Bharat Maharaj pastime analysis: How we get distracted and reinstated spiritually

Hare Krishna I am grateful to be here with all of you today and we will discuss today on how when we are on the spiritual path we may get diverted and how we can how we get returned if we get diverted say, at one level if we consider this to be the spiritual world this to be the material world and we are trying to go from the material world to the spiritual world but our journey is not always straight what happens for most of us is that we go up to some degree we come down, we go up, we come down, we go up, come down and then eventually we may reach so, it is not always a smooth or steady journey I will try to understand why this happens and how we can minimise the U-turns or the slowdown, the divergence that happens in our spiritual life and we will talk about this based on the pastime of Bharat Maharaj in his many lives multiple lives now spiritual growth can be understood in many different ways but one simple way to understand it is let’s say, we are here in the world and for us, initially the world is big and God, even if He exists, is small when I was introduced to Bhakti about 3 decades ago I started sharing about it with my friends and relatives so one of my uncles said to me yeah, I believe in God He is happy there, I am happy here so the idea is that God does not seem very relevant or important to us even if He is there but the world seems very important how much money am I earning nowadays for young people, consumption how much following do I have how much prestige do I get in society so the world becomes very important to us but as we grow spiritually the world becomes smaller and Krishna becomes bigger for us so now, this in essence is the spiritual growth say for example, Bhaktivinoda Thakur has songs where he says that in the na bhavina kichu nahi ko aar chauza ghumur nirmal there is nothing of real value apart from the one you own so satyam satyam puna satyam that this is the truth there are statements and declarations of this kind so essentially the world becomes small and the ups and downs of the world also become small and for this to happen what is required now when we say why should the world become small and why should God become big for us the reason is the world is filled with dualities it’s filled with ups and downs and when the world is very big for us then these dualities they end up becoming even bigger for us our mind makes them much bigger and that’s how we become unsteady in our life something good happens, we are in the 7th heaven something bad happens oh it’s the end of the world I am destroyed people there is this word ventilate ventilate means to when there is good aeration so in English there is a word called hyperventilate now hyperventilate means what that people’s breathing just goes up and down very rapidly and that indicates an emotional state so such people who are very driven by ups and downs extreme mood swings they are neither themselves very happy nor are they very reliable so this is the problem now when the world becomes small for us naturally the world’s ups and downs also become small so this is how what happens is when we astrology advance we become materially peaceful life will keep going up and down but we will become peaceful and the question may come ok if I become equal, steady, peaceful then where is the happiness going to come from in one sense in the world when there are dualities maybe you can bring this closer what are you doing sorry yeah that has to be taken behind already ok sure we will work it out ready so we want the highs of life and we don’t want the lows we are cricket fans we want India to win and we don’t want India to lose but we can’t say that oh ok when India wins I will be very happy when India loses I will become detached from cricket now we may want to become detached but we don’t become detached instantaneously we still get frustrated so the thing is we say ok I have become equal in my ups and downs then where does my happiness come from that happiness comes from our connection with Krishna so we become spiritually joyful so in two words what is the benefit of spiritual growth we become materially peaceful or we can say externally peaceful in terms of the externals of the world we become peaceful in our connection with Krishna we become internally joyful this is what we want to ultimately do by growing spiritually now how does this happen so the essential process for this is what Krishna describes in 6.35 it is now these words are translated in different ways in different contexts by different Acharyas but broadly what we can say is that our mind is such that whatever we expose our mind to that starts becoming bigger and bigger and bigger in our mind so persistence abhyasa means we that is persistence of exposure we expose our mind to Krishna more and more and more then Krishna will become bigger and bigger in our mind and vairagya means abstinence abstinence which we abstain from we avoid voluntarily when we abstain from exposing the world to us or ourselves to the world then the world starts becoming smaller and smaller nowadays we are so much exposed to technology and to our phone and social media all kinds of fasting will come so then there is you may have heard this word digital detox some people say for one month, one day I am not going to maybe not use my phone or not visit some news websites or not do this, not do that so one of my friends told me one month I just decided not to see any news and first few days it was very difficult I am not saying we disconnected from the world just giving an example he said after that, after first 4, 5, 6 days if something big was happening people would tell me anyway we don’t need to disconnect from the world well I think that ok this political upheaval here, this thing there that thing there it just started becoming so much smaller for me it didn’t matter for me now, so the point is that what we are exposed to that becomes bigger so it could be movies it could be sports it could be stock market whatever it is whatever we are exposed to that becomes bigger and bigger in our life whatever we are not exposed to that starts becoming smaller and smaller this is the principle what we expose ourselves to that becomes bigger what we take in our mind it grows so essentially these two principles Abhyas and Vairagya that is about how our mind works so you could say whatever gets our attention whatever gets our attention gets us gets us means it fills our consciousness it catches us it becomes the biggest reality within us it starts driving and defining us so essentially if we want to grow spiritually what do we do? we create some kind of barrier or boundary by which we can abstain from the world between us and the world try to create some kind of barrier or boundary so for example when we start practising bhakti seriously we call the whole agenda business now the specific rules are important but the underlying principles are more important these activities represent things which may enter into our mind which may consume our mind and conversely we try to create some bonds with Krishna by which there can be regular exposure so we come to satsang we do our sadhana so by regularly exposing ourselves to Krishna and by regularly refraining from exposure to the world we will find that Krishna will start becoming bigger for us and the world will start becoming smaller for us so let’s look with this understanding of spiritual growth let’s try to understand what happened in the story of Bharat Maharaj so Bharat Maharaj was a great king and he was virtuous and glorious and he was spiritually lustrous and over a period of time even when he was in youth he felt that I have done enough in this world now I can entrust my responsibility to her my successor, I can move on so he renounced the world now renunciation can be in two broad ways at one level it is a process at another level it is a fruit what do I mean by that? that renunciation is a process by which we deliberately do these two things abhyasa and vairagya when we renounce the world in some way or the other we are moving away from the stimuli that make the world big that’s why traditional renunciation is going to a forest going to the Himalayas if you just go to the Himalayas as we said there is Rishikesh the sheer size and the majesty of the mountains and the river it just makes us realise how small we are and how small our concerns are and we just live here for a few decades and then as comfort even materialism will think that we live for so much longer so we start seeing things in perspective and we start living from there so we physically the process means that we go away from the things that will make the world big and we