What difference is it going to make in my life? How is the Gita relevant today? – MAIL Acronym

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Gita relevant today? So, I was once in Texas. Now, Texas is a part of America, Southern America, which is known as the heart of the Bible belt. So, there are a lot of aggressive angelical Christians.
And there’s one boy who met me when I was in the university and he said, you look like a monk. I said, yeah. He said, so which tradition are you from? I said, I am from the Bhakti Yoga tradition.
Okay. So, you know, whatever you do, how is it relevant today? He said, there are many gospel thumbing preachers that I have met and they give so many discourses about you will go here after death and you will go there after death. I want to know you religious people, you often quarrel and argue and fight among each other and you fight about what is the nature of the other world and you make life in this world worse.
So, he was actually representative of a thought system. We have most of the world about theism and atheism. So, these are those who accept existence of God, atheists are those who don’t reject the existence of God.
In between often there are what is called as agnostics, those who say that we can’t know whether God exists or not. But however, apart from them, there is one more category which is becoming more and more. In America, if you fill in some form about yourself and you have to fill in your religious denomination.
So, you can get an option, there are various religions, the six main religions of the world and others and then at the bottom there is option none. None. And Obama was the first US president in his presidential address.
He said that we are a country of diversity, we are a country of Christians, Protestants and Catholics, Christians and Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, theists and atheists, believers and non-believers. So now, he is not exactly an atheist, what is technically called as apatheists. Apatheists means I don’t care whether God exists or not.
I don’t care whether the spiritual stuff is real or not. I want to know what difference is it going to make in my life. All that I can see is you people, whatever you believe and whatever you practice, it only makes our world worse.
So, what positive difference does it make? So, I was supposed to give a talk that evening. So, I had just visited that college. So, I told him that I have a talk in this evening.
If you come, I have another topic, but I will change this topic and I will speak on this topic. He said, oh really? Okay, where’s your talk? Then it was in the main auditorium over there. He was a little surprised because he had seen me just walking along the food path.
Okay, I’ll come. So, that’s the time when I prepared this talk. So, is the Gita relevant today? So, I’ll talk about this in broadly four ways.
So, the question that often comes up is that we live in a world of science and technology. We live in a world of comfort and prosperity. If we just went back about 500 years ago, today, and compare that time with today, today we have easily available for us things that were unimaginable even for royalty a few hundred years ago.
We have electricity, we have plumbing, we have air transportation, we have telecommunications, none of these was even what is possible even imaginable. So, the amount of progress we have made in terms of technology is remarkable. Similarly, we have far not all of us, but a significant portion of humanity has a significant level of comforts more than in the past.
So, the question comes up that we are progressing. Why do we need the Gita or any of this religious or spiritual stuff like this? So, that question is based on a false premise. What is the false premise? That actually speaking, there are two dimensions to our life.
There is the outer dimension and there is the inner dimension. Science can make things better. It is spirituality that can make people better.
So, science has remarkable capacity to improve things in the outer world and it has done that. And yet, we see in human history, the technology that has led to so much comfort has also been a tool for so much destruction. The last century, the 20th century, was the most violent century in recorded human history.
Leave alone the most violent century, actually, the amount of deaths due to wars and violent crimes combined in the 20th century were seven times more than the number of deaths in all the 19th centuries combined together. So, we have significant outer power. Carl Jung was a famous Western, European psychologist and he said that the more outer power we get, the more inner power we need, the more outer power we get, the more inner power we need to be able to use that outer power responsibly.
Otherwise, yes, we get comforts. Technology gives us enormous power, but we may use that to hurt each other, to destroy each other. Now, we’re not blaming technology for this.
It’s pointing out that technology or prosperity alone cannot completely fulfill the needs of the human person. So, we need the Gita because it offers us another kind of knowledge. Now, what is that kind of knowledge the Gita offers? So, science can provide us speed.
We have cars which can move with incredible speed. We have airplanes which can move very fast. It is the Gita can provide us direction.
Yes, we can move fast, but which direction in life is worth moving? Are we moving in the right direction? And we say, yeah, what is the idea of right? Everybody can move wherever they want. Yes, that’s fine when the Gita acknowledges that humans have intelligence and independence, have independence, and the Gita acknowledges that. But nobody wants to move or nobody consciously seeks to move in a direction that is destructive.
And yet that is what is happening. So, we have speed, but we need direction also. So, science can provide us the means for living.
Means for living means we can have transportation by which food supply can be brought from one part of food can be brought from one part of the world to another. We can have food, clothing, shelter, and so many of the other needs of our life we can provide it for. And to some extent, this COVID pandemic has revealed that for each one of us, the means for living, we were able to stay and live digitally, we have this class digitally.
So, technology can provide us many resources for living. However, we human beings also, Gita provides us the meaning for living. Now, if you ask Siri, what is the meaning of life? It gives all kinds of funny answers, because that is a question which is very difficult to answer.
One of our friends is in California, and he is in the mental health care profession. And he told me that in this pandemic, there’s been a lot of focus on the COVID itself and how it is going to take a toll and how to manage balance the lives and the livelihoods, that whole dilemma that the whole world is facing. He said, what is being overlooked is the mental health.
He said in the last three months, and this has been, we are talking regularly, last three months, I’ve received more emergency calls for help than what I’ve received in the last 20 years of my life. Why? Because of the shutdown of life, normal life, as we know it because of COVID. Many of the distractions we had, we no longer have them.
And then we start asking ourselves, what is the actual meaning of life? What am I here for? Is it that one creature that is utterly invisible to us can bring my whole life to a standstill? What is life all about? So we need meaning in our life as much as we need the means of life. So in fact, for many people who end up ending their lives, who commit suicide, of course, now, the politically term, correct usage is not to commit suicide, it is to die by suicide. That means they treat suicide not as an act committed by oneself, it’s like suicide is a disease and you get infected by the disease and you die.
That’s a sensitive but tragic way of phrasing the things. The point is most people commit suicide not because they’re starving. Yes, some people do in emergencies, but far more people commit suicides because they feel their life has no meaning or whatever they thought was the meaning of life was taken away from them, was thwarted from them.
