How dukhalayam Bhagavad gita 8.15 is a teaching of positivity not negativity?

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I am grateful to be here with all of you today And i’m grateful especially To have the opportunity to serve this Guru Mishra Guru He is One of my biggest inspirations whenever I come to america If I can do a fraction of what he has done Sometimes I feel that wherever I go to america I see devotees who are inspired by him So all of america is like the Virat group of Guru Mishra Guru So i’m happy to be here small group of the Virat group So this particular verse which we are discussing today it can be for some people seem to be a very very pessimistic kind of person I was recently in a talk at the stanford And then one person said I tried to read the bhagavad-gita. I liked it When I came to this verse I said I don’t want to read this So we try to understand what this verse means and how it applies in our life And i’ll talk about it broadly in three words So This acronym or not I can’t understand letters Econology analysing and adopting Three things if you understand then you can look at what this verse is all about Now I often get to address diverse audiences sometimes it’s people at interfaith forums sometimes it is People are in corporate companies high level People may have very different values very different traditional backgrounds very different kind of lifestyles But amid all such disagreements There is one thing that almost everyone can agree about that is There’s one acronym What is that? Life is job No matter how wealthy somebody may be how powerful somebody may be how successful somebody may be Life is not easy for anybody Life is not a cakewalk.
It is not a bed of roses You know, when a bed is made of roses, roses also have thorns Isn’t it? So life is tough And whenever I speak this almost everybody laughs and nods But then when the same thing is stated as the world is a place of misery. No, no, no, that’s too pessimistic Life is tough. The world is a place of distress.
No, no, no, that’s too pessimistic So why this difference Because what happens is that we humans Need to have hope to live So we all have to acknowledge sooner or later the reality that life is tough We can’t deny it unless we are just insane And we live in our own alternative reality Then also life is tough because others are not joining us in that yet Isn’t it? So life is tough for everyone, but the idea is if we say the world is a place of distress That means we have it seems to many people that we are denying the value or utility of human endeavour That things can never change. It’s life is tough But actually what gives us hope what gives us energy to wake up every day and strive Is that life can become better and that we can play a part in healing That’s what enables us to move forward Whereas the statement of Khale is what the place of distress is about That means whatever we do nothing is going to make any difference That is something which the human heart the human spirit just can’t accept because the human spirit is extremely resilient That no matter how many times you knock down you don’t realise that you are notified And those comprise some of the most inspiring stories in human history Of people who suffer great adversities and still goes to do something meaningful to do something wonderful That’s what inspires us so When Krishna said life is if we said to Khale, what does this mean? Life is tough. Everybody will agree But when we say this means the world is a place of distress That seems to cause problems So it’s just a matter of phrasing Is Krishna’s emphasis that this world is a place of distress and therefore you would stay in distress? That is not the point of the verse So it’s acknowledging the reality that there are difficulties in life and this is not just a teaching of some world rejecting tradition from the east It’s actually a universal teaching In fact in the biblical tradition it is said the world is like a vein of ears It’s a place where constantly there is distress over it In the buddhist tradition Dukkha is considered the first of the four noble truths It’s translated Baliyan Dukkha But this is the first noble truth And of course the Bhagavad Gita says that This world is Dukkhan And this is not just some old philosophers who thought about it or modern thinkers thought about it.
Now we have science and technology Now we don’t think No, the modern thinker acknowledges The modern existentialist philosopher Albert O’Connor said that My life is suffering Therefore the only philosophical question worth asking is Whether to commit suicide today or tomorrow? No So now that is a very darn general From life is suffering But the idea That there is distress in the world. It’s something which any person with a little bit of experience in the world can acknowledge So life is stuff Dukkha means that Then everybody can accept that. So it’s acknowledging an experienced reality a universally experienced reality So now what does it mean literally Does it mean that life is a place of distress and yes, we all live in distress? Then if that were the meaning Let’s look at it from the context of the Bhagavad Gita and the context of those who apply the Bhagavad Gita in their lives In the context of the Bhagavad Gita itself Arjuna is in tears.
So I’m moving from A first thing he was No, first thing that is acknowledge Acknowledge the reality Now why the reality is a life is tough or there is distress in the world. Now second is analyse the cause of the distress So let’s look at from the context of the Bhagavad Gita itself Arjuna at the start of the Gita is in distress He is in such distress It is broken down publicly. He is in tears We just hear the family was sleeping out and his tears were nice and Skin was drying up But for a warrior like Arjuna to cry in public Means he must have an unbearable pain Most people don’t exhibit their emotions in public.
Nobody wants to cry Crying And when Arjuna is a warrior, warriors are trained to conceal any signs of weakness And such a warrior is breaking down publicly That means he must be in a bad state Now at that point Krishna starts seeking the Bhagavad Gita And in the middle of the Bhagavad Gita same chapter Krishna has come to Dukkha and he is quoting the source So Krishna would have said Arjuna this world is Dukkha there You are Dukkha therefore Gita confirms He could have completed that Krishna doesn’t do that The purpose of the Gita is not to say that because this world is a place of distress. Therefore you stay in distress therefore And even if you consider from the perspective of the Gita itself The Gita is like a jigsaw puzzle But an ordinary jigsaw puzzle you have to get all the pieces together and when you put them together In one particular way it all fits together. Maybe a map of America, map of the world whatever comes up But the Gita is a fascinating jigsaw puzzle.
