How does desire for Krishna arise Bhaktivedanta Manor London Bhagavatam 3.13.39 Chaitanya Charan

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna I am grateful to be here today with all of you and so we are discussing the third canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam so generally whenever I give a class on a topic I use a particular framework so I call it chit chit is we try to expand our consciousness so we look at the context of what is going on then we look at some insights and then we will talk about some takeaways what does it mean for us so now if we look at the context right now what is happening over here that we are in the third canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam and the Bhagavatam is a nested conversation it’s a conversation within a conversation within a conversation and like that it goes on and on at one particular place this nesting goes on till seven layers so the outermost is we could say Sukadeva Goswami is speaking to Parikshit Maharaj of course we can have one more outer one that is Vyasadeva is writing to all of us but Sukadeva Goswami is speaking the outermost is Suta Goswami is speaking to the sages of Naimisharanya and then within that Suta Goswami to the sages then Sukadeva Goswami to Parikshit Maharaj then within that currently we have Maitreya speaking to Vidura and now within that we have the sages, the brahmanas offering prayers to Lord Varahadev so this is where we are right now these prayers are going on in 3.13 right now, of course the entire chapter is not the prayers but a major part of it is the prayers now the prayers within the Bhagavatam are a major feature of the Bhagavatam and this is one of the things that distinguishes the Bhagavatam from many of the other Puranas also that the action, the stories they are described however in the Bhagavatam as compared to most of the Puranas the prayers occupy a significant amount of time generally if we consider in terms of the content the Puranas, they have some common features, there are stories by stories we could mean there is a narrative of the stories this person did this, that person did that then within the stories themselves there are the dialogues that are there now sometimes there are discussions themselves in place of the stories that means the story is not much, like the Bhagavad Gita is not a story it is just a discussion, just is not to minimise it but it is just contextualised as a discussion like Uddhav Gita is primarily a discussion the events that led to the Uddhav Gita are relatively small, the discussion is very big now these are there in almost all the Puranas but the prayers this is distinctive to the Bhagavatam or at least we could say not the prayers are distinctive but the extent of the prayers, the length of the prayers this is quite distinctive to the Bhagavatam and one reason among many for this is that among the various books in the sacred canon, in the Vedic canon the Bhagavatam is the book that faces death in the eye the most directly we all pray to God but prayers, they become the most important when we ourselves are largely helpless so the Bhagavatam is in one sense you could say it is a death I won’t say death centred book but it is a death you could say death is in the background if you see it is a death contextualised book what does it mean? if you consider where the Bhagavatam starts off and where the Bhagavatam ends the two startings of the Bhagavatam we start with Yudhishthir Maharaj in the Bhagavatam that’s 1.789 onwards Yudhishthir Maharaj for him death is casting a long shadow that the Kurukshetra war has already happened and it has devastated everyone so the long shadow of death is there when the Bhagavatam starts in the first canto now as far as Parikshit Maharaj is concerned so a shadow can be caused by something which is behind us and a shadow can be caused by something ahead of us also so Parikshit Maharaj, the shadow of death is ahead of him it’s going to come in 70s and many of the stories in the Bhagavatam also even through seeing beholding the Lord being insulted, going to the forest, beholding the Lord the continuation of the story is not so much given in the Puranas but in the Bhagavatam it goes on till how Dhruva departs from the world and sometimes some of the departures are also not necessarily described some of the departures may from material perspective not be very glorious like Rishabhdev who gives such powerful instructions gets burned in the forest fire or Krishna’s own dynasty is destroyed in a brutal fratricidal war so death is very much prominent reality in the Bhagavatam and not all the prayers are offered in the face of death but death is always the background reality so that’s one reason, apart from that the Bhagavatam’s focus is much more on the Lord directly so that is the theme which I will be discussing in the session as we move forward but here what we will see about the prayers in general is that most of the prayers are more of glorification they are more about glorifying than about asking anything generally whenever we approach some person we seek some help from them we will praise them, how charitable they are, how much they have helped how much we have heard about them it’s not flattery, it’s just the proper way to approach I need some help from you so we glorify and then we ask for some help in most of the prayers in the Bhagavatam we could say the glorifying is almost 95% and the praying is 5% or less than 5% Kunti Maharani, she prays initially saying that her starting of the