From lower taste to higher taste through higher vision

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Any comments? PURPORTED TRANSLATION Hare Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare Hare Krishna Sorry to be a little late I think the translation purport has not yet been read, isn't it? So we are reading now 6.1, 23 and 24 So, My dear King, this is Shukadeva Goswami speaking to Parishad Maharaj While he does spend his time in abominable sinful activities to maintain his family of many sons 88 years of his life passed by So then we have 6.1, 24 Tasya, of him Ajamil, who was very old Putraha, sons Dasya, ten Tesham, of all of them Tu, but Yeha, the one who Avamaha, the youngest Balaha, child Narayanaha, Narayana Namna, by name Pitraha, of the father and mother Chha, and Daitaha, dear Brisham, very Translation purport by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swamishla Prabhupada Translation that old man Ajamil had ten sons Of whom the youngest was a baby named Narayan Since Narayan was the youngest of all the sons He was naturally very dear to both his father and his mother Purport, the word Pravaya Saha indicates Ajamil's sinfulness Because although he was 88 years old, he had a very young child According to Vedic culture, one should leave home as soon as they reach 50 years of age One should not live at home and go on producing children Sex life is allowed for 25 years, between the ages of 25 and 45, or at the most 50 After that, one should give up the habit of sex life and leave home as a vanaprastha And then properly take sannyas Ajamil, however, because of his association with the prostitute Lost all Brahminical culture and became more sinful Even in his so-called household life So this is one of the more sobering pastimes in the Srimad Bhagavatam And if we look at the overall structure of the Bhagavatam The Ajamil pastime comes at a very significant transition point In general, in the material world, there are two things which need to be considered The Ishopanishad says that Vidyam cha vidyam cha yas tad vedo vayamsah Avidyayam rtyum teerthva vidyayam rtam asnute So literally, the Upanishads often like to speak in paradoxical ways That many times what happens is that the same word can have multiple meanings So it's almost literally, if you take this word, what it means is That knowledge and ignorance are both required Vidyam cha vidyam cha yas tad vedo vayamsah By that one can become free from fearlessness Now you may say why would anyone require ignorance? So actually it does not refer literally to ignorance What it means is knowledge about the world which is filled with ignorance And knowledge about the world which is filled with knowledge With which we are enlightened So it is in one sense you can say material knowledge and spiritual knowledge So vidya and avidya have specific meanings in that context So the words are often multivalent Multivalent means the same word can have different meanings In English, there is a word run or running Which is said to have the maximum meanings It has around 580 meanings So I am running to improve my health Who is running for the president? Why is my car not running? I am running because my car is not running So we can have multiple meanings of the same word And we understand from context what the meaning is So similarly, vidyam cha vidyam cha, what is it referring to? It refers to the fact that avidya mrtyum kirtva That by the knowledge of avidya Knowledge of ignorance does not seem to make much sense Because knowledge and ignorance are opposite things So what is the knowledge of ignorance? So avidya is referred non-literally to the place of ignorance By knowledge of how this place of ignorance works That is by knowledge of the material world One can actually go beyond it avidya mrtyum kirtva One can go beyond mortality or deathlessness avidyaya mrtyum kirtva By gaining knowledge of the world of knowledge Of the satchitananda spiritual world One can attain immortal life So interestingly what this word says is One part is simply by studying the nature of the material world One can get detachment from it And as we can get detached we can go beyond the domain of death We may go only till brahman We may not really attain eternal ecstatic life which comes by bhakti For that we need positive knowledge of the spiritual world also So overall the idea is Overall the idea is that each one of us Needs to gain both these knowledges Knowledge of vidya and avidya So in this particular verse Both these knowledges being offered in one sense How is that? We are being offered knowledge about The dangers of material existence Through the story of ajamil And how a respectable brahmana succumbed How a respectable brahmana slipped And that is quite a sobering story So that is the nature of the material world So the danger of the material world is not just janma-mrtyu-jaravyadi That's of course the distresses of the material world But the danger of the material world Apart from that is also That one may be on the path of elevation That is living a brahmanical or a virtuous or a devotional life And still one may slip and fall So that danger is illustrated in this So avidya And this can make us cautious That we have to be careful over here Just like if we know There is a particular area, the road is risky Sometimes on the road there is a sign that comes A sharp turn ahead, slow down Then we know, okay, I have to slow down So this is like a cautionary note for us In this past time At the same time The past time also Talks about the power of devotion Power of devotion In elevating A person who may have fallen And Specifically the past time is about the holy name So avidya-mrtyu-mrtyu Oh, this world is filled with such temptations That anybody can fall So I have to be careful And then Vidyaya-mrtyu-mrtyu Then we understand the glory of bhakti The glory of Krishna's merciful nature And that Hare Krishna Prabhu Yeah Sorry Prabhu, are you sharing any PPT Because we don't see anything on the screen You are not able to see me also? We are able to see you But then we don't see any Your PPT So just wanted to check if you are sharing anything Or there is no any PPT today