Bhagavatam 4-verse conceptual origin | Bhagavatam 1.7.4-7 | Mumbai, Radha Gopinath

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Hare Krishna, so I am grateful to be here with all of you today and I will today discuss on the Srimad Bhagavatam from a key section. So I will start with the question, if you consider the, I will be writing over here and drawing certain things, the origin of the Bhagavatam. So how does the Bhagavatam originate, can any of you say, yes, so Shukadeva Swami speaks to Parikshit Maharaj, okay, that is one origin of the Bhagavatam, any other origin, Krishna to Brahma, yes, that is another origin of the Bhagavatam, that is Jatushloki Bhagavatam.

Yes, so Narada Muni to Vyasadeva, so Shukadeva Swami to Parikshit Maharaj, that starts from canto 2 onwards actually, so Parikshit Maharaj appears in the first canto at the end, starts from second canto and goes till the twelfth canto, about half of the twelfth canto. This comes in the third canto, Trishyoki Bhagavatam, the Naragya Samvad is 1.4 to 6, three chapters, any other origins of the Bhagavatam, yes, that is a bigger conversation, so Suta Goswami to the sages of Naimisharanya, so that starts approximately from 1.1, not 1.1, 1.1 but 1.1 and goes till almost the twelfth canto end, little earlier than that, the Phalashruthi is there, nearly the end, anything else, Shiva to Parvati, where is that, where is this reference, okay, Shiva to Parvati, yes, sorry, sorry, can you speak loudly, yeah, this is the Ramayana, the Ramcharitmanas is depicted as a conversation between Shiva and Parvati, this may be there because they may also have discussed the Bhagavatam, but I don't remember this being explicitly mentioned in the Bhagavatam at least, yes, to Vyasadev, yes, so the purpose is to glorify the Lord, so yes, all these are the, we could say the origin of the Bhagavatam, now beyond that we also understand the Bhagavatam is timeless, it manifests at a particular time, it is not that before Suta Goswami spoke to Parikshit Maharaj, it is not that it didn't exist at all, it is timeless, it manifests at a particular time, so we understand that the universe is also cyclic, so the Bhagavatam was there in the previous millennia also, now when we look at the origin, these are all good answers, we could look at it from a three perspectives, from a conversational perspective, so the Bhagavatam is a conversation, hence Parikshit Maharaj, Suta Goswami or Suta Goswami, the sages, now beyond that there is the conceptual perspective, the conceptual perspective is that what is the point, what is the concept of the Bhagavatam, that is the Narayana Yasa, so from a conceptual perspective, the Bhagavatam is conceptualized means to come up with a concept and then we can implement it, and then now after the concept has come up, then what does Vyasadeva do, in the 7th chapter, in the beginning it is described that Vyasadeva, it is more of a visualized perspective, so the conceptual and visualized are related, I will explain what is the difference, this is Vyasadeva's vision and there are four verses in the Bhagavatam, which are Vyasadeva's vision and Jiva Goswami, while analyzing in the Shatrath Sandar verse, where does the Bhagavatam come from, he emphasizes these four verses, so we will look at these four verses today and by that we will try to understand the point of the Bhagavatam, that sometimes when a person writes a book, maybe in the introduction they write why I wrote the book, if they write a story also, in movies also there is a story behind the story, so like that the vision that Vyasadeva gets is described in this series of four verses, so in the instruction that Narada used to Vyasadeva, that enter into Samadhina and Anusmara, remember, systematically, Vicheshtitam, Vicheshtitam is the beautiful activity to the Lord, so then 174, he, the vision is described, so here previous verse 173, what is described, tasmin swashrame vyaso badhari, you can recite it, tasmin swashrame vyaso, so in, okay, let us do one line, I will explain the line, so swashrame, in his own ashram, he, vyaso, what did he do, badhari shandamandite, so that means he sat under the badhari tree, and, asino apa upasprishya, so asino, he sat, apa is, what is apa, water, so upasprishya, he touched water to purify himself and then, pranidadhyo manasvayam, pranidadhyo manasvayam, so mana, his own mind, swayam, pranidadhyo, he focused, he concentrated his mind, so what his guru, Narada Muni had told him, now he tried to contemplate that, he tried to assimilate that, he tried to internalize that, and in the next four verses, the vision that he had when writing the Bhagavatam, that is described, so let us look at that vision, so I will explain this vision in terms of four points, an acronym, side, you know, we all, Krishna is inside us, he is on our side, but we are often not on Krishna s side, we think that Krishna is on the opposite side, I have so many plans, Krishna is not fulfilling those plans, why is Krishna not helping me, so we will see how, in one sense, the Bhagavatam gives us a vision, the vision has two aspects to it, first is to understand that Krishna is on our side, that God is never against us, and then after that, to decide, I want to be on Krishna s side, so these are basically two steps, if you want to develop a relationship with Krishna, first we need to be convinced that Krishna is my well-wisher, Krishna is on my side, and then after that, we need to choose to be with Krishna, so this vision, the Bhagavatam gives us, so let us look at this vision one by one, so the next verse, so by the practice of Bhakti Yoga, Yogena Manasi, in his mind, samyak pranihite amale, so fully focused, pranihite, he, this is amale, mala is what? dirt, so amale, so he concentrated his mind, purified his mind, and in a full wholehearted, samyak, completely pranihite, focused, apashyat