Ramayana Relationships & Mental Health Chaitanya Charan Part 2

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hari Hari Gaur Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana Jnana tough. And life does involve all of us facing certain challenges.
How we respond to those challenges will determine whether our mental health stays good or it worsens. And yesterday I discussed how in terms of external association, we need to keep at a distance people who try to exploit the weaknesses of our mind. And we need to have people close to us who give us an alternative to what the mind is telling us.
An alternative narrative. So we need these two things. Now today, I will move further and we’ll talk more about the internal dynamics of the mind.
Yesterday I mentioned how the small stimulus leads to a large response. Now why does that happen? If we consider the mind to be the intermediate between the body and the soul. So then here, whenever any stimulus comes in from the outer world, the samskaras in the mind, they can cause that particular stimulus to become enlarged.
So like I mentioned, if somebody has been bitten by a dog, then as soon as they see a dog, even if it’s a tiny cuddly little poodle, still all that they see is the teeth and they get alarmed by that. So in this context, what can we do? There are already certain impressions in the mind and we can’t wish away those impressions. They’re already there.
So basically, when we need to change, we need to change the impressions gradually. But we need to change our impressions, whatever they’re inside, and we need to change our vision of those impressions. That means just because some idea, some urge is coming from inside me, that does not necessarily mean that it is my desire.
It may be something that it is not necessarily my desire. So generally, let me explain this with, say, an example. One of the most dramatic and traumatic incidents in the Mahabharata is the abduction of Sita.
And one of the key ways in which the mind often deludes us is by falsely interpreting events and giving, causing people to be blamed who are not to be blamed. The mind doesn’t just take in phenomena, it takes in, that’s one aspect of it. Sometimes it makes some phenomena very big, some phenomena very small.
But beyond that, what the mind also does is it interprets. And when it interprets at that time, it can make a big mess of things. So let’s see how the mind can misinterpret and what we can do about preventing this misinterpretation.
So when Ram and Lakshman were in the Ram, Lakshman, Sita were in the forest, they were initially in Chitrakoot. I just come to Kanpur today, yesterday. So here from here, Chitrakoot is just one and a half hours, two hours away.
So they’re staying in Chitrakoot over here. And then from here, they were the last year, the start of last year, they went down. They came to Dandakavani.
Now when they came to Dandakaranya, that was the time where Kridhradipa samsevita Rama, they met Kridhradipa, that is Jatayu. And he instantly had a paternal, a fatherly kind of relationship with them. And he felt that these are like, I’ll take care of them.
I’ll take care of Sita. And then while they were living there, Ravan made a whole conspiracy. He made a terrible plan by which he had Maritha come in the form of a deer.
And then Sita saw the deer and said, hey, Ram Lakshman, you see, how beautiful is this deer. So we are going to try to analyse today that when something bad happens, how our mind interprets the cause and how we should try to interpret the cause. How the interpretation might be misinterpreted.
And based on that, we’ll see how in this key skill of interpretation, we need to be much more accurate. So here, what happens is for Sita says, oh, this is an attractive deer. See how extraordinarily attractive it is.
They are a little suspicious. Lakshman is suspicious. Lakshman says, something is, if something looks too good to be true, then probably it is not true.
I suspect this is not a deer, this is a demon. Sita says, oh, Lakshman, you have a very suspicious mind. Let’s just see how cute and so cuddly this deer is.
Is everyone able to hear my voice? Yeah, I think some people are not able to hear. Maybe you can try to adjust. Is it better now? Is it clearer now? Okay.
So Sita turns to Ram and she says, we get this deer. He can be a nice pet for us. While we are in the forest, it can amuse us.
And after we go back, then we can do this as a gift, as a memento from the forest. Ram looks at Sita and he thinks, he has sacrificed so much for me. He was all with me to the forest and she didn’t have to.
He never asked me for anything. He looks at Lakshman also and he thinks, Lakshman, maybe there’s some merit to his words, but when he decides, let me go and get this deer. And then he goes.
Then, as he goes, they all expect, at least Sita, Axel and Ram also expects, that they will just be able to reach the deer, catch it and bring it back. But then, what happens is, the deer just runs away very fast. And Lord Ram runs very fast.
He catches up with the deer and Lakshman is about to catch the deer. The deer just takes a giant leap and goes far away. And Ram is surprised, how can a deer leap such ways? Then he moves forward.
As soon as they want to catch the deer, this time it appears to not just leap, but disappear. Then he appears far away. If this is happening again and again, Lord Ram starts becoming suspicious.