go towards the things that will make the world big God, big for us so in that sense renunciation is a process however renunciation is also a fruit in the sense that renunciation naturally arises when a person starts feeling nothing is really that big in this world there is not really much we achieve in this world see broadly when the world is in front of us when the world is in front of us and God is above us so when do we turn we could just be looking at the world and trying to enjoy the world and conquer the world that would be materialism now when does somebody look at God broadly there can be two reasons one is that I am not good enough for the world I am not good enough for the world that means I don’t have enough wealth I don’t have enough smarts I don’t have enough looks I don’t have enough contacts relationships I don’t have what it takes to make it in the world and therefore I need some help I need some higher power to help me so a student may be studying and this exam is very difficult oh God please help me pass this exam so oh what happens there is I am not good enough for the world and that is one reason why people may turn towards God and Krishna talks about this in 760 in the first Vikatan our family Artha and Artha oh I don’t have enough wealth I have too much troubles I can’t deal with it the other reason is that the world is not good enough for me now the world is not good enough for me is not an expression of ego it can be but it is an expression of realisation that whatever the world promises it’s not substantial there has to be something more to life there has to be something which is more enduring more fulfilling what the world promises can be very titillating but it is substantive it just doesn’t have substance to it this is primarily the Jnani category you should also worry they have got some understanding then some bigger reality and that is what I want to teach so once we get this understanding renunciation actually begins at least to some level we start feeling that the world is not good enough for us ya you know I might have a wonderful relationship I might have a great job I might have good health I might have nice family and children I might be respected in society now many people may not even get all these things but even though you get all these things there has to be something more or we may get one or two of our dreams and then we may leave this hmm I can be still cheesing you but this dream didn’t really fulfil me next dream also won’t be like that next dream also won’t be like that the world is not good enough for you so when this realisation comes it’s a great risk when I was growing up my goal in life was always to be first in my class and I was always among the first but I was never the first so when I gave my GRE exam since my childhood I loved English language and I had a maternal uncle who had his own company in America and he was not having sons so he wanted me to come there and inherit his company so I gave the GRE exam and that time I came not just first in my class I was first in not just university I was first in the history of my college I was first in Pune University at that time but I was first in Maharaja so I was on top of the world and then after a few minutes I realised that just looking at the mark sheet does not really do much it just happens it is only when others congratulate that you feel happy and then I was a celebrity in my college for some time everybody was congratulating me but then somehow it happened that one after another three of my friends forgot to congratulate me congratulating me congratulating me so when the first friend forgot I was annoyed when the second friend forgot I was irritated what is going on when the third friend forgot I was enraged but still I didn’t want to sound like a pathetic person I asked why are you not congratulating me so at that time it was almost as if I had an out of body experience not a literal out of body experience but I felt as if I was looking at myself from above hey wait a minute you thought this academic achievement will make you happy this is what you wanted to do throughout your life but instead of becoming happy you just become more dependent on others for your happiness in the past you would just hang out with your friends but now you have become so needy for their congratulations without that, far from being happy you are restless, you are agitated so I started looking ahead at my life and whatever achievements I had thought of maybe I will go to America, I will get a PhD I will get some academic awards I will write the papers in scientific journals I might write my own books so whatever would any of these free me from this external neediness for appreciation, recognition, friends I just couldn’t see as soon as I started exploring is there something that can grow in a room so I can’t say I had that realisation for a long time but at that time I had got this inkling of a realisation that what the world had set as a goal for me, becoming an academic achievement, that is not good enough there has to be something more so for all of us, if we reflect on our lives, we get this sense, there has to be something more to life some people get it in young youth, some people get it in old age, some people have to go through many lifetimes before they get it but it is not that we don’t get it it is that when we get it we don’t let it register with us see when one thing doesn’t work out, instead of thinking that the world is not good enough for me we start thinking this thing in the world is not good enough that thing will be good enough and that thing will be good enough and that’s how we keep chasing things from the world so when this renunciation so for Bharat Maharaj he was the king but that renunciation there has to be something more in life and that’s how he renounced the world and just went straight to the forest and started sitting down in meditation, in spiritual practise so spiritual practise means avyasa and prilakya that he was absorbed in chanting Vedic mantras, in meditating on the lord in focussing on spiritual practises and the world started becoming smaller and smaller he came to a very spiritually exalted state by his rigorous spiritual practise and then something happened which was seemingly something very small but it suddenly or it over time became very big see this process of the world being small and world being large and world becoming small, god being small and god becoming big, at one level this is a process on which you want to go but it is a reversible process this spiritual journey is not irreversible if instead of persisting in exposing ourselves to Krishna, to higher spiritual realities we start exposing ourselves to the world, then that will start becoming bigger and bigger so for him this started in a relatively harmless way it was not only harmless it was actually kind and helpful what happened was see temptation can come in various ways but it comes according to the area where we are most vulnerable if we have never drunk alcohol in our life and somebody comes and says lets go to a bar and drink we say if you think I am going to come then you really need to go to a bar and get lost and we are not going to do that so if temptation comes in ways that you easily reject then that is not really a temptation at all so if somebody is almost in we can say near shuddha sattva above transcendence above the mode of transcendence and the mode nearest to it is sattva then after that is rajas then after that is tamas so generally the temptations that trouble us the most are the temptations that are near the level of consciousness we are in so if somebody is in tamas then if we tell them don’t read too many books that is not a problem for me so they don’t read any books at all so reading too many books is a temptation for somebody we use the sattva guna isn’t it? for somebody in tamas guna the temptation might be too much sleeping too much getting into daydreaming and fantasising things like that so in tamas guna the nearest temptation might be simply daydreaming, oversleeping now if somebody is just is an alcoholic is trying to recover from alcoholism then intoxication might be that temptation there was a British playwright Oscar Wilde said giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world I have done it over a hundred times so I gave up smoking but smoking did give me up so now if we are in draja guna then there are corresponding temptations a person in draja guna will not be tempted by oversleeping because there is so much rajas sleep is not so much spiritual as sleeping so there the temptation might be power I want to dream more and more power or it could be sensual pleasure now exercise is good but there is also now the mind is such