purushampurnam, so apashyat means to see, so purushampurnam, the complete personality of God, he saw, mayam chathat apashrayam, mayam chathat apashrayam, and he saw Krishna, and he also saw maya, and tad apashrayam means that maya is under his shelter, maya is under his control, so now, what is the significance of this vision? There are four distinct points in this verse, each line is a point, so bhakti yogena manasi, our mind is our tool for perception, now we do not just see with our eyes, we see actually with our subtle body, with our mind intelligence, which helps us to make sense of things, suppose some villager, some tribal, who has no awareness of the stock market, comes to a place where stock prices, stocks are being traded, and they saw on a big screen, stock market graph goes down, and it goes down, and everybody's hands go up, oh god what happened, and this person say, what happened, why are you so upset, this one on a screen, one image, one line went down in the screen, why are you so upset, isn't it, so we see with our eyes, but we actually understand with our intelligence, and that's why in the Bhagavatam, there is many places where it says, so they see, but they don't comprehend, so we don't see just with our eyes, we see with our intelligence, we see with our subtle body, so here bhakti yogena manasi, it's interesting, there is no mention of the eyes over here for the purpose of seeing, it is seeing in the vision that comes before him in the mind, so but the mind needs to be trained through bhakti yoga, just like any field, if somebody wants to see something, what does the stock market crash mean, that a person has to have some education about that, if a person has some symptoms, say somebody has white nails, okay, the doctor may say, have you got anemia, so that is a medical vision, so if we want to train our vision, bhakti yogena manasi, there is a beautiful cyclicity in this, this starts with bhakti and also will end with bhakti, the same series of verses, bhakti yogena manasi, so the mind is directed by bhakti yoga, and then samyak pranidhite amade, so there is, it has to be concentrated, still it becomes purified, that the mind has many contaminations and in general, when we talk about contaminations, what contaminations do is that, so if you consider, we are on 1.7.4, so often the verses are analysed in four lines, A, B, C, D, so first is that train the mind with bhakti, so it is not that we can see simply by trying more and more to see, Prabhupada says, if you are blind, then you have to get your eyes operated before you can see, just making more endeavours is not enough, let us say, om gyanatvirandasya jnananjana shilakaya, so the guru is one who treats us, so train the mind with bhakti, and then focus till it is purified, focus till it is purified, and the, in general, whenever we use the word impurity, what does impurity mean? Something unnatural, yes, like impure water, it has something which it should not have, it contains something, now what is the result of impurity? Effectiveness goes down, so the result, say if we are drinking water, we should feel nourished, but sometimes the water is contaminated by dirty substances, I just want to spit it out sometimes, so the effect is opposite, so what impurity essentially does is distortion of perception, distortion of perception, what this means is, say, consider somebody has lust or somebody has greed, so then what happens at that particular time, getting that particular object which will satisfy one's lust or greed becomes more important than everything else, it becomes more important than one's humanity, one's decency, one's morality, one's spirituality, even one sometimes, one's own dignity in society, like a person becomes alcoholic, then what happens, alcohol becomes the most important thing in the world for them, suppose somebody in office looking at their boss and suddenly the boss's body changes into a bottle of alcohol in their mind, so basically the object, it becomes, it enlarges, it becomes more than what it is and everything else shrinks in proportion, so essentially impurity is that which causes distortion of perception, the Sanskrit word for impurity is mala, any other word, what last time I read, what do we refer to them as? Anartha, now this word Anartha is, it has many different meanings, now one meaning of Artha is no Artha, Anartha, but that's a simpler, simple understanding, a deeper understanding is, Anartha is that which makes us feel there is Artha in no Artha, that thing which has no value, that we feel has great value, so Anartha is that which distorts our perception, so that, that which is not so valuable appears immensely valuable, so yes, there is pleasure in possession, there is pleasure in self-gratification, but that pleasure is quite tiny and when the Anartha grips our mind, then it makes us feel this is the most important thing in my life, that is how Anartha, so this distortion of perception happens, so we will talk about this also as we move forward, but the point is, he says that we need to focus on Krishna, the mala in the mind goes out, we will talk about how that happens and then Apashyat Purusham Purnam, that he sees, the third line was what, sees, that is vision of the Lord, the supreme person, Apashyat Purusham Purnam, so when we are purified, then we see that Krishna, it doesn't exist, but Krishna is, the important thing is the last line, that Krishna's controllership of maya, that Krishna is bigger than maya and it is this vision, this last point, mayam jyotapashvayam, that's very important to understand, in fact, you could say the whole spiritual journey can be depicted in one diagram, that initially for us, the world which is basically the domain of maya, the world is very big and God is small, yeah, maybe God exists, maybe it doesn't exist, even if he exists, how does he matter, one of