prayer is she doesn’t want the Lord to depart but then through the act of praying itself there is evolution in her devotion and she says, my dear Lord please take away from me the desire that I should determine what you do that whether you should stay here or whether you go to the Dwarkavasis wherever you are, my dear Lord, all that I desire is my heart always flows towards you when Bhishma is departing from the world not even once does he pray that may my death be painless or let my death not happen or he doesn’t pray anything at all he doesn’t ask anything he doesn’t even really ask so much that maybe Pandava should be happy or this or that he focusses simply let my consciousness flow always towards you so in that sense, these prayers are often demonstrating a pure reciprocation of love so that’s what we’ll focus on now the same thing, the sages, in most of the prayers just now the Lord has destroyed a demon who was not just disrupting but devastating the earth he has just destroyed Varahadeva just destroyed Hiranyaksha and in the entire prayers, there’s hardly any reference to Hiranyaksha at least we’ll see later on in Prahalad’s prayers when Hiranyakashipu is killed, Prahalad does there are at least 3-4 verses which refer to the context and he says Hiranyakashipu was so powerful, everybody was scared of him but you just effortlessly destroyed him that I’m not afraid of anything in this world but I’m afraid of your anger people are afraid of your form, but I’m not afraid of your form I’m only afraid of the illusions of this world so here, it’s almost like much of the prayers prayers can be context dependent and they can be context independent context dependent means in a particular time, in a particular place there are prayers and there are context independent prayers so nowadays say, within especially Christianity, there is a rejuvenation of prayers there is a Christian prayer app which has become one of the most popular apps among spiritual apps in the play stores now, most of the prayers there are very context dependent when you’ve lost a loved one, what should you pray if you’ve got a terrible health diagnosis, what should you pray if you’re feeling depressed, what should you pray these are important prayers, I’m not saying anyway that they are not we all face specific challenges in life and if we have some guidance about how to offer prayers in that way, we should do that I’ve written a book on prayers inspired by Bhagavad Gita where I’m talking about how we can take the Gita’s verses and connect them with our heart and offer prayers so there are context dependent prayers which we can often relate with if somebody has hurt us terribly how to let go, how to forgive, these are good prayers to have but most of the prayers in the Bhagavatam so the Bhagavatam’s prayers are largely context independent that is, the focus is not on me and the problems I’m facing the focus is on you, oh Lord and I just want to remember you and I want to be absorbed in you so in many ways if we consider what is spiritual growth I’ve now shifted to the insight part now and we’ll come to the specific prayer Bhagavatam has these prayers which is the focus and the prayers are largely about glorifying the Lord so normally for us the world is very big and Krishna, even if he exists, is small and it’s okay, God is there somewhere I have to pray to him, but I have this person troubling me and this is going wrong and that is going wrong when preaching we’ll say, the only problem in the world is a lack of Krishna consciousness but the problem in my life is my authority does not respect me or my subordinates don’t listen to me so we say Krishna is the biggest reality but quite often the world and its problems become much bigger for us and that’s not wrong because we have to deal with those problems but the problems occupying a lot of our head space is a problem so as we grow spiritually the world becomes smaller and Krishna becomes bigger and that’s why when we come to this level when we pray to Krishna it is not so much that Krishna you help me free me from this problem or thank you that you freed me from this problem or when oh Lord will you free me from this problem that is not that important that Krishna and remembrance of Krishna and absorption in Krishna becomes the most important thing so quite often most prayers when they are context dependent we could say this is more like a spiritual starter stage it’s good that but here a person has become a spiritual seer that when we become a spiritual seer we come to Krishna to become immersed in remembering him and that’s if you look at the content of this prayer what is being offered there are many aspects to the prayer but I will focus on a couple of them if we go back to Namo Namaste Akhil Mantra Devata Dravyaya Sarva Krutave Kriyatmani so if we consider one’s spiritual growth in general we can say that in our life we have two things in life journey we have the ends and the means that means what do I want to achieve and how will I achieve this so if we consider the ends and means a student may say I want to get good marks in my exam that is the ends and what is the means I have to study regularly I have to do this, I have to do that so in life we have ends and means now if we consider the evolution could be that a person in Tamas a person in Tamoguna they have practically no ends and no means they are simply existing and nobody literally lives without ends and means but maybe their ends and means are what I just want to escape from life and people spend time watching