that it can get addicted to anything there is something called exercise addiction you get a compulsive need for exercise without that you just can’t function such people exercise becomes their getaway drug and now they may do it to excessive degree and then they get distracted they can damage their body now somebody in sattva guna their temptations like I said reading too many books too many ideas that may be a temptation on a spiritual path so knowledge happiness here happiness means that a sense of superior superiority or complacency I am not being dragged around by the cravings sometimes if we are in raja guna and we are being pulled by our cravings then in trying to not get pulled away by the cravings we call out for Krishna but if somebody is little in sattva guna they are not troubled by their mind by their senses and the need to call out for Krishna that is better than happiness so Bharat Maharaj in which mode did the temptation come to him what do you think sattva guna so for Bharat Maharaj the temptation came in the form of compassion now you say how can compassion be a temptation compassion itself is not a temptation but the way it caught him see he was a king he was a kshatriya kshatriya means he was a natural protector anybody who is in danger should protect them and when he saw he was sitting and meditating on the banks of the river and he saw this deer who was running away about to leap across the river and as the deer was about to leap across the river he could see that the deer was a female deer and then suddenly tiger roared in the forest the tiger was probably chasing this deer and the deer panicked and although she had leapt into the air somehow because of the panic and the fear and the running away the exertion she had a sudden delivery and then the deer fell on the other side but the baby deer fell in the river and while the deer was watching, the mother deer was watching she just withered and died now it is a natural kind of compassion oh this baby deer is in so much trouble immediately Bharat Maharaj leapt into the river and rescued it now this was a natural and essential act of compassion we may be doing our meditation but if somebody is losing their life wanting to help them at that time that is a perfectly good thing to do so what happened then afterwards he started thinking that this deer has no one and here is the small deer so I need to maintain this deer so there is a difference between in one sense protector and maintainer so protector can be when there is danger but maintainer it almost becomes like a always maintainer so the temptation came ok now I have saved the life of this deer I need to take care so it was his own Kshatriya tendency Kshatriyas are meant to be kings and as kings they are meant to protect and they are meant to maintain so that Kshatriya tendency is actually a good tendency for a person who is a Kshatriya if Kshatriyas don’t have the tendency to maintain to take care, to provide for then the Praja, the citizens will suffer terribly so now at that level the Rajas that is there in Kshatriyas it is good Kshatriyas are too detached you know if the citizens come and say oh we are starving then the Kshatriyas will say this world is Dukkhale, nobody is letting us eat the citizens will say we don’t know whether this world is Dukkhale but you have given us Dukkhale we are leaving from here we will emigrate there is so much immigration from poorer countries to wealthier countries why? because many reasons but quite often the poorer countries are not so well managed so for Kshatriyas to be a benefactor is very important but for him two things were there first was he had already renounced his role of a Kshatriya so what may be desirable and even essential in one ashram and in one role can become undesirable and even lethal in another ashram in another role so in one sense as our roles change the same thing being a maintainer that was desirable even essential in his role as Kshatriya but now in his role as a renunciate traditionally Kshatriyas would not take sanyas they would be vanaprastha but in his role as a renunciate that was undesirable not just undesirable it became lethal for him so what started happening he said I will be the protector and the maintainer and and you know parenting is more than a full time job especially if the baby is very small I go to America every year 4-5-6 months travelling so when the whole pandemic was there and when there were devotees and friends who had babies during covid, generally in America getting help is very difficult so often they get their family to come from India to there and those devotees who did not have anyone at that time nobody coming from the extended family to be there it was very difficult extremely difficult to take care of them there is some psychological study also that covid baby they don’t go out so they are somewhat psychologically inhibited so my brother had a child during covid and initially he would just be scared around people and he seemed to be socially not inhibited but socially very restrained and awkward and then after the pandemic ended after 1.5-2 years they brought him to India and there are so many people everywhere, if you go to America on the streets an entire one man you don’t see any one person it’s just quite a large country with not so much population initially he was scared but he came to India for 2 months when he went back to America his friend asked him what did you do? he has become so socially outgoing and cheerful what miracle did you do? so the point is that just being around people helped him to grow so it’s not just having somebody to take care of the baby when the baby is crying just for small children to be around someone it is essential so the point I made is when Bharat Maharaj took the role of being like a parent for his baby then that started becoming his full time occupation it started occupying and preoccupying his mind and so much so that it started distracting him from his spirituality so as he started getting more and more consumed now the deer grew up you see animal kingdom humans people people have all kinds of strange arguments to justify whatever they want so the human mind is such that human mind can come up with arguments to justify whatever it wants to so so for example there was a devotee who was working in a software company and they had in America, in Connecticut and they had like a getting to know each other so sometimes when you want to get to know each other you just ask random questions to people you know what is your favourite book, what is your favourite movie what is this, what is that so one of the questions that they had was that if you were to reincarnate which animal animal would you like to reincarnate so after the survey they asked which was the survey question they liked so they said mostly American people more than 70% people said this was the most thought provoking question and then he said dog, cat those were the favourite animals for people so now what happens is that either when you have no human connection or we are not able to connect with humans there are no people around us or the people around us are not the kind of people you want to be with I was in California I went for a programme there was a car with a bumper sticker the more I get to know people the more I love my dog so people are undeniable, people disappoint us, people betray us so better love my dog Radhesh have you ever written a book called your best friend in America I have not written a book about dog care because their assumption was your best friend is a dog so anyway the point is that we all need affection and in the west for whatever reasons, culturally, socially whatever the relationships are not very deep, not very strong so people seek affection and reciprocation by touching so in this case Bharat Maharaj had no one around him and he started taking care of the pet dog dog or the deer so he started taking care of the deer and things started getting more and more difficult so now the point is that in nature the arrangement is such that most species don’t require as much care for their progeny as human beings so the point I was making is that the mind comes up with various arguments so people aspire to be like animals they say oh my dog has been such a comfortable life my dog has no anxiety my cat has no anxiety so one argument not only do people don’t get married they even trivialise the idea of marriage say why do we have to get married no animal in nature gets married so why should we humans restrict ourselves in some old fashioned pre-scientific dogmatic ways so there are people who not only they choose not to get married they consider marriage itself as an evil institution so now the point over here is that from a