I will share later, right now I have not started Okay, thank you Prabhu Yeah, sure So these two things Vidya and avidya are both important And Now In this particular verse So that's the overall context of this pastime To illustrate both the dangerousness of the material world And the mercifulness of the Lord So that is Shobha Pujan verse By both these we can move forward Now sometimes we mean We say we should take spiritual life seriously That means we take Maya seriously And we take Krishna seriously It's like if somebody has Somebody is in a hospital Now take your hospital stay seriously That means what? You take your disease seriously It's no laughing matter You can't just neglect it Recognise how dangerous the disease can be And then take your treatment seriously So just taking the disease seriously is not enough Because that can fill a person pessimism Oh I have got cancer And so many people die of cancer So many cancers are incurable Well many cancers may be incurable But your cancer is not incurable Take the treatment seriously You can be cured So the idea over here is That it is important For each one of us to Take both these aspects seriously And what happens is Now we may say isn't it enough Only to take Krishna seriously Well yes it is true But very few people can sustain Seriousness in Krishna Bhakti Without Unless they have taste So Jiva Goswami says that Actually if we have love If we have priti for Krishna The love for Krishna Then remembering him Focussing on him Centering on him is very easy But if you don't have that Then what we need is buddhi Without buddhi Without intelligence It's very difficult to sustain Our commitment to the practise of Krishna Bhakti Or sustain at least at a steady level And that's why the reminders are important So I will today focus on this Journey from lower taste to higher taste That is embodied in the story of Ajamil And Sri Prabhupada in this verse Takes the opportunity to explain how Ajamil was caught in the lower taste He had succumbed to it when he was a brahmana And since that time He had continued to be in that grip So let's look at A well-known section from the Bhagavad Gita Which talks about this journey from Lower taste to higher taste And we will see What it can tell us For our understanding and growth in this journey So this is the well-known section in the Bhagavad Gita That is in 254 Arjuna is asked a question And Krishna answers that question So what happens over here is Krishna is asked four questions by Arjuna So here Kabhasha is answered in 55 Kim prabhashet is answered in 56-57 So how to be situated in the material world How to function in the material world These two questions are answered In say 58 to 72 So 58 to Depending on which Acharya's commentary we take It is 61 or 63 Is the answer to the first question So let's focus on 58 to 61 How to function in the material world How to be situated in the material world So this is a well-known verse In terms of at least its metaphor Krishna is saying just as a tortoise withdraws its limbs Similarly we need to withdraw our limbs From our senses From the sense objects So it's in many times in the Bhagavad Gita The word Indriya Artha is used So the word Artha is also an example of Multivalent words in Sanskrit Artha can mean meaning Artha can mean finance Artha Mantri Artha can also mean object When we do something It can mean purpose The purpose of the senses is to come in contact with sense objects So Indriya and Indriya Artha So we need to restrain or regulate The contact of the senses with the sense objects So and this The social system for that was Varanashram And Prabhupada talks about Varanashram In this purport Where he says that This withdrawal of the senses from the sense objects Is naturally done when one moves From the Grihasthashram to the Vanaprasthashram And thereafter the Sanyasashram There are principles And there are specifics So specifics may vary Actually Prabhupada himself Did not take to Sanyas Literally he thought that 50th birthday Or I have to leave I have to take Vanaprastha or Sanyas It is not like that But it is a broad map of life And the idea is Whether one is in a particular ashram or some other ashram The ashram is a support system For one to To function properly To function spiritually To function responsibly So Indriya Indriyarthebhyasur Regulate the contact between the senses and the sense objects This is one thing that It is impossible for us To actually gain self control Or to turn towards spirituality Unless we restrain Unless we minimise The contact of the senses with the sense objects It may seem like an external activity But it is an important external activity Some people say that I have no will power I just can't control myself Suppose somebody is alcoholic And they are just not able to give up alcohol I just can't give it up And it is possible We may say that You are just not strong enough You are just not determined enough You just don't have enough will power Well, it may not be that simple Now what applies to alcoholism Can apply to many other attachments also That sometimes The urges may be so strong That we may just not be able to Give up the urges When the urges come We just feel overwhelmed at that time So at that time simply beating oneself up Why did I do that? I should not have done that So the alcoholic may say that When the urge comes so strong upon me That I just can't do anything about it Okay That may be so But Suppose somebody is earnest About recovering from alcohol Then at the very least What they can do Is Don't take a house on top of a bar Don't take a house right next to a bar That is something which you can choose We may not be able to choose How strong the urge is when it comes And whether we can restrain it or not But these are long-term decisions We don't have to take a house right next to a bar So when Krishna says here that Resistance the senses from the sense objects Like a tortoise withdraws its limbs That means each of us Can try to arrange our life In such a way that Our exposure to sense objects is minimised Now we cannot eliminate it But we can minimise it A tortoise does not live With its limbs withdrawn 24 hours a day The limbs