Netflix playing video games reading random stuff on social media so in Tamoguna there is no clear goal to pursue in life and such people fall prey to conspiracy theories and this and that if we are not committed to something we will be distracted by anything so in Tamoguna there are no ends and there are no means now when we come towards Rajoguna in Rajas we have ends and we have means both become a little clearer because no ends no means is largely escapist living so in Rajoguna the ends are materialistic and sometimes the means can be religious or they can be non-religious so Bhaktivinoda Thakur talks about people who are pious materialists not everybody who is materialistic is necessarily impious or godless India is experiencing a cultural rejuvenation after the building of the Rama temple and other things but it is interesting that while the cultural rejuvenation is happening materialism is also increasing from the cultural path people are going towards or at least interested but it is not non-materialistic so in Rajoguna there is some interest in God the world is the end and God is the means I want to achieve certain things how do I achieve them? I have to pray to God so generally speaking in the Vedic context most people were pious materialists there is one western author he read the Rig Veda when Europeans came to India he said the Rig Veda is the most materialistic religious book he has ever read it is basically describing if you have this problem chant this mantra if you want to destroy your enemy do this so the idea is that there are many mantras mentioned but the mantras are meant to achieve certain ends like mantras are associated with celestial weapons and through that we can attack and destroy an enemy so the idea that the end is God that is not very prominent in the Karmakand section in the Karmakand section the idea is the means is God in many ways, not only God we have to work in this world also a lion cannot just lie with an open mouth and a deer will come into its mouth a lion also has to endeavour but we humans understand that my endeavour alone is not enough there is some higher being and I need to propitiate that being also so this is the level of pious materialism from there, once we come to some level to sattva in sattva the means quite often becomes religious and the ends they become spiritual spiritual in the sense that it could be Krishna or it could be Moksha this world is a place of suffering and fulfilling desires itself does not lead to freedom from suffering for all of us when we talk about purification or purifying our desires what does it mean? Practically speaking we all need to get this realisation that fulfilment of desires does not lead to fulfilment of heart and in one sense we all know it but when a desire comes up, we tend to forget it I want to eat this, I want to watch this, I want to meet this person I want to have this relationship, I want to get this position nowadays everybody wants to be a social media influencer so what happens is we may have our desires but fulfilling our desires does not lead to fulfilment of heart that realisation comes to some extent in sattva and then when that realisation comes then we start thinking what should I be doing in my life rather than pursuing my desires either in sattva somebody says let me give up my desires entirely and try to become desire free or if we come towards bhakti we align our desires with the lord not that we give up desires but let me desire to serve the lord let me desire to fulfil the desire of the lord and that is the, if you see the conclusion of the Bhagavad Gita is I will do your will so shuddha sattva or pure bhakti is where the ends is clearly Krishna and the means can be many but we understand the means come from Krishna we are aware very clearly that my means come from Krishna so a person who is very talented somebody is a very talented speaker or a good business person, a good manager they tend to become proud because they think I am the means, my ability are the means but the Bhagavad Gita says all human ability comes from Krishna Krishna says I am ability in human beings so when we understand that my ends is Krishna and the means to pursue that ends also comes from Krishna so actually the only thing we bring into the world is our desire to serve the ability to serve is given by Krishna the facility to serve is also given by Krishna what we bring into the world in any area is actually the desire so once we bring in if we consider bhakti bhakti not in terms of internal remembrance but in terms of service so what do we need, we need ability bhakti is about serving so we need the ability to serve we need the facility to serve and then we want the result the reward of the service, the reward may not be for us but we want the reward and then there is the desire to serve so actually the ability comes from Krishna the facility comes from Krishna the reward comes from Krishna it is only the desire that comes from us now we could even say that the inspiration for that desire comes from Krishna that it is Krishna who brings us in the association of devotees who are filled with so much eagerness to serve that I should also do some service or it is Krishna who may give us some sublime spiritual experiences we come and take darshan, we participate in kirtan and we feel such extraordinary experiences we feel that this is what I want to do in my life this is what I want to experience more and more so broadly when we say the desire the desire can come from positive impetus and from a