The corona crisis What nature is telling us about human nature

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
I hope I’m audible clearly enough I’m happy to be here with all of you and today I’ll be speaking on the bhagavad-gita 14th chapter 4th text so this is Krishna speaking he says that so I’ll speak on the topic of what corona crisis and what nature teaches us about human nature basically I’ll speak this in three broad parts I’ll speak first about what whenever we are facing this crisis we look at what role we can play to deal with it the corona crisis that we are facing then second is that what what is the bhagavad-gita’s wisdom that can help us to understand our role better and lastly how the bhagavad-gita’s wisdom can help us individually and collectively to deal with the situation that we are facing today so this particular verse talks about how the Lord is the seed-giving father of all living beings Krishna says that I am the seed-giving father of all living beings that means essentially he is saying that there is no the nothing as that he all living beings are coming from him all of material nature comes from him and thus he is the source of everything so as the modern technological progress has happened we have started living more and more within our own bubble of an ecosystem within the broader nature we live in our own world of dreams and full cause and that is a bigger world beyond so at any point during the session if you have anything is not clear you can post comments in the comment section and if you have any questions we’ll be addressing them at the end so thank you again and if the audio is not clear or anything you can let me know in the comments and I’ll try to see what can be done to fix it so here we are essentially discussing about how we human beings have lived in our own ecosystem and our own ecosystem means that we live in a world which we have created we’re less and less conscious about the bigger world that we are a part of we live in our homes in our cities in our own technologically created bubble and suddenly at this particular point the world has come bursting through the world has come bursting through natural world and not only has it come bursting through and still if we consider the world’s economy to be like a giant wheel not just the economy the world itself to be a giant wheel it’s incredible that it has been slowed down and stopped to a certain extent so generally we have tried to find a solution to it it has it has created enormous amount of inconvenience there have been thousands of people who have been hit, millions whose lives have been disrupted and billions who have been affected in some way or the other and it’s a time of great distress and questioning so basically when we face great difficulties there is one thing that what do I do immediately to deal with it, so we all need to follow whatever guidelines are given for dealing with the situation whether it be in terms of maintaining social distancing or be more careful about our hygiene or another such things specifically so there is broadly two things in our life there are the things that have survival value and there are things that bring value to our survival and during our lives when some crisis like this comes up either we descend down to the lower level where there is a mad struggle for getting the things that have survival value or there is a deeper introspection about what are the things that bring value to our survival what is it that truly counts in life, how can we make sure that the things that are truly important we focus on them often most of our lives go neither at this level at the things that has survival value or the things that bring value to our survival often most of our life goes at the superficial level where we are caught in in gossiping we are caught in oh this person has got a bigger house than me I look I can speak I am smarter than that person we get caught in things which are neither necessities for our life for our living nor are they deeply meaningful for us but there is an enormous amount of superficiality that comes up when we get caught without a proper social perspective of what needs to be done so and especially with technology what happens is the more technology we get the more we can have distraction the more things that are superficial for us we can get caught in them of course technology can provide us all these three things technology can provide us things of survival value things that are superficial and things that bring value to our survival but unfortunately most of what we get caught in technology is in the second category and these superficial things suddenly start questioning does this really matter so either we descend to an anxious search for what is needed immediately so in some countries for example when the news of the pandemic started breaking out there was a frantic purchasing of toilet paper or masks so now these were thought of as necessary and we started frantically purchasing them fortunately as of now things have not become so dire in the world that violence or riots or anything like that has broken out in any major way but the point is unless we once the basic needs things that provide survival value are taken care of unless we raise our consciousness higher and think about what are the things that bring value to our survival unless we do that we will find ourselves caught we will find ourselves trapped in a descending spiral of self-centredness self-centredness means that see generally the more we think about others needs the less we think about our own needs but the less we think about others needs the more we get devoured by our own greed and by greed what it means is not that even the things that are necessary for our survival today if we stock them enormously it might mean that somebody else doesn’t get what they need right now on the off chance that we might need them in the future so basically at such a time there is a there is an opportunity for deeper contemplation what really counts in life what is it that is truly important for us and that’s when we can turn towards spiritual wisdom so what is it that brings value to our survival all living beings survive and all living beings struggle to survive but we human beings are not satisfied simply by surviving we want more in our life we want to be able to do the things that bring meaning and purpose to our life and at