How was Kamsa liberated when he was ill-motivated in his Krishna consciousness?

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shloka shloka shloka shloka shloka shloka shloka shloka shloka shloka shloka shloka shloka nirviśeṣaḥ śūnyavādī pāśyātya-deśa-tāriṇe vāñchā kalpata-rūbhyasya kṛpāsindhūbhya eva ca atitānāṁ pāvanidhyo vaiṣṇavidhyo namo namah jaya śrī kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu nityānanda śrī advaita gadādhāra śrī vāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare, Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare Hare Kṛṣṇa. Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity today to speak on the Bhāgavatam with all of you and we are in the 10th canto, text 23 and 24.
The 23rd text was describing how iti ghoratamādbhāvād sannivṛttah svayam prabhu āste patīkṣamas tad janma harer vairāṇubandhakṛt so iti ghoratamādbhāvād in this way with a very ghastly mentality ghoratamād in English we have good better and best these are superlatives so ghora ghoratara and ghoratama so it’s bad worse in this way he had the most reprehensible mentality sannivṛttah svayam prabhu in this way his consciousness was covered his his understanding was completely distorted āste patīkṣamas tad janma in this way tad janma the birth of that person who was prophesied to be the cause of his death patīkṣamas he started expecting he started waiting harer vairāṇubandhakṛt hari that supreme Lord Hari vairāṇubandha so vaira means enemy anubandha means in that that was the way he was connected with him kṛt he was bound his actions were binding him to the Lord in a relationship of enmity oh this is my enemy is going to come to kill me how will I deal with him and then the next words where there is a purport is āsīna samviṣaṁ tiṣṭhaṁ bhuñjāna pariyatanmahim cintayāno rishīkeśaṁ apasya tanmayam jagat so āsīna when he was sitting samviṣaṁ when he was lying down or relaxing tiṣṭhaṁ when he was doing anything else for that matter samviṣaṁ tiṣṭhaṁ when he was situated bhuñjāna when he was taking food pariyatan when he was walking about mahīm mahīm means he was just strolling or going for a walk cintayāno rishīkeśaṁ he was contemplating on the Lord apasya tanmayam jagat in this way he saw the whole universe filled with the Lord tanmayam tanmayam means by him maya is filled so this is he was he saw the whole universe filled with the Lord Lord Rishikesh or Lord Krishna so what is going on over here this is describing the consciousness of the demon Kamsa who has heard that oh I’m going to be killed by Vishnu and I won’t be killed by Vishnu so what should I do about it so he thinks that I have to be ready for it but how can I be ready and the way to be ready is you see very very is going to come very you want to come this constantly thinking about him this is a remarkable level of subtlety or sophistication within one’s consciousness or within the analysis of consciousness as described in the Bhagavatam Srila Prabhupada started this movement and he called it the international society for Krishna consciousness so Krishna consciousness our purpose is to be conscious of Krishna and yes that is very important at the same time no there is something in one sense when you talk about consciousness that is itself internal it is not just about Krishna activities okay so when it is are you doing this are you doing this are you doing that it is not about externals it is about internals but then there is a further level of sophistication here even when we are analysing internals there could be different levels of internals that we could analyse so what does that mean that not only what we are thinking what we are doing is important what we are thinking is even more important but you could say that why we are thinking what we are thinking is even more important so there’s a third level of sophistication which we are discussing over here why so the broad theme which I’ll be discussing today is why motivation matters in spirituality so generally you talk about spirituality is a matter of consciousness and yes definitely it’s a matter of consciousness but somebody may even be conscious of Krishna but why is that person conscious of Krishna that is very important so here Kamsa is thinking about Krishna but what is his reason for thinking about Krishna it is not out of affection it is not out of devotion it is not out of a desire to devote himself to Krishna at all none of those desires are there for him he’s thinking about Krishna simply because he wants to he thinks of Krishna as enemy and he thinks I have to kill Krishna so that is not at all considered a very auspicious thing so thinking about Krishna is but how much deeper are we going into spirituality what are we thinking about and why are we thinking about so we could say that I am using a PowerPoint as a whiteboard and I type something as we discuss so if you want to go deeper into spirituality they say what are we doing that’s one thing that’s our action then what are we thinking about that’s a deeper level and then why are we thinking about the things we are thinking about this is even deeper so we could say this is at the level of actions this is that the level of thoughts and this is at the level of motivations