You can put it together in different ways and still the same picture comes So different Acharyas They all have put the Gita jigsaw puzzle together in different ways And they’ve all come to the similar conclusion I’ll talk about the conclusion of the Gita a little later But the point is so Jeeva Goswami analyses the purpose of the Gita and he says that The first words That Krishna speaks is the first chapter That’s 125 Then after that in 2.2 and 2.3 Krishna speaks some words which are not friendly to God. Don’t give him this weakness but the first instructive words that Krishna speaks to Arjuna is 2.11 So Ashok chan, that means northward planet And the last verse That last verse that Krishna speaks is But before that he is speaking the Pallashruti, the glory of the Gita from 1867 to 1871 the last instructive verse That Krishna speaks is And the last word in that verse is So the first word is Ashok chan and the last word is So Jeeva Goswami says that That we can know what is the purpose of the book From from a book by seeing what comes at the start of the book and what comes at the end of the book It’s just like if some speaker is a very organised speaker Then they start speaking basically I’m going to speak about this book and then they spoke about this topic We can know this one what is so yes The start of the Gita is northward planet and the end of the Gita is north planet So he says the whole purpose of the Gita is to free Arjuna and free the world at large from lamentation So that’s why the Gita’s message is not a message of negativity That the world is a place of distress so stay in distress now Is to yes, the world may be a place of distress, but we can rise above this We can stop lamenting amid the distress of the world. So the Gita is not a book of negativity at all in that sense So that’s from the context of the Gita.
I’ll look at the content of the Gita and we analyse but now for those who apply the Gita India has been famous for many people from India widely practised in India so India is famous for its culture of hospitality or offering Good facilities of welcome to a guest Suppose a guest comes to our house And the guest is Would be saying what to do? Don’t listen what’s good. Even if they’re just giving a glass of water They will not do it why? Because The Gita’s message is not that Every distress has to be immediately ascribed to the cause of the world to be released So there are some distresses which are unavoidable They have to be accepted. But we have to find the right cause for each event that happens.
So this is what you can call as a frame of reference. This is a key philosophical. If you remember this diagram, even if you forget everything else from this class, this concept, it can tremendously help us in understanding how philosophy is to be applied.
Suppose somebody says I am feeling cold. Now there could be different levels of exchange. It could be that, oh, maybe I am not very warm enough, clothes that are warm enough.
One explanation. Another could be, oh, the store window doesn’t close properly. That’s why the cold air is coming in from outside.
Or it could be, it’s winter. It could also be that this part of the world is very warm. Is winter very cold? It could also be that because of climate change, where there is a temperature that is dropping every day.
And one explanation could be the stress is in a bit of limitedness. I was giving a class in Phoenix on the same diagram and you missed out on one factor. I said what? You may be having fever.
That’s why you are shivering. So the same factor, same phenomenon, same experience, the experience of the cold is a distressed experience that could have various causes. And we need to analyse which is the most workable or actionable cause for us.
Now all of these will be true. If somebody is an environmental activist, and somebody is a misdirected philosopher, then they say, oh, you are in distress, the world is a bit of distress. And that’s not the way that philosophies work.
Somebody is an environmental activist, what happens is, oh, it’s so cold. See, climate change is real. Those who are climate deniers are terrible.
They are terrible people, but I am in cold. Do something right now. This is not the time to go on a climate change walk.
If somebody is feeling cold, give them some warm clothes, give them some blanket. So there are different ways in which distress can be dealt with. And the Gita’s teaching is not at all.
All distress is to be accepted as unavoidable because the world is a bit of distress. So what is Krishna telling Arjuna? The implication of this was in the Gita’s context, not in the context we will discuss. But in the Gita’s context, let’s see.
Krishna doesn’t say this world is Ukkhalaya. So therefore, whatever atrocities Kauravas have done towards you, just accept that. No, they tried to burn Bhima alive, accept that.
They tried to poison Bhima, they tried to burn your mother alive, they tried to dishonour Draupadi. It’s not the rest of it. Why not? Because each event has to be ascribed to the right cause.
Right means what is the most actionable cause for us. So the Gita implies this. So now, when something happens to us, when do we escalate its cause to this world is Ukkhalaya and I can’t do anything about it.
So that is also one explanation. But when do we do that? That is where we go back to, as I talked about Buddhism. Buddhism says that, now Buddha’s teachings in many ways are very similar to the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita.
In the broader Upanishadic tradition, Gita’s teachings and Buddha’s teachings are very similar. But what happens in the Buddha’s teachings, it doesn’t talk much about the spiritual reality. The analysis of the material world is quite similar.
And Buddhism is also a part of the broad family of dharmic religions. So here it is, that Dukkha is the first noble truth of life. And you say, what is noble about it? It’s a terrible truth.
It’s a harsh truth. It’s an unpalatable truth. So why is it called as a noble truth? The Gita also says that those who accept the Dukkhalaya and they act according and they act, they become Mahatmas.
So what is the implication of this truth is not just that there is world without distress or world without distress. So it’s showing distress. If we accept that life is tough, we can prepare new ways for it.
There are two ways to deal with life in stress. There is weak and there is weak. So we deal with life’s problems by improving our outer resources, it may be financial resources, it may be technological resources.
And that is one way to deal with distress. Arjuna as a warrior trained himself rigorously in his particular profession, that was archery. And that was a means.
In one sense, it was technical sense, sometimes technological, even sophisticated ways of fighting. So when we have to deal with distress, means are important in their own way. However, means are not the only way to deal with distress.
Meaning is also required. That is the most important inner resource. Means means how to deal with this and meaning is why to deal with this.
So at the start of the Bhagavad Gita, what happened to Arjuna? Did he have the means to deal with distress? Did he? Yes, he did. Arjuna was a great enough archer to defeat the opponents. In fact, he had defeated all the opponents, all alone, without the support of any army, just free circling.