are not meant only to be withdrawn The limbs are required for the functioning of the tortoise But wherever there is danger The tortoise withdraws its limbs So now The world will not create the facility For us so much that The sense objects will disappear We will have to create that facility What does that mean? That each one of us Will have to create a safe zone for ourselves So it could range for something as simple as If we tend to spend a lot of time on the internet Surfing this, watching this, doing that Then maybe Have some kind of application Or some kind of device Maybe in the next one hour I am going to study Bhagavatam Just lock off the internet Not log off the internet But lock off the internet Even if I log off from it But I can't even log on if I want to So that is a practical way In which we can do this For the next one hour My senses are going to withdraw from the sense objects The sense object in this case is the internet And all the sense objects that are available over there So say if we want to regulate We want to say We want to regulate the Regulate the eating Then maybe if there is Tempting food in the house Keep it under a lock And don't keep the key nearby There are, you know Many of you have seen that there are There are like boxes, cookie jars With inbuilt locks And you just can't open it You can break it But you can't open it So this may seem funny But the idea is that Actually Each one of us will have to find out In our situation How we can withdraw Our senses From the particular sense objects that That tempt us So creating that safe zone That safe distance How we will do that Will vary So the traditional system was Through the Varanashram Now Varanashram itself May or may not be replicable for us In our particular situation But the idea is We have to create that safe zone So Once we create that safe zone What happens The constant fuelling Of our lower desires The constant fuelling Of the lower urges That decreases I am using carefully the words over here The lower urges themselves Are not going to disappear by this By this creation of the safe zone But the fuelling of the lower urges There is a fire Kaam Anala Krishna says in the Later that Kaam is like Is like fire That fire is not going to be extinguished by this But at least The further fuel is not being put on the fire So that's how This first verse is About creating a safe zone For ourselves Now the next verse is Krishna says Krishna talks about the The limitation of this approach He says Now safe zone It is not unimportant So you could put it this way That this safe zone theme The best way to deal with temptation Is to not deal with temptation The best way to deal with temptation Is to not deal with temptation So temptation is like Very sneaky Very seductive It's like Some marketers are there Maybe telemarketers They phone And they are so persuasive That if you pick up the phone By the time the conversation is over We will have bought what they wanted What they sell us Although we have no need for it We have no interest in it We have no desire for it But they will convince us So we could say Maya is like that kind of telemarketer If you pick up the call We will end up buying So the first is Don't pick up the call Create that safe zone But the problem with that is It is not In this particular case It is not just because The telemarketer is phoning That we are buying it We also have some desire inside it It's not the sense objects That create desire Because the sense objects Activate desire within us And now that is the problem Which Krishna talks about over here So to deal with To move So the first step In the journey from lower taste To higher taste is Is regulation Creation of safe zones Where we are not Fuelling the lower taste And next is Vishaya vini vartante Niraharasya dena Rasavaryam rasopyasya Param drishtvani vartate So vishaya vini vartante When we regulate Our senses Or when we abstain From indulging in the sense objects What happens Krishna says is Dehinah The embodied soul Feels As if Niraharasya Ahar is food Niraharasya is I am without food I am starving So now We may say literally That person is not starving They are not fasting But that's how it feels So for each of the senses If our eyes are Habituated to watching certain things If our ears are Habituated to hearing certain music Some kind of Maybe it could be Mundane movie music Or whatever And if we stop it We feel as if We are starving Because the senses Each of the senses Seeks its ahar Its food from outside And this food We are not referring to just the food that Nourishes our body This is also the food That agitates our mind Like some food We eat food Normally we eat food to nourish our body But nowadays There is so much junk food available And That food doesn't nourish our body It may titillate our tongue But it actually harms our body But we eat it Because we are so We are so attracted to it It's sometimes marketed so attractively So So when we stop eating that food We may be eating nutritious food But still There is There is a feeling Oh I want to eat this fast food I want to eat that I want to eat that So what happens is We call it fast food But But it's a very selective and deceptive name It may be fast in the sense of being fast Available Fast to cook But it is slow to digest It is slow to deal with After a long time It's So But we may still feel hungry Although we are eating healthy food But There is the appetite of the belly And there is the appetite of the tongue So tongue may still feel hungry Because it's craving Nirahara silena Rasavarjam Rasopyasya Krishna says Rasavarjam One gives up the rasa Which rasa? The lower taste Rasavarjam Rasopyasya But still that taste That craving That memory of that indulgence That pleasure remains And this is the torment That's why This is the like Regulation Is the beginning step It is not the final step It is like if you want to extinguish fire The first thing we need to do is Stop fuelling the fire If you don't stop fuelling the fire Like say some firefighters have come somewhere And there's a big building And the big building is burning And nearby there's another building And that may also start burning So the