so generally when we talk about consciousness we usually think about it in terms of thoughts okay what are you thinking about but consciousness includes both what we are thinking about and why we are thinking about but somebody may come to Krishna say for example if a if say a temple is having it’s an opulent temple so maybe there is a there are a lot of wealthy things in the temple lot of expensive things in the temple a thief may come to a temple and they may remember everything okay you know that’s the place where the jewellery is kept that is the place where the accounts is there is this pointing is looks very expensive this is this is mediocre actually that that thief may come to a temple and the thief may more carefully observe everything in the temple then what a devotee may also observe so in one sense they may even observe on the altar okay what is what is worth stealing if somebody thinking like that but is that Krishna consciousness well well yes and no why yes and no because if we consider you want to consider Krishna consciousness it’s about both things it’s about our contemplations and our motivations for those contemplations so contemplation is what we’re thinking study me it’s not just what to think about occasionally but another is motivation for the contemplation so here we see that Kamsa has the contemplation he’s thinking about Krishna but Vairanubandhakrit is thinking of Krishna as an enemy and that is not considered conducive for a devotional relationship now that raises the question is it bad is it good well in one sense thinking about Krishna is good say now we may say that oh person this person is a robber they’ll go and rob anywhere so if they come to a temple they’re remembering Krishna isn’t that good well yes in the ultimate sense it is good but if after that they are going to rob from a temple that is not good so good and bad maybe they rob from some other place actually no robbing is good but robbing from God directly is is quite quite reprehensible so we could say that what is what is good and what is bad we have to look from different perspectives so from the immediate perspective Kamsa is acting as the enemy of and in that sense that is not at all good that is bad so what happens is ideally speaking what we want is if there is a see when we talk about motivation there are multiple words but motivation is often related with emotion when I have motivation for something then I have emotion associated with it otherwise there is not much emotion in it so contemplation can be very we could say dry or dry or unemotional it can be we don’t want dry unemotional kind of contemplation we want contemplation which is permeated with emotion so if suppose somebody is suppose somebody wants to be Krishna conscious or somebody wants to be spiritually conscious so what we would like ideally is that there is a blend of the the spiritual the motivation and the the motivation and the contemplation both are there so we could say broadly are you able to see my screen right now okay sorry I don’t know what happened suddenly it stopped let me see if I can fix this so there is the motivation for being Krishna conscious and there is the intention of being Krishna conscious or other there’s the contemplation so if I we ask what is Krishna consciousness this is there’s a lot in it Prabhupada says that it is to think about Krishna with a desire to be with him so it is motivation plus contemplation both have to come in it’s only one that’s not the most animated way of being Krishna conscious so how do we get both of these together so if you consider a pendulum so if there is there is motivation now is it possible that there is motivation the motivation is there that means there is emotion generally as I said whenever there’s motivation there is emotion over there if I am highly motivated then there’s a lot of emotion in something it may be anything if you have somebody’s watching a sports match they’re watching baseball then if they want a particular team to win then their emotion involved is much more in that oh okay this this score was made that score was not me a lot of emotion involved in it on the other hand contemplation that is associated more with we could say cognition it is information they contemplate on it I contemplate on the mountain I contemplate a river I contemplate on God so what we want is a balance of motivation and a motivation and contemplation so we want the emotional aspect and we want the intellectual aspect so what are the emotions driving me why am I doing what am I doing and then do I know what is the importance of what I am doing so does so we want to think about Krishna but it’s what is our motivation for thinking about Krishna if it comes I was thinking Krishna is my enemy and I want to destroy him then he really doesn’t know Krishna he doesn’t know who Krishna really is so cognition here means one should know Krishna properly with one’s intelligence and that is where the philosophy comes in the philosophy helps us understand that Krishna is our greatest well-wisher once we understand that Krishna is our well-wisher so then what happens is then naturally the emotions become positive so we can say Krishna is our benefactor