When was that? Virat. So he was not lacking in means. But what was he lacking in? Meaning.
Is this worth fighting? He was thinking, even if I win, what will I gain? I would have lost my relatives, not just lost them, I would have killed my relatives. And is anything worth it? I don’t think so. So he didn’t see the point of fighting.
So it was not a loss of means that had caused the distress to Arjuna. It was a loss of meaning that a war brought. Most of us, when we face distress in life, we often feel it’s, I don’t have the means.
Okay, you know, I don’t have a big enough house where we can all sit comfortably. I don’t have a fast enough car. I don’t have enough of a job that pays me enough.
Or I don’t have an education that can give me a good job, whatever. We often feel that we lack means. And we all work to improve our means.
And that is fine. So even improving the means requires hard work, or acquiring the means. Nothing is easy in the world.
Like the stuff that we’re doing, getting the resources, even the outer resources to deal with life’s problems requires hard work. And in doing the hard work, to either find means, or to find meaning. Now we become a better person.
We become more responsible. We become more committed. We manifest our talents.
We translate our talent to achieve. So that is how this accepting that this world is a place of distress, and I have to acquire the resources to deal with it. That can be ennobling.
That it can transform us positively. If we can actually recognise that it is us. Life is going to be tough.
However, what happens is, there are two different things over here. If we consider to be like a quadrant, there are means and meaning. The worst situation is where the person has neither means nor meaning.
The person is poverty stricken, they’re all alone, they have no meaning in their life, they become suicidal, or they may become homicidal, they may become genocidal. People who have no sense of meaning in their life, they just live unhappily, miserably. And two things should be consistent.
Actually, far more dangerous is to have means without meaning, in one sense. They have external things, but then they don’t have any internal meaning. Many people commit suicide, not because they are so poverty stricken.
It is because they’ve lost their sense of meaning in life. What am I living for? What is worth living for? So, in Germany now, the government has officially recognised as a fundamental right of every citizen, the right to commit suicide. It’s tragic.
It’s ironic that Germany also has a social welfare programme, where they spend a lot of taxpayers’ money to have employees for suicide prevention. But if somebody decides, I want to commit suicide, then once I get an evaluation, and they say you are mentally balanced, you are not pressured by anything, that you are taking the decision to commit suicide. Then the government will use taxpayers’ money to painlessly help the person commit suicide.
This is tragic. In fact, one inventor in Europe has developed something called a suicide ward. Suicide ward is like a bed, inside which you lie down, and the bed closes, and it gives you toxic gas, and within 30 seconds, you die.
We are using technology to empower people to fulfil their right to die with dignity. So, it’s so sad that when there is no meaning in life, people may want to just end it. And they have means, but they are creating means to act on their meaninglessness.
It’s unfortunate. So, now if you consider, if somebody has meaning but no means, it can be frustrating, but the person can deal with it. If somebody is very poor, somebody is very sick, now health is like a means, if somebody is very sick, but if they have a purpose to live, I want to get well, and I want to do this.
This is what I am going to live for. There is one of the classic books from the last century is Man’s Search for Me by Dr. Franklin. He was a doctor, a psychiatrist who was a Jew and caught in the concentration camps of Hitler.
And he said that the people who survived over there were not necessarily the people who were the fittest. The people who survived through Hitler’s concentration camps were people who had the strongest sense of meaning in their life. Now, I want to live on because this is what I want to live on.
That means resilience. Resilience means that life may knock us down, but we rise up again. That’s resilience.
Now, the best situation is we have both means and meaning. That we have internal sense of what is my life all about? And externally, we have the resources. So, why am I talking about this over here? Because the Bhagavad Gita’s focus is on helping us to find meaning.
In today’s world, there is an enormous expansion of means. The kind of means, the kind of facilities, resources we have today, even common people have today are something of a range even royalty a few hundred years ago could not imagine. We have telecommunication, we have air transport, we have so many things.
We have air conditioning. These are extraordinary means. But what is directly lacking is meaning.
And that is what the Gita provides. So, now I talked about acknowledging and analysing. Now, analysing the cause of something.
And then last is adopting. Adopting our meaningful virtues for our life. So, why is this important? Because going back to that particular example of Dukkhalaya, what does Dukkhalaya literally mean? Place of distress, place of Dukkha.
Now, let us consider an analogue to it. There is the word Himalayas. What does it mean? Place of ice.
It specifically refers to the mountain range in the northern part of India. It is filled with ice. Now, if somebody goes to the Himalayas and they start complaining, it is so cold, it is so cold, it is so cold.
The people around them think what you are saying is growing so old now. Yeah, it is cold. What else do you expect in the Himalayas? But is that all that is there in the Himalayas? No.
So, there is flora and fauna, there are breathtaking sights of natural beauty, there are opportunities to achieve something spectacular, climb up high mountain peaks. From material perspective, people know how to achieve something which so many people will achieve. From a spiritual perspective, we want to go to high ups, normally inaccessible sacred places like Adi Badri and we want to offer our prayers there.
There is so much more we can do over there. But if somebody is going to the Himalayas, they have to reset their baseline expectation. It is going to be cold.
Stop complaining about the cold. And now, okay, it is cold, but what can I do about it? There are so many things to do. I can see this site, I can go to that, I can go to that particular, I can see this site or go to that site.
So, I can do a lot over here. But okay, stop complaining that it is cold. That does not mean okay, you can wear warm clothes, you can do whatever is required.
But get over it. Think of something bigger. Similarly, when Krishna is saying this word is Dukkha Naya, it does not mean all of you have to follow a statement.
