earth. But in some places fruits grow, some places weeds or thorny stuff grows. So why is there a difference? The difference is because of what is sown on the ground.
So without the rains, nothing would happen. There would be no vegetation. But the rains are not responsible for what specific vegetation occurs.
Where? So in that sense, Upadrashta and Mantacha, God is the overseer and permitter, the Bhagavad Gita says in 13.23. He’s not the doer of everything. He’s not. So now there is God’s will and there is free will.
So we have our free will and sometimes we ourselves do things that we are not proud of. We do sometimes things which we deeply regret. So that’s all free will.
And beyond that, there is evil. Now evil, what does it mean literally, actually? So basically we could separate, to understand what is evil, let’s separate it in two broad parts. Can you go to the next slide? There is natural evil and there is moral evil.
So moral evil refers to the bad things that are done by people. So for example, sometimes people, somebody may rob, somebody may murder, somebody may in some way or the other do something which is evil. And so the actions of people when they misuse their free will, that comprises moral evil.
And now moral evil has consequences. Now what are the consequences of moral evil? That the reactions of moral evil come as natural evil. Natural evil basically refers to the kind of natural calamities.
It could be tsunamis, it could be earthquakes, it could be various kinds of disasters that come upon us. So that means nature seems to be acting in an evil way toward us. The Bhagavad Gita basically says that there are three main things in existence.
Tattvatraya, three truths. There is God, there is nature and there is the soul. So Prakriti, Jeeva and Ishwara.
Or if you want to use alliterative names for it, sometimes it’s called as Jeev, Jagat and Jagdish. Jeev is we, the souls, we the living beings. Jagat is nature or the universe and Jagdish is the divine.
So now, so going back to the previous two causes, what we look at it. See we have, there is God’s will, there is free will. And when that free will is misused repeatedly, that leads to evil.
So now is evil an independent agent, not exactly a separate agent who is out to destroy us? That is not the understanding of the Gita. The Gita does not talk about any separate being like a devil or a Satan who is independent of God and who is opposed to God. But evil is basically the accumulation and the reaction for whatever misuse of free will that we do.
Now this misuse can happen at various, this misuse accumulation and reaction can happen at various levels. Say, for example, somebody is an alcoholic. Now they drink once, twice, thrice, four times, five times.
And then that person becomes so habituated to drinking that they might do, eventually do terrible things to somehow get their hands on a drink. There was a Russian, when the vodka was, at one time in Russia, the price of vodka had increased a lot. So they had made an alcoholism awareness commercial.
So it was, there was a family, the child was, they were looking and they said, the news said that the vodka price has increased. So then the child, the son, fearfully asks his father, father, will you drink less now that the vodka price has increased? And the father says, no, you will eat less. So now what parent would want to cause their child to starve so that they can, they will never since drink more.
Now that’s where by the repeated misuse of free will, a person can become so desensitised that they do terrible things, but they don’t realise it. That is moral evil. So at the extreme level, we can have sociopaths, psychopaths, people who just do wrong.
And not only they do not, they don’t feel that they are doing anything wrong. Rather, they feel as if they are doing something, something right, something wonderful. And beyond that, there is natural evil.
Natural evil means the reaction that comes to it. When we do something wrong repeatedly, that gets accumulated. So one reaction that comes is that within the alcoholic itself, the urge to drink becomes so strong.
It overpowers them. But another way the reaction to the misuse of the free will comes is through nature. Now, in today’s world, we have exploited and destabilised and abused nature in various ways.
And that abuse of nature can lead to reactions. So now, according to most mainstream understanding, whatever research we have, if you look at not just the coronavirus, but most recent pandemics have, of course, not pandemic, but major diseases, whether we consider SARS or H1N1 or before that swine flu or whatever, most of these have accumulated in some way or they have triggered some way or the other associated with animal farming. Animal farming is a euphemism for organised mass slaughterhouses.