once we understand the suratam sarva-bhutanam then that will that is that that is what when we study the philosophy that should be the result and on the other hand with respect to emotion it is you understand that Krishna is the source of all pleasure he’s Ram Ramati Ramayati one who delights and one who gives delight so we could say broadly when these two things we understand that okay by contemplation I may understand Krishna is the source of Krishna is benefactor he wants good for me but still there are many things which we know are good for us but we may not really be attracted to them say eating broccoli is good for us but well that’s not the most attractive food to eat so with respect to Krishna on one side we want to be intellectually convinced that he is the ultimate reality connecting with him is the best for us but on other side it’s not just that he is the ultimate reality he is also the ultimately attractive reality he’s not just a benefactor he’s also attractive connecting with him is not just good for us it will also make us feel good in the long run maybe not immediately but in the long run so when we understand this what happens is we understand that connecting with him is not just good for us it will also make us feel good feel good not in a temporary sense in the long run eternally it will make us feel good because we’ll become purified we’ll become restored to our pure spirituality our pure state of eternal spiritual virtue so in that sense for Kamsa what is happening is his motivation is off because his cognition is also off he’s thinking about Krishna but he’s not thinking with knowledge with understanding and that is where the problem is coming up and that is something which has to be addressed so what happens we will see in the future how Kamsa will send many demons and will try to kill Krishna and eventually Kamsa will have to meet with his fate he will have to meet the consequences of his misdeeds but the key point is that he exemplifies this thinking about God but not thinking about God in a favourable way so that is also good but that is not the best way to do it that is not the way the devotee wants to think about the Lord so I’ll make one more point and then I’ll summarise and you can have some questions that the Bhagavatam has one very distinctive description that the ultimate purpose of life is liberation why liberation because we are limited by the many circumstances that we face in life we are at the very basic level we are limited by our lifespan so now life’s ultimate purpose from the Bhagavatam’s perspective is liberation now if you see in the West the word liberation is not as common as the word liberty so that the Statue of Liberty in America the most celebrated icons and generally the word liberty we associate with freedom now of course what it means is nobody else should control us we should have our free will the current war between Russia and Ukraine is positioned as a war for the protection of democracy and then that triggers people’s emotions yes we should support so liberty is something which liberty freedom independence democracy these are words which our contemporary mind now in the spiritual traditions of India the understanding is yes that there could be a state of bondage and there could be a state of subordination there could be a state of freedom but eventually everyone is bound even the head of state even an absolute autocrat a tyrant is bound how see everyone is bound by time time means what everyone has to grow old everyone has to get deceased everyone has to die so that takes us to ageing and death but that’s not the only thing see we are also bound by conditions and that is why one of the words used for souls in this world is conditioned soul so conditioned soul means what the soul’s happiness even the soul’s very existence depends on so many conditions the temperature drops too much we won’t be able to survive we as souls are not going to be destroyed but our bodies won’t survive or for that matter if you put a situation that we don’t have enough food enough water we won’t be able to survive so there are so many conditions that we need for our survival and we could say these are basic conditions for our survival so so for our survival and for our pleasure also so depending on who we are in what situation we are in say if we consider an extreme example of somebody who’s addicted then for that person without the substance that they are addicted to they just can’t survive just they feel I will die without it they may not physically die but they feel like they’re very very dependent on those conditions now we may not be addicted to to substances but we all have what we can say are attachments and when something we are attached to is made unavailable to us is taken away from us then we suffer we’re going to go great distress so if somebody says that no I’m not in distress I’m happy well good you can be relatively happier than others that’s nice you don’t nobody wants anyone to be miserable but basically if you want to understand distress in a broad sense we can say to not get what we want and to get what we don’t want yes smart Priya Priya yoga Sanyoga Janma Prahlad says that to not get not get means to be