It means that everybody will have problems. So, stop complaining about the problems. Stop expecting a problem in life.
Stop expecting or fantasising about a problem in life. Instead of seeking to be problem free, seek to be purposeful. Seek a purpose that will make the problems wearable.
In the Himalayas, if somebody wants to go there, they go there. They do not want to be there. I feel so cold.
Why am I here? But if somebody wanted to be there, then what happens is I want to climb up, I want to experience this. Purpose can transform the quality of our experience. If somebody suddenly comes and gives us, okay, this is a 30 kg bag, two 30 kg bags, carry them from here to there.
What? You think I am a fool? I do not want to do that. They force us to do it, we feel very resentful. But the same person goes to a gym and what happens? You know, they carry weights.
Not only carry weights, they happily carry weights. Not only happily carry weights, they pay the gym to give them weights to carry. But why? Because here we can see a purpose.
Why did you tell me to carry this? I am going to become fitter. So, even when we are carrying suitcases or when we are carrying dumbells, it is not a pleasant experience. But when we have a purpose and it transforms, we could say it transforms how we experience that experience.
We do not focus on, oh, this is so heavy, I am in so much pain. We focus on through this, I am going to become fitter. So, the Gita says that if we think that I will, if we make the purpose of our life to become happy, we will sooner or later be frustrated.
Because somewhere or the other, some problem will keep coming up. So, rather than thinking of trying to make our life problem-free or rather defining happiness as a state of being free from problems, that is never going to happen because this world will carry. But that does not mean that we cannot find happiness.
We can find happiness if we redefine happiness, not as a state of being free from problems, but as a state of having a meaningful purpose that can fill us with a sense of fulfilment. Let us try to understand this. We may say, how do you find such meaning? We all have certain levels of meaning.
When somebody, when say a couple has a child, taking care of a child is difficult. Child can pick up any time and cry at any time. But there is also meaning, there is fulfilment.
This life depends on me. I can take care of this child. So, we can accept even problems, we can place them within a meaningful framework.
So, how do we find meaning? So, we may all have a sense of, okay, I want to grow up and I want to become wealthy. That’s the meaning of my life. But you become wealthy and you find that, oh, I thought wealthy makes me happy.
If I’m empty, I’m not happy. What happened? I thought, I want to have a relationship with somebody good and I want to be happy. So, we all have certain purposes in our life.
We all have certain things that give us meaning. But the problem is that many of the sources of meaning that we have, they themselves can become shattered. If somebody’s whole sense of meaning comes from, okay, I am an engineer, or I am a businessman.
And suppose they lose their job, their business collapses. Then what is my identity? What is the worth of my life? So, we need an enduring sense of meaningfulness. For all of us, there are times when things can go wrong and it may work.
And how do we find meaning? So, we need to get two levels. When we face problems, we try to make sense of those problems. Now, why is this happening? Like I said earlier, okay, there’s different levels of causation.
That anything, I’m feeling cold. Why am I feeling cold? I could do different levels of causation. So, like that, we try to make sense of suffering.
Okay, if this problem is coming, why is this problem coming? So, we try to analyse. Now, many times if we analyse, we can make sense of suffering and we’re dealing with the suffering. Okay, if you say, if somebody tells this, they didn’t point out, why is it going on? Maybe I’m eating unhealthy, maybe I’m not exercising.
Maybe my lifestyle is unhealthy. But sometimes what happens is, we cannot make sense of this. Somebody with very healthy habits and still they get cancer.
So, then what do we do with that? So, how do we find meaning at that time? So, even if we can’t make sense of suffering, we can make sense in suffering. So, make sense in suffering means that not why is this happening, but what can I do in the situation to make things better, to make things better. To give an example for this, so that each one of us can actually, we may not always be able to make sense of why did this happen to me.
I’m trying to live a good life. There’s one comedian who said, thinking that because we are good to the world, the world will be good to us. He said, thinking because I’m a vegetarian, a wild boar will not attack me.
The boar doesn’t care whether I’m a vegetarian or not. So, the world has a nature, whether we are a good person or a bad person. So, sometimes we cannot make sense of suffering.
You see, we have to make sense in suffering. What does it mean? Let’s take an example. Suppose a firefighter is facing a giant fire.
Now, I have friends who are firefighters. So, the first question they ask is, why did this fire? They try to make sense of the problem. But sometimes they can’t figure out, is this caused by explosion? Is this arson? Is this caused by somebody’s carelessness? What exactly happened? Even if they can’t make sense of what caused the fire, but they can say, what can I do to correct this? There are a lot of properties, a lot of people in the world.
So, when we face suffering, we can try to analyse the causes, like various levels of causes, we use it to try to analyse. But sometimes we just can’t. We can’t figure out the cause.
At that time, what do we do? We focus on what can I do to make things better? We can’t make sense of suffering, but we can make sense in suffering. And this is what Shri Krishna tells Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita. See, for Arjuna, the suffering is, how can I fight against Vishnu and Drona? They are my angels.
They are my relatives. I respect them. Now, Krishna isn’t going to the past life explanation, you were this person this Vishnu all this and they did this and that’s why you are in this situation.
Krishna says, no, you see what you can do to make things better. You think that you are the well-wisher of Vishnu and Drona and you don’t want them to die. Okay, but Krishna says, I am an even greater well-wisher.
Krishna says, you are thinking that by not killing them, you will be a better well-wisher. But everybody has to dance in the Gita. I can see that in living, they are in great suffering because they have to fight, they are obligated to fight on a side where their path is not.