So now, of course, the point here is that two things that human beings have always eaten meat. We have canine teeth with which you can eat meat if you want to. But the sheer magnitude of how much, how many animals are killed.
Millions and millions are killed every day. And animals are grown to be killed. And then they’re not allowed to live in a natural way.
All this is serious. Now, of course, that is not the only way when we have disrupted the environment. But there are many other ways in which we have disturbed delicate ecological balances.
The earth is groaning under the burden of what we have done. So there is some reaction to that. So now, when we misuse our free will and their reactions to that, that is not God’s.
It is not God’s will in the sense that it is not that God wanted us to do bad things or God wanted bad things to happen to us. Rather, it is just a natural reaction to a particular action. A simpler example to illustrate this point that suppose somebody steps off from a 10 story building and then they crash and they get severe fractures.
Then now, is it God who caused the fracture? No, it is. There’s a law of gravity. So the law of gravity means that if there is action, there will be a reaction to that.
So it’s not that God caused the person to suffer. It is just that there is action, there will be a reaction. Now, imagine if somebody were falling from a 10 story building, from, maybe they fall from an aircraft and maybe they are so caught in their own thing, they don’t even notice they are falling.
So if they are maybe, then if they don’t notice they are falling, then they come and crash. What happened? What happened? How did I crash like that? But from the moment the aircraft started crashing or they fell off the aircraft or whatever happened, the descent is going on for a long time. And it is not that gravity has a personal agenda against anyone.
Gravity is simply a law of nature. So now, so basically the first point which I’m making is, how does all this related with the with the current Corona crisis? Let’s move forward. Can you go ahead? Next slide we have.
So till now I talked about what is God’s role. So God is not the cause of what happens. So now does God help us to deal with situations? How does God help? So to understand God’s provision, we need God’s vision.
God’s vision means that we need knowledge to understand how the help is being offered. This is not very difficult to understand. Suppose somebody has got some severe pain in the belly and the doctor says we have to operate you.
At one level, surgery itself means further pain. It’s cutting the body. We say I have pain and you are giving me more pain.
But that pain is the way to cure pain. So unless one has some medical knowledge to understand the doctor’s actions, one may feel, is the doctor helping me or hurting me? Similarly, for us, if you want to understand God’s vision, God’s provision, how does God help? We need to get a more philosophical vision as given in the wisdom texts, like the Bhagavad Gita. Go ahead.
So now why some things happen? To understand that we can look at these three levels of causation. So whatever happens, say now on the left side is say the presently we suppose somebody is afflicted by, we are all afflicted by the corona crisis, even if you are not personally infected by it. But suppose consider there is somebody who is infected.
Now there is the immediate cause, there is the remote cause and there is the ultimate cause. So the immediate cause for the suffering is the virus. And there is a remote cause for it, which is the past karma of the person.
And the past actions that they have done, that is the combination of the free will and the evil. And there is an ultimate cause that is disconnection from God. We discussed earlier about how we are all spiritual beings.
And when we say we are spiritual beings, that means that each one of us is a part of the divine, is a part of the divine as spiritual beings. And we are at that level beyond as spiritual beings, we are unaffected by material upheavals. So the ultimate cause for our situation is the disconnection from God.
Often material existence is compared to an ocean. And in this ocean at times there is the understanding that we may have to go through, in the ocean there can be turbulence. Sometimes the ocean is smooth, sometimes there are waves, sometimes there are huge waves, sometimes there are tsunamis.
So now whatever be the specific nature of the wave in the ocean, first of all if the person is in the ocean, then there is certain amount of distress, certain amount of vulnerability to disaster that is there. So we are disconnected from God and we are placed in the material world which is a place of vulnerability. So that is the ultimate cause.
Beyond that ultimate cause there are specific causes that lead to specific reactions. So there is an immediate cause and there is a remote cause. And so in the case of somebody getting affected by the disease, the coronavirus, so they get infected by someone.
So now there are cases where say people, one person was infected, they don’t know they are infected and they mix with other people and there is no adequate social distancing. Then they cause trouble to others. Now they might associate with 100 people.