my relatives, when I introduced them to bhakti, he said, I believe in God, he's happy there, I'm happy here, so God doesn't matter, but then as we grow spiritually, the world becomes smaller and God becomes bigger, now Krishna is always bigger in the world, but it is in our perception, so this is distortion of perception, where the world seems bigger than Krishna for us, so when there is purification, then through the purification, we could say there is restoration of perception, from distortion to restoration, our perception gets restored to the original state, so mayam chittatapashyam, that maya is under Krishna's control, that means that if Krishna is the bigger reality, if maya can give me some pleasure, Krishna can give me greater pleasure, if maya can cause me some trouble, Krishna is greater and Krishna can provide me protection from maya, so in that sense, this is the vision that we who are on the spiritual journey want to get, we may not necessarily see Krishna in our mind's eye, it's interesting in this verse, the name of that apashyapurushampurnam is not described, it will come later, at this point, the important point here, even if we don't know who God is, if we just understand God's position, that God is bigger than this world, that itself is the foundation of steady spiritual growth, without that we can practice bhakti, we can come to the temple, but as long as we think the world is bigger, then okay, sometimes we come to Krishna, sometimes we feel okay, I know time right, so this is the vision that is mayam chittatapashyam, now after, so I'll take each of these verses one by one and then we'll have some questions at the end, let's recite this verse once again by contemplating this, samyak pranihite amale, apashyapurushampurnam, mayam chittatapashyam, recite it together once again, bhakti yogena manasi, samyak pranihite amale, apashyapurushampurnam, mayam chittatapashyam, two more times, bhakti yogena manasi, samyak pranihite amale, apashyapurushampurnam, mayam chittatapashyam, bhakti yogena manasi, samyak pranihite amale, apashyapurushampurnam, mayam chittatapashyam, thank you, so now, the next part is okay, Krishna is there, maya is there, but the third entity is we, the jiva, so where is the jiva, that is what is described, there are three truths in reality, the prakriti, jiva and Ishwara, so prakriti and Ishwara are talked about in the previous verse, and the third truth is we are talking about, so yaya, yaya is by which, by which is the mayam chittatapashyam, that maya, yaya sammohito jiva, by whom the jiva is deluded, yaya sammohito jiva, yaya sammohito jiva, now he is deluded, how is he deluded, atmanam, that the atmanam is the self, trigunatmakam, that the soul, thing identifies oneself with the three modes, atmanam, trigunatmakam, and what is the result of this identification, paro, paro is transcendental, or api, although the soul is transcendental, manute, thinks, that anartham, that which is actually not of value, that the soul thinks this is what I am, this is what matters to me, paro pimanute anartham, paro pimanute anartham, then tat kutam, and thinking in this way, thinking that the products of maya are what are most important, tat kutam, accordingly he acts, kuti means action, tat kutam is action that is accordingly, cha abhipadyate, so abhipadyate means undergoes, so it's interesting, abhipadyate, it's not so much he does, but he undergoes, so, undergoes actions under that spin, let's recite it once, yaya sammohito jiva, yaya sammohito jiva, atmanam trigunatmakam, atmanam trigunatmakam, paro pimanute anartham, paro pimanute anartham, tat kutam cha abhipadyate, tat kutam cha abhipadyate, so here, in this verse, if you continue, so the, if you look at the four lines, the soul is deluded, deluded by maya, now, so what is the delusion, it is the self identifies with that which is the non-self, something different, I think that I am something which I am not, and what is the problem with this, the soul is spiritual, what it identifies with this, anartham, that in this case, paro apimanute anartham, the spiritual being identifies with material things, so spiritual being identifies with material thing or things, and then, tat kutam, acts under a spell, so here, the bondage that happens, when the soul gets caught, so, what exactly happens, for all of us, there is a similar verse in the Bhagavad Gita 13.22, purusha prakriti stho hi, bhunte prakriti jan gunan, karanam gunasangosya, sada satyoni janmasu, so there, imagine there is a child, the child is watching a TV, now, when the child is watching the TV, say there is a horror movie going on, the child might be sitting, very comfortably, at home, maybe the parents are in the next room, but if the child is caught in watching the horror movie, and the child is horrified, terrified, crying in fear, trembling, although there is no danger, but still, the child feels great danger, so it is because the consciousness is caught there, and what causes this, this is the bhunte, the desire to enjoy, the child doesn't have to watch the TV, but when the child starts watching the TV, the child gets caught in it, so bhunte, similarly for us over here, the soul is spiritual, the world is material, technically speaking, in the hierarchy of things, if you consider, there is a hierarchy, there is a technical word for it, ontological, that means the nature of existence, how things exist, in the ontological hierarchy, the Ishwara is the highest, the jiva is second, and prakriti is third, so this is you could say ontological or natural hierarchy, the jiva is conscious, prakriti is not, in that sense, the jiva is above prakriti, so these three are also described by another term, that is three j's, they are called jiva and there is jagdish, there is jiva, and there is jagat, so now these three are there, now what happens is, in terms of a functional