Since you do your duty, you will free them from the situation, you will free them from its obligation. And because they are virtuous souls, they will be ready to hurry and escape. So my plan will actually do more good for them than what you think you should do.
So don’t resent the problem. See what we can do to deal with the problem. See what we can do to make things better.
Now for making things better, sometimes we can understand the cause of the problem. But sometimes if we can’t understand the cause of the problem, then we can say, okay, in this world, sometimes it comes around. But what can I do to make things better? The focus is not on the problem.
If you consider a pendulum, one is denying the problem. The other is, I don’t know, this world is not a place of this. Everything is wonderful, you are so pessimistic.
That one is denying the problem. The other is obsessing over the problem. Why did this happen to me? Why is this problem there? Why is this problem there? In between is focussing on what we can do to make things better.
So that is the thrust of the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna tells Arjuna that you are in a way, you are facing the suffering of fighting against the enemies. You can’t make sense of the suffering, but you can make sense of the suffering.
So for all of us, that’s what it is. Actually, Prabhupada, when he came from India to America, he had tried so much in India to try to share Krishna bhakti. But somehow nobody seemed to be impressed.
At least not seriously impressed. For them, practising bhakti was like a ritual. And Prabhupada said that, and Prabhupada’s sponsor, who became my sponsor, Sukti Murali, she, Prabhupada told her that he would like to go to Vrindavan.
Swami, if you want to speak the Bhagavad Gita, you can come to my house. Every day I will hear Bhagavad Gita. But Prabhupada didn’t want that kind of ritual hearing of the Bhagavad Gita.
Prabhupada wanted someone who could commit themselves to learn the principles of the Bhagavad Gita. A serious sadhaka, I don’t think so. So what did Prabhupada do? Nothing worked.
He said, okay, my purpose is to share Krishna’s message. Not in India, where else can I go? And that’s what he kept finding out. So Prabhupada did not go into elaborate sociological analysis of why Indians are not taking up bhakti.
He did not go into what is American sociology, are they interested? He said, let me try what I can. So it makes sense. See, we can’t control the distresses that come in our life.
But we can control the meaning we find in those distresses. So what do we mean by the meaning? Sometimes some distresses just don’t make sense. So there is an old Confucian saying that actually whenever you are happy, you should be unhappy.
And whenever you are unhappy, you should be happy. What does this mean? It means whenever you are happy, our situations in life are often determined by our past karma. So it’s like we have a past stockpile of good karma and a past stockpile of bad karma.
So when we are happy, that means our past stockpile of good karma is getting exhausted. So when we are happy, we should be unhappy. Oh, my past good karma is getting exhausted.
And when we are unhappy, we should be happy. Why? So if you’re unhappy, that means our past stockpile of negative karma is getting exhausted. So the idea is, I’m not saying whenever you’re happy, start being unhappy.
That’s not the point. The point is that there’s not only one way of looking at things. And if you think, oh, I have some negative karma and it’s getting exhausting.
So let me deal with it in a better way. So if our purpose in life is simply to experience pleasure, then when suffering comes and suffering is unavoidable, what am I to do? What am I even living for? But if we are living not just for experiencing pleasure, but for doing something meaningful in our life, then what happens is, okay, the suffering has come. It’s not a pleasant thing.
But I can continue with my life’s purpose. That’s why Sampadhe Nirpadhe, Bhaktivinoda Thakur says, you know, whether I have prosperity or adversity, I will chant Gopis, I will search. So for a devotee, now we all can have multiple purposes, but we can use our intelligence to find the right meaning for whatever situation we are facing.
In the Bhagavatam, Parishad Maharaj is cursed to die in seven days. It’s an extremely unfair curse. It’s very disproportionate.
It’s a small mistake and a huge punishment. But Parishad Maharaj, he finds me and says, oh, actually, I was, I was attached. And this is the arrangement of Lord Hari to free me from this attachment.
So what is he doing is, he’s placing this event in the right frame. He’s not thinking, this small, shrilly boy, who does he think he is, he can curse the emperor? I will show you what I can do. He’s not going in that direction.
So which frame of reference we can place a particular event in, so that we can progress in our life. That is where our intelligence is required. And if we try to practise bhakti diligently, then Krishna will give us the intelligence to place our particular events, whatever happening in the right frame of reference.
So I was talking to one senior devotee, I was asking, sometimes in new classes, the audience is just not interested. So what do we do? It’s very easy to become discouraged. So he said to me, when the audience is not interested, you see that speaking as a practise for future occasions, the audience is going to be interested.
So I thought it was very good. It is simple, but it’s a trick of mind. It’s not a trick of the mind.
It’s actually using our intelligence to maintain our enthusiasm for serving Krishna. So if we are practising bhakti and we find that we are trying to do some seva and there’s some person who is constantly obstructing us, it’s like very disagreeable, seems to be making our life miserable. So I said, no, why should I even do this? I just want to give it, quit it.
But you can also see that actually, Krishna has given me an opportunity here to show my self-satisfaction, even among difficulties. You can always see things in a way that is constructed for us. And that includes Krishna.
So we all can find many at different levels. But ultimately is that each one of us, we are all parts of Krishna. And that means we all can play a part in Krishna’s service.
Krishna is He wants the best for everyone. So practising bhakti is not just chanting Hare Krishna and turning away from the world and running away from the world. That is not bhakti.
That’s what we turn away from the world, but we turn away from the world so that we turn towards Krishna. But after we turn towards Krishna, what do we do? With that connection within our heart, then we turn back to the world to act in a mode of service. So what happens is when we practise bhakti, we become an instrument of Krishna’s wisdom and Krishna’s compassion, so that we can do our part in making the world a better place, or at least our corner of the world a better place.