first thing the firefighters have to do Okay, let's prevent the fire from spreading over there Or the fire is getting fuel from this particular area Let's cut it off But stopping the fuel Is not extinguishing the fire However, if you don't stop the fuel Then no matter how much water we pour On one side we are extinguishing the fire On the other side we are again We are letting fuel come So that we will get further aggravated So that creating that safe zone Now we may not be able to have that safe zone 24 hours a day For 365 days a year For the rest of our life But at least for some time We need the safe zone That's how for that time The fire is not being fuelled But even after the fire is not being fuelled The fire is still there And the fire will keep burning So this is a fire which burns inside us And this fire Is the difference between The fire of worldly desires And a physical fire Is very significant Normally if something makes us If there is a fire If there is a fire outside Then what happens is As soon as we feel the fire We move away from it Whenever we feel fire We move away from the source of that fire That's with physical fire But with respect to the fire of desire inside us The effect is opposite Whenever we feel the desire We move closer to the object of desire Whenever we feel the fire of desire inside us We are pulled closer and closer to it So rasavarjam rasopyasya Although we may decide No I am not going to indulge in it But we are dragged towards it Then what is the solution Krishna says Param drishtva nivartate That if we get the higher taste Then we can nivartate So it's a See the first line in this was Nivartante and nivartate It's the similar words Vishaya vinivartante Vinivartante here means restraint or abstinence Nivartate means steadily situated So one may give up external objects But one will become externally One will become situated In the giving up of those objects When we get param drishtva Now this leads us to a To a catch 22 situation Catch 22 is a phrase which means You know there is no way out There are two things Which mutually reinforce each other and trap us So how does this begin? Somebody may say that Okay that Okay we cannot give up lower taste Unless we gain higher taste So that's what Krishna is saying We cannot But somebody else may say that Or one perspective is We cannot give up lower taste Till we get higher taste The other perspective is that We cannot get higher taste Unless we give up lower taste So where what do we do then? So how do we move for this journey From lower taste to higher taste? So it is and both We can quote scripture for both of these things We cannot get We cannot give up lower taste Unless we get higher taste Prabhupada would give example of how a child How a child is playing with a toy And child may be playing with a dangerous thing like a knife And you just pull it away The child will start crying You have to give the child some better toy to play with And then that child will give up the Give up the That knife or something like that So he says that we just cannot live without pleasure So he says we cannot give up lower taste Unless we get higher taste That's one statement Overall this verse is also saying the same thing But there are other statements also That Matirna krishne paratah svato va Mitho vipatyeta graha prathanam Adant gobir vishatam tamasram Ampuna punas carvita carvinanam Prahlad Maharaj's teaching says that That actually if somebody Matirna krishne paratah svato va That by others instructions By one's own endeavours Even by cooperative effort One will not develop attraction to Krishna If one is attached to only Krishna Adant gobir vishatam tamasram So Ampuna punas carvita carvinanam One will actually go to hellish condition of life If one keeps Ampuna punas carvita carvinanam Again indulging Again and again indulging in sense pleasure This kind of verses seem to say that We cannot get higher taste Unless we give up lower taste So that is in one sense The trap for all of us Where do we begin? That How do I start moving from lower taste Towards higher taste And we could say the key over here Lies in this word drishtva Param drishtva Now usually this param drishtva Is translated as higher taste And that is perfect In the sense that When we get that higher taste Then we become steady Now literally drishtva Is a variant of the word drishti Drishti means vision So Srishti is creation And drishti is vision So drishti means what? So if you take the literal param drishtva When we get the higher vision When we get the higher understanding We become steady So what does this mean over here? That it is not necessary That we have to get the higher taste To give up the lower taste We have to get a higher vision A higher understanding A higher purpose In pursuit of the higher taste And that itself can be enough for us So what do I mean by this? I suppose Nowadays there is so much Food that is fatty available around us That it is easy For anyone to gain weight And it actually requires constant effort To stay fit and sleep So suppose The recent covid pandemic Is more or less getting over So there are sociologists Who are recognising now That there were two covid pandemics I am not talking about Two different waves over here The first was the covid 19 pandemic That was caused by the coronavirus And the second covid 19 was The 19 pounds that people gained Because of inactivity Because of enforced inactivity So a lot of people Ended up gaining weight So now what happens is That suppose somebody wants to lose weight Now we say Oh but I will have to give up food I will have to regulate my diet I will have to do exercise It is so difficult How will I do it? But suppose they meet somebody else And that person has lost a lot of weight Now there are of course some Disruptive ways of losing weight Where people just abuse their bodies That is not healthy But suppose somebody is following A good regimen of diet and exercise And they have lost some weight And we see that How did you do this? Maybe that is doable for you So we just get that higher path A path to a higher goal A higher purpose See we human beings are made in such a way That we get stimulation