biological perspective there is a phenomenon called pair bonding pair bonding means that the pair the male and the female who are going to begin a child it could be any species they have to bond with each other now there are courting rituals among animals also but the greater the gene that the progeny requires the more important the pair bonding is some species the male and the female unite and then the eggs are born and the female sits on the eggs and they move on sometimes the fish the mother doesn’t even have to take care of them so there are different things but of all species the human species the human progeny requires more care than any other species and that is why in human society the pair bonding between the male and the female is so important and that pair bonding is sanctified is given religious faith and authority through the ritual of marriage without that even the period of pregnancy for the woman generally mammals are pregnant for a long time but in humans the pregnancy is far longer than any other species generally speaking and so the female needs protection at least during the pregnancy and even after that so the point is that what applies to nature does not always apply to humans because we humans are many ways different and of course the ultimate spiritual purpose is that the man and the woman come together ultimately to come closer to God and to bring their children closer to God but even if you put the spiritual purpose aside even from the biological perspective the marriage is a bond that makes sure that the pair bonding happens and the progeny stays together and that is why our society is in western society marriage is being trivialised and neglected or rejected one thing that is happening is the birth rate is going down and many people in India are worried about population increasing in the west the population is decreasing and there is population implosion that is a great threat and countries like America and Europe if there had been no immigrants then they would have had huge problems even continuing basic survival so in Italy now they have got a whole system that the Pope has said that if any family has more than three children then the Pope is like the highest religious authority the Pope has said I will come personally for the baptism of your children so imagine in our world like the Sanyasi or Guru said I will come for the namakaran of your child if you have above they are that concerned but the point is that see sometimes we cannot draw lessons from the animal world and apply to the human world conversely we cannot take emotions applicable to the human world and apply to the animal world in the west yoga has become very popular so I was in the Govardhan village a couple of years ago and I met one person he said I am a yoga teacher I said yoga teacher? no, doga teacher he said what is doga? he said yoga with dogs its a whole discipline itself I stretch my hands and my dog stretches its paws I do shirsasana, dog also does shirsasana there is training for that and actually doga teachers get paid much more than yoga teachers also I want to do everything with my animals and if there are doga teachers then there are koga teachers also what is koga? cats so the point is that quite often what we apply to humans when we start developing affection for animals we start applying to animals also so now there are dog therapists also and my dog is being depressed how many of you know that your dog is being depressed? I want to even counsel your dog but anyway so what happens that in the animal kingdom animals don’t require the animal progeny does not require as much maintenance as human progeny requires but Bharat Maharaj having been a protector of humans he started applying that same tendency to the human therefore animal babies don’t require as much care so his caring for that baby started becoming excessive it started becoming distracting and destructive sadatak bhava bhavita so this is Krishna dog’s version 8.5 anubhava bhavita yagna vapisa bhavita 8.5 anubhava bhavita 8.5 and 6 he is talking about now the other principle that even little spiritual practise that is not only never lost it can save us from great danger protects from great danger which is the verse yes swalpa upyasa dharmasya trayate mahatobhaya 2.14 the bhagavad gita now the acharya has explained what does this trayate mahatobhaya mean saves from great danger which danger does it refer to yes losing the human form of life which actually is so valuable for us to grow spiritually and ultimately come out of the cycle of birth and death so even a little spiritual practise will ensure that we do not go out of the cycle of birth and death but the other principle is that whatever we remember at the time of death that’s what we remember so now for paratmaharaj he remembered it here he became a deity so we can say 8.5 and 6 is true but then what about 2.14 is that false he had not done a little spiritual practise swalpa upyasa dharmasya he had done a lot of spiritual practise to renounce the world when he was a kid in youth and to dedicate himself to spiritual practise so is that not true was that lost now see that principle applied to him uniquely he got a dear boy but it was he did not get no dear consciousness he retained human consciousness in a dear body so that is how that when we say that we will not lose the human form sometimes we may lose it will become too attached to something but even in animal forms now there are two distinct things over here in animal form sometimes we say that dharmohitesham adhiko vishesh that it is the search for meaning and purpose that differentiates humans from animals and ultimately the spiritual search that differentiates humans from animals or rather humans from animals now in the animal form spiritual life or spiritual exploration, spiritual journey it can’t be started started means voluntarily started now a dog might be there in a temple and dog gets some prasad or something like that so spiritual journey cannot be started but the spiritual journey can be continued if it has already been started in the previous life then even if the person goes down to an animal life it can be continued so there is a book written by Janardhan Maharaj called Animals in Krishna Consciousness so it describes various temples where some animals which are just so amazingly spiritually attracted in Malaysia we had a temple and there was a dog every evening at dawn the dog would come outside and sit near the door and behold the darshan and somebody would kick the dog away or shoot the dog and the dog would go away and sit at a distance and then eventually this is a devotee dog so spiritual life can be continued in an animal I gave this class in America one devotee came to me and said I think my dog is a devotee dog so any philosopher may be here we can use it to justify what we want to do I have adopted a pet and my pet is actually a devotee dog may be may not be but the point is spiritual progress is never lost so as a deer he remembered his previous life he remembered that he had got the immunity and therefore what did he do he became extremely careful he did not fool around like other deer, he needed grass for eating but he didn’t just go where he would get the best grass he would stay near the hermitages of the sages and whatever grass was available there he would be satisfied with that and he would hear the many mantras he would stay in a sanctified atmosphere and then he spent his entire life like that when he departed when he was born in his next life then what happened was he was born in his next life in a Brahmin family now it’s interesting in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says that when somebody spiritually advanced or somebody started practising spiritual life so Krishna describes that there are two possibilities that somebody who has done little spiritual advancement little spiritual growth and somebody who has done a lot of spiritual growth in his life they are given opportunities to continue that in their next life so when little spiritual growth is there and what happens is they go to heaven first where whatever material desires are remaining those desires are fulfilled for them and then what happens they come back to the earth and they come back there in a wealthy family or a wise family Brahmacharita means what happens if they are wealthy they don’t have to worry so much about basic maintenance if they grow up in a literally pure environment now they don’t have any contaminations from their previous life whatever conditionings are there those have been dealt with by their going to heaven and coming back but they don’t get conditions unwittingly while they are growing up in the earth so where we are born it matters a lot in the west