Ahalya cursed and blessed – How our consciousness shrinks and expands

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Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.

So, the topic was inner change and there is a lot of inner change that has happened also with respect to the topic, not the content itself. So, I will speak today broadly in three main points. I will initially start with the story from the Ramayana, briefly outline the story and then what inner change requires and how that can happen and talk about that.

And all of us, sometime or the other, feel that I should change myself, maybe I want to become healthier, I want to become more disciplined, I want to become this, I want to become that. It is very, practically no one in the world thinks that the way I am, I am perfect. If somebody thinks like that, they are in perfect illusion.

All of us have such glaring deficiencies and we all want to work on them. But somehow, we resolve to change and become a new me and we change. We change for some time and after that, while the new me is not looking, the old me comes back again.

And we tend to revert to what we were before. So this desire to change is something which is there within us or at least it comes up periodically within us, but somehow to translate it into real life is difficult. So what do we do for that purpose and how do we go about doing it? Recently, the Ram Navami was there.

So some of you may have seen my book on the Ramayan, Wisdom from Ramayan on Life and Relationships. So I am writing a second book on that now, second part of Wisdom from Ramayan. And so in the Ramayan, there are many beautiful stories.

And some of the stories are very small, but if you go deeper into it, then we see that there is a lot of import to it. So when Lord Ram goes out in the forest, he goes twice. Does anyone know which are the two occasions? Yes.

Any of the kids? How does he go twice? Yeah. Yes? Yes. Yes.

So first, he went for a service and second, he was sent out. Thank you. Thank you.

So now, when the first time he went out, he is still a young boy. Of course, he is still the Supreme Lord. But while he is going to the forest, so they first go to Vishwamitra's hermitage.

And then they protect Vishwamitra's sacrifice from the demons. Who are the demons? Maricha. Subhavai.

Subhavai. One more. Tadaka.

Yes. Three of them. Thank you.

And then after that, Vishwamitra says, let us go to the, where should we go now? Mithila. Mithila, yes. So you see, in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, there are many similarities.

I have a whole class on that, similarities and differences. But in both the cases, both the main heroes go out twice. Go to the forest twice.

And in both cases, in the first emergence from the forest is in a Swayambhura. There also, the Pandavas go from, when the Khandav is burned, they go to the forest. And then they come in, who's Swayambhura? Draupadi.

Draupadi Swayambhura, yes. So in this case, when they are going toward Mithila, they go through various areas. So there, they pass by the forest and they come to a clearing.

And there's a hermitage over there. Now when they see this hermitage, Ram and Lakshmana are intrigued by seeing this. They say that, actually, since this, it looks completely uninhabited.

There's nobody staying over here. And yet, it doesn't look completely deserted. Even, what to speak of a hermitage in a forest, even in a house, if nobody is staying in the house, the house soon starts getting run down.

And if you want to sell a house also, even if nobody is occupied, still you have to periodically keep coming and cleaning the house. Otherwise it becomes very run down. So, they say that there's nobody staying over here, but it doesn't look completely run down.

Why is that? So, Vishwamitra says that this was a place where great personalities were living. But because of an unfortunate series of events, because of deception, because of cheating, because of cursing, this place has now become deserted. Now, when Ram and Lakshmana are young, they have deception, cheating, cursing.

Sounds what? Interesting, isn't it? What is all this? Please tell us the story. And seeing them intrigued, Vishwamitra then starts telling the story. He says, this was whose hermitage? Yes, Gautam Muni's.

There is a compilation called the Naam Ramayana. I think some of you have memorized it also, some of the verses. So, there is a whole Ramayana described through various names.

Major incidents in the Ramayana are described through about a hundred names. So, I'll recite some of the names and you can also repeat after me as we move forward. So, Gautam Muni Sampoojitha Rama.

Gautam Muni Sampoojitha Rama. Okay, only the kid is annoyed, isn't it? Gautam Muni Sampoojitha Rama. Can you repeat? Gautam Muni Sampoojitha Rama.

Sampoojitha. He was worshipped. So, now what happens is that they come to Gautam Muni's ashram.

Now, he has left that ashram. He is staying somewhere else at that time. So, they meet him at a different time.

But when they are here, it is erstwhile, previous ashram. So, he says that this is the abode of a very great sage Gautam. And he lived there with his wife.