hierarchy, how things happen in this world, or you could say the unnatural hierarchy that happens here, is that the jagat becomes bigger than the jiva, and why does it happen? because the jiva believes the jagat will make me happy, so see, alcohol cannot control a person, but as long as the person believes that alcohol will give me happiness, then that person runs here there and everywhere, in the pursuit of alcohol, so the moha is that we conceive of certain things as sources of happiness for us, and to the extent we think that this is the source of happiness, now of course there are many sources of happiness, good food is a source of happiness, praise by others is a source of happiness, seeing something beautiful is a source of happiness, the problem is that we don't just think of these as sources of happiness, when the moha comes, we think of it as the source of the supreme happiness, the source of the happiness that I must have, now an alcoholic may not say that, oh I think alcohol is also the greatest happiness, no, may not think like that, but they act like that, give up everything else for that, so atmana trigunatmakam, the self identifies with a particular product of material nature, and to the extent the self identifies with that product, that material nature of which it is a product, gains control over the self, tat krutam cha vipadyate, so the soul starts acting like a puppet, see often we use the word bondage, the soul is bhava bandhan, the soul is bound, but you know the bondage that we suffer from, it is not like a prisoner's shackles, prisoner's shackles they immobilize us, if somebody is shackled in a prison, they just can't move, our shackles, the bondage is like a puppeteer's string, it doesn't just immobilize us, it hyper mobilizes us, we run here and there faster than what we would normally run, the bhagavatam uses the word vimudha, vimudha is what? fool, and vimudha is an empowered fool, actually if you see materialistic people are empowered, empowered in the sense that, we generally use the word empowered in the spiritual sense, but empowered means they are infused with some extraordinary energy, how hard people work sometimes, you know I want to get this job, I want to get this promotion, I want this relationship, and people are ready to go to any extremes for that, they are empowered, I have written a book on reincarnation called demystifying reincarnation, so I was in America, I gave a college program, after that a young man came to me and said I have a very serious personal question, he said I am in love with a girl, she also loves me, but her parents are just not agreeing, it's not working out, she is going to get married to someone else, he said I want to know what karma can I do, so that in my next life I will be able to marry her, so there is acceptance of reincarnation, but what happens is, nowadays people have the idea of a soul mate, remember this word, but for them the focus is the mate, not the soul, so rather than try to understand the soul, they focus on only the mate part, so somebody may even know the philosophy, but this is through the philosophy one tries to fulfill one's desire, isn't it, that is the meaning of empowered food, now that you are empowered to use everything, even spiritual philosophy, for the purpose of pursuing one's own desires, now at one level we can say that the male female attraction is natural, even necessary in this world, and yes that is true, but the point is again, it is natural, it is necessary, it is also pleasurable to some extent, but the misconception is to think this is the most important thing in life, so much so that one is thinking in the next life I want this, if I can't get it in this life. How do you reply to this person? Well, it is a long answer, see, I explained three different things, first is that we may desire things in life, but it is not just our desire that gives us the results, and that sometimes, despite our wanting and striving, some things may not work, and that is just the way the world is, sometimes karma comes into the play and we have positive negative karma balance that we have to deal with, and second is that the point is, karma is not meant to make us calculate, karma is meant to make us responsible, so what does that mean, the difference, calculative means, I will do this much karma and I will get this much result, so it is not, karma is not mathematical, we can use some mathematical ideas to explain it, so it is not that you can do this karma and you can get that result, that it is, the point of karma is that we understand that my actions matter, that if I do good actions, I will get good in the future, if I do bad actions, I will get some bad in the future, so our actions do matter, even if they don't seem to, so that is the idea of karma making us responsible, lastly I said that whatever, whatever joy we might get from anything in this world, including from any relationship in this world, whether we will get that particular joy, we can't control that, but ultimately all joy comes from the divine and the relationship with the divine can fulfil our heart's deepest longings, so the idea is that there is fulfilment of desire and there is fulfilment of heart, so we often think that if my desire is fulfilled then my heart will be fulfilled, but does it work like that, sometimes our desire is fulfilled and still then so many other desires start coming up and we don't feel fulfilled, so the fulfilment of desire can come by some material arrangement, if things work out for us, but the fulfilment of heart comes by spiritual devotion, so if you connect with Krishna, if it is within the arrangement of karma, you may get that in the future life, that particular relationship, but even if you don't, if you connect with Krishna, even if the particular desire is fulfilled or not fulfilled, the heart will surely be fulfilled.