Out of this 100 maybe 50 get infected, 20 get infected or 70 get infected. Now what exactly determines who gets infected and who doesn’t get infected? Now we may say it’s immunity, but it may well be that sometimes some people have high immunity, but still they go through difficulties, still they suffer. Why is that? So that’s because we need to understand that it’s not just the immediate cause that is there.
The immediate cause is of course important and the immediate cause needs to be addressed, no doubt. But the immediate cause is not the complete cause. Beyond the immediate cause there is the remote cause and then there is the ultimate cause.
So we will look at the, whatever happens, it’s a combination of the immediate and the remote. Sometimes some people might seem to have high immunity and still they get infected. We see this especially with respect to say heart disease.
Now people who have never had any heart problems at all, they might just get one heart attack and that might turn out to be fatal. And somebody who is very vulnerable, they have a lot of heart issues, but still nothing happens to them. They live on for a long long time sometimes.
People, they live on longer than their heart specialist, cardiac specialist, doctors. Although they are much more serious heart patients and the doctor is perfectly healthy. So the immediate cause is there, but the immediate cause is not the complete cause.
The immediate cause is correct, but not complete. And when something happens to us, it’s a combination of immediate and remote causes. And that combination is often an unpredictable in terms of which contributes how much.
Sometimes if we look at our lives, we do some minor mistake and we get a severe consequence of that. And sometimes we do a major mistake and we don’t get much result of that. Suppose somebody is driving on a car, driving a car and they just they handle a phone.
And during that time, maybe somebody else drives across the road and they hit them and there is a calamity. Sometimes some people while driving, they are tired or bored and they nod off and they might drive. There is a straight smooth road with not much traffic.
They might drive on for a long long time and nothing happens. So what happens is the immediate cause is there. So in the case of the person just looking at the phone for maybe half or for maybe just a second, that’s a minor immediate cause.
But the remote cause is if there is some negative karma that has to be addressed over there, that has to be undergone, then what may happen is that immediate cause is minor 1%, the remote cause is 99%. And the person goes through big trouble. On the other hand, the person doesn’t have that remote cause to deal with.
Then what may happen is the person might sleep while driving and they keep sleeping for several minutes, but nothing happens. Several minutes might be a bit too much, but I know one person who said that they were driving early morning and nothing happened to them. They practically got off their one straight road from their home to the place where they were driving.
And he said, I don’t even remember how I drove. There were no signals at that time. So for several minutes they were driving, but nothing happened.
So sometimes the immediate cause might be 99%. I mean, terrible mistake has happened in the immediate level, but nothing is, if there is no remote cause, then the result might not be there. So now what is, why do we need to understand this? We are trying to make sense of why are we discussing all this? We are trying to make sense of how we can access God’s grace or we can sense God’s karuna amid this situation.
The situations of distress that we experience in the world. So when we understand the three level of causality, then we can understand where God’s role comes in. Can you go ahead? So now the immediate cause needs to be addressed.
Each of these causes has to be addressed at different levels. So how do we address the immediate cause? Now we, not we as specific individuals, general people, but we have scientists, we have researchers, they are trying to find vaccines, cures. And now it is God who inspires them from within.
If you look at the history of the advancement of human knowledge, whatever field between science or literature or art or music, its significant role is played in that by inspiration. Inspiration basically means that we have been thinking about a particular issue, but suddenly the answer comes to us as if fully formed. We did not seek it, but we just got it.
Where did it come from? We don’t know, but we just get it. So that is God’s inspiration for us. And so we can to address the immediate level.
Now we understand that if any solution comes, it is God who is providing a solution. That doesn’t mean we don’t give credit to the researchers who put in the hard work. Yes, they put in the hard work and there was some divine inspiration which came.
So we don’t, when we talk about seeing God’s grace, it is not that we expect or demand some kind of miraculous intervention, that some magic wand is played and suddenly everything is addressed, everything is mitigated. No, there is. Now this is in sometimes science and religion, if you want to use that word right now, the word has a negative connotation and the preferred word is spirituality.