And sometimes we may succeed in that, sometimes we may not succeed much in that. But in that endeavour, we will take our heart to a new level. We will start experiencing His presence more and more.
And ultimately, our heart will attain Krishna, we will be with Him eternally. Just as Krishna spoke the Bhagavad Gita to Arjuna, Sanjay also spoke the Bhagavad Gita to whom? Vikram. Now, I’ve always had this question that the Gita could have ended at 1873, where after Krishna’s six, Ajahn’s six and over with it.
But the Gita has five more verses. So why does Sanjay’s words included about this? Actually, through Sanjay’s words, Gita’s teachings are being demonstrated in the Gita itself. What do I mean by that? See, Sanjay speaks the same words to Dhritarashtra.
Krishna speaks those words and Arjuna’s heart is transformed. Sanjay speaks those words, but Dhritarashtra’s heart is not transformed. So does Sanjay’s mission was a failure? Not exactly.
Dhritarashtra’s heart was not transformed, but Sanjay’s own heart was transformed. In 1876 and 1877, it says that just by speaking the Gita, what has happened is his heart has become enriched with the remembrance of Krishna’s words and Krishna’s forms. And that’s why he is credited.
So in serving Krishna, sometimes whatever services we are doing will actually have tangible external results, where things will become better in the world. But if we are trying to serve Krishna, even if things don’t change externally, things will change later. Our heart will become enriched with Krishna’s presence.
And that is the enduring success. So the Gita says this world is dukkhale, but that does not mean we have to be greedy. Rather than seeking pleasure in the world, we can seek purpose.
How can I serve Krishna in this situation? And the stronger we become situated in that purpose, the stronger we will be connected with Krishna in our heart. And we will experience fulfilment, we will experience satisfaction, even if there are no external source of satisfaction. Sanjay’s example demonstrates Krishna’s power to provide happiness, even in the absence of success.
Sanjay’s conversation with Sanyasi Krishna was not successful. There was no success, but still there was happiness. And that is how Krishna helps us to rise above the distress of the world.
How does it happen? When we are always fixed in the purpose of serving Krishna, then we rise above the distress of the world. Shri Ram Prabhupada came to America in 1966. Suppose something had happened and he had not been successful as Jyotish Krishna was.
Still his life would have been a success. Those who met Shri Ram Prabhupada in 1966, if you look at his life from a material perspective, almost everything that he did, it was a failure. He tried starting off devotional work, etc.
Back to work and did not work. He tried to work with his godbrother, he did not work. He tried to have his business, at multiple places, it did not work.
So a person who experienced so many failures could naturally be bitter on his enemy. And he could say, I was doing all this for Krishna and still it did not work. But those who met Shri Ram Prabhupada in those early days, 1965-1966, when he was just an unlawful swami, walking on the streets of America, of New York, they noticed that Shri Ram Prabhupada was frankly peaceful and sublimely joyful.
So Howard Wheeler, the writer, said that he met Shri Ram Prabhupada on the streets of New York. There were giant lorries walking by. They made such a noise that people were like, but Shri Ram Prabhupada has just come.
As if nothing has happened. Still his body is situated in some other place. His feet may be here, but his heart is somewhere else.
So because Shri Ram Prabhupada was not obsessed with external things. He naturally wanted that, because he wanted that to offer to Krishna. He wanted to offer that to Krishna.
He wanted to offer that to Shri Ram Prabhupada. But his success was, even in the absence of outer success, his heart was placed at the heart of Krishna. He was with Krishna and therefore he was happy.
And that is how we all can rise above the stress of the world by connecting with Krishna in a moment of service. That is the ultimate teaching of the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna says, I will know your way.
When we have this Krishna, I will know your way. You want to make things better. You are the ambition of everyone.
So I will act in a way that has to make things better. The small things I try to do, in a way that will make things better. If you focus on that, in a mode of service to Krishna, people will find that we will at least take our heart out of that place.
We will become joyful, even if the world around us is distressed. So in summary, I spoke broadly on three points today. What are the three A’s? Acknowledge, Enlightenment and Outcome.
So Acknowledge means that this world is a place of stress. It’s just a reality. That life is tough.
That is something we all accept. So that’s why we face it differently over here. Don’t deny that there are problems in life.
Acknowledge it. That’s what various wisdom traditions and modern philosophers have acknowledged that. But then, that doesn’t mean we all have to just, every problem is this world is a place of stress.
Analyse the cause. Krishna doesn’t tell Arjuna, we are in distress, so stay in distance. Because this world is a place of distress.
No, problems can have various causes. And we try to find a functional cause and deal with it. But sometimes despite our analysis or despite our endeavours, some problems just can’t be solved.
Some problems have to be lived with. That time, excel is going to come. So that we can have means and meaning for dealing with problems.
But sometimes means just don’t work. Either we don’t have the means or the means don’t work. That’s when we need a meaning that is big enough to power us in spite of the presence of problems.
So the analysis is to understand, okay, whenever I’m facing a problem, which frame should I put it in? How should I see this problem constructively, actionally? And the last was, I mean, adopt. Adopt means we find, we find adopt a meaningful purpose for ourselves. A purpose can change the quality of our experience.
Lift weights, I told you lift weights are annoying, but you go to gym and lift weights. Similarly, if we have a purpose, I am doing something meaningful in my life. I’m a part of Krishna and I am serving Krishna to help make the world a better place and to take my heart to a better place.