separated from that is called as we yo the word yoga is often associated with physical postures that just what we that’s just one meaning of the word yoga but yoga means connection so and we yoga means disconnection so to not get what we want so that which is prior that which is desirable for us we don’t get it we get separated from it and to get that means yoga yes smart Priya Priya yoga Sanyoga Janma to get what we to get what we don’t want what is a Priya that means say if we are if we are travelling from place to place we want we are going by a flight and we want the window seat and no window seat is available that’s an annoyance it may not be a catastrophe but it’s an annoyance so we don’t get what we want maybe we are going to office and we’re going for work and we don’t want a traffic situation but there’s a traffic the traffic is very high and we get we get delayed that’s something which we don’t want we get it now sometimes maybe we are in a party or somewhere we get together and everybody’s sitting for dinner there’s one person we don’t like in the party and our seating arrangement is we sit right next to that person so what happens is so so many times we get what we don’t want or maybe we want to meet some person and that’s the reason that we have gone to that party and that person doesn’t turn up over there so we don’t get what we want so there are so many ways in which in life we are put in situations where we don’t get what we want so why am I discussing all this the point is distress in the world is unavoidable so we are bound by time we are bound by conditions so what happens is the ultimate purpose of life is considered to be liberation not just liberty in this world liberty in this world is important we don’t want anybody politically dominating over us but more important than that is to have spiritual freedom to not be bound to external conditions we are spiritual beings so space and time so space and time should not constrain us that is the ultimate purpose of life and what the Bhagavatam says is if we remember Krishna steadily if we become attached to Krishna then we all will move toward liberation so the key to liberation what is it it is if we consider from one perspective it is to become attached to the unlimited so key to liberation from the limited our lifespan is limited our situations limit us our bodily abilities limit us so the key to liberation is attachment to the unlimited the more we become attached to the Lord the more we become from the domain of the limited if my happiness is not coming from a physical situation it is coming from my internal connection then whatever happens I won’t be so disturbed so what do we do if we can connect with the Lord then that inner connection inner connection it frees us from dependence on outer situations and that is considered to be one of the characteristics of liberation we become free it’s too hot it’s too cold we are pleasant people we are unpleasant people we are being respected we are not being respected okay yeah those things we are aware of them but they don’t dominate our consciousness because we have found inner fulfilment we have an inner satisfaction inner connection with Krishna so now what the Bhagavatam says is the normal way to become liberated is to actually become devoted to Krishna so when we become devoted to him when he becomes more dear to us than anything else in the world then he takes us out of the world so that’s when can one become liberated from the world now the key is by key I mean the pathway and then I found is a qualification the qualification for liberation liberation from the world is what that when our desire for God becomes greater than our desire for anything in this world then God has no reason to keep us any longer in this world it is as long as we desire the things oh I want a better home I want a better partner I want a better position I want a greater respect when we have the thing I I want a better car I want a better phone whatever it is as long as we have desire for things in this world those desires keep us here but now even if we don’t get rid of all those desires at least our desire for Krishna becomes greater than all those desires then we attain Krishna and Krishna has no reason to keep us in this world we come out of the world and we attain so this is the normal way to attain liberation but and this is not a normal is the recommended way but Krishna is so merciful that even for somebody like Kamsa who thinks about him negatively Krishna will liberate even such a person that is mercy is this just sees oh you’re thinking about me and I’m happy that you’re thinking about you could be thinking about so many things you’re thinking about me now it’s so in one sense amazing that actually Kamsa will be thinking about Krishna for the purpose of destroying Krishna but what is Krishna doing Krishna will reciprocate by destroying Kamsa’s material existence by ending Kamsa’s material bondage so that is Krishna’s extraordinary mercy so that’s why it is so this is let’s put it this way Krishna’s this is extraordinary mercy but just because it’s extraordinary that doesn’t mean it is desirable it’s not that we seek to this way we seek to act in this way that though