To understand what is wrong in the world, look first in the mirror, not the newspaper Gita 16.22

Transcript

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Hare Krishna to understand what is wrong in the world look in the mirror first not the newspaper everyday when we look at the news often we find out new things that are going wrong this bomb exploded here this terrorist made this attack this disease has broken out this scam has happened so when such distressing news come up what’s wrong with the world why are people so terrible why are so many things happening like this however asking what’s wrong with the world is a very disempowering question because we have little or practically no power to change the world all that we can do at the very best is we can change ourselves and we are part of the world we live in an increasingly interconnected world where our actions affect not only us but many others and therefore if we look in the mirror, look in the mirror means we look at ourselves whatever is the problem in the world in what way am I contributing to it and whatever the solution in what way can I contribute to it if you think in this way the Bhagavad Gita helps us understand that it is self destructive desire that is the ultimate cause of all the problems in the world say lust, anger, greed are considered in the Bhagavad Gita 1621 to be pathways to hell and that means they not only take us to hell in the future life but they also create hell like conditions in this world all sexual crimes they arise from essentially from lust most corruption and financial misappropriation arises from greed and most violence arises from anger and this we could say summarizes most of the problems in the world in terms of their causation and what is the solution then in 1622 Krishna says that those wise people who stay away from these self destructive forces and as they progress towards better life that takes them towards life’s ultimate destination so we can look in the mirror and see how we can free ourselves from our self destructive drives and not only can we free ourselves but we can help free others and this is the mission with which everyone of us is charged by the divine that when we take up responsibility on his behalf we become instruments of change on his behalf and thus we can move forward making small or large changes as per how we are positioned and empowered but overall looking at ourselves is the most sustainable way to bring about a change in the world Thank you Hare Krishna