there was this notion that babies fall sick because they don’t get proteins and to get proteins it’s like a big notion slowly it has gone down that small babies they can eat food one of the first food that was given to them after mother’s milk was not cow’s milk was liquefied beef because they said cow’s milk is not as nutritious you take beef and liquefy it it’s more nutritious medical industry can sometimes be quite a Einstein said that science is a wonderful thing as long as you don’t have to earn a livelihood for it big pharma and big food when they become industrialised they become quite damaging anyway I am giving an example depending on the culture that we are born in certain habits just become natural somebody goes in a family where everybody is drinking alcohol everybody is taking drugs everybody is eating meat it just becomes natural if somebody is born in a good family then what happens without their wanting to they don’t get any unnecessary conditions because of the baby I brought up now the other is that the person is born in a spiritually serious family so when they are born in a spiritually serious family right from the childhood itself or even from the birth itself or even before birth the food that the mother is eating is prasad the mother is hearing and speaking about Krishna so the child gets very spiritually supportive vibrations to continue on his spiritual journey so now in the case of Bharat Maharaj what happens is a little interesting now which of these two categories would he fall in little or lot so he didn’t have to go to heaven so now he was born in a brahminical family but it was interesting the brahminical family was you could say more religious than spiritual that means they were more into rituals they were more into you know you have to do this do this this is not that they were not that spiritual but the point is life is complex and Krishna gives certain trajectory to us that is to indicate that our spiritual growth will never be lost but in real life things can be complicated one may say that somebody born in a devotional family very serious devotional family wonderful but then in that devotional family there is a separation then what happens because of one’s spiritual practise one may get a spiritually inclined family but then because of some negative karma from the past one may have to grow up in a fractured family, in a broken family so real life is often complicated but through it all Krishna is giving us opportunities to come close to so for him what happened was his father was trying to train him to become a good brahmin but he saw these kind of rituals while at one level they are good it is good to follow rituals nicely but they can become a sattvic distraction now people can do rituals for many purposes some people may do rituals just so that they can show others how pious they are so in Mumbai we have a Juhu temple which is very close to the area which is called as Bollywood so many movie stars come there especially Manmahashtami so when they come after that they post on Instagram I went for Manmahashtami Manmahashtami small temple now when they are coming to the temple are they coming to have darshan or are they coming to give darshan we don’t want to judge them but the second is also possible some rituals more for showing to others for some people when they practise religion their purpose can be cosmetic so religion is like a cultural social cosmetic oh you are so religious it makes me look good in people’s eyes so some people may practise it actually for spiritual growth why do I come to the temple not so that people think I am a Jipayas I come because I want to come to a temple so rituals can also be a sattvic distraction now if somebody wants to get respect among people who don’t believe in God who are completely materialistic and telling them I went to a temple what’s wrong with you why did you go to a temple so you are seeking respect also among pious people only to some extent that’s why I am calling this a sattvic temptation we may do rituals but more not so much for coming closer to God it is to gain respect in society how nicely I am religious so he noticed that he noticed that as he was growing up his rituals could distract him and that’s why whatever would be the normal way of living by which he would get respect in society he deliberately started doing that he deliberately chose not to accept the path that would lead him to respect for his pious people his father didn’t understand what was going on in his mind how will you be responsible brahmana, how will you own your livelihood how will you go on he just didn’t care but he just didn’t care and then his father departed from the world his other siblings decided he is good for nothing, he is a disgrace for us he doesn’t follow the proper practises, he is not properly cleaned, he doesn’t do what is expected from him so then they just abandoned him, he was rejected and he started wandering in the forest now for someone to lose their parent and then to be rejected by one’s own siblings it could be a disaster but he saw it not as a disaster he saw it from those things which would make the world bigger than his eyes he focused on those things which would ensure that the ultimate lord would be taken and then finally when he met king Rahul the teachings that he gives him today that whole incident is something which many of you have heard of so I won’t go into it about how he was completely unafraid of Rahul he was more concerned about not hurting a man than he was about offending a king so it’s it’s inconceivable he was just so concerned that I don’t want to do some bad karma by hurting a man, by killing a man so if this king gets angry he punishes me I will just exhaust some past karma on him and accept it so he was so very careful that is also fear fear is not always a bad thing sometimes we are fearless but fearless does not mean reckless fearless see fear, we all have certain fears so for most of us the fear is of bad karma coming towards that means oh you know I am just moving along on the road and some car hits me or one day I go to doctor and doctor tells me about cancer that maybe some karma from my past will suddenly hit me so that is the fear that most people have and it’s understandable fear we are going through our life we don’t want some unknown bad karma to hit us, but for those who are really wise for them the real fear is I don’t want to do any bad karma that wise people, if bad karma hits me it’s not a good thing but all that it means is my past bad karma is getting depleted and exhausted but if I do bad karma then what is going to happen is I am going to prolong my life so for him stepping on an ant was he doing bad karma I didn’t want to do that at all on the other hand being punished by the king if he was punished by the king that would be bad karma coming to him so he was not afraid of that so that itself his priority shows his level of spirituality his level of spirituality normally the king would be very big in a person’s eyes and the ant would not notice and notice so Prabhupada would say he would say you are not sufficiently afraid of maya if you are not afraid of maya means what by maya’s temptations we may end up doing some bad that is what we want to avoid so seeing his utter fearlessness, initially the king thought he was a crazy person but then he spoke profound words of wisdom and his words of wisdom did such that now Prabhupada was not a typical buddhist he was also going to hear all the sadhus but along the way he found this strange wandering person was among the most enlightened person in the world and the potency of his spirituality he was seeing that his words completely enlightened the king so not only did he he ensured that the world remained big for him or rather god remained big but the world remained small for him he could infuse that consciousness in others also so in one sense the process remains the same whether if we go away from Krishna or we deviated from Krishna for some reason the process remains the same expose ourselves to Krishna more and more and expose ourselves to the world more and more and when we do this regularly we can move forward towards Krishna and if we are in association this relatively becomes easy because in association exposing everybody else is trying to if a good association that is everybody is trying to focus on Krishna then we can also focus on Krishna and if you start getting too caught up in material world material things then there are people around us who can help us that’s how we all can be protected so I’ll summarise what we discussed today broadly I discussed 5 points first was we discussed what is spiritual growth that is initially the world is big and god is small eventually the