Then even if problems are there, they will become bearable. Instead of denying problems as one extends the pendulum or obsessing over problems, we focus on the purpose that can raise us above problems. And when Sanjay is absorbing the purpose of sharing Krishna’s message and then remembering Krishna’s message, then he rises above the distress of his messaging being ineffective for Rudraksha and he finds happiness even in the absence.
And similarly, we all, if we stay fixed in a mode of service to Krishna in all situations, then we will also rise above the distress in the world. And that’s why Karya Shastra is actually a message of positivity. It’s a message of adopting a positive purpose to transcend the distress of the world.
Thank you very much. And then there is a particular purpose of making this world a better place. So making this world a better place, there could be a lot of different things that one may do there.
You know, one may think about global distribution, non-profit action, there are so many different things that one may do to contribute towards making the world a better place. So how does one find what is the purpose for oneself in there? Okay. So how do we find our purpose? Yeah, two, three things.
First is that there are only two verses in the Bhagavad Gita which Krishna repeats, more or less. Manmana Bhagwan Bhakta, that is 934 and 1865. And the other is Shreyas Sadhana Bhagwana Paradharmasanidasa, that is 335 and 1847.
So Krishna’s idea is that we have a spiritual nature. So Manmana Bhav is about acting in harmony with our spiritual nature. And Shreyas Sadhana Bhagwana is about acting in harmony with our material nature.
So Krishna wants us to do both. So when we have a service attitude, my intention in life is to serve Krishna. That is acting in harmony with our spiritual nature.
But how do I serve Krishna? That is based on the resources I have, the interests I have, the talents that I have. So in Swadharma, Swadharma doesn’t literally mean necessarily that we have to put ourselves in one of the four boxes, Raman, Kshatriya, Vaisheshwara. But that is one frame of reference for people to be engaged according to their nature.
That is one social structure. Whether that applies to today’s world, that’s open to question. It may or may not.
The social structure may or may not be what is the underlying principle of the Chaturvedi system? Krishna says qualities are more internal and karma activities are external. So that we look at our own life and internally we look at what is it that we feel comfortable doing and externally what are we competent in doing. So if we have the qualities of something, then we feel comfortable doing it.
If we have the karma for doing something, we feel competent in doing it. So by self-observation, gradually we can find out what is our guna and karma. And we may be doing a spectrum of activities.
We don’t necessarily have to make a radical change in our service or our profession or our social roles, but we can gradually gravitate toward that which is more in harmony with what we are comfortable with and competent in it. That way we can gradually find our purpose. Krishna does not want us to be like robots.
That is not that. Krishna has already defined a straight path for us. Only when we go on that path, we have fulfilled our purpose.
Krishna’s purpose is only a direction in the path. He has given us freedom and he wants us to use our freedom. He has given us intelligence.
He is a billionaire father. And a billionaire father gives a very expensive violin or a piano or musical instrument to his son. And the child wants to ask the father, how can I please you? What can I do to please you? I have given you this expensive thing.
Use it. Use it. I know that he has a musical talent.
Use it and become a good musician. Similarly, whatever interests we have, whatever talents we have, whatever resources we have, they are the gifts given to us by Krishna. So we don’t have to go around the world exploring what should I be doing to please Krishna.
The gifts that he has given us, use them. So first understand what gifts we have and then use them. And if you use them naturally, the one who has given us those gifts will be pleased.
We use them in a good sense. Yes. Okay.
So if a session comes again, and I wrote that session, one devotee had told me that this could be widely distributed because they were being plundered by the session. But then what happened was they tried to do it in one company. The devotee only owned the company.
But all the employees started thinking that we are going to be fired in the preparation for that. This book has been given to us. So people have their own way of finding meaning in something.
So I talk about probably three things in that book. Three principles. Simplify, clarify, and purify.
So basically simplify is support. Clarify is transcendence. And purify is bhakti.
So whatever problems we face in life, if we try to simplify our life, do I need these things or not need these things? We’ll find that there are many ways in which we can live simply. Living simply does not necessarily mean living in poverty. And what it means is that all the things that I possess, am I using them or are they using me? Am I possessing them or are they possessing me? Then simplify.
Things I’m possessing, maybe I don’t need. Then clarify. We can’t just simplify because if we have a particularistic worldview.
So clarify, I talk about that is self-observation. What are the things that are truly important for me? And for that, if we introspect, we observe our own life, self-observation can help us truly understand what is it that is important for us. And then, there are many things that are important for us, but we may not be able to give them importance.
I may say that, and already Bhagavad Gita is important for me. But every day, there are times when I go to the phone and look at the news, I look at social media. So then what happens is, we need to strengthen the positive influences within us and weaken the negative influences.
So now when you say, what has all this got to do with recession? The point is that recession is certainly an acute problem, but it is the manifestation, the problem with recessions that come, they increase when we are inordinately dependent on the world. We say, of course, we are dependent on the world, we have to have a job and a source of income, that is them. But at the same time, if we are inordinately dependent, that means we all need money, but some people equate their net worth with their self-worth.
And then for them, a loss of a job is not just a loss of a job, it is like a loss of their self-identity itself. And that can be very damaging. Yes, we hope that nobody loses a job.
If somebody loses, yeah, okay, I lost it, I didn’t find another job. But if our net worth, self-worth is not a net worth, then we become too dependent and then we become very stupid. So basically, I present that Simplify, Clarify, Unify as a way of implementing the Gita’s teaching that stay equal to us.
It is not that don’t be concerned about the world, but don’t be too dependent on the world. For resources, we can be dependent on the world, we have to be. But for our own identity and self-worth, we don’t have to be dependent on the world.
So through Simplify, Clarify, Unify, we will get a buffer between us and the world. So the shocks of the world won’t shock us so much. That is the broad thing.