So is there an enduring meaningful life which can keep us moving forever? No, we don’t really fear suffering. Suffering comes upon everyone in life. But what we really fear is meaningless suffering.
When there’s a war, the soldiers, anyone, young people from the country will voluntarily go to the battlefield to fight and they know there’ll be deprivation over there, deprivation over there, there may be even destruction, death over there. So they choose all that suffering because it is meaningful, that yes, I am doing all this for my country. So, as much as the body needs food, that much the human head and heart need meaning.
And with meaning, we can even accept suffering. And without meaning, even pleasure becomes boring. When pleasure becomes boring, most of us may think that I want to enjoy life.
But if I ask you face to face, how many of you like comedies? Who doesn’t like comedy? Who doesn’t like a good laugh? Everybody does. But if I told you from tomorrow onwards, you have no family obligations, no financial obligations, no social obligations. From tomorrow morning to night, for the rest of your life, you do nothing except watch comedies.
You might do it for half an hour, an hour, if you are very frustrated with things in life, maybe for a few days. But after some time, you get fed up of comedies. You want to do something meaningful in life.
It’s all just meaningless laughter. So, with meaning, even pain becomes acceptable. Without meaning, even pleasure becomes unacceptable.
So, we need meaning in life. And unfortunately, science itself doesn’t tell us what is the meaning of life. In fact, the way science reveals the world is, we are just lucky accidents in this cosmos and we are here flapping around for some time and then we die.
So, if we take not a scientific world view, but a scientistic world view. Scientism is different from science. Scientism is the ideology.
Science is the methodology. Scientism is the ideology which claims that science is omnipotent, sorry, is omniscient, that science knows everything, that all the questions that are worth asking are answered by science and if any question is not answered by science, then that question is not worth asking. So, scientism significantly has no scientific proof.
Scientism itself is unscientific. But the point is, science cannot tell us what is the meaning of life. And Albert Einstein famously said that, you know, we can have, we can talk about the ethical foundations of science.
Is science being used ethically? Is science being used meaningfully? But it says we can’t talk about the scientific foundation of ethics. Because ethics, what makes like meaningful, what is moral, what is right, what is wrong, this is something science cannot tell us. So, again, the point is not to devalue science.
The point is to recognize that we humans need knowledge of another kind. To quote Einstein again, he said, the sciences, the arts and the religions, they are all trees, they are all fruits of the same tree of human knowledge. So now, this is about scientism, how dare you believe in something that cannot be measured, analyzed or peer-reviewed.
Now, well, what about my mother’s love? Does your mother love you? Well, if I ask this question in America, it’s considered to be unpleasant question to ask because there are some people whose mothers have abandoned them and they grew up in maybe childcare services or whatever. But for most of us, we’ve experienced our mother’s love. In fact, if our mother had not loved us, we would not have survived our infancy.
So it is real. But how can we measure it? How can you quantify it? How can we scientifically prove our mother’s love? Is there an experiment by which you can say that my mother loves me? The mother’s love is real. It is what sustains our life and yet it cannot be scientifically proven.
So there is much more to life than what science can provide us. Science can provide us entertainment. We get incredible amount of titillation through entertainment.
But Gita can provide us enlightenment. And what is it that we want to do beyond just stimulating our senses? How can we live a meaningful life? So what we live with is important but what we live for is far more important. Live with is the resources, is the means.
Live for is the purpose, the meaning. So science can provide us the means for living. The Gita can provide us the meaning for living.
And what we live for is far more important than what we live with. Both are important, no doubt. So with this background, science can provide us with the means to live a meaningful And what for is far And what we live for is far more important than what we live with.
The Indian has Dr. Mehtab in in India. One of the powerful and of many of you know about movies like Matrix, which talk about are we living in a virtual world ourselves. So, the discussion of what is real and what is not real, it is not just a philosophical question.
It is often a practical question, which matters to each one of us. Because ultimately, we live in the real world. We want real relationships.
Somebody may have 5,000 friends on Facebook. But if they are in need, do they have one friend who can comfort them? So, what world is real and what world is not real, you need to understand that. Now, so that was, which is actually real.
So, now I’ll talk about four, an acronym to explain the Gita’s relevance in four points. That acronym is MAIL, M-A-I-L. And we’ll talk about the insights that Gita provides about the mind, about action.
Action means with what motivation we should act in the world. Then about intelligence and then about love. And these four correspond with the four primary teachings of the Bhagavad Gita.
They are Dhyana Yoga, which is about the mind. Karma Yoga is about action. Gyan Yoga is about the intelligence and Bhakti Yoga is about love.
So, let’s continue. Now, when we talk about the mind, the mind is one of the biggest mysteries in modern science. The mind definitely is something which exists and influences all of us.
And yet, within the methodology of science, the mind has no locus tondi. We have the brain, but where is the mind? What is the mind? Now, all of us have had trouble with our mind. Mental health problems are among the most alarming and even incurable almost kind of problems.
Not entirely incurable, but it is a very, very exasperating kind of problems. A whole genre of problems, in fact. And among the various species in human existence or in existence, it is only humans who can find their mind so unmanageable that their mind can end up killing them.
No other animal in existence commits suicide. Now, this is not just a comic, it’s a tragic fact. What happens is that time the mind is literally killing the body.
The mind is destroying the body. So, understanding the mind again is not an ideal psychological or philosophical curiosity. It can well be an existential necessity.
And the Gita begins with Krishna and Arjuna having a discussion. And at that time, Arjuna is about to fight a war. The war is to establish dharma to overthrow a vicious people who have grabbed power unscrupulously.
And yet, before that war begins, Arjuna himself becomes overwhelmed. His mind attacks him. His mind immobilizes him.
So, I can’t fight. I can’t fight. And he puts aside his bow.
He puts aside his bow saying, I can’t fight. And that warrior who nobody could make him put aside his bow, he voluntarily puts aside his bow because he’s overwhelmed by his mind. So, the mind can have devastating influences on us.
Now, what exactly is the mind? The Gita gives us a very tangible and practical understanding of what the mind is. Tangible means it tells us what the mind is in terms of concrete reality, ontology. And practical means we can use this knowledge to make our life better.