What was her name? Ahalya. And now when they were living there, they were living a virtuous life. They were doing austerities and asceticism.

But Ahalya was extremely beautiful. And before her marriage, many of the gods had desired to have her as their wife. But somehow her marriage had happened with Gautam Rishi.

And then that happened. And all the gods recognized that. And they didn't approach her.

But sometimes a great power if somebody has, then that person thinks that no rules apply to me. So, who was such a person? Indra. So, Indra, he often, almost every time in the scripture, Indra gets into trouble.

Not only he gets into trouble, he gets others also into trouble. It's one thing to get into trouble oneself. So, what Indra decides to do is that he is looking for an opportunity to approach Ahalya.

And then when Gautam Muni goes to the river to take a bath, at that time he takes on the garb of Gautam Muni. And he comes there and he goes inside with Ahalya and unites with her. And when Gautam Muni comes back, at that time, Indra is trying to sneak out.

When he is trying to sneak out, Gautam Muni sees over there. Now normally, if you see somebody with a look alike of yours, sometimes even twins, if two twins are living together, then it's fine. But suppose two twins were separated at birth.

And then they meet each other for the first time. Who is this person? You start thinking, am I dreaming? Am I seeing the same person or what is this? So, he is taken aback to see his exact look alike. And then immediately understands what has happened.

Because he is a sage, he has mystic vision. And he gets infuriated. He says, how dare you to say this.

You are such a lusty person, I punish you. You are so proud of your power and attractiveness, I curse you. Your body will become totally deformed.

And Indra's body becomes horrendously deformed. And when Ahalya comes over there, she hears her husband's angry voice. So she comes out.

She is also angry. She is about to ask forgiveness from him. But he is a sage, he is also angry.

So he curses her also. You become a stone. And now become a stone.

He gets converted into a stone and then he just walks away from there. Now, this is the narrative, this is the version of the story that is most often told. And in this version, Ahalya appears to be simply a victim of two men.

One with uncontrolled lust and the other with uncontrolled anger. In fact, somebody, actually how I… I wrote an article on this story right now, for my new book. I was not planning to write anything on this.

But somebody, after they read my Ramayan book, that I have also explained about why Sita was sent away. They liked that explanation. They said, can you explain this story also? And apparently, somebody has made a spoof movie on this.

And that movie has become quite controversially popular, you could say. And what is it? It's a spoof like that, that there is a female character named Ahalya. And whoever man gets attracted to her, that man gets converted into a stone.

And so this particular woman, in her drawing room, so not only that man gets converted into a stone, that man becomes like a doll. And so, you see, in her drawing room, she has a series of dolls. So all the women will become converted like that.

So this is Ahalya's revenge. Now, if you see, actually speaking, what happens over there? Now, as I said in the beginning itself, Vishwamitra also said, there are great people living over there. It was not just Agastya, it was not just Gautam, who was a great sage.

Ahalya was also a great person. And when Indra came there, this is clearly mentioned in Valmiki Ramayana, but this is not often told in most retellings of the story, that when Indra came over there, Ahalya also had this equation. And she recognized, this is not Gautam Rishi.

She recognized this is not Gautam Rishi. But what happened was that her feminine pride got intoxicated. She said, I am so attractive that even the king of the gods is coming to me.

He is not only coming to me, he is adopting a whole guise to come to me. And because of that, because of that pride which went to her head, there was a moment of weakness. Now, just having a moment of weakness doesn't make her a villain.

But it means that she is not a victim alone. Different, all of us in the world are vulnerable. Nobody is invulnerable.

I gave recently a seminar in Brisbane on burn anger before anger burns you. So, before that what happened was that many things went wrong before the program. And I was getting annoyed.

And then suddenly I was getting annoyed and I was about to get angry with some devotee. And then I struck, I had to burn my anger before I could give this seminar. Sometimes what happens when we get angry and we are dissolved, I will never get angry.

I will never get angry. And then somebody reminds. And something happens, you start getting angry.

And then that person is like, hey, you are dissolved not to get angry. You are getting angry. I am not getting angry.

So, what happens, it is very difficult to actually discipline ourselves. So, moments of weakness come upon everyone. And broadly speaking, the force of illusion, maya, attacks different people in different ways.