Thank you. Any last question? Harikrishna Prabhuli? Please speak louder or I’ll repeat it. Harikrishna Prabhuli, thank you for the very enlightening lecture.
One thing that I was thinking about is that finding the in-something and finding the off-something. So off-something is like a continual why-it-happened. It is in-something, what I can do.
So that, it seems, as I just discussed, that one is the prospection aspect of it and one is the over-sigma aspect of it. But why-it-happened is, let’s take the example of the 500. So if we were to think why-it-is-happening, then maybe one of us could be upset about it, but the other one could be to see why-it-happened and whether there can be something done so that it does not happen.
And similarly, the other aspect is, of course, what I can do so that I can make this situation better. So as long as someone is not looking at the situation with the intention of just being upset and not doing anything, both looking in and off are equally important aspects of the solution. Yes, good point.
So, shouldn’t we try to both find the meaning of suffering and meaning in suffering? Yes, agreed. The point is that we want to get as much understanding as possible before we deal with the situation or even when we deal with the situation. But sometimes, we have to deal with situations without enough understanding.
And at that time, if we obsess over the fact why-it-is-happening, that can drain our energy. So that is actually, that is humility in the intellectual domain. What means that? That even if I can’t make sense of things, still I will act in a manner of self.
I will try to make sense in things. So, we have to see for ourselves, both making sense of things, making sense in things. They are resources for us.
And we have to see which resource works for whom and when. So sometimes, making sense of things can help us deal with the world and understand it better and analyse it better. Sometimes, in trying to make sense of things, we get caught in the past and we get lost.
And sometimes, making sense in things, it can help us to deal with problems which we can’t make sense of also. But sometimes, in trying to make sense in things, we may never think about the big picture. We might just be trying to go for quick fixes.
That’s also possible. But the special situation I was talking about, if Prabhupada talks about it, he says, a devotee may be perplexed, but a devotee is never discouraged. What he means by that is, sometimes even a devotee may not be able to make sense.
Why is this happening? Prabhupada is saying, when he comes to America, he says, Krishna, you must have some purpose. I don’t know what it is, but you must have some purpose. He says, make him dance.
So, there are times when we may not be able to know why something is happening in our life. Then we may be perplexed. So, perplexed means to not know what to do.
To be discouraged means to feel like not doing anything at all. I quit. So, one definition of intelligence is to know what to do when we don’t know what to do.
Now, how is that possible? It means that, say, if you’re driving along the road and Google Maps is saying that you’ve arrived, but I don’t see anything over here. What happened? So, when you don’t know what to do, ask somebody. Ask somebody who’s seen the flag.
When you don’t know what to do, you know what to do and you don’t know what to do. So, there are sometimes situations, okay, in this situation, why did I land up over here? This person is so angry with me and I don’t think I would have ever done anything to hurt this person. Why is this person so angry? So, when somebody is angry, we may perplex in that.
We don’t know what to do. But to know what to do if this person is angry, there’s no point in my getting angry and fighting back. Then, let me just walk away and get some information and then let this person calm down.
So, to know what to do when we don’t know what to do. That’s intelligence. And that’s what Krishna, in one sense, gives Arjuna that.
Krishna doesn’t really go into a historical or philosophical explanation of why Arjuna is caught in that situation. Krishna just says that you do my will and things will become better. Okay.
Thank you very much. Thank you, Prabhuji, for the wonderful class. Thank you, Prabhuji.
Thank you, Prabhuji. Thank you so much. Prabhuji, if it is not too late, I have a small question from your writing.
Yes, please. So, as I mentioned, I have written a few books during this pandemic. I wrote these three books on the Gita.
So, much of what I spoke today, you can find in this book. This is 365 Meditations on the Bhagavad Gita for Daily Mindfulness. So, there’s one section on growing through life’s adversities.
About 50-60 articles are there. And then there are several articles on sections like how to think more positive, how to be more sensitive in our communication, how to see Krishna in our daily lives, how to resist temptation. So, there are three such articles.
And then the table of contents is 20 pages. So, you can choose whichever article you want. And you can jump to that article.
This is a Gita study approach from an application perspective. And these two are a part of a Gita study series. So, this is Rameshri Bhagavad Gita.
This approaches the Gita from a relational perspective. That means Gita is not just a book of philosophy. It is an expression of the relationship between Krishna and Arjuna.
So, Krishna’s loving concern for Arjuna. How will he express through the Gita? So, if you want to appreciate how the Gita is a book of bhakti and Krishna’s loving heart is revealed in the Bhagavad Gita and how the Bhagavad Gita is connected with many stories in the Mahabharata. That is all you can find in this book, Relation Bhagavad Gita.
100 articles and about 80 illustrations. Each article is like a question and answer. So, like some of the diagrams you saw here, the four patterns and pendulums, like that there are illustrative diagrams in this book.
And this approach is, the first book approach is from an application perspective. This is from a relational perspective. And this is from a rational perspective.
That means when we read the Bhagavad Gita, we may get certain questions. Krishna says, we detach from the fruits of our work. And won’t that make us a pathetic, irresponsible? How can we function? If Krishna controls everything, then do we really have freedom? Or for that matter, if Krishna is equal to everyone, then why is he taking the side of Arjuna and not of Arjuna? So, what exactly are the modes? What exactly is karma? Is everything time? So, questions like this, again, 100 articles, 80 illustrations are in this book also.
So, these three books are available. So, these three are 15, and this is 25. But together, if you take them, it’s a 40 instead of 15.
So, you can have these books. And we have other things also. If you want, you can sign the books also.
Thank you very much.