one level the bhagavad-gita begins with a setting where arjuna was caught in an existential conflict he said that actually he says even if i get prosperity unparalleled on the earth or even equal to what is available in the heavens still that won’t satisfy me i need something more in my life and thus he turned towards Krishna and that’s the moment i was spoken so so that means for arjuna at that particular time he that really matters for me what is it that can bring meaning and value to my life and how can i get that so i said i’ll only speak in three parts what nature is teaching us about human nature the first thing i said is that we are so caught today in our own technologically created ecosystem where we forgot about the bigger nature bigger world that we were living in and in our own ecosystem we are caught in pursuing superficial things the news here the losses there the purchase here and suddenly that has been brought to a stop so when that is brought to a stop when the superficial is not so easily possible either we the things that have survival value or things that bring value to our survival so at a practical level each government and local authorities will make some arrangement for us to get some things that have survival value and we need to take practical responsibility for that spirituality especially the rest of the bhagavad-gita it help us see what are the things that bring value to our survival bring value to our survival means that for all of us in life at every moment there are many many options of what we can do right now you could be hearing this talk right now you could be maybe surfing on facebook to look for some update about something maybe some miraculous cure some some some of us might get caught in conspiracy theories oh actually this whole thing is just a hoax so the bhagavad-gita explains that there are three modes of material nature goodness passion and ignorance and all three of these they shape our response to situations so generally in the mode of passion we overestimate our capacity to control things and that means we we overestimate ourselves and underestimate our problems in the mode of ignorance we overestimate our problems we underestimate our capacity to do anything so if we consider a pendulum then when we are in the mode of passion we adopt the attitude of nonchalance there’s no problem nothing is going to happen to me so we start thinking that the problems are no big deal that’s the attitude of nonchalance and the other extreme of the pendulum is where there’s an attitude of panic powerlessness help just passivity rejection where we feel oh this world is such a big place and is unfilled by control but there there might be the virus anybody might be having it and i might get it and i might succumb to it what can i do about it i can’t do anything and thus we might come to panic so krishna in the bhagavad-gita the 14th chapter talks about the three modes and he says in these three modes they will see how we function in life so how we function means that there is neither clear understanding nor is there purposeful action so we neither are there that is the time when we are succumbing to the mode of ignorance just panic and passivity of course sometimes panic doesn’t lead to passivity panic leads to the flight response where we just in a crazy way try to do something which is not suitable we often create trouble for ourselves this is the time when some people become hypochondriac hypochondriac is people who imagine that they are sick so one classic example of somebody who’s hypochondriac is they sit down to watch tv and sit on their remote and they sit on the remote the remote’s mute button gets put gets pressed and the mute button is pressed they’re watching the tv and no sound is oh no i have gone deaf i have gone deaf so what happens here there is a complete misdiagnosis of the problem and instead of thinking that they have got a good thing and they can’t hear anything from that tv oh i’m honest so this when we phrase in this way it can seem humorous and ludicrous but actually our mind has this tendency to misdiagnose problems and make things seem far worse than what they actually are make us seem far more powerless than what we actually are so the mode of ignorance provides us a response which is paralysing which is petrifying and that is something we need to avoid then the mode of passion makes us feel as if there’s no problem it’s no big deal this whole thing is just a propaganda some people are so much into conspiracy theories that whatever is told by anyone they start doubting it this is not right this is not right this is not right this is not right this is not right so now they are sceptical about everything except their own mind that means everybody is doing a conspiracy against them but what they don’t understand is their own mind isn’t the biggest conspiracy against them yes the world is so complicated that we can’t know what the reality is for sure but we need to first reasonable knowledge that we have if we start waiting for absolute certainty well fine how many areas of life do we ever get absolute certainty to move forward life is in most of life we work with the best approximation of what people even when they eat food every day if we ask for the guarantee that oh is this food completely safe there’s nobody nobody did anything unhygienic with the food yes if something seems obviously off we need to be but if we get too caught in that we will never be able to learn anything or do it we’ll never be able to eat at all so in conspiracy theories people just become dismissive of everything and they think that this is just a it’s just a hoax but actually it is the mind that is creating the biggest hoax for all of us so at such times what is the response in the as I said the mode of goodness we try to understand what is in our control and what is not in our control and we then act accordingly so for understanding what is in our control and what is not in our control the mode of goodness is characterised by is all senses are illumined by knowledge by knowledge and when they are illumined by knowledge Then we can see things clearly and seeing things clearly means not just that we see the immediate factors clearly, but we also get a better sense of the bigger picture. Better sense of the bigger picture means that in life, whenever things happen, there are multiple levels of causation for this.