Krishna sorry though Kamsa thinks about Krishna for destroying him where will Krishna be where can I find him how can I destroy him Krishna reciprocates by destroying his material existence that means by liberating him so why is so Krishna merciful over here because Krishna focusses on his contemplation more than his intention than his motivation that is the meaning of Krishna being Krishna is called as bhava grahi he is the essence seeker he is the essence seeker so he sees in Sanskrit scholar bhava grahi he sees the motivation he sees the heart he sees the consciousness and there is something good in the consciousness they say the bhava is bad over here okay there’s the motivation is bad but there’s something good so Krishna sees a small thing that is good and he appreciates that so the Bhagavatam’s focus is that if Krishna can elevate and liberate even somebody who thinks about it in a hostile mood then if somebody thinks about him in a devotional mood somebody thinks about him in a mood of love and service then why would Krishna not liberate such a place Krishna will surely liberate him so the the exceptional examples in the Bhagavatam so this is as I said exceptional example Kamsa getting liberated the exceptional or you can say extreme examples of something about extreme has a negative connotation like extremism but it’s extreme in the sense that that this is not the normal way to it so the Bhagavatam’s the extreme examples are not meant to normalise the extreme this is not the recommended way the Bhagavatam says so we know the Bhagavatam is being spoken to a king who is about to die Parikshit now he’s not told oh you start you start thinking of Krishna as your enemy no it is not meant to normalise the extreme it is rather meant to increase our faith in the normal process so normal process means what oh we just chant Hare Krishna every day here the we hear the Bhagavatam class we read about Krishna I think what is all this going to do it seems so ordinary I’m doing anything special no it may not seem like special but it is very special so it is not meant to normalise the standard not only the extreme but rather it is it is or you could say not normally it is let’s use the word standardise the extreme the standard process that is there which we are all trying to follow the standard process it is meant to increase our faith in that increase our inspiration to follow this process so if Krishna can elevate and liberate somebody who is thinking about him as an enemy and if somebody thinks of him as a Lord then that why doesn’t it why will not he liberate somebody who thinks about him in the mood of a devotee he will definitely do that and that is Krishna’s supreme mercifulness so I’ll summarise what we discussed today and then we can have a few questions I talked about four main points first point I started by talking about how Kamsa is thinking about Krishna but we have when we want to go deeper into spiritual life it’s first we look at what a person is doing then we look at a person what a person is thinking but then deepest means we go why are they thinking what they’re thinking so there is action and there is contemplation and then there is motivation so the Bhagavatam is going at a very deeper level so Krishna consciousness means it’s an integration of both motivation and contemplation motivation helps us to activate our emotional faculty when we are highly motivated then our emotions are engaged over there and the contemplation is associated cognitive faculty where we connect with Krishna understanding who he is so when the cognitive contemplative faculty is positively engaged then we understand that Krishna is our greatest valuation that connecting with Krishna is good for me and when the motivation is positively engaged and we understand Krishna connecting Krishna is not just good but it feels good it feels great and that combination is the most potent way to move ahead in our bhakti and then we talked about liberty liberation that Krishna consciousness is the ultimate way to become liberated we are all limited we may not be politically restricted but we are restricted by time we are restricted by conditions and more important than political liberty is spiritual liberation so I there’s no standard way where spiritual liberation is to become attached to the unlimited more than anything limited in the world but the exceptional example of Kamsa over here is that although he has no attachment to Krishna but Krishna is so compassionate that just he’s thinking about me seeing that Krishna liberates and this is not meant to standardise that way of contemplating on Krishna but to inspire us toward the standard process of connecting with Krishna in a mood of bhakti thank you very much Hare Krishna I’m looking at the comments yes yeah that conditioned soul explanation is quite illuminating and when I had heard it for the first time over 10 years of 15-16 years I was quite illuminated now connecting with the unlimited helps us grow that is that the verse in the seventh canto Dvesha what is how to start yeah Bhayat Kamsa Dvesha Chaitanya Gopya Kama Bhayat Kamsa Dvesha Chaitanya Rupa Rupa so that is the verse which I had in mind over here Gopya Kama Bhayat Kamsa