I won’t go much into the difference between religion and spirituality, but spirituality usually connotes more of open minded exploration of truth. Whereas religion often connotes a narrow minded adherence to dogma, to doctrines and rituals. But whichever way we want to look at it, sometimes science and religion are put as in contradiction.
But it is not like that. If we consider a broad spiritual understanding within which there are certain religious practises, then this spiritual understanding includes the scientific understanding. That there are immediate causes and the immediate causes need to be addressed at the immediate level.
So, for example, even in the even in the dharmic traditions of India, there was a well advanced branch of knowledge called Ayurveda, branch of medical knowledge. And Ayurveda was not just praying to God to heal the sick. There is a sophisticated system of study of herbs and their characteristics and their effects.
And so that this is the material imbalance in the body and this is the material that will rebalance the body. So the addressing of immediate cause is also a part of the spiritual tradition. And now at one level, we need to get the, we need to know a cure, but to apply the cure also, there is God’s grace comes in when we address the immediate cause.
It strengthens our intelligence and our self mastery. If somebody is an alcoholic and if they want to give up alcoholism, they need self mastery. They need self discipline.
So now if we, if we pray to God, if we connect with God, then that devotion clarifies our intelligence, that increases our willpower. And this way, when we have to take some practical precautions, sometimes you might be nonchalant, sometimes you might be careless. But if you understand that actually, I am doing this because it’s a service to God.
I am doing this because I am a part of God and I need to act responsibly as a human being in this world in a mood of service and devotion, contribution, then that gives us a higher motivation to be responsible, to use our intelligence, to use our self mastery and act responsibly. So for whatever precautions are required to be taken, they need to be taken. But they can be taken with spiritual understanding and we may well be able to take them better if we have spiritual understanding.
Because we will become more conscious and more cautious by that way. That’s addressing the immediate cause. Then we go to next slide that is addressing the remote cause.
The remote cause is basically the karma that we have done in the past. And that karma which we have done in the past will have its results. Now what will be those results? There is purification and there is minimisation.
So when we address the remote karma, how do we address that? There are various forms of prayers, rituals, sacrifices. There are various practises which we may do and these are meant to address things with the remote cause. Now the remote cause is also one level of causality.
Generally the more knowledge we have, the more options open for us to deal with difficulties. Say knowledge expands our vision of what is happening. And then we can have a multipronged approach.
So for example, now with respect to the corona crisis, we understand that if we have some basic knowledge, I should not associate closely with the infected person. With that knowledge I can address it at that level. If somebody is infected, then they can address it at that level.
The doctor will address it. Okay, treat the patient or whatever is possible. Now this we could say social distancing is one way of addressing the problem.
Then treatment is another way of addressing the problem. But now we could decrease, we could freeze the international borders. By which people who might be carriers of germs, carriers of the virus do not come into the country.
That’s not so much a medical approach. It’s more of a legal, administrative, governmental approach. Then we might decide that no, but we are a global globalised economy.
What do we do about the things that we need from other countries? Do we produce them locally? And that brings in economic measures. So we can address issues at different levels, at different frames of reference, based on the knowledge that we have. So the cause of the infection is not just, okay, the virus came from this person to this person.
We can escalate the cause. The cause can also be, oh, now we have open borders with that country, that country is infected. So we might also get infected.
So we can have higher and higher levels of causation. And different levels of causation, different means can be used for addressing things. So similarly, when there are certain prayers that are recommended for chanting at a particular time.
So, for example, in the dharmic tradition, Narsimha is considered to be a protector. So Narsimha Kavach Mantra, Narsimha Mantras are often recommended to be chanted as means for protection. Now this, what is this doing? We do not deny or minimise addressing the immediate cause through the scientific means.
But we understand that the immediate cause is not the complete cause. There is a remote cause also. And the remote cause also needs to be addressed.