So, what the Gita says is our existence is three level. There’s the body, mind and soul. And that is like a computer system where the hardware, software and user.
So, the hardware is like the body, the software is the mind and the user is the soul. So, if somebody has a brand new phone, but their phone’s software is corrupted, it can’t work. Similarly, a person may be very healthy and even attractive physically, but if their mind is troubled, then they may not be able to function at all.
So, the mind is the software inside us. And just as any software can become corrupted by viruses, our mind can also become corrupted. And this is the big problem that when we have depression and somebody has suicidal urges, when somebody has anxiety disorders, when somebody has attention deficit disorders or so many other kinds of mental health problems, it’s basically what is happening is the software is becoming corrupted.
And what do we do if the software is getting corrupted? We have to cure it. So, Krishna says two ways in the sixth chapter. This is text 35.
He says that there are two ways to cure the mind and that he says is Asamsayam Mahabaho Manodurnigra is the mind is very difficult to control, but it is possible to do these. Now, what does Abhyas and Vairagya mean? It can basically mean two things, feeding and fencing. Feeding and fencing.
What it means is, let’s say, if you have a software or let’s take a simple example. If we have a child, I’ll come to the software example. So, if somebody has, if you have a child and the child has to be fed nutritious food and the child has to be fenced, so that child doesn’t go into danger, the child doesn’t go out.
There is feeding and fencing. Or going back to the software example, if you want to prevent the corruption of the software, what do we do? We first of all put in anti-virus program which cleanse the software. We make sure that it’s clean and nourished and then afterwards we have parameters.
We don’t just put in any CD, any pen drive from anywhere. We don’t download in software, any executable programs from anywhere. Fencing.
So, feeding and fencing. So, the Bhagavad Gita is quite clear. The mind is not our enemy.
What is inside the mind is our enemy. We need the mind. The mind is like the software.
It is a functional link for us to act in the world. There is a link between us and the body. So, what is in the enemy is what is inside the mind.
Inside the mind all kinds of unhealthy emotions, unhealthy desires, unhealthy conceptions are there. So, what we need to do is change what we put inside and that is feeding, that is abhyasa. What we put inside.
So, for example, now you are hearing spiritual wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita. We may put in spiritual stimuli in this way. We may chant the holy names of Krishna.
That’s also putting in spiritual stimuli. So, change what we put inside consciously and the mind also has a tendency to take things inside. The mind may see some sight over here and then some sensual sight may go in and we just stay inside and just get glued to our mind.
Be cautious. Be cautious of what stimuli we take inside. So, what we put inside, be cautious, that is feeding, abhyasa.
And what it takes inside on its own. Like a child may go here, go there, may go on to the road and try to eat something, some flower or leaf or something which is on a shrub outside the fence, outside the house. No, stop it.
So, we put inside constructive things and we avoid damaging things from coming inside. And if we do this, each one of us can make a significant difference in dealing with the mind. So, this is just an inkling of what the Gita teaches.
But Dhyana is essentially about focusing the mind on the spiritual so that we take in the positive. So, that is Dhyan Yoga. Now, let’s move on to action.
Action is connected with Karma Yoga. Now, this is a famous verse from the Bhagavad Gita, 247. It states, So, Krishna says, the way to work, the art of work is to work without attachment to the results.
Now, this, in today’s psychology, makes no sense at all. Because most self-help books will tell, before you start a work, visualize the result. If you’re giving an exam, visualize yourself with the certificate, with the trophy, whatever it is you’re going to achieve.
And with that vision in mind, work. So, in one sense, is the Gita telling the exact opposite? And if we don’t visualize the result, if we don’t aspire for the result, then why would we work at all? So, why would the Gita give such a counterintuitive instruction that work without attachment to the results? Now, this is a very significant teaching and it’s simplistic. I was giving a talk in Yale Medical College and there was an Islamic professor of Hindu studies over there.
And he said, I read the Bhagavad Gita and this is one thing that never made sense to me. He said, right now you are here because you want all of us to understand what the Bhagavad Gita is. So, are you not attached to that result? Are you not attached to wanting us to understand how can anyone work without attachment to the results? So, I told him that this verse is not as simple as it seems.
Why? Because the Gita differentiates between goals and results. It is not against setting goals. It is against being attached to the results.
And I’ll explain what is the difference. So, usually what happens is we choose actions, what I should do and what I should not do based on the results. If you feel, okay, this particular area, I’m unlikely to be successful.
The efforts are too many. Maybe let me not do this. This, yeah, it’s more reasonable.
So, we do it. And when we do a particular activity also, if we get the results, we become inflated. I am so great.
I am so glorious. I am so successful. Without results, we become deflated, useless.
Many times you may see this duality on a tennis court. When the winning shot is hit, the winner just, yahoo, the winner jumps up in the sky. And the loser just sinks into the ground, drooping as if the whole world has ended for them.
Of course, not all tennis players are like that. But sometimes we see these extreme dualities. So, we, in general, we seem to function quite in a result-centric way.
So, what’s wrong with that? So, what the Gita says is something very significant, that the results are not in our control. And when we obsess over the results, there is a problem. So, therefore, the Gita says, be more concerned about what the work does inside you than what it does outside you.
What does it mean, basically? As students, we study. Now, obviously, when you study, you want to get good marks. Yes, that’s true.
However, in the long run, 5 years, 10 years, 15 years down the line, when you are in a career, how many marks you got in which term exam won’t make that much of a difference. How much you learn the subject, and more importantly, how much you develop a discipline to study, to train your mind, to develop a mind that is eager to learn, that will make a huge difference. So, the work does some change outside and the work does some change inside.
So, Gita’s focus is, don’t get so caught in what change the work is going to do outside. Yes, I could have got the first rank, but I got the second rank, or I got the fifth rank. Yeah, that’s a difference.
In the world’s eyes, it’s a big difference right now. But in the long run, if you have developed an ethos of diligence, of discipline, of responsibility, that will stand you in a good state. Einstein also phrased this slightly differently.