So, for example, now there’s a corona pandemic. If somebody gets a positive diagnosis, they are infected, then the first question would be, okay, you know, who did I come in contact with? Did I touch someone or contact someone because of which I got the virus? That would be one level of questioning. But if it’s a state or a district or a country where there was no corona infection earlier, then the question would be, okay, where did this particular, how did this virus come into the country at all? So we could look at the case at an individual level, we could look at a state level, at a national level, and we could look at a bigger level, okay, where did this come for, come about in the world? The current scientific understanding, it is that this is basically coming from the wet markets in Wuhan, and there was some kind of random genetic mutation, which converted the corona virus that it caused earlier epidemics to mutate, and now it is leading to the COVID disease that we are having right now.
So, just as we understand that things can be escalated at different levels, and we need to address at whatever level is practical for us. So for all of us, we are not directly playing a role in, say, the state decision making apparatus, or a global, the global organisations, which might make some decisions. But so we don’t have any much leverage at that level.
But we do have our freedom. And our freedom is shown here in today’s world by how we deal with things individually. So I’ll talk about three broad principles with which we can, which can help us have a healthier response.
And so there is, there is, we are careful, we are caring, and we are composed. So now, careful is being cautious. And that’s what is being stressed quite a bit, that you wash your hands properly, don’t touch your face, and stuff like that.
We don’t want to, wittingly or unwittingly, become agents of infection. So we need to be careful. But at the same time, it’s important that we be caring.
How we express our care may vary. We might not be able to express affection, as we might normally expect, express because of social distancing or whatever. But there are different ways in which we can express caring.
In the Ramayana, there is an interesting story of how issues can be addressed at various levels. So what this means is that when Ram goes to the forest, in the Ramayana, Ram goes to the forest with Vishwamitra to protect his sacrifice. So, So, there he goes to protect the sacrifice of cows, cows is the same as Vishwamitra earlier.
And the second time Ram goes is, He goes because he is sent to the forest by his stepmother, Kaikeyi. So now, in these two times when he goes to the forest, the context are very different. The action is the same, that he is going to the forest.
But in the first case, he is going, it is clear that it’s going to be temporary, but although it’s going to be risky. At the first time when Ram goes to the forest, he’s not yet married, he’s single. And also, he is going on a noble mission for which he has been summoned by Vishwamitra.
So it’s significant that on both occasions, Dashrath doesn’t want his son to go. And yet Dashrath is forced to let Ram go. In the first case, when Vishwamitra comes and requests that I want your Ram’s assistance to protect my sacrifice.
Dashrath is alarmed, he’s aghast. No, Ram is just a tender child, he has not even fought any war still now. Of course, Ram is not exactly a tender child, he’s a robust youth.
But from Dashrath’s fatherly perspective, he’s a tender child. I will bring my whole army with me, and I will be there in the lead to protect him. Tell me, who are the demons who are persecuting him? Actually, these demons are the associates of Ravan.