So the addressing of the immediate and remote causes, it is not contradictory, but complementary. So science, scientific methods of addressing issues, and spiritual methods of addressing same problems, same issues, they can be complementary. So what happens when we address the remote cause? There is purification and minimisation.
You remember I talked about moral evil and natural evil. So moral evil refers to our own tendency to do wrong. When we keep doing wrong, it becomes solidified with that impressions, those impressions become solidified within us.
And they impel us to do wrong. So when we worship and pray, when we practise some form of propitiation of the divine, some form of bhakti, then what happens is there is purification from within. That means the tendency for moral evil decreases.
And there is minimisation. Minimisation means the reactions that are coming for us, for whatever we may have done individually or collectively, those reactions can be minimised. That’s minimisation.
So minimisation here, we understand the principle of karma is not retributive. It is restorative. That just like in a normal state governmental system also, the primary purpose of the criminal law is not so much to punish the criminal as to reform the criminal.
So similarly karma is also a system of cosmic justice. And the purpose of it is not to punish, not to give retribution, but to help in restoration. So now what this means is that if we start learning to live more harmoniously with nature, we purify ourselves of the impulses and the drives that make us want to randomly exploit nature and the creatures within nature for our own pleasure, then that can minimise the reactions that come.
That is addressing the remote cause. And then beyond that there is addressing the ultimate cause. So we address the ultimate cause, as the next slide, by the practise of, by the direct practises of Bhakti Yoga.
So resources, that is the various resources for developing a devotional connection with the divine. Here when we are developing the devotional connection, there is a change in the conception of the divine. We often pray to God as the fulfiller of our desires.
The desire can be for some gain or for getting some gain or for avoiding some pain. Whichever way it is, it’s a desire. Krishna talks about in the Bhagavad Gita, talks about two categories of people, Artho and Artharti.
Those who are desiring removal of pain and those who are desiring the gaining of their desires, gaining of their, may be craving for whatever they want. So one vision of God is as the fulfiller of desires. So in this understanding, we don’t see just God as the, we are not interested in God per se.
We are interested primarily in what God gives us. But beyond that, a more holistic understanding is that, that in the Bhakti tradition especially, it is described that God is all attractive. He is himself the fulfilment of desires.
And we stay in the material ocean as long as we think material things are desirable and crave to enjoy them. But when our desires become directed towards the divine as the source of the supreme satisfaction, when we see him as the fulfilment of all desires, then that is how we address the ultimate cause. That’s how we basically get out of the ocean.
And this is, Krishna talks about this in 7.19th Bhagavad Gita, where he says this may require multiple lifetimes of spiritual evolution. Bahunam janmanamante, jnanavanmam prapadyate, vasudevah sarvamiti, samatmasu durlabhaha. So bahunam janmanamante.
It might take many lifetimes. But what happens by that? Eventually vasudevah sarvamiti. One understands that Vasudev, the Supreme Lord is everything.
He is the be-all and the end-all. Understanding this is very powerful. So now with this three level of causation, let’s look at how can we help God to help us.
So how does God help us? By helping us in various ways to address the immediate, remote and ultimate causes. Now we have also heard that God helps those who help themselves. So how do we help God to help us? That’s the last part of our discussion.
So this is a little concentrated slide, but I think there are four points I’m going to talk about here. And this is acronym META, which I’m using, that we discuss about the immediate, remote and ultimate cause. So so for all these, what do we do? OK, the acronym is not sequenced right over there.
Mitigate, emigrate, tolerate and appreciate. So mitigate means that wherever there is an immediate cause that can be addressed, that needs to be addressed. We need to mitigate it.
So if somewhere somebody is not taking a medicine, which can help them in some way, they need to take that medicine. That’s mitigation at a practical level. Then tolerate is, sorry, then emigrate.
Let’s go in this way over here. Tolerate is what? We understand that there are certain factors which are not in our control. So the immediate cause is for us to address.