Thank you for the distracting question. Okay. Now, so here the point is it is our desire that causes us bondage, so I was talking about how this is the puppeteer string, puppeteer string means what? We don't feel we are bound because we are doing so many things, we are going here, going there, pursuing this, pursuing that, so we don't feel as if we are bound and the greatest triumph of maya is to make us believe that getting maya is our greatest triumph, you know, the greatest triumph of maya, the greatest triumph of the force of illusion is to make us believe that getting maya, getting maya could be money, could be fame, that getting money or fame would be our greatest triumph, so that is how maya completely conquers us and when jiva is deluded in this way, so it's like we don't even want to fight the battle because it's almost like the enemy winning the battle we think is our victory, we are losing the battle but the greatest triumph of maya, the triumph is victory and it's not just victory, it's like a victory that somebody celebrates, this triumphant return, say India won the world cup, and then India came back, the Indian cricketing came back, not just victory, triumphant return, celebration, the greatest triumph of India, of maya, is to make us believe that getting maya, getting maya is the object that maya does, is our greatest triumph, so this is how maya completely catches us in illusion and we don't even realize we are deluded like that, so then what is the way out, let's describe in the next verse, before that let's recite this verse once again, yaya sammohito yaya sammohito jiva yaya sammohito jiva atmanam trigunatmakam atmanam trigunatmakam paropimante anartham paropimante anartham tatkrtam ca vipadyate tatkrtam ca vipadyate let's do it together three times yaya sammohito jiva atmanam trigunatmakam paropimante anartham tatkrtam ca vipadyate yaya sammohito jiva atmanam trigunatmakam paropimante anartham tatkrtam ca vipadyate yaya sammohito jiva atmanam trigunatmakam paropimante anartham tatkrtam ca vipadyate so now so I said I was talking about the acronym side so S was C C he saw a vision then he identified the problem now after identifying the problem then he develops a solution and what is the solution anartha anartha upashamam upashamam means to pacify to neutralize to decrease till it disappears sakshat so anarth actually through experience the anartha disappears anartha upashamam sakshat bhakti yoga that has to be bhakti yoga has to be practiced now previously in the first line the words was apashyat but here it is adhoksha j apashyat means to see but adhoksha j is one who is beyond the senses so the challenge of bhakti the big challenge in bhakti is that we that the lord is invisible and maya is not just visible but ultra visible so turning away and offering our devotion to the invisible lord in the presence of visible or ultra visible pleasures that is not easy bhakti yoga madhoksha j bhakti yoga madhoksha j so he says he saw that this is actually the way that it is by performing bhakti that anartha can be anarthas can be pacified they can be removed but he saw that people do not understand people do not they do not know this vidvamsh so therefore the wise person the learned person was vidvamsh lokasya janan to vidvamsh lokasya janan to vidvamsh chakri chakri means he composed sattvata samhita sattvata samhita refers to what? bhagavata so he composed he manifested now the bhagavatam had existed before the bhagavatam was actually one of the eighteen puranas Vyasadev had already written the eighteen puranas so he had already written the bhagavatam in one sense but within the bhagavatam as he had written before the pure devotional message was not adequately emphasized so now he emphasized that in this sattvata samhita sattvata the word sattvata has two meanings one is the sattvata dynasty one of the names of the yadu dynasty is sattvata dynasty but sattvata also means sattvata ambate those who are pursuing sattva those who are pursuing that which exists eternally that which is true forever so chakra sattvata samhita chakra sattvata samhita so basically this verse what is talking about it that how the invisible can be made visible or accessible so he had got the message from Narad Muni and thus his vision had been directed and guided the same what I have been given I would like to give to others so the anarthas so the anarthas can be if you go back again to the lines anarthas they can be pacified upashamam is pacified it's that lust does not necessarily have to disappear but when it is pacified it is neutralized lust loses its power in the bhagavatam the gaudiya vishnu acharya the example of a snake whose poison teeth have been cut broken then even the snake is present it can't bite so anartho upashamam shakshat pacified by bhakti yoga bhakti yoga to the invisible lord so now how would people be inspired to worship this invisible lord so he is giving access to the ignorant access to the blind, access to the uninformed through the bhagavatam so he is providing, he is seeing the problem or rather he is seeing the solution and he is providing a means to implement the solution that is chakri sattvata sambhita ultimately the purpose of hearing the bhagavatam is not just to memorize this verse or analyze that concept it is ultimately to direct our heart to the lord it is to shift the purpose of scripture in one sense we are here there is the visible world in front of us and there is the far bigger invisible world which is above us and the worldly literature all worldly literature will keep our vision fixated on this world but it is scripture that raises our vision to the invisible world ultimately the invisible world there is the invisible lord so the purpose of the bhagavatam is to shift our vision to raise our vision so that it inspires us to devote ourselves to our lord chakri sattvata sambhita and in the last verse so we will not recite the verses again but lets move to the last verse so how is the bhagavatam going to help how is the bhagavatam going to raise the vision how is it going to bring about the pacification of the anarthas so yasyam, yasyam means this, that yasyam and yaya are words which connect with the previous verse yasyam is chakri sattvata sambhita this when it is heard certainly yasyam yasyam yasyam yasyam so when we hear the bhagavatam then krishne parampurushe krishne parampurushe so the word purushe is also coming the second time apasya purusham purnam it was there also is alliteration of purpo here also its parampurushe so krishne parampurushe krishna the supreme person now you could have just described krishna but the point is that by emphasizing that he is supreme person you are giving a reminder that he is the bigger reality so bhakti will remove the anarthas but how will bhakti arise by hearing about krishna bhaktir utpadyate utpadyate is to manifest to be stimulated at pumsaha in the human being bhaktir utpadyate pumsaha bhaktir utpadyate pumsaha and then it is described that what does that lead to the anarthoposam anarthopashamam upashamam that was described that upashamam is now described in a little more analysis over here what is the shoka moha bhaya apaha apaha is to destroy so shoka moha bhaya so we all have our ideas of what will give me happiness and if we have not got it in the past that causes a shoka and right now if that is the thing dominating our mind that drives us that is the moha and the bhaya is in the future I may not get it or if I have it now to whatever degree I have it I may lose it so this fixation in three phases of time past, present and future with our particular anartha with the particular thing that we will that we think will make us happy that is apaha that is destroyed shoka moha bhaya apaha once more bhaktirutpadyate pumsa bhaktirutpadyate pumsa So, for all of us, there are these three phases of time.