So, now of course this is a general generalization. And generalizations are never absolute. But they are broadly indicative.

So, what happens is, men desire women. And women desire the desire of men. Men desire women.

And women desire the desire of men. And both need to be regulated. So, whenever say a bond is formed, marriage is formed, say.

Every bond comes with a boundary. There cannot be any bond if you say there is no boundary to it. So, every bond means there is a boundary.

So, for men, their weakness is the desire for women. So, that has to be regulated when you get married. For women, it is to attract the desire.

Their weakness is what? To attract the desire of men. So, men desire women. Women desire the desire of men.

Now, this is again, it is not universal, but it is broadly indicative. I started traveling abroad for the last 4-5 years. Before that, mostly I was in India.

And India also, I was in mostly Pune and Mumbai. So, I was living in a very, you could say, protected zone. Then I started traveling abroad.

And mostly, at least in India, in traditional societies, women, they very easily, once they get married, they shift to a maternal role. And then they focus on that particular identity and that particular service. Now, when I went to Australia for the first time, I was doing a college program.

And some students, good students were there. And there was a young Mataji. She was making announcements.

And she was very smart, intelligent. So, after the class, I asked her, Did you study here? And I couldn't understand. My class, my question made her so happy.

And then, she just looked at me. She was so happy. Then, suddenly, one small boy came running to her.

He says, he is my son. So, he said, I passed out 10 years ago from it. So, later on, another devotee, I did understand also at that time, another devotee told me that she was so happy because I thought she was young enough to be a college student.

So, the point I am making here is that all of us have our particular weaknesses. And we have to guard against those weaknesses. So, Ahalya, in a moment of weakness, she gave in to the pride that Indra, the God of Heavens has come to me.

And so, when Ahalya was cursed by Gautam Rishi, it was not just because of the transgression. If she had just been a victim, the curse would have been unfair. But, she also gave her consent.

So, basically, when we talk about inner change, that's our topic. So, as the story goes on, after Ahalya gets converted into a stone, then Gautam Rishi gets disgusted and walks away from it. But, although Ahalya has made a mistake, she is not condemned.

That's why, what happens in that hermitage, now, Vishwamitra is here, Vishwamitra points, he says that, just see, you can see this whole hermitage is abandoned. But, there is only one place where something is growing. And, there is a stone, and on that stone, Tulsi was growing.

So, that Tulsi was growing, Vishwamitra said, this is Ahalya. So, she was not condemned. Tulsi is considered very sacred.

And, that Tulsi was growing on the stone, which was her current body, indicates that she was not condemned. She was still considered, all her past holiness, all her past beautifulness, all her past dharma, it was there. And, thus, he said, Vishwamitra said that, she has been waiting, Ram, for being blessed by your lotus feet.

So, your lotus feet. Now, Ram normally, throughout the Ramayana, does not act like God. He acts like a normal human being.

And, as a normal human being, he focuses on, he focuses on doing his duty. So, here he doesn't claim that, I am God, and I am going to bless her. But, he says, because Vishwamitra Muni has instructed him, so, he goes accordingly.

And, as soon as he goes, and touches the stone, just with his feet, he just gently touches the stone. And, what happens? Immediately, there is a transformation. And, Ahalya manifests over there.

As soon as Ahalya manifests over there, she folds her hands and offers prayers to Ram. And, Ram, Vishwamitra, Lakshman, all of them are observing, and in front of their eyes, after offering prayers to Ram, taking his blessings, she departs from the elevated abode. So, all her good activities that she has done, they are not lost.

They are there. Because of one misdeed, she has some reaction to that. But, all her good deeds also stay with her.

And, they elevate her to a higher destination. So, I was giving a class in Australia. I just came from Australia.

So, I was giving to a Western audience, and they were asking different questions. So, what happens? People who are completely new, many of our rituals can seem very strange to them. So, when one of the Western, I was in the top of a hill, New Govardhan, where they have many Western people who come and stay in the broad temple, not in the temple, but in the temple premises.

So, there, when they were asking some questions, they said that they had various, very, you could say, puzzling questions. Why puzzling? It was puzzling for them. They said, when you blow the conch, why does everyone kiss the floor? We bow our head down.