Anyway, Lakshman’s words are going on in his mind and he starts thinking. Finally, he’s able to reach the deer and he’s about to catch it. That’s when it leaps off.
And then when it leaps off, it seems to look back and almost smirk at it, grin in a mocking way. And Ram decides this is enough, is enough. This is not a deer.
This is something dangerous. So he decides to shoot it. He all along, because they had wanted the deer as a pet, he didn’t want to kill it.
But now he decides this is some trickster, then he shoots. As soon as he shoots, the arrow goes and pierces the deer. And the deer has been, Maricha has been assuming the form of a deer, but to take on any form requires some mystic power.
And in this pain, then the attention shifts from maintaining that facade, that form, to protecting one’s life. That’s why in the final moments, most demons start manifesting their original form. So they say, Ram immediately sees this is actually the Maricha demon.
He races forward and he makes sure that it is dead. But before he dies, he calls out, Lafla! Sita! Extremely loudly. Clearly, he is calling for help.
Rather, he is imitating Ram’s voice perfectly. He’s creating the pretence that Ram needs the help. Now Ram immediately realises that is a danger.
As soon as he makes sure that the deer is dead, he turns around and starts racing back. While he’s racing back, at that time, Sita hears this voice. She just breaks down in panic.
Initially, although she has dismissed Lakshman’s words saying they are just way too suspicious, still she cannot just forget those words. And when Ram goes, he doesn’t come back. He starts becoming fearful.
You know, is Ram in danger? It’s one thing if somebody we care for is in danger. It’s quite another thing if our object of love, our beloved, is in danger because we send them into danger. That combines not only anxiety with a sense of guilt.
In the end, say we wanted something from a grocery shop and we knew there was going to be a rainstorm over there. In India, we are quite fortunate. We don’t have very severe storms generally.
In some parts, we have cyclones. But in America, there are hurricanes and tornadoes and they are quite deadly. Just now, Florida has been hit by two storms, one after another.
Helena and Milton, many of our devotees are in trouble because of that. So, of course, they have emergency measures to take care of things. But the point is, if we knew that someone is in a storm, but we say, you know, OK, can you just go and get this from the grocery shop? It’s not very far and you can probably come back before the storm hits us.
And then, we go, that person goes, then we get the warning that the storm is actually accelerating. The person is expected to come back in 15 minutes. It becomes half an hour, one hour.
So not only is the person in danger, it is we, by our request, have put that person in danger. And on top of that, if what we needed from the grocery shop was not very urgent, what happens is that increases the guilt. You think, OK, having that pet was a nice thing earlier, it’s not really necessary.
So now, if we feel that because of a mistaken request on our side, someone has got into danger, then we feel something has to be done to rectify it. That this person has to be freed from the danger. And how to free them? So then, he turns towards Lakshman and says, no, your brother needs help, please go.
Lakshman is completely undisturbed. He says, do not worry, Ram is in no danger. Now, this is probably the same demon imitating the voice of Ram.
Sometimes, when we see that somebody else is disturbed, now we want to calm them down. At the same time, Lakshman, from his perspective, he wanted to calm Sita. But he was also alert.
He tries to tell Sita, this is probably a conspiracy Ram has told me to be by your side. So I’m going to be here to protect you. Now, Lakshman was on one side trying to keep Sita calm, but he was also alert.
Is there some danger coming from anywhere? So sometimes what happens is when we want to pacify someone, we may try to reassure them. And our intent may be to reassure them. But what happens is that if that other person is disturbed, let’s take it from our perspective.
If I’m disturbed about something, and if I go and tell someone, it’s a big problem. Other person doesn’t seem to be concerned. Other person doesn’t seem to be disturbed by it.
So first, we are disturbed by what has happened. Then we are disturbed because the other person is not disturbed. What exactly happens to Sita? When she sees Lakshman is not disturbed, Ram is in danger.
And even further, Lakshman says that I’m here to protect you. He has no intention to mean anything negative over there. But for Sita, it increases her sense of guilt further.
That because of me, Ram might be in danger. And now because of me, there is no help going to him. Because of me, Lakshman is not going to help Ram.
But she just openly requests Lakshman, I’m in no danger. You please go and help Ram right now. Lakshman says to her, I cannot leave your side.
Till now, they have stayed in the forest. And they know that there are demons. And there have been some demons.
There is one demon which has tried to catch Sita and Ram and Lakshman. Law prophets in their arms. So they know there has been danger.