Now, here is where Dashrath becomes alarmed. He says, even with my full army and myself exerting my full prowess, I will not be able to stop Ravan’s forces. We won’t be able to stop his forces, we won’t be able to stop them.
That’s the time when Vishwamitra becomes angry and says, please excuse me, I cannot send my son, and I’ll be sending him to the jaws of death. So, Vishwamitra gets angry and says, you gave your word, how dare you not honour your word now? And seeing his anger, everybody starts trembling. And Vashishtha, the royal priest of the Yudha dynasty, tells him, Ram is actually divine.
He is the supreme god Vishnu who has descended to this world. And Vishwamitra himself has the power to destroy all demons. If Vishwamitra is asking you to come, asking you to send your son, that’s simply because he wants to glorify him and he will empower you.
He will empower your son. So, Dashrath’s heart is heavy. But at this time, when Ram is going to the forest, it is a temporary mission, you know, he will go by your death.
And of course, there’s no guarantee that he will survive. But if he survives and comes back, then it’s going to be temporary. However, in the case, second time when Ram goes to the forest, again, Dashrath’s heart is broken.
And this time he has to go because Kekhi has constrained him. So generally, we see from the Ramayana, how even the powerful are sometimes rendered powerless. In life, we sometimes think that if I had more wealth, more strength, more physical strength or more political contacts or whatever else, if I had more power, then I can do more things according to my will.
And things against my will, I won’t have to do. But Dashrath Maharaj’s example shows that not once but twice he had to do things which were utterly against his will, which caused an immense agony. And both involved is having to let Ram go to the forest.
So power is no protector from trouble in this world. Some people say that I’m happy. It’s good.
It’s not good to just always be miserable and make others miserable. But if some people claim that they’re happy, and they don’t need to do anything to elevate their consciousness, then there’s a simple two point definition of misery, which we can apply to understand that actually nobody can be sustainably happy in this world. And the two point definition is this, that unhappiness or misery means to get the things we don’t want and to not get the things we want.
So priya and apriya, that which is dear for us, we don’t get it. That which we like, it goes away from us. Priya, we yoga.
What is dear for us is separation. And apriya, what we don’t like, we yoga, we get that. And that happens even to a king as powerful as Dashrath Maharaj.
So the world is such that we all will at some time or the other have to accept the things that we don’t want. And at that time, what do we do? I was talking about how in the mode of passion, we overestimate our capacity. And you think, no, if I said no, then get lost.
Not alone. Accept this. And in today’s world, often the definition of a very strong person is one who never takes no for an answer.
If I want it, I go for it and I get it. Yes, that is one way of looking at a person’s determination and their greatness. One’s greatness is seen by their determination to persevere, by their refusal to take no for an answer.
But one’s greatness also has to be seen by not just how we make life serious, but also how we take life’s no’s. You know, later, we recognise that we are not God. We can’t control everything.
And when things are not in our control, certain things just have to be accepted by us. So, therefore, at such a time, Dashrath has to let Ram go. So, what does Dashrath do? Dashrath sends his good wishes, his prayers, his blessings with Ram.
And later on, Ram is again going to the forest. At that time, Ram knows. Now by this time, he has become much more popular, much more influential.
And the whole of Ayodhya is devastated. He needs to go to the forest. But at that time, Ram offers his good wishes.
He offers his consummatory words. He makes sure that things aren’t made worse. Every single person that Ram meets, he tries to decrease the temperature, the emotional temperature.
He tries to calm them down. And Kaushalya, at that time, Kaushalya is especially shattered. And she says, the king has so completely sided with Kaikeyi.
What will happen to me when I’m left alone without you, Ram? I cannot live here. Take me with you to the forest. Ram could very cleverly say, yes, I need a terrible person to say what he has done.
But Ram always tries to be serious. Oh, mother, I was with my father. And I could see that he was in great distress.