The remote cause, it’s already been initiated. We can’t do much about it. So that is not that we have to tolerate it.
We have to wade through it. We understand that the world that we live in is characterised by temporariness. Everything is temporary.
Our bodies are temporary. Our lives are temporary. So the most promised pleasures in the world are temporary.
But similarly, the most feared troubles are also temporary. So they will end. They will end.
So we need to tolerate them. So the results of the remote cause need to be tolerated. We have to be patient.
And like now we are being advised to hunker down if the government decides a period of lockdown or shutdown, then we all have to tolerate it. And then tolerance can seem very passive and disempowering. But there is a third opt thing that we can do.
That is immigrate. Immigrate means that we raise our consciousness from the material level to the spiritual level. The ultimate immigration is when we relocate from material reality to spiritual reality.
That is what is often called as liberation or attainment of the kingdom of God or the spiritual world. That is also a process that goes on lifelong in terms of the elevation of our consciousness. So when we practise spirituality and we learn to shelter our consciousness in something beyond the material, when we immigrate our consciousness, we will find that the worldly upheavals will disturb us less.
In general, what we fear reflects what we hold dear. What we fear reflects what we hold dear. So if somebody is very attached to sports, cricket, then if their favourite team loses, it’s devastating for them.
But if somebody is very attached to politics, then if their preferred party gets defeated, they feel it’s a disaster. But somebody is not interested in cricket or not interested in politics, then the events may happen, but they don’t impact them that much. So what agitates us most reveals what we have invested ourselves in the most.
So when we immigrate means by the progressive practise of bhakti, our centre of attachment relocates from the physical objects of the world to the supreme spiritual object beyond this world. So when we raise our consciousness to the spiritual level, that ensures that we don’t get that much agitated. And then beyond all these, we need to see that whatever happens, for whatever reason, we appreciate it as an opportunity for spiritual growth, that there are things which ever happen, now there is a cause for things and there is a purpose for things.
The cause is often very difficult to understand. Like I said, it might be 1% immediate karma, 99% immediate cause and remote cause. We don’t know what is the exact reason why something happens.
But we can appreciate that whatever be the cause why something happens, that cause we may not be able to know, but purpose, that is something which you can know. The purpose for everything in life ultimately is our spiritual growth, the elevation of our consciousness to the spiritual level. And if we see every situation as an opportunity for that, we appreciate it that way, then we will be able to move forward no matter what happens.
And that’s why it’s important for us to keep this vision that, whatever karma may get us to, Krishna will get us through. The divine has different names in different traditions. The Bhagavad Gita knows the divine by the name Krishna.
So whatever karma may get us to, Krishna will get us through. So that is that every situation that is there, we can appreciate that as an opportunity for spiritual growth. Why something specifically happens, we don’t know.
So in that God’s grace is seen in the opportunity for us to expertly choose any of the options on Meta or all of these options, mitigate, immigrate, tolerate, appreciate. When we do this, we’ll find that God’s grace is always available for us. That God is there with us, not somewhere up there, remote, uncaring or up there inflicting problems on us.
Rather, he’s there with us, within us, to help us deal with whatever difficulties come our way. Machittah sarve durgani, mat prasada tarisyasi. If you become conscious of me, you will pass over all obstacles by my grace.
It is that guarantee which Krishna gives. That is 1850 in the Bhagavad Gita. And it is this philosophically grounded conviction that can become a powerful weapon for us to move forward in our life journey.
In tomorrow’s session, I’ll especially talk about addressing fear practically in terms of what all we could do to face our fears, especially in a situation like this. Today I’ll summarise what I spoke. I spoke on this topic of look up.
And broadly I talked in three parts. First is that what is God’s role in what happens in life? So is God the cause of a disaster like the corona crisis? We discussed about three levels that whatever happens, there is God’s will, there is free will and there is evil. So God is not the desirer or intender of every specific thing that happens.