He said, be not a person of success, be a person of values. Values is what happens inside us. So, the Gita, and of course, there are multiple levels of what we can talk about values.
But the principle is, the Gita is telling us that what is outside is not in our control. Sometimes we may study very, very well, but just some things happen and maybe we don’t get as, maybe we fall slightly sick before the exam, and we don’t get very good marks in the exam because we are not able to perform well. Does that mean all our studies was in vain? No, we did do our part, we learned, we put in the hard work, we mastered the subject, and more importantly, we train, we develop a trained mind to learn.
That is invaluable. Because sometimes the intangible successes, which are the changes that happen inside us, we may completely forget them, when we get obsessed with the tangible changes in the outside world. So, in that sense, the Gita’s message, be detached from the fruits of the work.
It is empowering. How empowering? Because it shifts our attention to what is in our control and not what is beyond our control. The results outside are beyond our control.
The results inside are in our control. So, the Gita’s message in that sense empowers each one of us. So, let’s look at this from another perspective that these are the four Ds in functioning.
In Sanskrit, these are called as Karma, Daiva, Kala. So, Karma is duty, Kala is duration, and Daiva is destiny. So, these three come together to give us the phala, the desired result.
So, a simple example could be farming. In farming, the duty is to sow the seeds and plough the land. That’s what the farmer does.
Then the destiny is rains have to come in the right time, in the right quantity. And then the duration is the farmer cannot get the grains, the harvest immediately. The farmer has to wait till the harvesting season comes.
So, duration has to pass and then the results come. So, among these four factors, if we consider, the only factor that is in our control is duty. Now, we are obsessed about the results, and we often think that our actions lead to the results.
It’s not that simple. Yes, our actions contribute to the results, but they are not the sole cause of the result. So, when the Gita says, don’t be attached to the results, what it means is, don’t think that you alone are the cause of the results.
So, because we alone are not the cause of the results, therefore, don’t be too worried if the results don’t come. Don’t be obsessed with the results. Don’t be elated if the results come.
Don’t be dejected if the results don’t come. Do your duty. And eventually, we will get good results.
When the duration passes and the destiny becomes favorable, the results will come. So, we need patience. And so, the detachment which the Bhagavad Gita talks about is more about acceptance, that after I have done what is in my control, let me not obsess over that which is not in my control.
And I started this point by saying that there’s a difference between goals and results. Setting goals is perfectly fine. In fact, after the Bhagavad Gita was spoken, the Kurukshetra war was fought.
And Krishna and Arjuna were together. Krishna was the charioteer of Arjuna. And every day during the Kurukshetra war, Arjuna set goals.
Okay, this is the regiment of the opposite army that I am going to deal with today. These are the opposing warriors that I am going to neutralize today. Most famously, on the 14th day, Arjuna said, I will bring down Jayadrath who was responsible for his devious role in the vicious killing of my son Abhimanyu.
And when Arjuna set that goal, by sunset today, either Jayadrath will die or I will die. Krishna didn’t tell him, Arjuna, you forgot Karma Nivadi Karaste. No, because that’s not the implication of Karma Nivadi Karaste.
See, for us to do our duty wholeheartedly, visualizing the goals can motivate us. And that’s wonderful. So, the Gita is not against visualization of the goals.
Yes, we visualize the goals. However, after we have done our duty, then let go. Then understand that doing the duty was my control and doing the duty was my part in getting the results.
But beyond that, I don’t have a part. So, if the results may come, they may not come. So, by this bigger picture, we can develop greater steadiness.
Sometimes when results come, sometimes the results don’t come. When results come, we won’t become proud and arrogant, thinking just say, I am so great. And when results don’t come, we won’t become depressed and deflated thinking I am worthless.
No, I have some capacities. Let me use my capacity. Let me do the best that I can.
And in due course, results will come. So, again, Karma Yoga is a very, I just, what I talked is a basic introduction to Karma Yoga. It’s much more nuanced.
But this will indicate that it is again a very empowering way of living by which we do all that is in our control and let go of what is not in our control. So, Stephen Covey in his Seven Habits of Highly Successful People also talks about his idea of circle of control and circle of influence. So, the Bhagavad Gita doesn’t use that language.
But Karma Nivradhika Raste is talking essentially about the same concept that Stephen Covey popularized in his Seven Habits. And the Bhagavad Gita talks about it thousands of years earlier. So, Karma Yoga is about focusing on what is in our control.
So, that is the second part, that’s action. Now, we will talk about intelligence. Now, intelligence is not just IQ.
IQ is no doubt important. At the same time, IQ alone doesn’t guarantee success or happiness. There are many high IQ people who don’t make it big in life, who make it big in life, but have very unhappy lives.
Because IQ is just one parameter. Intelligence is about the decisions we make in our life and the basis on which we make those decisions. So, this is going back to the earlier point that IQ is a resource by which we can do if somebody has high IQ, they can do math very fast, they can do analytical skills very fast, they can maybe have language processing skills better than others and that’s good.
That’s like driving the car very fast. But which turns should I take in my life? Which things are more important? Which things are less important? This is vital to understand. And that decision making ability is what intelligence essentially is about.
And we see, unfortunately, in today’s world, that this intelligence is not really provided by mainstream education. When I was in America, I was addressing the faculty of an Ivy League University. So, I was talking in Harvard.
So, they’re talking about how their students, the average student in any Ivy League University in America, they have phenomenal intelligence. And they’re the best among the best, not just in America, but the best among the best in the world. And yet, those students, they have two prominent emotions.
One is megalomania and the other is insecurity. Megalomania means when they see someone else, they think, if this person is smarter than me, then they start feeling insecure. And this person is, if I am smarter than that person, then I start feeling superior.
So, there is very little emotional stability. And because of that, they found that many of their decisions come from inner insecurity. They get into projects, they make decisions, not based on what is good for their long-term career, but simply on what will prove their superiority over the next person.
And that often sabotages them. Now, again, I’m not stereotyping Ivy League universities. The students are often brilliant.
But this is also a problem there. So, just because somebody has a high IQ doesn’t necessarily mean that they will be able to take good decisions. So, for that, we need a broader understanding of what life is meant for.