But till now, while they were in the hermitage, there has never been any danger. So Sita, because of her love and because also of her limited experience of forest life, is thinking, Lakshman, I’m not in danger. Ram is in danger.
Ram has clearly called for help. And Lakshman says, no, this is the demon imitating. Sita just loses it.
You think I can’t recognise my husband’s voice? It’s Ram’s voice. So the more Lakshman tries to explain to her that the real danger is not to Ram, but to her. The more he just can’t get what Lakshman is saying.
He can’t. He says, why are you hitting me like this? There’s no Lakshman. Ram is in danger.
You should go and try to save. So what happens for us? In general, inside us, we have two faculties. We have our intelligence.
That is our buddhi. And we have our mind. And we are souls.
So the soul consults the intelligence. Consults the mind and then makes a decision. So broadly, the intelligence is associated with reason.
It is what we often call as the faculty of the head. The mind is associated with emotion. That is often what we call as the heart.
So for good decision making, we need to consider both reason and emotion, the head and the heart. Krishna often talks about this in 8.7. Mind, heart, pit, mano, buddhi. Both the reason of the intelligence and the emotion of the mind.
Both need to be directed towards Krishna. We need to use our reason. So ideal situation is when the intelligence and the mind both point us in the right direction.
Say, if you assume this is the wise or the right direction. See, the opposite of it is the otherwise direction. So we are sometimes wise and sometimes otherwise.
So now sometimes what may happen is the mind may pull us in one direction. And the intelligence may pull us in the other direction. That’s a different situation.
And this is where when we experience a tug of war inside us. Should I do this? I think this is good for me. But I feel this is what I should do.
So to some extent, at this particular point, in the tug of war, whichever is nourished, if the intelligence is nourished, it will become stronger. And it will go in that direction. If the mind is nourished, if the mind is fed, the mind will become stronger.
And sometimes when the emotion becomes strong, it is that the mind becomes so strong, the mind pulls in one direction and the intelligence becomes weak. And at times we do something which we know is not good for us. But the emotion overpowers us.
However, in some situations, it doesn’t happen like this. It’s like not only does the mind go in a particular direction, but if this is my mind and this is my intelligence, the mind actually pulls the intelligence in the same direction. The mind becomes so strong that the mind pulls the intelligence.
What does it mean? That from the mind, we start using our intelligence to justify what we want to do. That’s why when Krishna talks about karma, he says karma can be situated in the indriyani manobuddhir. So karma is not just lust.
It can be lust, but it can be any self-destructive craving. So it can be anything. So alcoholism can be there.
So it can be anything which makes us work against us. So here what happens is we have an unwise desire but we use our intelligence to justify. Sometimes we may just sideline.
Sideline the intelligence means that we just neglect the intelligence. It’s shut up. But sometimes the intelligence becomes utilised or misused by the mind.
So here when Sita just desperately wants Lakshman to go and help Ram, so Sita’s emotions at this point, if you consider the emotions, what is happening is that there is at one level naturally anxiety is there. But along with that anxiety, there is guilt. There’s guilt.
I sent Ram into danger. And on top of that, now there is confusion. Why is Lakshman not going to help? So when there is confusion, now I’m not in danger.
Ram is in danger. Why is he not going to help? From that confusion, when the intelligence starts acting over here, there comes a justification or an explanation. Why is it that Lakshman is not listening to me? And in her anxiety, he may not be consciously aware of what she’s saying.
But she ends up telling, now Lakshman, I know why you’re not going. You are not going because you have an evil eye on me. Right from the beginning, when you came to this forest, you always wanted to have me for yourself.
And because of that, you were waiting all along for the opportunity. That’s why even if Ram is dying, you’re not going to help him. So that you can fulfil your dark desires.
But know that I will never let myself be touched by anyone else. I would much rather die than be touched by you. When she speaks like this, she is so desperate.
She’s trying to make sense. Why is Lakshman not going? And in her desperate attempt to make sense of Lakshman’s refusal to go, she comes up with some explanation. Now, when she speaks this grievous accusation, Lakshman just can’t hear it.
Lakshman just can’t hear it. And she says, Susita, you do not know what you’re speaking. Please don’t speak such words.
You will never be able to enjoy me. I would much rather die. She keeps repeating that in her frenzy of anxiety and anger and all the storm of emotions that is going on in her heart.