So, why does everyone kiss the floor? So, when you put the head down, they thought, kiss the floor. They said, so, another thing they asked was that, I've heard that you take the dust to the feet of God. So, are God's feet dirty? That you take the dust of the feet? So, actually, what to speak of the Lord's feet, even the whole abode of the Lord, there is no dirt in it.

In fact, in the Bhagavatam, it is described, when Lord Vishnu came to the sacrificial assembly of Prithu Maharaj, the Lord's feet do not even touch the ground. He walks, seems to be walking on the ground, but his feet stay above the ground. There's no question of his feet being dusty or dirty.

But, when we say take the dust of the lotus feet of the Lord, that does not mean, say, if we go to some house and then we touch a table, and our finger becomes dirty, we touch with dust. You see, this house is not cared for properly. The Lord is not like that.

The idea of taking the dust of the Lord's lotus feet simply means submission. See, when we are to take the dust of someone's feet, either we put our hand over there or we put our head over there. So, our hand and head are normally two tools of power for us.

With our hand, we can do a lot of things. We do things. And with our head, we think.

Head indicates that we are… Our head is our highest part of the body. And people say that सर जुका सकते, कटा सकते नहीं We'll cut off our head. नहीं सर कटा सकते, जुका सकते नहीं So, we'll cut off our head.

We'll not bow it down. So, the head is considered the highest part of our body. So, when we put our hand or our head down… Hand is what we do with which we do all the things in life.

But, okay, these hands I am putting over here. That means whatever I can do, that is insignificant in comparison to what God can do. And when we put our head on the feet of the Lord, what that means is that actually that part which is the highest in my body, I make it the lowest.

I put it below the lowest part of the Lord's body. And that indicates submission. So, for Ahalya, just the touch of the Lord's lotus feet brought about that transformation.

And for all of us also, we have our weaknesses and we also would like to be transformed. And for that transformation, we want to get the Lord's lotus feet on our head. The Lord's lotus feet bless us.

Then we also can get transformed. There are two broad ways to get transformation. One is just by thinking by our willpower.

By my willpower, I'll transform myself. And it's possible, but it is like somebody has to lift a 50 or 100 kg weight. Now, with their own effort, they can lift it.

But it is tough. However, if there is a lever and you put the weight on the lever and then you apply force. When you apply little force, what happens? The mechanism of the lever will raise the weight very easily.

So, similarly for us, we always have to apply effort. Without our effort, nothing will happen. But our devotion to the Lord is like the lever.

So, our anarthas, our weaknesses, our contaminations, our vices, they are weighing us down. And we can try to lift that weight, we can try to push it off. But if we turn towards the Lord, connect with the Lord, then we get access to the lever.

And we apply a little force over here and then we have transformation over there. So, just as Ahalya was transformed by the touch of the lotus feet of the Lord, we also can be transformed. Now, it's interesting.

So, this is the Ahalya story of the first part of the talk. And now the second part will be how we can get the blessing of the Lord the way Ahalya received it. But any quick question till now? That's not a short question.

Maybe I'll talk personally if you don't mind. It'll take a little time to explain. Yeah.

When you said the Lord doesn't walk on planet Earth, then how do we see so many footprints of the Lord? No, that's why I said that in that particular pastime. It's not in the Prithu Maharaj's pastime. When He appeared, He did not touch the feet of the Lord.

He did not touch the soil. I think there's a difference between when the Lord descends as a… descends in response to someone's prayer or in some sacrifice and when the Lord descends as an avatar. When the Lord descends as an avatar, definitely His feet do imprint, create an imprint.

But when He comes just in response to someone's prayer, that time, at least in that particular pastime, it's like that. Thank you. Yes.

Okay, good question. So what you're saying is that we want to change so that we can become perfect. But nobody is perfect.

Yeah, so how to reconcile the two? Well, there are different meanings of the word perfect. The… When we say perfect, if… Vishal Prabhupada gives this example in Isopanishad. It was Oṃ pūrṇam adaḥ pūrṇam idam pūrṇāt pūrṇam adacchate pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate So he says we are dependent complete and Krishna is the independent complete.

So what this means is, say if this is my hand, the hand is a part of the body. Now the hand will be perfect when it can grip nicely, it is flexible, it has strength, it has resilience. So the hand's perfection is when it is able to do whatever a hand is meant to do.