And that is what the Bhagavad Gita provides us. The Bhagavad Gita acts like a guidebook for life. Tasmāt śāstraṁ pramāṇam te kāryā-kārya-vyavasthitaṁ jñātvā śāstra-vidhā nauptam karmakartam ihār hase That, karmakartam ihār hase, how? Take guidelines from scriptures to understand what life is meant for and how to choose wisely life, not just based on short-term what feels good, but on what long-term what is actually good.
So, that intelligence is provided by the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita. It helps us choose more wisely. In our life, constantly we’ll face, should I do this? Should I do that? Should I do this? Should I do that? And our life will be shaped by how wise our choices are.
So, now, intelligence is meant for something higher. What do you mean by something higher? See, we can use our intelligence to say science and technology and various fields. They’re looking for answers to various questions.
But what is happening? If you look at the modern advancement of knowledge, in one sense, knowledge has advanced phenomenally in the last few centuries. Unfortunately, although knowledge is advanced, meaning has not advanced. In today’s world, we are living as if it’s a vast ocean of knowledge.
But what does it all mean? What is the point of living? We all try to grasp some islands of meaning. Okay, my meaning in life is I want to get this degree and I want to get a house like this or I want to make this invention or I want to make this breakthrough. Okay, that’s good.
It’s good to have some meaning in life and no meaning at all. But what about some ultimate meaning? Is life just meant ultimately we try to achieve this or achieve that and then we grow old, we get sick and we die? Or sometimes even before that, just one bug or one bang can end our life. So, we find some islets of meaning.
You know, this is my home and these are my degrees and this is my position and this is what shows that my life is meaningful. And then one storm comes and everything is gone. So, we humans have an intelligence which can see long term and which can seek the ultimate.
So, when the ultimate is understood, once our eyes are fixed on the stars, then the next steps become easy. Otherwise, if our eyes are not fixed on the stars, then we are constantly agonizing, should I go take this next step in this direction or this direction or this direction? So, there’s an American comedian who very succinctly put the predicament of life. In my youth, I was confused.
Now, I’m not so sure. Now, what is the difference between confused and not so sure? In my youth, I was confused. Now, I’m not so sure whether I was confused also or not.
So, I’m confused about whether I’m confused. So, life can be very, very complicated and convincing. Unless we have a sense of ultimate meaning, unless our eyes are fixed on the stars, the many small, small choices, they can completely paralyze us.
So, we may find this island of meaning over here, that island of meaning over here. But when the tide rises, when time passes, all the islands get drowned. So, what is the meaning of life? The Gita urges us to inquire this.
Inquire. Vembrish shaitan daseshina, deliberate. Now, the Gita doesn’t reject these smaller meanings of life.
What it says is, place them in the context of the ultimate meaning and then life will become supremely meaningful. Now, this is a big subject. As I said, we have a shortage of time.
We’re not discussing the philosophical part so much right now. The last part is love. Now, love is what most movies, most novels are about.
Love is what the human heart constantly seeks. And yet, unfortunately, love is what causes the most frustration. One of my friends is a marriage counselor in America and he told me there is a common joke among marriage counselors.
He said, there are only two kinds of couples who are happy. Those who are lying and those who are not yet married. So, what he meant is relationships are very complicated.
That we seek relationships for love and those same relationships sometimes end up frustrating us. So, why is that? Now, before we look at the functional frustration of our love, if we look at the current world view, that is materialism. Now, what does materialism say? Materialism means there is nothing more than matter in our lives.
What does it imply? It implies that actually love is nothing except some chemical surge in the brain. When a mother sees a baby, she feels love for the child. But what is that love? Nothing, just a surge in her brain.
It’s just some chemicals rushing through her veins. Is that what love is? Love is what gives profound meaning to our lives. So, what is love? Now, we may talk about it romantically.
We may get frustrated when it’s not fulfilled. But before we seek to fulfill it, we need to understand what it is. And with current world view, with the current world view that we have, we don’t know what it is.
Now, many nowadays with traditional ways of traditional structures of society destabilizing, now arranged marriages are not so common. Now, when people want to develop their own relationships, then when they want to form a relationship, they want to really know, does the other person actually care for me? That if a boy proposes to a girl, I love you. Now, the girl wants to know, does he really love me? Or does he just want something for me? Something from me.
So, some physical pleasure from me. So, now how do we know whether a person loves us? With all our scientific advancement, we cannot develop anything like a love-o-meter. We have a thermometer, a barometer.
As soon as a boy says to a girl, I love you. Okay, let’s take this love-o-meter. Let’s put it on your heart.
Let’s see if you really love me. Now, there’s no such thing like a love-o-meter. It can’t be quantified and yet it is real.
What is it? So, what is it actually? So, this is where the Gita offers us its most foundational and transformational understanding. What is that? The Gita says love comes from the source of all love and source of all existence. The Gita says that God is not just some figure in an image in a temple.
God is the source and reservoir of all love. Whatever love we may get from our mother, from our father, from our relatives, whatever love we may get from anyone, that love ultimately comes from the divine. That divine is known by different names and different traditions.
The Gita knows the divine by the name Krishna. And in that sense, what the Gita is saying is that there is an ultimate transcendent source and shelter of love. So, I’ll conclude with this point.
The Gita talks about two kinds of relationships. There is a vertical relationship and there are horizontal relationships. Our vertical, each one of us has a vertical relationship with Krishna.
And then we have horizontal relationships with others. Those others could be our siblings, our significant others, and in future we may have kids, we have parents, all those others, we have relationships with them. And yes, we may find many things lovable in them.
And those things that are lovable are true. At the same time, the Gita explains each of us are like parts of the divine. We’re all parts of Krishna.
And we all can manifest parts of the love that he can manifest. So, yes, even the loving relationships in this world, if they work out, they can be very fulfilling. Unfortunately, even the most fulfilling relationship ends because it’s temporary.
It’s a drop. Now, rather than the Gita’s attitude is not, it’s a drop, it’s so insignificant, forget it. No, that’s not the attitude of the Gita.