Stimulation is we could say One level of satisfaction We get Am I audible to everyone clearly? Because your image is freezing So we human beings are made in such a way That we get stimulation Not just by achieving a goal We get stimulation Even by having a goal to achieve Not just by achieving goal But even by having a goal to achieve This is what I am going to do So what happens is So if somebody gets Now in one month I can lose this much weight And I can lose this much weight And in six months I can be where I want to be That itself stimulates Now I can move forward So param drishtva doesn't necessarily mean Have to be higher taste It can also be the purpose Of pursuing higher taste If we Not just the purpose Oh I want to gain higher taste It's a purpose with a path This purpose alone is not enough Oh purpose everybody may have I want to lose weight But that itself may not inspire them Okay This is I want to lose weight And this is the way I can do it You know okay I cannot avoid all food that is enjoyable But maybe this food I can avoid This food I can regulate This much exercise I can do So when there is a higher purpose With a path That itself can stimulate us But when will it stimulate us When we remember it Okay you know Why am I not eating all this tempting food Because Because I want to become healthier I want to That all the diseases that may come Because of obesity And all the problems that might come I want to avoid them So that is why I started by talking about buddhi Jiva Goswami says that we can remember Krishna Naturally when we have priti When we have affection for Krishna But if we don't have that affection for Krishna Then what we need is buddhi It is buddhi that will keep us on our spiritual platform It is our intelligence So this higher taste Right now is not an experience Is for us as sadhakas The higher taste may not be an experience Sometimes yes When we do kirtans We experience some higher taste Sometimes when we When we are trying to practise bhakti Sometimes our japa also may feel very good Very We may feel a lot of strength and connection from our japa But it may not be all the time So at other times we feel Japa is like It's such a It's such a We may not want to admit it But it's just like a burden It's we may feel Oh I just want to get it over with Sometimes we have our bead bag And we take the beads out of the bag Because we are looking how many How many beads are remaining for this round We say oh so many Does this bead have a hundred and eight beads Does this mala have a hundred and eight beads Or does it have a thousand and eight beads It's just not ending So we will feel like that sometimes So right now the higher taste may not be an experience for us But The high Just if we have A higher purpose with a path to that purpose That can be stimulated And that can also act as A substitute for the higher taste Because if we are stimulated for a particular goal If we are motivated If we are inspired for a particular goal In the pursuit of that goal itself We get some taste It is not the same taste of the achievement of the goal But there is a taste And that is what inspires us to transform So param drishtva So drishtva means vision So what does higher vision here refer to The vision of self-transformation What motivates a person Okay I want to lose weight I want to become healthier That higher vision is I can be healthier This is the that is where I want to go And this is the path to go there So drishtva There is a higher taste And there is the vision to the higher taste Which is like a higher vision So for us some of us May be fortunate enough to have already developed taste For some limbs of bhakti We may have developed taste for kirtan For bhajan For deity worship For particular services And that's fortunate If we have developed the taste However if that taste is not steady Or that taste is not yet developed Then it is our responsibility To maintain the higher vision The higher vision is Okay this is where I want to go And this is the path by which I can go And that will help us steadily move forward And that's why Srila Prabhupada wanted regular bhagavatam classes Not just regular but daily And daily hearing of philosophy Daily hearing krishna katha At one level Krishna katha is purifying Sometimes krishna katha can be very entertaining and satisfying also But at another level The daily hearing of krishna katha is maintained Is going to help us In this param drishtva nivartate How do we stay fixed in that higher taste? By being fixed in the higher vision And that higher vision Is maintained by Nourishing our buddhi So I'll conclude this point This nirahara That we are feeling We are feeling that my senses Are starving And not just my senses are starving The senses are starving we feel we are starving We feel we are starving Nowadays there is this There is a lot of detox The idea of detox and fasting or abstaining Is becoming popular So like we may want to detox our body I take a lot of unhealthy foods I want to stop that But there is also something called digital detox Digital detox is Maybe once a day I will fast I will avoid taking I will avoid going on social media I will avoid going on this I will avoid going on that Maybe for one hour a day or one day a week Or something like that So when we do that we may feel as if we are starving But this nirahara se dehina That feeling that I am starving That can be avoided If we are nourishing our intelligence We will have to We will feel as if Our senses are being starved When we regulate ourselves But that starvation can be mitigated If we are nourishing our intelligence That nourishing our intelligence Will give us some fulfilment And then the starvation of the senses Won't trouble us that much And this is the journey By which we can move From the lower taste Gradually but steadily Surely toward the higher taste So I will summarise Broadly I spoke on Three main topics today The overall topic was How to gain higher taste When we don't have higher taste So first I talked about This past time itself is illustrating The dangerousness of mortal existence In terms of its capacity to pull down Even well situated people Through temptation And