One says, Susita, when you are speaking such words, I cannot be here with you. I fear that when I come back, I may not find you here. But still, because you’re speaking such words, I will leave and I will go and find Ram.
Now, in the Valmiki Ramayan, there is no mention of the Lakshman Rekha. That does not mean it did not happen. It just means that in the Valmiki Ramayan, the narrative goes without any that formation of the protective circle.
So then after this, Lakshman charges out following in the footsteps of Ram. He goes a significant distance and suddenly he hears a loud noise of someone very powerful pacing rapidly. And he hides behind a protective watch.
So as he’s watching, at that time, he sees that it is Ram. He’s relieved. When Ram sees him, Lakshman is relieved to see Ram, but Ram is filled with anxiety to see Lakshman.
Why are you here? Where is Sita? Why did you leave her? Now, Lakshman cannot even dare to speak the words which Sita has accused him with. Somehow, when Ram is asking, Ram is demanding an explanation. So he somehow gets himself to speak that accusation.
And Ram just brushes it off. He must be filled with anxiety. She’s sentimental.
Why did you take her words so seriously? He brushes back. Oh, they brush back when they come to the private edge. I’m using a Bluetooth mic.
Is this better now? Is this better? Okay, so I’m sorry. I’m not, I can’t do anything about this right now. We will record the audio separately.
And the audio is not clear. We’ll upload the audio separately afterwards. I have some coughs, so I can’t speak much louder than this.
So Sita, so when they come back, they find Sita is no longer there. Now, in this case, if we look at who is wrong over here, who’s mistake was it? That we could say, was it Sita’s mistake? Well, you could say she made a request. Now, if you consider her request, it was, it was, relatively speaking, a selfless request.
We can have this as a gift and a special gift from the forest for mother Kaushalya. Now, if we consider Ram’s pledging Sita, was that wrong? You know, you could say that he was reciprocating with her. Now, he was reciprocating with her in the sense that she had done so much.
He wanted to do something for her. Now, if we consider further, was it Lakshman’s leaving? Was it wrong? Now, we can say understandable what he did. He felt terribly hurt by what Sita had done.
Now, if we consider Sita, when I talk about mistake, here I was talking about Sita’s request itself. Was that wrong? Now, if we consider Sita’s accusation, now that certainly was painful. What she spoke, but we can understand that she was herself in pain.
Like we say, hurt people, hurt people. No, it was not that she deliberately wanted to hurt Lakshman. Somehow, she was trying to make sense of what had happened.
And somehow she was trying to bore Lakshman to go and just spoke some things. If we can consider, Lakshman, when he came back, he could have said when he found Sita is gone, the sirs are right. He spoke something like this to me.
She should be punished for that. He didn’t at all think like that. Although he was terribly hurt, he understood that whatever she spoke and whatever hurt I felt, that is nothing compared to the danger Sita might be in.
It is my duty to help Ram protect her. Now, when Ram chastised him, he said, you should not have taken her word seriously. You should not have left Sita.
Lakshman could have said to Ram, you know, you could have listened to me first when I said that it was a demon and not just a deer. Sita was sentimental, same argument. She spoke, made some requests, but you are intelligent.
You should have listened to me and this whole thing would not have happened. So, sometimes after something happens, things go terribly wrong. It’s very easy for everyone to blame everyone else.
But ultimately, who is wrong? It is Ravan who is wrong. It is Ravan who made this whole conspiracy. It is Ravan who was driven by such terrible lust.
So, sometimes what happens is, now we may say there are bad people and the bad people will do bad things. So, we have to be cautious. That is true.
But while being cautious, we cannot lose perspective that terrible things happen in the world. And the most important person responsible for those terrible things are the people who are doing those terrible things. Now, even now in Bangladesh, terrible things are happening to the Hindus over there.
Although now what has happened is the news cycle has become exhausted, not much is being covered in the news. But terrible things are happening. And we could say, some people will say, okay, when India got, when there was a whole Bangladesh programme in 1971, people should have, all Hindus should have left there and come here.
You know, it’s your own mistake. And what did you expect in a country like that? But there are going to be different justifications that can come up. You know, why did you support one political party? Maybe you should have helped your best and supported both parties.
And that’s why now this has been coming back to you. Maybe you should build better relationships, whatever. So there can be many, many factors can be analysed when something terrible has already happened.
But the point is, blaming doesn’t help. So here, both Ram and Lakshman, there is no description that Ram continues blaming Lakshman. Why did you sit down? Lakshman never blames Ram, saying that, you know, why did you even chase after that deer? Now it has failed.