world becomes big and god becomes small now the world becomes small and god becomes big and how does this happen? this happens through Abhyas and Vairagya that Abhyas means persistence we persist in exposing ourselves to Krishna and abstinence in exposing ourselves to the world so persistence can be done through making bonds like we take initiation vows and abstinence is through boundaries these are things I am not going to do so then we discussed about Bharat Maharaj’s life how pronunciation occurs so renunciation can be a process that we choose that is but it can also be a fruit that arises within us naturally someone feels renounced so when we choose the process that is what we do this process through abstinence consciously we talked about again how this renunciation is not the feeling I am not good enough for the world I am not good enough for the world that is not exactly renunciation that is more of frustration that oh I am not good enough I want to do this but I can’t do it renunciation is the world is not good enough for me that whatever the world promises that’s just not so good I am not going to spend my life pursuing that then when we discuss when we renounce the world then I talked about temptations you know how temptations come according to our level of consciousness so if our consciousness is Sattva, Rajas or Tamas then the temptations that will come to us in Tamas it might be the intoxication oversleeping in Rajas it will be power and sensual pleasure in Sattva it might be really too much or it can be even compassion so now for Bharat Maharaj the temptation came in Sattva now what exactly was the temptation it was protecting was not wrong protecting was a good thing to do at that particular time but then taking on the role of maintaining I discussed elaborately what happened was human emotion was applied on an animal like I talked about this that we can’t take from animals and apply things to humans, I talked about pair bonding necessary for humans for taking care of children and we cannot apply on animals what is applied to humans so that it became lifelong maintaining and that was a problem for him, that’s how he got distracted then we talked about how in real life finally so our post mortem, our next life destination what determines that so we talked about how in real life two principles apply so 8.6 8.6 5.6 is what, what we remember at the time of death that’s what we will attain and then 2.40 is spiritual work will never be lost so what happened was, when these two are in opposite simile, so what happens is he got a dear body but with human consciousness so spiritual life, our spiritual journey cannot be started in animal life but it can continue in animal life then we discussed about how in his next life, what did he do for him, sattvic temptation came in the form of rituals that rituals if you become ritual, in terms of rituals very good then what happens, you get a lot of respect and pious I don’t know what to do so he he deliberately rejected those rituals neglected, rejected rituals and that’s what he ensured was, he did not get caught in the world, focus on transience and finally his spiritual potency was seen in his bringing inspiring spirituality in someone in a position he has been in two lives ago, spirituality in a kingdom, so for all of us we need to focus on this two principles of persistence and abstinence whatever, sometimes you may get deviated but if you persist and abstain, then that will take us ultimately to transience even if you sometimes take u-turns or divergence, keep persisting exposing ourselves to Krishna and abstaining from exposing ourselves to the world, this is supported by association so through association we do these things like we use the acronym pat, we pat ourselves on the back, encouraging ourselves, not condemning ourselves if we slip and fall, just persist and abstain and we will all transcend ultimately, thank you very much Hare Krishna are there any questions or comments anything you have a mic or Hare Krishna Guruji thank you for the another non-Krishna performance don’t make the world wait for me I just wanted to mention that Kshatriyas, we won’t go on one question, we don’t take Kshatriyas that’s one point, another thing I can mention that compassion that we want to do something for you and maintenance of attachment, that I want something from you for myself this is very different from what I have seen in my life sometimes, I am more interested in other person’s spiritual advancement as more than my spiritual advancement and then he is more interested in his spiritual advancement so how do we like, it is very difficult to differentiate between these, very very difficult ok, good questions so, let me start with the second question see the key test is that ultimately we can only assist you know we can’t control people this is what we can do, this is what we can’t do Krishna says to deliberate and do as you desire so when we even when we want others to make good decisions ultimately it is for them to be convinced if they don’t want to do it, we can’t force them so I care for you I trust you but one aspect of caring for others is caring for their autonomy acknowledging that Krishna has human dignity and we have to respect it without that we cannot just override so if they are not ready to take up spirituality are not ready to take up spirituality at the pace at which you want them then we have to let go so what happens is that everyone is making this negotiation their life it’s like right now I want to care for my present me and I want to care for my potential me like a child, a child I just want to play the parents they can’t keep playing all day the parents care for the potential child you can do so much more in the future so now if we care only for the present me then what will happen is we will stagnate I will enjoy it I just want to be comfortable we can stagnate or we can even dig in but if somebody cares only for the potential then what happens is we will suffocate because I am not able to do anything I have just been crushed you know I remember somebody once said I want you to go back to Godhead in trying to make my future life happy or make my present life unbearably miserable you know nobody is for your good but Yukta what will be Yukta will be different different people have different levels of senses based on their previous life, based on their present condition or whatever so we need to find a balance where they are satisfied atleast to some degree in the present and in the present also there is some happiness not complete indulgence but there has to be some happiness in the present and potential also there is happiness so how exactly to attain that balance so if you force somebody to do something we might have that authority to force them for some time after a while they will do that so each person has to arrive at that balance how much to care for the present way and how much to care for the future we can’t make that decision we can only make that decision for ourselves and so that’s the answer to the second question now how do we let go if we are this is their decision not my decision that sometimes people have to learn through their own experiences you know we can’t we can’t force wisdom onto somebody wisdom has to come to them by their own route, by their own choice that is also a problem with religious fanaticism you know you can put a gun in front of someone and convert someone but that doesn’t bring that doesn’t bring faith so it is voluntary you have to pursue it you can only pursue it to some degree and what are the first questions sir so what about the question you mentioned that go for monastery, go take sanyas so what’s the dynamics it’s not necessarily the dynamics it’s just that sanyas is a very elevated art and those who have lived in a very high level comfort are not ready to take up the austerity of sanyas life so they take the not necessarily sanyas but it doesn’t mean that it has to be absolute the idea was that if you are a kshatriya in this life, you become a brahmana in this life and after you become a brahmana in this life then you will attain then you will take sanyas and then you will get moksha so it was seen at a multi-lifetime basis in the bhakti tradition it is somewhat from whichever ashram we are in maa-meetha-pashyam from whichever ashram one is in, they too are a brahmana so the sanyas there and the sanyas in the bhakti tradition are different so so can you say can you can you say can you can you Karthamuni exemplifies coming from sattva to bhakti Nirmaharaja exemplifies coming from vajas to bhakti and Uttarasu exemplifies Tantra of Namaste. Now, of course, we can go to Uttarasu’s previous life and then he was already absorbed in it. He was in it even more.