the glory of Krishna's mercifulness As manifested through his holy name And then Second point I discussed is that How to stop Succumbing to the lower taste The first thing is We have to stop fuelling the fire of desire And that means creating safe zones So Varanashram Was a traditional social arrangement For creating safe zones And that may not be possible Then we have to create Our individual arrangements Whether it be turn off the internet Not just log off But lock off the internet So I like that Create safe zones That will at least It will not extinguish the fire But it will stop making the fire worse And the next stage is That after that We need to redirect ourselves Because the taste Because the taste The craving The desire still remains It's not just externally It is not externally caused It is only externally triggered Externally activated So what do we do internal We move to higher taste And that is third point That if we don't have higher taste Then what do we do We at least have the higher vision The higher vision is The path to the higher taste We humans are made in such a way That we get stimulated Not just by achieving something good But even by being motivated Even by pursuing something good So for that maintaining that higher vision Param drishtva can mean higher taste Or it can mean the higher vision Of the path to the higher taste So for that we need buddhi We need to regularly nourish our intelligence By studying Krishna's message Studying Krishna katha And then we will persist Till we actually make the journey From the lower taste to the higher taste Thank you very much Hare Krishna Are there any questions Thank you so much Prabhu For the wonderful session With all the points of How we can get higher taste And if we don't have higher taste How we have higher vision To get to that taste Thank you Prabhu Hare Krishna Devotees if you have any questions Please You can go ahead I don't see any raised hands Prabhuji Thank you very much for the excellent class And as I understand From your lecture The root cause is my material desire And I understand that We are misusing our free will What Krishna has given us And you know that's the cause of that But I wonder Like nitya siddha and we are nitya baddha So what is You know Want to go to the root where This is my desire So is there any Any explanation anywhere Is that this is the root I understand there is But why did I develop grace That's what I don't understand So if you can help me Thank you Yes Prabhu The question of origins Is a vexed question There are Different acharyas Who have given different Understandings of it And It is Whichever understanding we find Satisfactory we can take it And it may be that This some questions May be such that We may not be able to get a satisfactory answer entirely So Jiva Goswami says that The soul The soul never falls in the spiritual world The soul is always in the material world So He says that then isn't that discriminatory Why should some souls always be nitya baddha Some souls be nitya baddha he says Now if you want to look at that discriminatory Then why is Then you could go ahead and say discrimination is inherent to Gaudiya Vaishnavism Because why is Radharani alone dear to Krishna Dearest to Krishna Why don't other gopis have as much Intimacy with Krishna as Radharani Or why don't devotees in other rasas Have as much intimacy with Krishna As those who are In the Madhuryas Why do devotees of other forms of Vishnu Not have access to Krishna They have access to those other forms of Vishnu Well yes You know if we start raising questions about that Then there are there You could question the entire existence The nature of the spiritual world itself So that's his explanation The second is Bhaktivinod Thakur Who more or less seems to say that We were in Brahmajyoti This is a very complex subject And I'm giving a very bare bones overview Because this is not a subject This is not a subject of our class Bhaktivinod Thakur seems to say that That we were in the Brahmajyoti And from there we fell And his understanding is that Brahmajyoti is a place where there can be peace But not joy And sometimes we may just get tired of peace And we want something more And then we descend to this world And now Prabhupada seems to say that We were with Krishna Not just in Brahmajyoti but in the spiritual world And we came from Krishna Now Prabhupada also is not That is not the only position he has taken There are places where Prabhupada says for example In the fall of In the Kumaras cursing the Jaya and Vijaya That pastime he says Therefore the conclusion No one ever falls from the spiritual world Categorical conclusion Prabhupada says this So Prabhupada has taken multiple positions But the position of Prabhupada That has become mainstream within Within our movement Is the idea that we were with Krishna And we fell from there And when Prabhupada was asked about it He said that The very nature of free will Means that it is free We can't control it Just because somebody is having something Having something good Doesn't mean that they will not want to explore something else Which may actually be worse But they may think it is better So it is not that At that time it is dvesha It is just the desire to enjoy differently And then after that When the soul comes to the material world Then the Then the Resentment or the envy towards Those who are enjoying better than us Comes up and it grows further So there are various explanations But ultimately This question If we go to the origins It is like an intellectual banana peel Banana peel means Step on it and slip So with respect to this question Dwelling too much on it Will only cause us to slip In the sense that we will Lose our clarity Lose our conviction And we will end up in confusion If not delusion So best is that Among these three answers Whichever answer we can relate with We accept that And we move forward As far as Where the dvesha has come from We humans We In various domains of life We accept that We often move forward With working knowledge Rather than conclusive knowledge Say for example With the COVID pandemic We stopped the whole world Practically because of the pandemic But even