Now, let’s see what we can do to fix the situation. And it is not that when Lakshman meets Sita after the battle is over in Lanka, Lakshman doesn’t say to Sita, you remember what you spoke to me? When are you going to apologise? Something old now, there’s no need to bring it up. It was circumstantial.
So basically, we will talk about this from two perspectives that don’t see intention in words spoken in tension. Don’t see intention in words spoken in tension. So the idea is that we all may sometimes be subjected to such difficult situations that we may all do things that we won’t be proud of later, that we may be terribly regretful of.
On one side, we can say that we should try to avoid doing such things. And that is true through that. But at the same time, life is so difficult that sometimes it can bring out the worst, even from the best among us.
So the thing is that when something like this happens, it’s important for us to see that I am here and somebody else is here. So the other person speaks something that disturbs me. Now, I shouldn’t in return do something that disturbs them.
Then both of us will simply end up creating a disturbed environment, maybe in our home, in our workplace. Eventually, it will become a disturbed world. So this is not healthy.
So on one side, Krishna says, So if somebody around us is behaving in ways that is disturbing for us, don’t take it. They speak some words that are completely out of character for them, but they speak it sometimes. So don’t take it seriously.
That if it’s just a one-off event, everybody sometimes does. Everybody has weak moments. So let it go.
But there are a few things as powerful as let it go. This is the power of detachment. There are so many people who waste so much of their mental energy.
But 25 years ago, you spoke like this to me. 17 years, three months, two days ago, you did that to me. And I’m counting the days till I can get back to you for that.
So this kind of thing simply makes things worse. We can’t really help in those situations. So let it go.
That’s what Lakshman does. Now, does this mean that what Sita has done is right? No, that’s not what we are seeing. What she did, it was wrong, but it is understandable.
What was she going through at that time? Of course, you may say, when I’m talking about these sacred characters, it’s important to understand that we can look at these characters from many different perspectives. One is when we look at the Leela, we can look at from a transcendental perspective and say that it’s all a part of the Lord’s plan. It is a part of the Lord’s plan orchestrated for a higher purpose.
And that is definitely true. But we can also look at it from an ethical perspective where we can learn lessons for ourselves. So here, we are looking at it from an ethical perspective that we can learn some lessons.
So learn to let it go. Much of the toxicity in the mind, I talk about the impression that I form inside, how are the impressions formed? Sometimes we need to be able to treat our mind like a pipe that we need to flush. If the pipe is not flushed, then what comes in gets stuck.
Like when a person gets a heart attack, what happens is the arteries get clogged and the arteries are meant to send blood through some fatty substance or whatever gets stuck in the arteries and the passageway becomes smaller and smaller and smaller. And when it becomes too small, the blood can’t flow where the cardiac arrest. So like that for us, in our mind, when things will come, if we let them go, then the impressions that are formed inside, either they can be less or they can be more.
So how much do we hold something in our mind? How much do we play something in our mind? That will determine what kind of impressions we form in our mind. So we may say, how do we prevent this? So that’s the last part I talk about. I mentioned this, that there is overthinking, which is often unproductive, counterproductive.
But you know, there is also deep thinking. Now, what is the difference between overthinking and deep thinking? Somebody may tell us we are thinking too much. And we may tell them, you are thinking too little.
It’s a serious problem. We need to analyse it. You see, you are getting into paralysis by analysis.
So is it subjective that when is it overthinking and when is it deep thinking? Generally, the key difference between overthinking and deep thinking is that overthinking is just circular. Circular. It goes round and round.
It doesn’t take us anywhere. Deep thinking is directed. That means we go deep into an issue.
We analyse it. And once we analyse it, we come out with greater clarity. So how do we know this? Generally speaking, when we are thinking about an issue, we will find that with respect to our thinking, if there is clarity and time.
Sometimes when we think about an issue, we get greater clarity. After some time, it just flattens out. Even if we think more, we don’t get any clarity.
And after that, the more we think, the more we end up with confusion. So it’s best to put a stop to thinking at this point. And at this particular point, we need to put a hard stop.
No more. Now, how do we know this? That we cannot avoid it. There’s no stop button to our brain or to our mind.
But what we can do is, we can ourselves evaluate. I’m thinking, am I getting some clarity by it? If I am not, why did something happen? Why did Sita speak like this? Sita could have, you know, why did this happen? Why did this happen? Sometimes bad things just happen in life. Sometimes there’s something to learn for us.