But the hand will never be able to do what the head is meant to do or what the stomach is meant to do. So even when we become perfect, that doesn't mean we have all abilities. When we are perfect, that just means that what we are meant to do, we are able to do.

So we will all still have some limitations. Arjuna was a great archer. Arjuna didn't have the mace fighting expertise that Bhima had.

Arjuna also knew Shastra, but he did not knew scripture as well as Yudhishthira did. So each of them was perfect for the role that they were meant to play. So when we say that we have weaknesses that we are meant to overcome, that means that what we have been given by the Lord, we have certain abilities.

But because of our weaknesses, we can't use those abilities. So say if I got a cut on my finger or if a finger is stubbed or whatever, then I can't lift things with it. When the finger becomes healed, then I can use that hand for whatever a hand is meant for.

So perfection doesn't mean perfection in every respect. Perfection simply means that what we are meant to do, what we have been gifted with the ability to do, our own weaknesses, our own arathas don't come in the way of doing that. That's why I, in Saman Adi Jaggi, I call it as a spirituality, increases our ability to tap our ability.

We all have certain abilities, but because of our weaknesses, we can't tap that ability. So spirituality increases our ability to tap our ability. Good question.

Thank you. So now, I was talking about the second part of the class is what? Do you remember? What is this? Why do we get blessed by the Lord? Yes. How we can get blessed by the Lord and how we can change ourselves.

So there will be three I's in this. Or three IN basically. Inclination, Intelligence, and Intention.

So in the Bhagavatam, often, those who do not have devotion to the Lord are said to be stone-hearted. Pashanakashta. Like a stone or like a piece of wood.

If somebody doesn't feel attracted to the Lord. So now if we see, a stone is among the most common objects around us which is seen, which is said to be lacking in consciousness, lacking in emotions. So if somebody, if there is some terrible thing has happened and somebody doesn't feel any emotion at all.

How can you be so stone-hearted? So an inability to feel emotion is what characterizes a stone. And similarly, a person who does not experience emotions, that is a person who is stone-hearted. So what Ahalya's cursing represents is that, that because she acted in a stone-hearted way, she did not consider her relationship with with her husband.

She did not consider her dharmic duty. She deadened herself to her higher emotions and the result of that was she became a stone. Similarly for us, when we deaden ourselves to our higher emotions, then we lose that capacity to experience those emotions.

We lose that capacity. If somebody is a butcher and they have a tradition of butchers in their family, then say the butcher cuts animals and the butcher gets one's children. He gets his son also to the slaughter place.

Now some people say that actually what is wrong with eating meat? You kill vegetables and we kill animals. You are also killing, we are also killing. What is the difference? Well, yes, there is killing in both, but there is a big difference.

From a scientific perspective, the nervous system is much more developed in animals than in plants. And animals feel far more pain than plants do. And especially when we take fruits from plants, there is no violence at all.

The fruits just fall. When crops grow up, if the crops are not cut, the crops will dry out. For the crops, when they blossom, they are nearing the lifespan's end.

Whereas animals, when they are slaughtered, they are at the prime of their life, not near the end of their lives. And if somebody says, no, no, no, this is just natural nature's arrangement. We can ask a simple question.

So if your child is in school and your child comes and says, our teacher said today that we are going for a field trip. He says, where? He says, we are going to a farm to see a harvesting festival. Oh, yeah, nice.

You can go and see how the crops are harvested. But if your child comes and says, oh, we are going to a field trip to a slaughterhouse to see how animals are slaughtered. How many parents would want their child to go to a slaughterhouse? If you go to a farm for harvesting, there is a mood of celebration, of jubilation.

Nature has opened its arms and given us gifts. And we are gratefully accepting the gifts. There are, almost in every culture, there is a harvesting festival.

In very few, if any culture, there is a slaughtering festival. Slaughtering, especially mass slaughtering, where butchers kill animals en masse. That's ghastly.

So the point I am making over here is that when a butcher, I was talking about how our consciousness becomes like stone. So initially, when a butcher is killing animals, and the butcher gets his son over there. When the son sees an animal, maybe a chicken or a goat or whatever, the son is told, kill like this.

His hand trembles. No, I can't do it. But then, he kills once.

And, oh, he sees all the blood splattering around. He is shocked. Then the second time.

Third time. Fourth time. And after that, they kill animals, like we might cut sabji.