The rains cause all vegetation on the earth, but they don’t determine which vegetation grows where. So we all have free will and sometimes we misuse it. And the misuse of free will, that eventually leads to evil, which has two forms, moral evil and natural evil.
Moral evil is where we repeatedly keep doing wrong things. And then that becomes so accumulated as impressions that we don’t even feel anything wrong while doing wrong things. And then the natural evil is the reaction to our wrong actions.
So natural evil is not God having a personal vendetta against anyone. If somebody jumps down from a 10 story building, it is not that God causes them to get fractured limbs. It is just the law of gravity.
Similarly, actions have reactions. There is a law of karma over there. And natural evil is the result of moral evil.
And we discussed about how we have disrupted and even devastated the ecology in various ways. We caused enormous pain and destruction to Mother Nature and there will be reactions for that. So then I talked about, OK, how does God help us? We talked about to understand how God helps.
We talked about three levels of causation. Anything that happens, there is an immediate cause. Somebody has a sickness because of the coronavirus.
The immediate cause is the contact with somebody who had that infection. Or somehow they got the virus from somewhere. But then beyond that there is the remote cause of the past karma of a person.
And the ultimate cause is the disconnection from God because of which we are caught within the material ocean, material existence. So each of these needs to be addressed at its own level. So science provides us the resources to address the immediate cause.
And those resources need to be valued and gratefully utilised. So we see, we are grateful to the scientific researchers who are working hard to find a cure. And we also appreciate that it is God who gives the scientists the inspiration, the intelligence to find the cure.
At the immediate level, if we have a spiritual understanding, we will also become more responsible and more careful, conscious and cautious in practising precautions. At the level of remote cause, there is minimisation and purification minimisation. The purpose of karma is not retributive, to inflict punishment, but restorative.
It’s to bring about transformation or reformation. So if we strengthen our spiritual connection, we do some devotional practises, then those, what do they do? They act as expressions of our desire to reform. And then when there is purification, thus there will be minimisation.
So prayers and practises which people do, which some people might do in such times like chanting Narasimha mantra or some other religious practises, these are not in any way, they are not contradictory to scientific. They don’t minimise or deny the scientific solutions. They both stand complementary.
And the ultimate cause we address by accessing the spiritual resources for growth that are given in the bhakti tradition. Then how do we deal with each of these? I talked about how we, for the immediate cause we mitigate, for the remote cause we tolerate, for the ultimate cause we immigrate, we raise our consciousness to spiritual level. And whatever we are able to do or not able to do in any situation, we appreciate every situation as an opportunity for spiritual growth.
When we function in this way, we all can grow spiritually and we can rise to a higher consciousness. Whatever karma may get us to, Krishna will get us through. So the general exercise which we could do to address our, to look up, how can we look up practically? We can look behind in our life, remember any incident that seemed like an adversity, but worked to be an opportunity eventually.
We all, if we look back our lives, we may find some incidents like this. And they can help us broaden our vision, not get caught in the present, but see the present as a part of a bigger plan. And then the current problem that we are having, this meta framework, in the situation that we are in, what can we mitigate? How can we elevate our consciousness upward? What can we tolerate and how can we appreciate? If you apply this framework, you can start sensing God’s presence and God’s grace even amid the situation that we are in.
Thank you very much. Are there any questions? I appreciate opportunity for spiritual growth. It is there for everyone because ultimately everyone is a spiritual being.
Everyone is on a spiritual journey. And we all go through our routine life and we don’t think about bigger realities as long as we are caught in our daily routines. But when the daily routines are disrupted, we start thinking what’s going on in life? So this is a mega disruptor.
And when our normal life is disrupted, that’s when we start thinking about bigger things. So it is an opportunity for at least some contemplation about what is the nature of reality? What is our place and purpose within reality? And that can trigger some spiritual contemplation. That’s how it’s an opportunity for spiritual growth for everyone.
If somebody is infected by the disease itself or are you saying they are affected by the overall situation? OK. Yeah, it’s definitely a difficult situation if somebody is directly infected. There are two, three broad things.