At least in that lifetime. And suddenly he had that spiritual awakening. So, it’s a nice analysis.
Good point. Thank you. Yes.
Thank you for opening the session. So, you were speaking about the Manifestation. Nowadays, they call it Law of Attraction also.
So, what is your take on this concept? Whatever you desire to speak, tell us about this. See, what has happened is I have a whole class on this, which is called The Scientist, but quickly we will shift over here. That in the history of science, if you consider the recent history, there was a time when there was the whole theory of behaviourism that the mind was made irrelevant.
That basically, we are just behavioural creatures. And like animals can be reconditioned in particular ways. You just change the stimulus, the response will change.
So, what is inside doesn’t matter. Just change the stimulus, the response will change. So, basically, that was a very, very physical, physicalist vision of the human mind.
Mind was considered largely unimportant. But then, there are, you know, somebody may grow up in a very good family, they have all good stimuli, and still they make bad choices. Somebody may grow up in a criminal neighbourhood, and still they may become good citizens.
So, we are not just stimulus-response creatures. We bring something from inside. There is free will and there is also purvajana samskara.
Both of them are there. So, the mind is not irrelevant. But what has happened is that now, it has gone to the other extreme.
The mind is not just irrelevant, it is omnipotent. That the mind doesn’t matter, it is irrelevant or important over here. What is going on inside doesn’t matter.
Just do this thing, this will happen. At a physical level. So, the law of interaction, it is more a manifestation of things going on this other extreme.
If you desire something, that will happen. Now, at a practical level, people say age is just a matter of, age is just, what is it? Age is just a number. And there is some truth to that.
If somebody is always saying, I have grown old, I have grown old, I have grown old, that will definitely deplete them. But, you know, age is definitely not just a number. Isn’t it? It’s like, if somebody, some sports player, age of 43 or whatever, cricket player, age is very very important.
You say, age is just a number. Well, you are saying age is just a number because that is a relevant number for that person. Isn’t it? Even that player can’t play as well as 43, as they are playing at 25 or 30.
So, age is a reality. But, it is, we cannot change by our mind actual physical realities. If I say, I am not going to die, I am not going to die, I am not going to die, death will come, messengers of death will come, you are already dead now.
So, that’s not going to work. But, the mind is potent. It is not omnipotent, but it is potent.
Among the five factors of action, Krishna says, cheshta is also one of them. So, the endeavour that we do, that endeavour could be physical practise, but it could be mental orientation. So, there are books like The Power of Positive Thinking or whatever.
Does our thinking affect what we do? Of course, it affects. But, can it change any and every reality? Is it like a magic wand that can free us from all problems? No. So, if we visualise something, does that mean that thing will happen? Well, not necessarily.
What will happen? Will it happen necessarily? Not always. But, if you see, in 2.41, Krishna says, Focus on one goal. How do you focus on one goal? It is by visualising.
Visualise a goal. That’s important. The Upanishads say, there are temples, there are private devotees, only time is limited.
So, that is visualising. Now, the same Gita also says in 2.47, Don’t be attached to results. Because, in one sense, we may visualise a particular goal.
But, just our visualisation, or even just our endeavour, alone is not going to bring the result. There is destiny. And sometimes destiny may not be there.
So, manifestation does matter. Manifesting in the sense of visualising the reality that we would like to have. That is very important.
But, that does not mean that we can create that reality So, we have to be recognising that the mind has power. And we have to leverage the power of the mind. But we can’t assume that the mind is omnipotent.
That is where the idea of manifesting becomes mistaken. Is there a difference between fighting wars and fighting wars? It depends. There can be different ways in which we are persisting and connecting with Krishna.
Maha Manusmara in which Krishna says. So, it is not that Arjuna was constantly, singularly focused on Krishna when he was fighting the war. There is no reference in the Mahabharata that Arjuna was shooting the armies.
Hare Krishna! Hare Krishna! Vishwa Krishna! Hare Krishna! No. When he is fighting the war, it is a serious business. He is focused on fighting.
So, there are times when our focus on Krishna is through Krishna being the ultimate purpose of our life. So, for us, we cannot avoid in one sense exposing ourselves to the world also. But, it is that if I am here, Krishna is here and the world is here.
So, what we do is, for us, bhakti is in both ways. For us, our sadhana is the time when we directly connect with Krishna. And our seva is the way we connect with Krishna through the world.
So, we need to do both. Our sadhana is what you can say is world transcending devotion. We turn away from the world to directly focus on Krishna.
That is world transcending devotion. Our seva is world transforming devotion. We want to work in this world to change something.
It could be our home. It could be our temple. It could be our particular in-law’s house.
To make change in the country. So, we cannot be doing sadhana constantly. Because we have responsibilities in the world.