He was in agony because of what had happened. And he feels utterly betrayed by his youngest queen. But this time, if you reject him and leave him, it will be a second unbearable blow for him.
And he will not be able to survive it. This is the time when he needs you the most. So what Ram does is, he shifts Kaushalya’s vision of Dashrath.
That Dashrath is not a victimiser. Dashrath is also a victim. And does that mean that Kaikeyi is the victimiser? No.
Ram pacifies him. That’s why he says that. And others also, he pacifies and he says that, actually, you don’t need Kaikeyi.
It is the will of destiny. It is the will of destiny. Something like this happened.
Let us accept it. And let us move on. So when Bharat comes to meet Ram in the forest at that time, he tells that, ultimately, whatever happened was a divine arrangement by the will of destiny.
So Kaikeyi was something else to him. Don’t blame her. So the idea is that Ram, even Ram has to accept something which is not just unpalatable, but which is unconscionable, which is horrible.
But while accepting it, what does he do? He makes sure that rather than focussing on his own pain, he tries to decrease the pain of others. So at such a time, if we try to be caring toward others, be caring toward others could also mean just in whatever way we interact with them, through phone messages, through phone calls, through our interaction, just be kind, be caring, speak some kind words of appreciation, speak words of love, words which help us get out of ourselves. And this is not just to help them feel better about the time they are facing, but also to help us get out of ourselves.
Generally, we can feel Krishna’s grace not directly through some miraculous intervention like Krishna, but we feel it by the interactions of Krishna’s representatives. So each of us can become a channel for compassion to act through. If we care for each other, as this will be the third part, so I told that, what are the Gita tellers about this? Gita speaks that we can try to respond in goodness.
But remember, the Gita focusses not just on goodness. I talk about three things. We will talk about being careful, being caring, and being composed.
Now, how can we stay composed ourselves? That is when we understand that ultimately everything that happens is within Krishna’s plan. Terrible things happen, but Krishna brings good even out of the bad. Each time when Ram was devastated, Ram was sent to the forest.
What happened? Actually, Ram emerged stronger. First time when he went to the forest, it was his heroic feat that he was able to kill powerful tyrannical demons like Subahu, Tataka, and others. And not only that, he won the hand of Janaki, of Sita at that time, by performing, excelling in the Swayamvara, by lifting up Shiva Chakra, the bow of Lord Shiva.
Second time when he went in the forest, he enriched himself by gaining wisdom from the sages. And eventually, he was able to free the world of the cows that was around. So, for each one of us, at one level, for Ram, at one level, it was a danger.
It was an agony to have to leave the comfort and the care and love that was there for him in the royal palace and go to the forest. But through it all, something glorious came out. So, we, of course, don’t have to go to a forest.
But sometimes, because of social distancing, we might feel that our lives have become so changed. And we might feel that many of the things that we took for granted, they’re no longer available for us. So, when Ram, Sita, and Lakshman were living in the forest, there was nothing superstitious available.
None of the royal luxuries were available. So, it was either they had focus on getting the things that had survival value. Lakshman would primarily arrange for their regular food or the things that brought value to their survival.
They both, they all came closer to each other. And ultimately, that loving connection was what made not only the forest like livable, tolerable, but also made it gradually joyful. And not only did they become better connected with each other, but they also were able to contribute better.
It was there that Ram saw the extent of the ravages that the Rakshasas were doing, and he rose against them. He eventually freed the world from such demons. So, for each one of us, when we say that, how can we stay composed? We stay composed by knowing that no matter how difficult things become, Krishna is still in control.
And he is in control means that he can bring good even out of the bad. And as we keep playing our part, whatever it may be, our part, we can show our care for each other by connecting with each other better. Let me just speak more kindly, speak a few more, speak more, more kindly and speak and do absolutely whatever we can to each other, to those people around us.