Our bodies are vulnerable and perishable. And when our bodily resources are somehow limited in some ways, then to spiritualise our consciousness is not that easy. But if we try to do it, there is a supportive community or there are friends who can assist in some ways.
Then there is the impetus for spiritual growth. Now, how exactly it will work out? Somebody is sick and somebody is struggling for treatment. When we live in, if somebody in the ocean, there will be turbulence.
And when the waves hit at that time, one will be battered by the waves. But it is through all that battering by the waves in the ocean, one’s conviction that one has to get to, one has to make some plans to get out of the ocean, that conviction increases. And when there is, when somebody is infected at that time, it is God’s grace can manifest internally through some strength, some realisation that we get.
It can manifest externally through others, other spiritually minded people who might offer us some moral support, some practical assistance. And through all of it, one’s spiritual connection, one’s spiritual commitment, spiritual realisation increases. So this is not to in any way, so it’s not to in any way minimise the physical challenges that come up.
But there is the circumstantial and there is the transcendental. Sometimes circumstantial difficulty is what works out to be a transcendental opportunity. And we look at the example of Srila Prabhupada, when he came to America, he was afflicted by two heart attacks.
But through that he got a mystical vision of Krishna. More than that, throughout all, he became convinced that this is the mission that I have to follow and I’m going to follow it, whatever it takes. And it led him to become more convinced, more determined and he moved forward.
So exactly when something happens, why it is happening, that is not so easy to understand. In tomorrow’s session, I’ll talk about this theme broadly that when we face difficulties, how do we move forward through them? Why doesn’t God shield us from difficulties if he loves us? But sometimes difficulties are what are necessary for our growth. So the process of spiritual evolution requires the dissolution of our present conceptions and comforts sometimes.
And that’s what sometimes happens. OK, OK. So now is fear a healthy motivator? If fear is the sole motivator, it is definitely unhealthy.
That’s not at all healthy. But fear is often essential, a part of any process of learning. You asked about parenting.
Well, now with society becoming more and more fragmented, there are many families which are single parent families. And single parents often have to put in a phenomenal amount of effort to take care of children. And they do put in that sacrifice.
So, but still sociologically what has been found is that children in double parent families grow much better than in single parent families. And one reason for that is that for growth is required a combination of conditional and unconditional love. Unconditional love means, you know, however you, whatever you do, however you are, I accept you.
I care for you. I value you. So that is unconditional love.
And at one level, love has to be unconditional. But another level, there is the natural desire and even the responsibility for the parents that the children should grow. Children should themselves mature.
They become more responsible. And becoming responsible means that one has to recognise that actions have consequences. So conditional love doesn’t mean that children are neglected or rejected or condemned.
But just that there has to be some amount of discipline. You do this, then you will get this. If you do this, you will get that.
So now it is very difficult for one parent to offer both conditional and unconditional love. So if there are two parents, then that division of labour can happen to some extent. Sometimes it is conscious, sometimes it’s just unconscious, the roles are alleged, associated.
Roles are allotted or chosen based on one’s own disposition. But the point is that in our relationships, we want to be kind, we want to be nice, but we can’t afford to be naive. If we are naive, we will be exploited by people.
So the idea is that we need to be reciprocal. We are courteous and courteous to everyone, but then we want to develop a connection with people. So if somebody is repeatedly just taking us for granted and using us for their own purposes, without they growing or taking up responsibility or they helping us when we need, then we may decide, do I need to invest so much in this particular relationship? We can take stock of that.
So God loves us. Now that brings us to the question of God. Is God’s love conditional or unconditional? It is both.
God loves us as we are, but he loves us too much to let us stay as we are. God loves us as we are and he loves us too much to let us stay as we are. So I think that that’s the combination of conditional and conditional.
Love that is that is required for any kind of relationship. Thank you. No, no, no, no.
That’s fine. And I just I wanted to just understand whether if you are relating with a specific point, then I could connect and address it. But it was an important question.
Thank you.