now How many of us Know actually how the pandemic started Was it Was it intentionally created Variant What is accidentally leaked variant Was it a natural mutation Well maybe in the future investigation we will reveal But Are we going to stop our life Till we find out what caused it No we have to move on with our life So in every area of life We humans often Continue functioning With working knowledge We can try to move towards A greater level of knowledge But Working knowledge is what We will function with Say now cancer I was mentioning briefly In many cases the causes of cancer are not known But still if we know that something is ready to cure Something can cure us Then we take the cure and move forward And we try to get to the causes also But the nature of the human condition is That We often have to take Huge decisions Based on tiny knowledge And that is just the way life is You know when we get married How much do we really know about the other person We can try to know as much as possible But it's a huge decision And the knowledge that we have of the other person is tiny When we decide to Say Immigrate from one country to another country How much do we really know about that country So we try to gain as much knowledge as we can But the nature of human existence is that We have to take huge decisions based on Relatively insufficient quantity of knowledge If not tiny knowledge So we can't When we do that in all other walks of our life We can't demand that only with respect to spiritual knowledge I will not commit to Krishna because I don't have the answer to this question No, we have enough knowledge to make a positive difference in our life We can find that if we try to develop our love for Krishna The quality of our life becomes better The quality of our consciousness becomes better So we focus on that Thank you very much, Prabhuji Thank you Hi Krishna, Prabhuji, Dandavar Konams As usual, a very enlightening class, Prabhuji Prabhuji, you were saying the higher vision and the higher taste So in that, to get the higher vision of Krishna consciousness We should be with the higher taste of hearing the Krishna Katha Is it that, Prabhuji, you mentioned? Sorry, come again Last sentence, what did you say? No, no, the higher vision is Krishna consciousness, right? And to get that vision The higher vision is, you could say Krishna consciousness is a very broad word What do you mean by Krishna consciousness? So Krishna consciousness can refer to higher taste also Because when we are conscious of Krishna, we are attracted towards Krishna Specifically, what I meant by higher vision was The philosophical understanding of the path to higher taste So, yes, this is material world And there is some pleasure, but there is a lot of trouble over here In the spiritual world or on the spiritual path There may be some austerity initially, but there is unlimited pleasure So, that higher vision is the vision of the path to the higher taste So, put it another way, later on in the Bhagavad Gita, 18th chapter, Krishna says that यत्तद अग्रेविषमिव परिणामे अम्रतोपमं तत् सुखं सात्विकं प्रोक्तमात्म बुद्धि प्रसादजम् That which tastes like poison initially, will taste like nectar eventually That is the nature of elevated pleasure Pleasure in the mode of goodness and above So, this higher taste means to, you can say, go beyond the initial poison to the eventual nectar But the higher vision means to know, okay, right now I am going through this poison But there is nectar later And to stay focused on that understanding, that there is the nectar, I will come to it So, we could say Krishna Consciousness, because Krishna Consciousness includes a lot of things And also includes this But specifically I meant, we humans have the capacity to see with our intelligence and imagination Things that may not be real right now Somebody wants to construct a huge skyscraper where there is a dirt heap or dust heap That person has a, they make architectural plan, they have a vision And it is that vision that motivates them So, for all of us, through philosophy, through philosophical study, through philosophical nourishment What we do is, we use our intelligence and imagination to visualise the higher reality So, right now, I don't have taste in the Bhagavatam But if I keep hearing, keep reading, then one day I will get taste And maybe we know somebody, just sit and read for hours Bhagavatam I want to get taste like that Just forget the external world and be absorbed So, I will come to that So, here specifically it is the philosophical nourishment That enables us, our intelligence and imagination to visualise ourselves in a state of higher taste Ourselves releasing higher taste, that's the higher vision Okay, thank you so much Prabhuji, now I got it clear Thank you, Hare Krishna Thank you, Hare Krishna Yes, Sukhaka Krishna Das It was a wonderful class Actually, we get the knowledge Prabhu And we know that we are not supposed to do that And that also we know Some people come and we get dissented And our journey is not going further What is the way to have a knowledge, what you told now Higher vision and going that way And to continue that and we don't get down further Yes So, in spite of having that knowledge we seem to go Keep succumbing to the lower taste Or the lower taste doesn't go away There is a question also in the chat box which is similar Well, maybe we need to stop having that unrealistic expectation That the lower taste will go away soon It may take a long time to go away And sometimes we have to actually Be careful about what we define ourselves by Are we defining ourselves by our inability to restrain our senses Well, we need to be aware of our limitations, our weaknesses But we don't have to define ourselves by those things When Krishna in Bhagavad Gita 5.23 says शक्नोति हाई वया सोरूम् प्राक्षरि विमोक्षनात् काम क्रोधोत बावं बेगं सयुखता स सुकी न रहा So it says that प्राक्षरि विमोक्षनात् That these urges, they just come by being embodied And in that sense, he says that They may keep coming till the moment of As long as we have the body And sometimes they are so strong that we may succumb to them And sometimes we may not But the point is that We don't