In the past, we have many things to lament about, shoka, the grief is there, the future, there is vahya, there is fear, there is anxiety, there is uncertainty, which causes anxiety, fear, panic, and with respect to the present, there is more, there is illusion. So, the illusion about, which is driving us to do what we are chasing after. So, now the Lord is the Krishna, is the Lord of all the three phases of time, the past, present, and future.

And yes, we may have lost certain things in the past. Sometimes in bhakti, what happens that, I'll just talk about how bhakti is meant to change our vision of these three things. Sometimes, we may lament, even in a devotional sense, or if only I had come to bhakti in my childhood or in my youth, it would have been so much better.

Or if only I had not done this, I would have done that. Now, in one sense, it is good that we desire to serve Krishna more, and we desire that I could have served Krishna in the past also. But, the point is that Krishna can make the best out of our past also.

So, yes, maybe we got diverted in certain things, when we went here, we went there. But, Krishna can arrange for us to get some realizations, get some resources through that. By which we can practice bhakti now with greater conviction.

So, it's like, it's not just the bad things that, basically, we have lamentation about two things. The bad things that happened to us, and that happened through us. That is, we did them.

So, both can cause us lamentation. But Krishna's plan works through both of them. Even if we have made some mistakes, Krishna's plan works even through our mistakes.