But sometimes just things are just beyond our control. That sometimes the only thing to learn is that right now, there is nothing to learn. Somebody starts a business just before the pandemic came.
And then they invested the money. And then suddenly, they end up being because of a lockdown. They have to pay the rent, but there’s no business.
And they invested all the money, and they lost the money. And starting, why did this happen? Why did this happen? What can we know? Who could have anticipated a pandemic is going to come, and that’s going to cause a global lockdown? It’s very, very difficult to anticipate. So sometimes the only thing to learn is that right now, there’s nothing to learn.
Maybe in the future, we’re going to find out. Why did this happen? And what could I have done? What could I have learned? So sometimes what happens is right from the beginning only, instead of getting clarity, as soon as you start thinking about the issue, just go down. And only the more we think, the more confusion, the more frustration, the more desperation starts coming in.
So at that time, it’s important for us to decide that, I will have some alternative object of mine. And that is where having some habit, something, if this is what, we all have certain impressions inside us, and we can’t change those impressions. But if we can find this intersection, there are things which are good for us.
And things that feel good for us. So when we are to redirect our thinking, so to take it, to think in this area, it is tough. To think in this area, it is relatively easier.
So for example, if my mind is just churning, going here and there, and sometimes we feel I’m churning, but what is happening is that we are crushing ourselves. So at that time, we can’t stop it. But we need to give ourselves something else to think about.
Maybe here are some nice classes which we can connect with. Or here’s some sweet music. Go out for some walk.
Travel to a pilgrimage and pray to Krishna over there. Do something which will get our mind out of its own overthinking. Give it something to think about.
Sometimes we’re just as simple as going out for a walk. I’m just observing nature. We are getting out of our head.
So when we do that, we find that a continued churning of the mind will decrease. And sometimes, maybe there is, in the big picture, they realised that what had happened was, this was all a way by which the world was freed from the demon Raavan. And this was all a higher plan.
But at that particular point, that was not necessarily visible. That was not necessarily visible. So what did they do at that particular point? They accepted this has happened.
Let us move. Let us do what we can. So the more we let go of the things that we can’t control, the more we can catch hold of the things that we can control.
And the more we catch hold of the things that we can control, the more we can let go of the things that we can’t control. So one reason why the mind becomes especially wild and almost insane is that we are either not letting go of something, or we are not giving ourselves something to catch hold of. When we do our daily sadhana, when we chant the holy names, when we hear Krishna Katha, when we do some puja, we are giving ourselves, our mind the training to catch hold of the things that are good for us.
And when we keep doing these practises, they also will start feeling bad good for us. And we will be able to do them more easily, more quickly. And thus, they will become our shelter.
And that’s how to let go is the putting the boundary. Catch hold is the bond. So that abhyas and vairagya applies not just to external people, but also applies to our own thought patterns.
Okay, this I’m thinking about it. I’m not getting any clarity right now for this. Stop, let me let go vairagya.
But how can I let go? By having something to catch hold of. So when we do this, we’ll find that it will be relatively switching, become easier to prevent our mind from cycling away to unhealthy things. I’m getting caught in something which is just entangling and degrading and self-destructive.
So let go and catch hold. So let go is vairagya, catch hold. So in our mind management, in our maintaining our health, abhyas.
So while these two are in this case, one and two, but sometimes this can be one and this can be two. Essentially, this can lead to letting go can help us to catch hold. Catching hold can help us to let go.
But whichever way it begins, we start from wherever we can. And we’ll find that our mind will become lesser and lesser of our enemy. And over a period of time, as we move ahead in developing these habits, it will start becoming a friend.
So I’ll summarise what we discussed today. We don’t have to catch hold of certain emotions. We need to catch hold of some direction where we can give our thoughts to.
It doesn’t have to be certain emotions, anything that was in the intersection of feel good and do good. So any emotion we can catch hold of, any thoughts we can catch hold of. So I summarise what I discussed today.
We talked here about with respect to the mind and mental health, how the mind can get caught in escalatory spirals. In escalation means it can take a small thing and make it very big. And it can give its own spin on things.
And in trying to make sense of things, it can take us towards complete nonsense. It can help us, it can lead us in the opposite direction. So we discussed the incident of Sita’s abduction and what led to it.
So from one perspective we discussed is that we try to avoid overreacting. That we try to hold, try to maintain perspective. But the key thing is it may not always be possible to control it.