that is 7131 that’s the verse which so anyway one is one connects with unlimited that will liberate one was that what you are looking at looking for yes are there any other points for reflection discussion yes for you all right Krishna can you hear me okay yes you’re wonderful how you’re speaking about the spectrum some ways of thinking of Krishna are better than others and how that makes us feel good and how it’s liberating and we become detached from a good point detached from the external conditions an interesting concept is that what makes it better is that if we’re doing something to please Krishna we’re showing love then Krishna is more pleased by that because he knows that’s good for us you know last night we had an interesting Krishna you glorify how merciful Krishna is to offer this access even to people who may not have the best motivation last night we had a conversation with a gentleman I’ll say gentlemen and he was quite inimical even was saying there is no Krishna right out and I was thinking how wonderful is Krishna that even though he’s saying there is no Krishna he’s saying Krishna I said to him what did you see he said there is no Krishna I said who Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna so clever that even in the most indirect way people are benefiting like benefiting by thinking of Krishna so completely how wonderful is Krishna yes somehow many times people who deny the existence of God they also are in their own way conscious of God so in some ways you know an atheist is thinking about God and if they get rational explanations they may also become theistic so there is there is something like what I can say is philosophical atheism and there’s something like psychological or emotional atheism so if somebody is a philosophical atheist that means they they have not found rational arguments for the existence of God and maybe they have heard from atheists and then they’ve become convinced philosophical atheists are actually relatively easier to persuade but somebody who’s a psychological atheist that means that that person has had bitter experiences with religious people or that has person has seen maybe the stark examples of human suffering and depravity and it’s not so much a logical conclusion as more emotional how can God exist then for such people arguments even not argument in the sense of the argumentative but intellectual persuasion doesn’t help so much maybe they just need to have any more positive interactions with devotees and gradually they may become more open but till that time as you suggested is getting them to chant Krishna’s names that also is subconsciously working to increase their spiritual credits and help them come closer to Krishna eventually. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you so much for class.
I was just reflecting how much I loved your point about comes to being envious of Krishna because he doesn’t really know Krishna and and it was making me think of is that is the same truth we’re envious of people we don’t really see the Krishna in them we’re looking at it with selfish motivation so that was such a great wonderful point because enviousness is so insidious and so horrible that to really see it in that way I felt very helpful so thank you so much. Yes, thank you. That’s a very good point.
See what happens is generally whenever we have some negative emotion towards some it could be envy it could be anger it could even be lust or whatever whatever happens in those situations is that we are reducing that person to one particular attribute of this so maybe I’m envious of this person because I may feel that I work so hard but nobody appreciates me and this person doesn’t do anything and everybody praises them so now even if that is true even that is happening like that what are we doing is we are reducing the person to the praise that they are receiving but if we connect with the humanity of the person if we can connect with the spirituality that is wonderful spirituality means as you said we see there them as souls as parts of Krishna that’s wonderful but even if we just connect with the humanity of the person is you try to understand them as a person it says okay they are getting this praise and maybe they don’t deserve it that’s that’s that’s one part of it but that doesn’t define their life who they are so generally when we get to know people then quite often the reductionistic labels that we apply to them that that we realise in this is this is not really applicable it’s not always that will happen because sometimes we get to know people in a way that we can reinforce that label about them then that doesn’t help that means if I am wanting to know if I’m envious of someone and I’m wanting to know all the details about that person by which my envy will increase for them then that means all I want to know is how undeserving this person is for all the praise that they are getting that that will not decrease my envy but if we try to understand them as a person as a conscious being then to a large extent large extent what happens is that the relationship becomes more multi-dimensional and that’s how it is in normal relationships also say if there is a male-female attraction as a basis