And when we does, this composure comes by seeing ourselves as a part of Krishna’s plan. The Bhagavad Gita doesn’t depict God as someone who’s high up in the sky, unconcerned about the world or even higher up in the sky, throwing down thunderbolts upon the sinful. The Bhagavad Gita depicts God as right inside the world.
Krishna is right next to Arjuna in his own chariot. And similarly, Krishna and the Paramatma is there with us in our own hearts. And if we strive to serve Krishna, that service attitude that we have, Krishna, how can I serve you in this situation? That service attitude can become like a light.
And with that flashlight, we start trying to serve. Okay, what can I do here? How can I serve Krishna in this situation? How can I be a channel for Krishna’s compassion? Our service attitude is like a small flashlight in the dark. We can’t remove the darkness that is there in the world today.
We can’t remove the negativity and often the exaggeration about what all the problems are there in the world that comes up in the news and the social media. But we can become a small flashlight of positivity, of purpose, of spiritual reason, and of spiritual connection. And who knows? Krishna is so powerful that normally when it’s dark, we turn on the flashlight and try to turn it to maximum power.
But a flashlight has limited power. However, Krishna can empower each one of us. So that while we might seem to be like a small flashlight, some of us can be empowered by Krishna.
Instead of flashlights, we may discover that Krishna can make us into a floodlight. Krishna can make us into a floodlight where we can share positivity and kindness and spiritual wisdom with many others. It might be small, it might be big.
But if we strive to have this service attitude, Krishna will help us understand that he is there with us and he will make us instruments by which others can also feel Krishna’s presence, Krishna’s grace. And as we all can, together, move through this crisis, and as Ram emerged stronger and wiser and more glorious through his exiles, we too can move stronger and wiser through the crisis that the world has been going through. I summarised, I spoke on the topic of the corona crisis, what nature is teaching us about human nature.
I spoke this broadly in three parts. First is that, how do we respond? So I talked about normal, we human beings have been living in our own small ecosystem, unconcerned about the bigger world. And in that ecosystem, we have even got caught in hundreds of superficial things that the media and the culture bring our way.
So at such times, what happens? Two things come into the focus, things that have survival value and things that bring value to our survival. And as the things that really matter for us at the immediate functional level or at the ultimate existential level, our vision goes towards that. And for the things that matter at the point of bringing value to our survival, the whole world stands ready to provide us wisdom.
So what is that wisdom? I talked about the three modes and how in the mode of ignorance, we underestimate our capacity and sink into negativity, depression and helplessness. On the mode of passion, we overestimate our own capacity and become nonchalant. We underestimate the problems and the mind goes into, the mind makes us concoct conspiracy theories without recognising that the mind is the ultimate conspiracy theory hatcher.
So in the mode of goodness, we estimate things realistically. So I talked about what is realistic way of acting. We are careful, we are caring, we are composed.
So careful means we recognise that there is a serious problem and we take the necessary precautions. Caring means that in whatever situation we are in, by our actions, we can compound the problem or we can minimise the problem. And everybody faces problems.
Even the King, he had to accept when things went against his will, when he had to send Rama away to the forest. So one’s greatness is seen not just by how they make the world say yes to them, but how they learn to take a no when the world gives a no. So everybody faces misery because everybody gets the sometimes the things they don’t want and don’t get the things that they want.
So both the Dashrath and Rama, they demonstrate that the more we think about others’ needs, the more we can get out of our own head and get out, our problems can become better and better. So Rama showed that attitude of caring. And lastly, I talked about composure.
Composure, we can stay composed when we understand that each one of us can be a example for Krishna’s compassion, that no matter how bad things are, Krishna can bring good out of them. And just as Rama emerged stronger through his forest exiles. So we might feel like we are in exile right now, although we are at home.
But such a situation of difference and difficulty is there. But if we strive to cultivate a service attitude, that becomes like a flashlight. And if we stay connected with Krishna, Krishna can transform each one of us from a flashlight to a floodlight and we all can make a positive difference and emerge stronger, wiser and better through this crisis.
Thank you very much.