Gita says it’s a drop and even this drop can be so fulfilling. So, just visualize, just imagine how much more the ocean can be fulfilling. So, whatever we find lovable in anyone, that lovability finds its source and fulfillment in Krishna.
This is a whole big subject. But the point is, the Gita provides us a foundation, a foundation and direction for our love. It doesn’t reject worldly relationships, but it integrates worldly relationships with the transcendental relationship.
And in this way, the Gita explains where does love come from? It comes from the divine. It may come through various channels to us in this world. And we certainly need to reciprocate with those who are offering love to us.
So, at the same time, we need to see that they are channels and beyond the channel is the source. Sometimes the channel may be there for us, sometimes the channel may not be there for us. If we obsess over the channel alone, then this person is the most important person in my life.
Sometimes some people ask this question that do our matches made in heaven, does everyone have a perfect partner whom God has ordained for each one of us? Well, this question, it sounds romantically very exciting. But the fact is that it’s neither philosophically nor logically sound. I’m not going to philosophically, but simply logically.
Say if there are 50, if there are say 26 couples, there is A1, A1 and A2. So A1 is a male, A2 is a female. All straight or heterosexual relation.
And A2, B1, B2, C1, C2 and they’re all meant to marry each other. Now, that’s the perfect match for everyone. If that’s the conception, all that is required is one person make a wrong choice.
So if A1 decides to marry C1, then whom does A2 marry? And then whom does C2 marry? A2 marries B2. And then C2 marries D2. And then everything, there can be a domino effect and everyone can go wrong.
So this idea of now our horizontal relationship with each other are important. And the point is not to minimize them. But the point is to recognize that if we expect from any human being the fulfillment that only the divine being can provide, we set ourselves up for frustration.
If we understand things properly, that yes, no human being can be a substitute for the divine being. Ultimately, all love comes from the divine and meant to take us toward the divine. With that understanding, we don’t have unrealistic expectations in our relationships.
And that’s how we can make our relationships work much more tangibly for us, much more sustainably for us. So Bhakti Yoga is not just about relationship with the Lord. And it’s certainly not just sentiment, some kind of crying and tears.
It is a whole, you could say a sophisticated science of love, which encompasses all love in existence. So that is what the Bhagavad Gita teaches. And these are just four samples of the Gita’s eminent relevance that I have given.
And each of these aspects addresses one important aspect of our being, the psychological aspect that’s addressed by the mind, the practical aspect that’s addressed by actions, the intellectual aspect is addressed by the intelligence, and the existential, the ultimate heart’s aspect is addressed by love. So this is what makes the Gita not just relevant today, but relevant eternally, relevant perennially. It is eminently relevant for all time to come.
So I’ll quickly summarize in a minute or two, then we can have questions. So today I spoke about the relevance of the Gita in the age of science and technology, why do we need it? Because technology and prosperity, they are valuable, but they themselves don’t fulfill the human being. Why? They can provide us comforts, but what do we do with the comfortable life? They can provide us means, but not meaning.
They can provide us speed, but not direction. They can provide us entertainment, but not enlightenment. They can provide us things to live with, but it is Gita which tells us what to live for.
And in that connection, I talked about four aspects of the Gita’s relevance. The first is the mind, which within science, it’s very difficult to, in the reductionistic science itself, especially, what is the mind? It’s very difficult to understand, but the Gita says the mind is like a software, and the software can get corrupted, and today it is getting corrupted repeatedly. To deal with it, what do we do? Feeding and fencing, abhyas and vairagya.
Take good inside consciously and avoid the mind taking in bad without our notice also. And then talk about action, and the Gita talks about work with detachment. That doesn’t mean don’t set goals, don’t visualize.
It means know your part. What is in your control is actions. Actions alone don’t produce results.
Action plus duration plus destiny produce results. So, when we are doing our actions, do it wholeheartedly, and to do that wholeheartedly, you can set goals, but after it’s done, let go, knowing that the results are beyond me. And this understanding is actually empowering for us to function.
The Gita is more concerned about bringing about a change inside us through our work than the change outside us. The values that can make us more sustainably successful than just one-time success that might come by the success of our work. So, then I talked about the intelligence.
Intelligence is not about IQ. It is about taking sound decisions in life. And the Gita provides us an overall context for life in which we can take sound decisions.
And last was love. Love is not just some chemical pulsation in the brain. Now, love is not just some sentiment that is going to be frustrated by time.
Love is that which unites us with the source of all love. And it is not world-rejecting. It can be world-embracing if understood holistically.
So, thank you very much. Hare Krishna. Thank you very much, Prabhuji.
Your first part so beautifully, you explained how, what science can offer and what spirituality can offer, what Gita offers. And your second part of the male acronym so beautifully summarized the four yoga systems which Krishna explains in the Gita. And a glimpse of all four of them.
Prabhuji, we have some questions on the chat box. So, should I ask the question? I can read out also, whatever you feel. You want to choose? You can choose.
Otherwise, I’ll read out and I’ll answer whatever you feel. Yeah, you can take Prabhuji, then you can directly take from the chat box. Okay.
So, if marriages are made in heaven, then why few couples all over the world are taking divorce? That’s what I said. Marriages are not made in heaven. The thing that marriages are preordained is illusion.
It is not that way. It is we have to make our relationships work and we can make them work if we understand what to expect from each other. Now, I didn’t say to stop expecting anything from others.
I said stop over expecting from others. Over expecting means, especially in romantic love, we create a image of the other person. We create a fantasy which actually no human being can fulfill.
Yes, everybody has reasonable expectations in every relationship. And sometimes other person may not live up to our expectations in some ways. And sometimes they may exceed our expectations in some ways.
So, it’s not that we don’t expect anything, but we don’t, we can’t expect a human being to ever fulfill all our heart’s longings. It is not going to happen. So, no, we don’t have unrealistic expectations.
So, by interacting with people over a period of time, we learn, we understand what is the realistic expectation. So, how do we balance between material activity and spiritual activity? Two things. First is that we understand that everything has its place in life and we can’t replace one thing by the other.
That means that just like we have to take food, we have to take food, we have to take food, we have to earn food, we have to earn our living. So, means for living are important. But means for living can’t substitute for meaningful living.