of a long-term relationship and they’re going to have a dharmic union they’re going to get married that initially the attraction may be based on desire it could be physical desire also but as the couple gets to know each other more and more then yes that desire may be a part of the relationship maybe an important part but that doesn’t define the relationship we start understanding each other more and more and then there then we so basically getting to know each other seeing the humanity in the spirituality of others helps us make the relationship more multi-dimensional and Angela’s made one comment that the gopis were attracted by the lusty desires so I would like to clarify that quickly there are two things over there one is that there are the word lust when the word calm is used the Sanskrit word calm has many different meanings in Sanskrit itself it sometimes translated as lust generally we think of especially in the spiritual path we think of lust as undesirable and then you say how could the gopis who are pure devotees have lust so what is explained is that among the gopis the Krishna that they’re the cowherd maidens the cowherd girls in Krishna’s pastoral parasite of paradise of Vrindavan now not all of them were pure devotees some of them were seekers who by some level of spirituality they had been born in the vicinity of Vrindavan so when they saw Krishna their attraction might have been material for them so Radharani’s attraction for Krishna is not calm the intimate gopis who are the parts of Krishna’s associates in the spiritual world that is not the sexual desire of lust that is a pure transcendental desire but there were some who were attracted to Krishna because he was just his form was so attractive but even they became purified so this does not refer to all the gopis this refers to specifically those categories of gopis who were not yet purified but they happen to be then Krishna Leela and their attraction purified them there’s one last question is Julie good morning Hare Krishna thank you so much um can you please clarify I really enjoyed this talk because I feel like I can identify in my own life different like what I’m on different points of that spectrum between motivation and contemplation can you please clarify is our practise to come to the centre with the two is that our sadhana and our association with other devotees is it just acknowledging being able to acknowledge when we’re on one end or the other and like trying to scale it to centre can you just make that clarification okay it’s a good question thank you so how do we have a healthy blend of both motivation and contemplation so the intellectual and the emotional aspects we can say in the bhagavad-gita several times Krishna says mayi arpit mano buddhir mam evai shasya samshaya ha in 8.7 I think again in the 12th chapter in 12.18 he says that mayi arpit offer to me arpit is to offer mana buddhi mana is our emotional side broadly speaking buddhi is our rational intellectual side and in this way when you offer your mind and intelligence to me you will come to me mam evai shasya samshaya ha certainly you will come to me so now for all of us so what that means what Krishna is again saying is that our inner world see we have our physical physical life and the physical world Krishna is saying more important than that is to offer our inner world our thoughts our mind and our intelligence to him now each of us has a particular nature maybe some of us may be more rational some of us may be more emotional so is it that emotional person has to become more rational or a rational person has to become more emotional well that’s not the key thing the key thing is somebody may have their inner world where say they are defined 70% by their rationality and 30% by their emotionality somebody else maybe they will define 70% by their emotionality and 30% by the rationality now when I say defined by means primary that’s how they react that they respond to situations it’s not it’s not necessarily a bad thing or a good thing that is the way they are but the point is the way we are we offer our inner world to Krishna and overall is it that we ought to have an ideal 50-50 percent balance so it’s not like that as we are in one sense we offer ourselves to Krishna so we try to connect emotionally also we try to connect rationally also so for some of us if we are more emotional then maybe there are certain aspects of bhakti which may be more attracted to so when we go when we associate with devotees maybe the way devotees greet each other the cordiality the warmth the sense of belonging that’s what draws us and that’s what we look forward to that’s wonderful simultaneously even if you don’t feel that attracted to classes we hear the classes we hear them and try to understand that may not be our primary more inspiration but still we hear and conversely if philosophy is what attracts us and socialising try to be friendly with devotees so try to engage in all aspects of bhakti even if we are attracted particularly to some aspects of bhakti so that way we’d be able to offer our mind and intelligence both does that answer your question thank you very much thank you so much for allowing me to come on board again oh it’s