What we don’t see is intention in what is spoken, intention. So Rahulakshman did not take Sita’s words too seriously. Although at that time he walked away, but he did not leave her for that.
And what do we do at such times when something has happened? We want to avoid overthinking and move towards deep thinking and clear thinking. So learn to let go if we’re not getting clarity and catch hold. So when our graph of clarity versus time starts going down, we need to let go, create a break and catch hold.
That means we find out something that falls at the intersection of what feels good and what is good. And as letting go and catching hold, they become. So when the two are done in combination, that’s where each one of us can actually learn to direct our mind more constructively.
Thank you very much. So what to catch hold of? I said that we have to find out what it is that falls at the intersection of something that feels good and something that is good for us. So in devotional activities, we may find out there are many activities that we do, but some may be more.
They are not just good for us, but they also feel good to us. So we need to find out those activities and focus on those activities. So now why might some people exploit somebody else’s mind? Well, they have their agendas.
Somebody might be greedy and they want to steal the money from somebody else. That’s why they feel their greed. So advertising companies, the more they advertise in seductive ways, the more they can catch our attention and then fill our minds and empty our pockets.
OK. Yes, some questions we have to. Thank you for explaining it very clearly.
So suppose we are in such a situation that we have to make some decision in which, like you told the two circles, something which is good for us, some things we feel which we feel good for us. If we are in such a situation and we have to take decisions and we know that it is good for me in long run, but we are not able to arrive at that decision and we want to decide that something which we feel good for us. In that circle, in that cycle, mind rotates and rotates and rotates.
Suppose you told that you leave that thoughts for some time by a catch hold of other things, but ultimately we have to make that decision. So in such a case, in such a situation, what should we do so that ultimately we have to face the situation for some time? We may not have to face things, but we all may have to do things which we do not like at times, we do not feel good to us. But if that is all that we have to do all the time, that is going to be a problem.
It’s like food. Now we can’t expect that every single item that we eat is going to be delicious. But we also need some tasty food.
So sometimes the things that feel good for us, we may have to do them so that we get some strength and then we can do the things that are good for us, even if they don’t feel good. So that balancing act of our emotions we need to do. And then by that, we will be able to persevere.
So sometimes there are some people who are difficult in our lives. Then we still have to work with those people. Then we also need to have some people in our life who are uplifting for us, who are positive for us.
And by associating with them, we get the strength to deal with the difficulty. The same principle applies in our whole with emotions also. So how to remain consistent with detachment and attaching to the right path? I think don’t worry about being consistent.
It’s just too unrealistic that consistent means we expect to get the same level all the time. The mind is like a child. Now, can we expect that small child who is three years old or five years old, seven years old to be consistent? No.
Child will have its moods. So even if we can’t be consistent, we can be resilient. We go down, but we rise up.
We may go down. Sometimes the mood might be there. Situation might be such that we are just not able to be consistent.
We go down, but just because we have gone down doesn’t mean we have to stay down. Yeah, I went down. This was a difficult situation for me.
I just couldn’t cope it. But now I’m better. Let me rise up.
If we try to be resilient, then that is doable for us. Then over a period of time, we will be able to move forward and do the things that are important for us. So we’ll also be able to learn where is it that we need to be.
We can allow ourselves to be unified. Go down a little bit on this issue. It doesn’t matter so much.
And some issues we may decide they’re too important. I will force myself to be consistent, but we can’t force ourselves to do that all the time. Yes, your question.
Hare Krishna, Prabhuji. Thank you for the wonderful lecture. Prabhuji, I have a bit of a personal question related to the lecture only, that my father really bullies me a lot and I have to live in his house only.
So my mind is always preoccupied by thinking about all the rude things that he is saying or the bad things that he is doing. Now, I have tried to let go a lot of times, but many times what ends up happening is that the bully in him feels strengthened and emboldened by me not reacting or me trying to tolerate the problem. And I have tried to think that it is just my karma and I should tolerate it.
But on a practical front, it becomes difficult. Like I have to live here, I have to do my sadhana, I have to do my job. So I was just wondering what we can do.
It’s a very specific question. I think somebody who knows you personally and understand the situation, that is the best person to guide you in this thing. Because this is not an issue for which you can get some insight from someone at one time that is going to solve the problems all time.
This is something which is ongoing issue. So in your community, you find some devotee who is trustworthy, who can be like a counsellor, talk with them. So generally speaking, the principle I said earlier that there are people who are creating difficulties for us in our life.