So, what is the exact balance? That varies from time to time, from phase to phase in life. So, in the Vedic culture, there are different phases in life. There are different ashramas.
So, we have to find out based on our time, place, circumstance, what is the balance. Generally, we start our day with some spiritual activities, investing some time in connecting our consciousness with Krishna. And then when we are doing our work, we will be having that spiritual understanding, spiritual consciousness by which we can work.
And then in the evening, we try to reconnect with Krishna. So, Narayanayati Samarpayami. In that way, even our material activities become devoted to the Lord.
So, generally have a balance. The exact quantity of the balance will vary. But we need regular reconnection with the spiritual side of life so that we can stay grounded.
Now, exactly how much that varies from person to person. It says different people eat different quantities of food. Different people require different levels of comfort and prosperity to move on in their lives.
But just as food alone, a person can’t spend their life eating food. There are other things in life also. Similarly, a person can’t spend time just earning money.
Making money is important. What we are making with money is even more important. After you earn money, what are we using that money for? Otherwise, a person may have a huge amount of money.
And in earning money, they alienated their friends, they alienated their family. They didn’t have time for them. And then they have a huge house.
And I actually met people like this. They have a huge house that only offers them the privilege of a lot of place in which to feel lonely and unhappy. What is the use of unbalanced life like that? So if a person has five talents and they want to, one is professional, remaining like hobby or interest.
If you want to continue all talents, well, some people feel that they have too little talent. Some of us feel we may have too many talents. So we can pray and try to connect with them.
Prayer is very powerful. And not just praying, writing down our thoughts in a prayerful mood. I do seminars on journaling for decision making.
So I’m doing courses for guided journaling. So writing down our thoughts is very helpful. So writing clarifies our thinking.
So write, pray, reread what you have written. What is, how important is this, this, this, this. And then take decisions.
And then we may decide that right now this is the most important thing for me. Later on that other thing can be important. But rather than just thinking I have to take this decision all alone, seek divine guidance.
So if we try to connect with the divine, connect with the Lord through prayer, through meditation, through study of scriptures, then we will be able to have sounder guidance. For sounder guidance, sounder greater wisdom in making our decisions. Do we have 100% control over our destiny if we work with devotion? No.
100% control of destiny would mean that we would be God. And devotion is not meant to make us God. Devotion is meant to make us devoted to God.
So even for those who are devoted, it’s not that everything that they desire is going to happen. Arjuna didn’t want any of his sons to die. And yet on the Kurukshetra war, he was completely devoted to Krishna and not just one or two.
Iruvan was the first son who died. Abhimanyu was the second son who died. And eventually all his sons died.
So yes, things are not in our control. Some things are, some things are not. So in today’s world often the idea is my greatness is that I never take no for an answer.
Whatever I want, I get. There’s nobody who really lives like that. Everybody has to take no for an answer at times in life.
That’s because we all have to bend to the will of destiny. So devotion doesn’t mean that destiny will always become favorable for us. If we become devoted, what it means is that whatever happens, we will see a favorable way ahead through it.
There’s a difference. Destiny doesn’t mean that whatever we desire will happen, but rather whatever happens, we will see a desirable way through it. That is the intelligence that devotion can give us.
I’ll give you the intelligence by which you can come to me. You can make, you can choose wisely. So how can we maintain the calmness of the mind when we get affected and we lament? Well, first thing is that be patient with yourself.
The mind is like a child and children are restless. Children are emotional. Children will go up and down.
So don’t be too hard with yourself. And secondly, try to analyze. After the emotion has gone, made it up and down, look back and see which part of the situation was under my control, which part of the situation is not in my control.
So the more we understand, in this situation, maybe if I had responded this way instead of reacting this way, that would have made a big difference. So learn, learn. So don’t just think in terms of success in controlling the mind is not digital one or zero.
It is analog. Analog means that sometimes we may, even after practicing spirituality, we may fluctuate, but the magnitude of the fluctuation may be much lesser. Initially, it’s like the highs are in the seventh heaven and the lows are in the deepest levels of hell.
But we’ll be steadier. We’ll be happy, but not jump, not elated, and we’ll not be completely miserable when things go wrong. We’ll need greater amount of equanimity.
Yes. So if we get attracted to something, then even while you are practicing bhakti, is it Krishna testing us? Yes, possibly. Now, it is not that we are meant to reject everything attractive in this world.
We have to see whether that attraction is within the purpose of my life, whether it is in harmony with the principles of dharma. If it is, then it’s not that we all attract to things that will be rejected in the world. But we have to make sure that we don’t get caught in the attractive things of the world and become distracted from Krishna, distracted from the meaningful things in our life.
Yes, the soulmate concept. Yes, soulmate is a very popular idea. So whenever people ask me about a soulmate, I tell them it’s more important to focus on the soul than on the mate.
Understand what is the soul first. Don’t be so worried about the mate part. Now, if everything is predetermined, can we change our fate by our action? Well, everything is not predetermined.
How do we know that everything is not predetermined? There are simple ways of understanding this. From the philosophical perspective, we understand that the spiritual traditions and God himself has given books of wisdom and guidance. Do this and don’t do this.
So if everything were predetermined, then why would God tell us do this and don’t do this if we had no free will to do something, to make some choices? So we could say that destiny determines our situations. We determine our decisions. Destiny determines our situations.
Say, if we are driving a car and we want to go from say, Mumbai to Delhi or Mumbai to Pune. Now, if it’s a very heavy storm, that storm is determined by destiny. But in the storm, how I drive, that’s up to me.
I can drive recklessly and meet with a horrible accident. I can drive safely and reach my destination. I can slow down and wait till the storm passes.
That’s up to me. So everything is not determined by destiny. Our situations are determined by destiny.
Our decisions are determined by us. Another way I put it is that destiny may determine the complexion of our face. We determine the expression on our face.
A person may have a very attractive face cut, but if they’re always scowling and glaring, they will not look very attractive for very long. On the other hand, a person may not have that attractive a face cut, but if they’re cheerful and smiling and their eyes are sparkling, they will be attractive. So destiny doesn’t determine everything.