They are chatting with each other. And while killing animals, what has happened? Desensitization. So, we all have the capacity to experience higher emotions.

But when we choose to do an action that violates that emotion, then what happens? We stop experiencing that emotion. We stop experiencing that emotion. That is desensitization.

And this desensitization, with respect to the animals, the butcher has become stone-hearted. So our theme is about stone and stone-heartedness. And even Tukaram Maharaj is a famous Maharashtrian saint, and he says that when a butcher kills animals, the butcher cuts off the neck of the animal, but the butcher is very careful not to let even a small finger get cut for himself.

So they are so sensitive to their own pain, but completely desensitized to the pain of the animals. So why I am talking about all this is that when we become stone-hearted, there is a difference between becoming a stone and becoming a stone-hearted. A stone just can't do anything.

A stone can't harm anyone. Unless somebody picks up the stone and hits someone with it. The stone itself can't harm anyone.

But stone-hearted people can be very dangerous. Very dangerous because the human capacity to experience another person's pain, they may lose that. And if they lose that, then it's terrible.

So we all have become to some extent desensitized. We have all become stone-hearted with respect to the Lord and with respect to many other things. Just as Ahalya from a stone became a conscious being, we also want to change our self from being stone-hearted to being soft-hearted.

And for that, there are broadly three things. There is, as I said, inclination, intelligence and intention. So, inclination means what? Like, what I was talking about till now was about inclination.

We all have certain inclinations that we are born with and all these inclinations grow over time. By our choices, certain inclinations can grow and certain inclinations can stay as they are. There are two kinds of people in the world.

Some people are wise and some are otherwise. So, how did they become like this? That's also by inclination. If somebody keeps acting foolishly, that's how they gradually become foolish.

Somebody keeps acting wisely, gradually they become wiser and wiser. So by inclination, I mean that it is that they don't even have to think about it. It just comes automatically.

So, for example, say if we come from a cultured family, if we are walking and our foot touches somebody's body, immediately our hand goes and we touch it to our head. I'm sorry about that. We don't have to consciously think, oh, this is a person and their body is, the Lord is present over there, that's why their body is sacred, I shouldn't touch their body.

We don't even think about it. Inclination, we could say, it's almost like a programmed response within us. The programming can be good, the programming can be bad.

So we all have certain inclinations. And the ultimate success of bhakti is that our inclinations itself change. We are currently inclined towards worldly things and we become inclined towards the Lord.

But first, we have to begin with understanding what our inclinations are. And then accordingly, according to our inclinations, whatever our weakness is, we need to guard ourselves against it. So we have certain inclinations.

Second point is intelligence. Now, intelligence is a very interesting concept because there is a whole amount of irony surrounding intelligence. What is the irony? That there are many people who are brilliantly stupid.

What do you mean by brilliantly stupid? That means they are very intelligent, brilliant. But the action that they do is stupid. Now, there was a friend of mine, his brother was an alcoholic.

And what happened? Now, he was from a very wealthy family. So wherever this person would go, even if he had no money, he was an alcoholic and he was trying to recover from alcoholism. So then they had told all the bars over there that please don't serve him anything.

And they would not have money with him. But even if he was from a wealthy family, they would still give him even if he had no money. So then they told specifically all the bars, don't give him anything.

So what he would do is, so one day he said, I just want to go for a ride. And he went for a ride. And then he said, Oh, my car is broken down.

I need a tow. He called up. And then they towed the car and they brought it back.

And then normally if somebody is an alcoholic, then there is somebody who monitors them because they might go out and they might again, if they're trying to recover, but it's almost like the urge keeps coming again and again. So one night this devotee, he woke up and he saw his brother was sneaking out somewhere. And he followed him.

Where is he going? He went to the car. And then he opened the car gas tank. And then he had got a straw.

And he put the straw in the car gas tank and was drinking from there. So what he had done was, he had actually gone to a bar somewhere far away where they did not know that he was alcoholic. There was no bar for him.

And he had got bottles of alcohol and put it all in the car tank. And then he said, our car can't move. So that he had got the car towed.

And now he had come at night and he was trying to drink from it. So, it's so sad. He said, when I saw this, I was, I didn't know whether to be angry or to feel pity.