That doesn't mean our mistakes are Krishna's plan. Our mistakes are our mistakes. But, Krishna is expert enough to work even through those mistakes.

And so, sometimes what happens is that, when we become Krishna conscious, we think I was not Krishna conscious in the past. But that does not mean Krishna was not there in our past. Isn't it? So, Krishna was acting in our past also, even when we were not acting in relationship with Krishna.

So, Krishna's plan was working for us, even when we were not aware of Krishna. So, that lamentation about the past, about the missed opportunities, about mistakes, whatever, we need to know Krishna is working, has worked through the past for us. It's not that, you know, the time when we entered, that's the time Krishna starts appearing in our heart of the Paramahamsa.

Before that, he was not there. No, he was always there. Ishwara Sarvabhutana Deshe Arjunathishtha.

Every living being is there. Not just Madh Bhaktana, Sarvabhutana. So then, now with respect to the present, for us, the more we practice bhakti, the more we hear about Krishna, the more we chant Krishna's names, the more, it is not that, the more we realize that Krishna is not just present.

So, that here we understand Krishna is not just present in the present, but he is also prominent in the present. That he is the middle reality. So, we all may have particular desires, we may even have particular needs.

It's not always so easy to differentiate between what is a need and what is a desire. But whatever it is, if we understand Krishna is bigger than this, so Krishna, then we will not, if we understand Krishna is bigger than whatever the challenge facing me, whatever the desire driving me, then we won't get too much captivated by it. It's not that being Krishna conscious means, you know, being utterly unambitious or become completely emotionless or desireless.

It just means, in one's own bhakti, it is not meant to make us desireless. Because, you know, desire is a natural thing for a conscious being. In the conscious, we perceive things and we perceive, hey, that's nice, I would like to have that.

Desire will naturally come. But what happens is, we desire less. That means the material desires, they become less for us.

And then spiritual desire becomes more correspondingly. So, rather than worrying too much about, oh, why is my desire for this so strong? Or why is my fear about this so strong? Focus on, just let me try to connect on Krishna, focus on Krishna. And if we do that, we'll find that the desire, the fear, whatever, that will get managed in some way.

And lastly, about the future, we, none of us can know what the future holds. But we can know who holds the future. We can know the Lord who holds the future.

And we learn to hold on to the Lord. We hold on to the Lord now, and He will hold on to us. He will take us to the future.

So, what we can know, what the future holds, that we can't know. Nobody can know that. Even when Prabhupada said that, I see temples in the future, and the time is separating them.

I mean, Prabhupada didn't know how much time is separating. So, Prabhupada had that faith. But faith does not necessarily mean complete certainty about everything.

So, faith is a complex combination of certainty and uncertainty. The certainty is Krishna will protect. That is the conviction that Krishna will protect, Krishna will provide.

Not just protect, kyo vakshemam, vahamyam. Krishna will protect and provide. But the uncertainty is when and how.

So, it's not when Prabhupada went to America, it is not that there is a hotline between him and Krishna, and Krishna was dictating Prabhupada in the secret hotline. Don't talk with this person. This person is not going to become a devotee.

Don't spend time with this person. This person is not going to become a devotee. Spend time with this person.

No, Prabhupada tried various things. Some things worked, some things didn't work. So, if we expect faith to be all of certainty, only certainty, then that kind of, if we think that faith means I should have complete certainty, then we can never have that kind of faith.

We will always feel that I am deficient in my faith. But if we think of faith as only uncertainty, then there will always be insecurity. So, that combination of certainty and uncertainty will always be there.

Krishna gave a vision to Arjuna that you will win the war. But exactly how was he going to win the war? Krishna didn't say in 18 days you will win the war. In this way you will kill this warrior, that warrior.

That had to work out on its own. So, rather than worrying too much about how Krishna will protect, we focus on holding on to Krishna right now. And then in his own way, in his own time, Krishna will manifest his plan, his protection, his provision will manifest in due course.

So, the more Krishna becomes the bigger reality for us, then the less the world's ups and downs will matter for us. So, I will summarize. I talked about the Bhagavatam's conceptual vision today.

And we talked about four verses. So, the first point was based on 1.7.4. So, that was C. I was identify. Then D was develop.

And last E was explain. So, he developed the resource of the Bhagavatam. And then he explains how does it solve.

What does it do? It helps us understand that Krishna is the bigger reality. So, he saw that Krishna is bigger than the world. To the extent we understand this, to that extent we are well situated.

And he identify, what did he identify that? It is our own desire. It is our desire, our anartha, that is the cause of our bondage. That is anartha means that which is of no artha, which we think of as supreme artha.