have to define ourselves Solely by our ability or inability to resist The bodily urges that come We need to define ourselves primarily by How well we are connecting with Krishna That's why many times devotees ask me How to be consistent I say that for many of us Being consistent is too high a goal It is better to try to be resilient Rather than consistent Consistent means always I'll stay at this level At this particular level Every day I'll wake up in the morning this time Every day I'll do this, this, this Every day I'll read Bhagavatam one hour Okay, that's nice to aspire for But our life may be such that If you're going to sleep at one o'clock at night Because of some unavoidable services or situations Then to expect that I'll wake up at four o'clock That may be expecting too much from our body So some days we may just not be able to read Bhagavatam So instead of trying to be consistent And beating ourselves up for not being consistent We can just try to be resilient Resilient means what? Even if I come from this level to this level I will rise again I will not stay here So like resilient means we knock down But we rise up So we can try more to be resilient than consistent Because being consistent can be sometimes too high an expectation And then the discouragement that comes from failing to be consistent That can demotivate us And then we may not even rise up So sometimes it happens that we decide I want to wake up at four o'clock And then the alarm rings and we're not even aware that we knocked We close the alarm And then we wake up at maybe 5.30 or 6 And we're so angry with ourselves Why did I wake up at four o'clock? I'm such a lazy person But then the mind sneaks in and says Anyway you overslept now Let's just oversleep all the more Instead of we could have woken up at four o'clock But then we wake up We'll be sleeping till eight o'clock So what has happened is Yeah, we got knocked down We couldn't wake at six But that doesn't mean I have to sleep till We couldn't wake at four But that doesn't mean if I wake up at six I have to beat myself up Okay, let me get up now Let me start You know, I don't have to keep sleeping till eight So sometimes Like I said We get stimulation Here I'm not using the word stimulation in a negative sense But stimulation is a positive sense of Positive sense of A positive sense of emotion We get stimulation When we have a higher goal to pursue But we get that stimulation Only when we feel That this is a doable thing This is an achievable thing But if If our experience is Oh, I just can't do this I can't do this And then that stimulation goes away So it is our responsibility To, we could say Set goals for ourselves That are doable for us Otherwise, we expect something Which we can't do And then the discouragement Coming from that Prevents us from doing What we can do also So we decide I want to fast nirjal on Ekadashi And then we Struggle till twelve o'clock or whatever And then we feel so We feel so hungry We feel so tormented That then we eat And then instead of maybe taking some vegetables Or something light If I can't fast nirjal Then why fast at all And then we end up feasting three times a day So there's no Let's start with moderating our goals And moderating our goals means Instead of trying to be consistent Try to be resilient Everyday I may not be able to read one hour Bhagavatam But maybe in a week I can manage to read Say seven hours Some days no reading Some days I can read two, three hours Or whatever it is So let's Let's be Seek resilience And I think we can move forward Okay So all radhalabdana is a Because the body All the Prabhu said Chant before you Thank you very much Happy to be of service Thank you Tiffany Mataji for your comment I don't think I'm introducing the concept Yeah maybe That concept is there in the Bhagavad Gita But I'm just articulating it that way Thank you Yes You're too good You're too good Fantastic Thank you Thank you Prabhu Yes So there are two questions We'll stop with this Anuradha Mataji Hare Krishna Prabhuji Please accept my humble obeisances Thank you so much Prabhuji Very very beautiful The last point that you were mentioning to Prabhu That we beat ourselves And such Such a what do you say Pray to it Always having high goal And then you know Falling from there Thank you so much Prabhu So I Maybe you answered it in Anuradha Mataji's question But I just Can you do We Right That's what we are What I try Don't have We Even if like When you have Exam Not know how it feels to become You know number one But we intellectually understand That You know How will it feel Is that what you were saying When you say We don't have higher taste Yes You told about higher vision No He don't get Literally So when I said We don't have Higher taste That means Sometimes when you are practising bhakti We may not really feel A sense of joy A sense of fulfilment It may be like a duty I have to do Some days When you wake up in the morning Or we sit down to chant Or we read Bhagavatam Some Some days We may not really feel Very enlivened by that And that is okay So those What I mean We don't have that higher taste That means That we don't really feel Satisfied Stimulated Enlivened When we are Just because we are doing a particular activity Some days we may be Some days we may not be So that's what I meant by Not having higher taste Some days We are You know We are reading about this news And hearing about that We feel agitated And we hear Start hearing the Bhagavatam class And the Bhagavatam class is so absorbing That we just forget everything else But some days The Bhagavatam class is going on We are feeling I have heard this same point so many times We are looking at our watch We are looking at our phone We are thinking of So we are not really getting Immersion in the Bhagavatam at that time There is a lot of distraction Which we are being tempted by So that's an example of We not gaining higher taste Yes, Guruji Thank you You know But something else you said You doing Did I get Hare Krishna Mataji, higher purpose with Then only the buddhikam Yes I think the internet is breaking now We I am not able to hear anything Clearly Maybe one last question Jyoti Mataji.