negative impetus now positive impetus could be more of association we see devotees who are dedicated, who are inspired and it could come from our spiritual experiences now the negative inspiration generally comes from frustration that when we pursue other things and those things they don’t lead us to anything of value so generally beyond this the third one is our own intelligence and our contemplation with our intelligence so among these three if you consider the association the experiences and the intelligence the association and the experience that is not in our control sometimes you may get very inspiring association sometimes you may not get such inspiring association I was in Florida and I was in Texas doing a programme at one devotee’s home and there was a notice there was a humorous quote in that home it says that we look forward to all our guests to some guests we look forward to their arriving to some guests we look forward to their departing which category you fall in depends on how you behave while you are here now the idea is for all of us there are some people who bring happiness wherever they go and some people bring happiness whenever they go so even in association for us it is not that every single devotee’s association will be inspiring some devotee’s association will be sometimes a bit demanding also I was doing once a devotee relationship seminar when we are practising bhakti we have to tolerate many things so what all do we have to tolerate so one devotee raised his hand very enthusiastically so yes what all do we have to tolerate he said we have to tolerate devotees so I said yes that is a good realisation and if we keep practising bhakti we will also come to the realisation that devotees are tolerating us so we try to live in such a way that we don’t disturb others and we don’t get disturbed by others but my point is that inspiring association may sometimes be there sometimes not there spiritual experiences we may or we may not get all the time but what we can have is our own intelligence or we study scripture and we make sure that our intelligence remembers and reminds us why Krishna is the most desirable reality for me so that is the last part of this verse where it says that gyanaya vidya gurave namo namaha so dravyaya sarva-krtave kriyatmani I talked about how you are the ultimate goal for achieving everything you are the ultimate purpose of everything but that purpose we cannot realise till we have some vairagya bhaktya we have some vairagya some detachment from our own desires bhaktya atma jaya anubhavita so atma jaya anubhavita what does it mean? this is not atma jaya, atma jaya is somebody’s relative it is atma jaya, atma here refers to the mind our mind is filled with many many desires and those desires distract us but when we have sufficient level of control over our mind, atma jaya so if I am coming and taking darshan of the lord but I am thinking I have to meet this person, I have to tell this person, will this person listen to me will I be able to distribute books today, how much will my score we are filled with all those desires then we cannot really relish the presence of Krishna even when we are in his presence so atma jaya anubhavita when we experience, we have that experience that anubhava within that experience we have some emotion that comes so atma jaya anubhavita so for that to happen that can happen spontaneously at times by Krishna’s mercy but for most of the times we need to sustain it with our intelligence so jnanaya vidyagurave that jnana, the jnana to persevere in our bhakti that comes from you oh lord you are the vidyagurave you are the person who is the giver of wisdom Prabhupada quotes that 7.10 in the Bhagavad Gita that when we have a favourable attitude towards serving Krishna then Krishna will give us the intelligence of how to come to him so that is the last point I will conclude with over here that for us the take away you know this is quite often a catch 22 kind of situation for us that what comes first does the desire like over here I said that the ability to serve, the facility to serve, the reward for service all this will come from Krishna the desire has to come from us but then the sustainable basis for the desire is our intelligence sustainable basis we can have our intention, we can have our determination but the determination Krishna says that our intelligence is sustained by determination so what comes first the desire to serve or the intelligence to serve so which will come first desire to connect with Krishna or the intelligence to connect with Krishna so is it that first we get the intelligence and then we get the desire or first we get the desire and then we get the intelligence now what do you think desire comes first yes if you consider 10.10 is indicating this Krishna says when you do that means you have some desire for me you have some positive affectionate disposition towards me then I will give you the intelligence to serve now this is what Krishna talks in 10.10 but if you go to earlier 3.43 here there he says with your intelligence situate yourselves on the spiritual platform with your intelligence understand that you are a soul and that you are meant to connect with the whole and thus you can go beyond mundane desire thus you can so where do we start in our spiritual life when we wake up in the morning is it that we wake up and feel oh today I have to go for the morning programme today I have to chant the holy name, I would love to do that or is it that I feel like doing it, I want to do it or this is the