So, then what did he develop? He said that it is scripture that raises our vision from the visible to the invisible. This lifting of the vision, this is the Bhagavatam. The Bhagavatam, he gave the Bhagavatam to help us raise our vision.

And when we raise our vision, what does it do? It is not, we still have to live in this world. And we still have the past, present and future to deal with. But when we understand that Krishna is in charge in all these phases of time.

He is always above us. He is always with us. Then what happens is that the control of illusion on us decreases.

So, basically I said that Krishna is on our side. He is overseeing everything. He is on our side.

Let us be on his side. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.

Is there anyone's question? Yes, please. To the last point, I just was thinking that what are the symptoms of a person who has Krishna prominent in his consciousness in the present moment? You said present and prominent. So, what are the symptoms of a person? If Krishna is prominent, then the world's effect on us won't be so prominent.

That means the world's dangers won't seem so fearful for us. The world's pleasures won't seem so captivating or irresistible. So, basically dvandva that is there, the dualities are there that always happen in this world.

Now, if we are spiritually unconnected, the duality won't affect us. Our mind exaggerates the dualities. So, any pleasure? This is the best pleasure in the world.

Any problem? This is the end of the world. So, the mind tends to catastrophize often. But then when we become much much steadier, so steadiness in that sense is one sign.

There could be any other sign, but one easy to discern sign is steadiness. Thank you. Any other question? How we can understand the mind? My mind always tells very wrong things to us.

Sometimes that means there is a person somewhere in our mind, somewhere in our brain and we… Yeah, see the mind is basically like a computer program. So, it is we who have programmed the mind in a particular way and the mind keeps just simply repeating that program even when you don't want the program to be repeated. Suppose somebody has visited a website called Bollywood.com. Now, maybe they have visited 50 times and they come and hear a class on the Bhagavad Gita or the Bhagavatam and they want to know about it.

So, then they type Bhagavad Gita, they type B. And what happens? Bollywood comes. Now, they wanted to go somewhere else but the browser history is stored and it comes as autocomplete. So, the mind is like a browser and the impressions in the mind, the mind's samskaras are like our browser history.

So, rather than getting irritated that okay, why is it coming as autocomplete? Krishna is saying just two things, abhyasa and vairag. See, the two things we need to do is just keep visiting Bhagavad Gita.com and then don't visit Bollywood.com. So, abhyasa and vairag. So, the kind of behavior we want, it may be difficult but just keep doing that.

And the kind of response we don't want, try to minimize that, try to avoid that. So, the mind is programmed but it is also programmable and therein lies our hope. Okay.

So, generally all voices come with very convenient labels and say this is mind speaking, this is Krishna speaking. They don't come like that. So, rather than worrying about the source, we can focus on the effect.

That by following this, where will I go? So, phalle na parichayate. Now, you may say can't always know but many times we can know. Say, if I am having some conflict with someone and something inside me says, you know, yell at this person, put them in their place.

Now, we can know from our past experience this is not going to take me to a closer dimension. So, we could say that among the voices inside, there are some areas which are positive. You see, we all have certain abilities.

If somebody has a musical instinct, somebody has a language instinct, you know, they just get the right thing to do. That's all of our, you know, according to our particular talents and abilities. We are able to do certain things right.

This is what people call as the gut feeling or the instinct, the sixth sense. So, we all through our experience in our life know in which areas the voice from within is right generally speaking. And we also know to some extent the areas where it is wrong.

So, if we just identify this and work on these two things. Now, here we may make mistakes. Because in between these two, there are voices.

Is this a good, is this a bad voice? Grey. Grey, yeah. We can't, what they say is this, the muddle in the middle.

The muddle in the middle or the muddle in the middle. But if we work on this and work on this, gradually what will happen is these two will grow. See, ultimately Krishna wants to guide us.

So, if we see, if we show him and he sees that we are choosing the wise and voice and we are staying away from the un-wiser voice, then overall what will happen, after some time what will happen is this. So, the positive voice will become bigger. The negative will also become bigger.

I'm sorry, on the positive, what is positive will become clearer and what is negative will also become clearer. And then the grey area will shrink. It's not that we can completely eliminate the grey area ever.

Because we are finite beings. But the grey area can shrink with time. That's what sattva sanjayate jnanam.

Sattva brings clarity. So, one aspect of clarity is we start understanding which voices from inside are working for us and which are working against us. So, thank you very much.

Thank you. On behalf of all of us, we thank His Grace Chaitanya Chavan Prabhu and we request him.