They are difficult to deal with. Now sometimes we have to deal with it. We can’t avoid it.
Now in your situation, being a father is very difficult. But then for somebody, it might be a sibling. And sometimes it may be that our sibling does something to us and then in front of our parents, the sibling obviously talks very nice.
So nobody believes it also. Sometimes it might be the boss. So we do have difficult situations.
So basically, we need someone’s association, some friends, some other relative, who can give us strength to face this. That’s the first thing. And then second is that somebody who understands ideally speaking that person who is troubling us, so that they can help us formulate a strategy by which we can deal with them.
So now we don’t want to be in a constant state of fighting. But at the same time, as you said, that if you are constantly just trying to tolerate, that may only make them do more things. So somehow some boundaries have to be set.
And what is going to be done, how is that is going to be done in the particular situation that you are in, that will not be easy to decide. That’s why you need to talk with someone who understands the situation at the practical level. Right, right, Prabhuji.
Prabhu, could I make it a little more general? Because it relates to a siddhant that I’m trying to understand a bit too. Could I generalise the question a bit? Prabhu, there are critically other questions also I can ask. So the thing is less than one minute.
Less than one minute to ask the question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So at what point do we decide that this is our karma or this is some kind of injustice happening to it? Don’t ever get into the thought of karma.
Focus on dharma. This thinking about karma is one of the most counterproductive things in such situations, you know. Nobody tells Draupadi when she’s being abused that she’ll be miserable.
It’s your own karma tolerated. Nobody tells Sita that when she’s abducted it is your own karma that is happening. Okay, so I should think about what is my dharma in this situation.
Okay, thank you. Thank you, Prabhuji. Things that happen to us, there is some element of karma involved.
So fight not to retaliate against the Pandava. Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? Yes, okay. So fight not to retaliate against the Kauravas but fight to do your dharma as a Kshatriya.
So for us, we have to think about what is our dharma. And while doing our dharma, what if something is preventing us from doing our very dharma? Some kind of basic dharma that we need to survive. For example, if somebody is in a particular situation and they are unable to bear that situation completely and they are so frustrated that they are almost depressed, they are suicidal.
Somebody tells them, you just tolerate it, it’s all your karma. And they may not want to tolerate it, they may end up ending their lives. That would be horrible.
Now protecting our life is the first dharma. Then after that, we have other dharmas. If you’re not alive, you cannot do any other dharma at all.
So we are never meant to be karma-centred. Yes, karma is a factor to consider but dharma is the most important factor. So tolerance means that there are big things in our life and we want to keep the big things big.
And there are small things in our life and we want to keep them small. So tolerance enables us to keep the big things big and the small things small. And for that, we should be able to decide what is the big thing and what is the small thing.
Doing our dharma is the big thing. The inconvenience that we face while doing the dharma is a small thing. But if the inconvenience is becoming so big that we cannot do the big thing, then we have to make some changes.
So that is the broad principle over there. Thank you. So one last question, we will stop.
Do all thoughts come from our planets? Well, where thoughts come from is not as important as where thoughts take us. And where we let our thoughts take us, that is up to us. It’s like multiple choice exam.
Where do all the options come from? Where wherever the options may come from the teacher. But we don’t have to bother whether the options have come from the teacher or not. Which is the right option for me, that is what we should be considering.
Just because the thoughts have come from the planets, wherever they may have come from, doesn’t matter. Which is the thought that is unapproved for me, which is the favourable for me, that’s what we need to choose. So now with respect to the mind and the mind overcome for the intelligence, intelligence gets confused.
And does this justification come from the mind or does the mind have both memory and analytical aspect? Well, the mind can, when it overpowers the intelligence, the word overpowering, what does it mean actually? It can mean two things. That the intelligence is silenced and then the mind does what it wants. It says, I don’t care what you say.
Sometimes the mind starts controlling the intelligence and that’s where justifications come. So the justification themselves are coming from the intelligence, but the intelligence is controlled by the mind. It’s like a soldier who is going to fight for a country, if that soldier is seduced by somebody, then what happens, that soldier may end up becoming a traitor and fighting against that very country.
So like that, our intelligence can sometimes get perverted. That’s how the justifications, they come from the intelligence, but they’re coming from the genius that is seduced and perverted by the mind. So thank you very much.
I pray that the wisdom of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita and the wisdom as illustrated by Lord Ram in the Ramayan, and all of us to become stronger at the level of our minds and thus fulfil the plan that Krishna has for each one of us. Thank you very much. Great.