right thing to do, this is the important thing to do, I will do it so that is the idea that this is where from wherever we can start it is some days we can feel our way to actions some days we have to act our way to the feelings some days we feel our way to actions we feel like coming to the temple and we come to the temple and take darshan some days we don’t feel like it but we act our way with our intelligence we act and by acting gradually the feeling will come and that is why somehow or the other that is the operational principle at some days basically the desire is associated with our mind and the intelligence is associated with our mind and intelligence so Krishna says with your mind and intelligence both offered to me you will come to me but for us right now sometimes our mind is offered, sometimes our intelligence is offered but at least something should be offered to Krishna and that is how we will keep moving towards Krishna so we can pray we may have a little desire, with that little desire we start practising bhakti start doing some activity and gradually our intelligence starts becoming clearer or sometimes we have a little intelligence, with that we do an activity and slowly the desire starts awakening but because neither of these are steady for us that is why our bhakti is right now fickle but gradually speaking our intelligence can be strengthened, our mind can be purified and then we will become steadier in bhakti and the experience of joy will also become deeper and richer for us when we become more absorbed in Krishna generally it is easier to maintain a steady intelligence than to maintain a steady desire so that is why the conviction of the intelligence is more important because the desire we can’t really predict which desire we will have when we can try to have the desire but we cannot control that so in that sense at our stage the buddhi is more important although ultimately we want the desire and the emotion but the buddhi is what is required for us to sustain ourselves but it is not constantly fighting against our desires we purify our desires so that gradually we can come closer and closer to Krishna so I will summarise what we discussed our topic was broadly how we grow spiritually so within that I talked about three distinct things first was the context so context was we discussed about how this is the fourth level nesting the conversation with Suta Goswami and Parishit Maharaj Vidura and Maitreya and then there is the sages and Varahadeva so in this conversation there are prayers going on now we discussed the characteristics of the prayers prayers are a distinctive feature they are distinct in Bhagavatam as compared to other Puranas where there are stories, there are dialogues there are elaborate discussions but elaborate prayers they are a distinctive feature of the Bhagavatam and even within these elaborate prayers discussed about how we could have prayers which are contextual and there are prayers which are not so much contextual they are universal so the contextual prayers when for us the world is very big then dealing the context is what is important but when we grow spiritually then the world becomes small, Krishna becomes big then our prayers are not so much dependent on the context so then in the insight I talked about the spiritual journey of how we grow if we are in Tamas most people have no means and no ends they just want to live, exist, escape from life in Rajas which is the place where people have means that are worldly, that are materialistic but materialistic and the ends are they could be either religious or non-religious so most of the description of the Bhagavatam is from here, the Bhagavatam is not really largely focussing on Tamasic people it’s talking about people who are pious but for them to become spiritual so then in Sattva what happens gradually our sorry not means and ends, here it is the ends are materialistic and the means are religious and gradually for us the ends start becoming non-material we understand that fulfilment of desires does not lead to fulfilment of hearts and the means, they are a mix of material and non-material we start whatever means we use but as we become in pure devotion Shuddha Sattva, that’s when we understand the means the ends is Krishna and the means also comes from Krishna the ends and means both become Krishna centred and we discuss what are the takeaways for us that actually this means I also talk about one more thing that for service broadly we need four things, the desire to serve the ability to serve the facility to serve ability means somebody has speaking or singing ability facility is they are invited to some kirtan programme they are invited to give some classes and then there is a reward of service so all of these come from Krishna the desire it is what comes from us but even when the desire comes from us it just doesn’t come only from us it can come from association, it can come from spiritual experiences it can come from intelligence so I discuss what are the takeaways somehow or other what do we start with, the desire to serve or the intelligence to serve that sometimes we feel our way to actions sometimes we act our way to feelings so both could be true but the important thing is from wherever we start that is how we move ahead Krishna talks about both possibilities so somehow or the other we continue in our bhakti till we come to the point where both our desire and intelligence will be directed towards Krishna and that’s when we will become fully absorbed in him thank you very much