Even if we didn’t have responsibilities, we may not have the capacity to just constantly transcend in the world. But at the same time, we cannot get so caught in transforming the world because we want to remember that through the world I am going towards Krishna. If we don’t have some sufficient time to be directly connected with Krishna, then what will happen is we won’t have that Krishna impressed within us.
And when we are engaging in the world, we will remember I need to connect with Krishna. That’s why sadhana and seva, we need to balance. Our family life, how we are taking care of our family, our job, all those also have to become seva for us.
They are more indirect forms of seva. So, Krishna talks about this in 12.9 that Practise abhyasa yoga. And in 12.10, he talks about You work for me.
We do both of these things. Thank you. Do we have time for you? Thank you.
One last question, and then if there is any question, I will talk to you directly. Not in all cases. I said this is what we do for the people who have not been able to see themselves.
Back then, we used to have a we would call it a field and animals were coming and just animals were coming and just eating the field. And he was just glorifying it. And then, when the whole field was plundered, it had replenished all the grains.
Miraculously. So, these things happen. But the principle I would say is there was specific and then the principle.
The specific may or may not be the principle. But the principle is that we should not think that we are the maintainers. It’s Krishna who maintains.
But there are times when Krishna may want to maintain through us. And suppose Krishna may want to maintain. He may want to maintain independent of us.
So, it depends. So, when a parent is taking care of the child, I am the maintainer. So, Krishna is maintaining through me.
I am the instrument of Krishna. So, should all parents follow Sri Ramaswamy? No parents should take care of the child. Now, is that the absolute principle you want to follow? No, why have Dharmadayi Samskaara? Why have Swami Samskaara, Namakarya Samskaara and all that? So, these are examples from which we can take a principle.
Generally, in any tradition, there are extraordinary examples. But they cannot be literally replicated. So, Prabhupada himself, when he met his guru, his spiritual master, Prabhupada says that now that he was married, he had a wife and a child.
Since I am not married, I will join my spiritual master, Vishnu, immediately. But he said, now I felt it would be unfair for you. So, Prabhupada knew it would be unfair for him.
But I cannot be survivalist. So, there is a principle over there which is very much valid. But the specifics, we have to consider time and space.
Is something not clear to you? When somebody does these things, it’s not so easy to do. Even though they are acharyas, there are times in which nobody knows how to do it. Well, but I have to be honest.
Are we at that level of consciousness? If we are, some people may be. But they have that conviction that the Lord will take care of it. And they won’t hold it against the Lord, who the Lord has taken.
But otherwise, we may feel betrayed by the Lord. We may feel, I did so much. That didn’t happen.
So, we live in a different world. We have to consider time and space. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu didn’t want to meet Muthamudra.
Muthamudra was trying his best to meet him. World tour of America, Prabhupada cut down that tour to meet Indira Gandhi. So, why did Prabhupada do that? Prabhupada followed Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
So, that circumstance was different. In that particular situation, Mahaprabhu felt that if he met as the king, people will think that he is a monastic person. And that would impede his stature, his reputation, his perception in society.
In today’s world, if a nuncy gets to meet a head of state, that would increase the reputation. Isn’t it? It will not decrease. Oh, this person has met the head of state of the country.
He must be a special person. So, today, we live in a different world. In the past, there was more or less Varanasi kind of structure, wasn’t it? So, if somebody renounced, then others also would take care.
Krishna would take care through many different means. And today that kind of Varanasi structure is not there. So, if we have to renounce, we need to consider.
You know, what are the arrangements practically done? So, there are exceptional saints who are exceptional. Generally, scripture or tradition, they teach through extreme, there are always extreme examples, extreme examples of both positives and negatives. Like extreme example of Ajaman is by chanting one name of Narayana.
Narayana was liberated from at least the clutches of death at that time. Now, after hearing that, did Pandit Maharaj say to Shukadeva Swami, Hey, you know, shut up. No need to speak anymore.
When Daksha comes, I will chant one Narayana. No need for me to hear something else. He took that as a lesson.
He said, that is all. Narayana is so merciful. Only one chanting of the name is having so much effect on me.
If I live long, how much more will be effect? So, the extreme examples are not meant to standardise the extreme. That this is how everyone has to live. That’s not the point of the examples.
It is to emphasise the standard. That the standard is that we all do life long sadhana. And if one name of Narayana can do so much good, then life long sadhana will definitely do some good.
That’s what we want to focus on. So, there are various things in life which we consider. Prabhupada himself showed by his example.
And we have today, in the morning, want to renounce also. Take care of the family responsibilities. Provide some financial support for the family.
And then renounce the worldly life. Why? Because it’s a different situation. Generally, now in our movement, it’s a grassland mode of the sannyas.
They have to get the consent of their wife. They want to be responsible for it. At least at some level.
So, I would say, we live in a particular society and we have to consider multiple factors in scripture. So, we are we are also a movement that is in the world. And we are trying to reach out to the world.
Srinivasan was he a preacher who was trying to preach to people? Then the perception matters a lot. So, what may happen is that somebody may, out of genuine renunciation, may actually renounce the world. Somebody else may renounce it just out of irresponsibility.
And others may follow that way. So, we don’t want to set a wrong example to others also. So, we have to, that’s why Nesikaramata has to be considered in a black and white sense.
Okay? Okay. You want to make any comment? What exactly? The story is that he had a newborn baby and he was like, I have to take care of the baby. It was not Srinivasan, it was Arjunacharya.
Arjunacharya? Lizard, na? That was Arjunacharya? Arjunacharya is Yogakshema Mahamudra. So, basically what happened was he saw a mother Arjunaswamy, commentator. Yeah.
So, basically he saw that Yeah, he had a child. His wife was expecting a child. There was a lizard.
There was a lizard and the lizard it gave a baby and the baby fell down. It fell down and landed on its feet and there was an insect nearby and the baby bird just threw out its tongue and caught the insect and ate it. And he said that Krishna can arrange for this baby lizard to be taken care of.
Krishna can arrange for my baby also to be taken care of. So, I don’t have to stay ordinary now. Good question.
I also I have to look for a primary source for it. I have heard it in classes but I will have to look for a primary source. I have not heard it for a very long time in recent years.
How to? Thank you. Thank you very much.