What about the pride movement? Those people who fall for the same gender? It’s complicated. What the Bhagavad Gita explains is that normally when a soul goes from one body to another body, that soul ends up the soul usually identifies with that next body. But unfortunately for some people, what happens is the soul goes to the next body, but the soul doesn’t identify with that body.
Let me explain this. So these are the three levels of identity. There’s the soul, which is who we are.
Around the soul there is the mind and then there is the body. So now the soul is our, at the level of the soul is our essential identity, who we essentially are, fundamentally are. At the level of our mind is our felt identity, who we think we are.
And the level of the body is our physical identity. So that means what kind of body we have. So now what happens is for most people, their felt identity plus their physical identity is their bodily identity.
Felt identity means if I am in a male body and my mind identifies with that, so I think of myself as a male. Actually we are neither male nor female. We are ultimately souls and the soul is beyond material gender.
But we are talking about a bodily identity right now. So the felt identity is the psychological identity we could say and the physical identity. Together they comprise a bodily identity.
For most people it is the same. Their felt identity and their physical identity are the same. Now as I said bodily identity is not the essential identity.
However what happens for some people is, so the normal way of living is we function appropriately as per bodily identity. So if I am in a male body, I act like a male. If I am in a female body, I act like a female and while we strive to realize our spiritual identity.
But the problem is sometimes there is a double illusory identification. Unusual illusory identification means if a soul was say in a female body before and the soul comes to the male body now, but somehow the mind is still identifying with the previous body. That means the person is in a male body right now, but the person is identifying with the female body.
Then what happens is, the felt identity and the physical identity, the two become opposite. And that’s when there is gender dysphoria can happen. And for people whom it’s not just an occasional thing, then it can lead to homosexuality and other things like that.
So the problem here is that the felt identity and the physical identity are two different things. So that’s when the problem comes up. So now the problem with the pride movement or those who are, I have friends who are who are gays and talk with them and many of them are very balanced people.
They understand that I am different from everyone else in this one degree, in this one sense, and otherwise I am similar. But there are some who make their sexual orientation, their entire defining identity and they think because I am different, so the whole of society should be changed to accommodate my difference, my being different. So no, that doesn’t have to be done.
So the nature of the problem, what they feel is that the problem is a matter of category, but the problem is actually a matter of degree. What do I mean matter of degree or matter of category? See, nobody feels at home in their body. Everybody feels I’m too overweight, I’m too thin, I’m too fair, I’m too dark, I’m too tall, I’m too short.
Nobody feels completely at home with their body. Now, of course, I’m not minimizing the degree of disorientation that some people might feel. But the principle here is that it’s a matter of degree.
Whereas the matter of category is that some people think that because I don’t identify with my body, so what should I do? The whole society has to change to accommodate me. Then I want to do surgeries to change things and I want to completely be a different person. Then society has to accommodate me.
Well, no, the Bhagavad Gita explains why there might be non-standard sexual orientations and it explains why that is happening. The problem comes when somebody makes that, as you said, the pride movement, that’s a matter of pride and they want to disrupt all the structures that have sustained human society for millennia because of their individual differences. And again, I would say that even among the pride movement, the pride movement speaks for gays, but it doesn’t speak for gays.
In the sense, there are many gays, by gays I’m using inclusively for gays and lesbians, everyone, that they just don’t, they just want to go on with their life. They don’t want to make it a big issue for which they want to agitate for the rest of their life. It is just one part of who I am.
And okay, that’s one part. Now accommodate me and move on with my life. So I would say that the Bhagavad Gita can ensure that the sexual orientation doesn’t consume a person’s life completely.
Now that sexuality, sexuality is a part of our being a human being, but sexuality shouldn’t define our humanity. It shouldn’t define our personality. So the understands why one feels the way one does and one finds a way to act appropriately, but one doesn’t make it the defining mission of one’s life and then let the sexual identity consume one’s entire life or identity itself.
Okay. So it’s already 8.30. Should we stop? Can we take this last one question? Which one? Prabhuji, for an instant, we find ourselves standing amidst of confusions and conflicting thoughts, all seemingly potentially true at that moment, how to take some particular decision as no one else will feel the situation that we are feeling except Krishna. Okay.
So how do we decide when we feel conflicting emotions and no one can understand our emotions? Yes, that’s always a challenge. That’s why rather than resting our life on our emotions, we need an overall plan and purpose for our life. And based on that plan and purpose, that’s where the Bhagavad Gita is not about micromanaging us.
The Bhagavad Gita didn’t tell, Krishna was not telling Arjuna throughout the battle, don’t shoot the arrow here, shoot the arrow here, don’t shoot the arrow here. Krishna was with Arjuna, but Krishna was most of the time letting Arjuna use his intelligence and expertise to decide how to fight with which warrior. At critical times, he was giving guidance.
Although God was right next to Arjuna, God was not trying to micro control Arjuna. So there are many decisions we have to make on our own. But what happens is, if we are adequately spiritually connected, that means we spend enough time in developing our spiritual connection, then that gives us a steady foundation.
Then our emotions which may arise from the situations, they don’t sweep us away. And then we can have a clearer sense of direction and clarity for making our decisions. So yes, in the moment, sometimes we make decisions right, sometimes we make decisions wrong.
Nobody can, in life, guarantee that all the decisions that they will make will always be right. That’s just the part of our being finite living beings. So what can we do? Rather than worrying about whether this decision is right or wrong, we focus more on trying to make our decision making ability better.
And how do we do that? By grounding ourselves in our spirituality. So our spiritual connection is like an anchor and emotions are like waves. Some waves can be stormy and they can sweep us away.
But if we are holding on to an anchor, then the waves may hit us, they may shake us, but they won’t sweep us away. So the stronger our spiritual connection, the lesser our decisions will be solely driven by our emotions. It is not that emotions shouldn’t be considered in making decisions, but they shouldn’t be the sole consideration for making decisions.
So the Gita doesn’t even attempt to micro control our life because each one of us is an individual facing individual challenges. But the Gita tries to equip us with a sounder decision making ability. Okay.
So thank you very much for your thoughtful questions. Hare Krishna. Thank you very much.