Because I realized, normally when somebody keeps doing something, which they say, I will not do, which we also tell them, don't do it. But they keep doing it. We sometimes feel that this person has no willpower, has no integrity, no character, no intelligence.

But it's not like that. See, when sometimes we become conditioned, then that conditioning torments us. It torments us.

Then we just push, push, do this, do this, do this. So now, actually getting alcohol in a car gas tank, that is an example of being brilliantly stupid. It requires brilliance to think of such an idea.

But if you get it, get alcohol in it, it's stupid. So our intelligence, it can be very, very resourceful to do certain things. But what it will do that purpose we need to have clarity.

So for us, when we start practicing bhakti, when we study scripture, when we understand scripture regularly, then our intelligence becomes spiritualized. Then that means the intelligence starts becoming creative and resourceful for doing good things, for doing constructive things. And that's how we can move forward in our life.

So whatever intelligence we have, we use it for serving Krishna. And we try to find, come up with creative ways of how we can serve Krishna. And rather than seeing bhakti simply as a ritual that I have to follow.

You see, we have to use our own intelligence to think how can I serve Krishna. And if we start using that, Krishna will give us so much creativity. Krishna will give us so much creativity about how we can serve.

We all often participate in Ratha Yatra festivals. How Prabhupada started the Ratha Yatra? Actually, Prabhupada was just, he was in San Francisco and he was chanting and he was sick actually. So he was chanting and he was staying in a house, like an upper story.

And he was chanting and walking and he looked out. And there he saw a truck with a flatbed. And just by seeing that truck, he thought, we can put Jagannath Baldev Subhadra over here.

Now how many of us see a truck and think of Jagannath Baldev Subhadra? We don't even think about it. But that is Prabhupada's intelligence. So using our intelligence doesn't mean memorizing some verses or giving some talks.

Intelligence means we try to become creative how can I serve Krishna. And we start doing that, we will get stimulation, we will get inspiration, we will get satisfaction. So how can I do good? How can I contribute to my own spiritual growth to other's spiritual growth? When we start using our intelligence in Bhakti, Bhakti will start becoming lively for us.

If you think of Bhakti simply as a ritual, oh I have to go to this program, I have to chant this around, I have to do this puja. Once you are thinking of that as a ritual, then we will not be able to stay connected for very long. We will start getting bored very soon.

But this will bring, if we start using our intelligence, intelligence doesn't at all mean just memorizing verses. We can, that's wonderful. Intelligence simply means that whatever we are doing, we try to become more creative.

How can I do this better for Krishna? How can I do something better for Krishna? And what are the last? Intention. Now intention means that we ourselves should want to change. We say obviously I want to change.

Yes, we all want to change. But the problem is that we don't maintain that desire. So we want our inclinations to change, that is going to take a long time.

Definitely going to take a long time. Intelligence, we can start using it creatively. But intention is what if we maintain, then we will find Krishna's reciprocation.

I'll conclude with two examples to talk about his intention. Sometimes, as I said, we make some resolution. I will do this.

And then do it for some time. After that, I do it. We give up.

So when this happens, we need to understand that actually it's not that we lost. But you see that our urges, whatever it is, it may be anger, it may be greed, it may be a particular attachment, whatever it is. Now, if you consider the graph of time versus the urge, so it's not that the urge is high always.

Sometimes the urge goes high. The urge has a surge. When the urge has a surge, then at that time, what happens is we decide I'll never get angry.

And then we get angry. And afterwards we beat ourselves. Why did I get angry like this? So what happens is when the urge comes, it goes up.

At that time, it's almost difficult to resist it. But it does not stay up all the time. Afterwards, it becomes normal.

And then it may come back again. But what do we do in between? Even if we can't resist the urge, we can persist between the urges. Even if we can't resist our urges, we can persist between our urges.

Yes, I didn't want to do it, but I did it. Okay, but what do I do after that? If I keep beating myself up, why did I do that? Why did I do that? Why did I do that? Then what is happening? I'm not doing anything to strengthen myself. So yes, sometimes because of our past inclinations, past conditionings, the urges may come up.

And it may be almost impossible to resist at that time. But we don't have to become disheartened. We may fall down, but we don't have to fall away.

Fall down means we want to follow something, but we couldn't follow it. Fall away means we just give up. We never give up.

What we understand is I can rise again. So the same mind which makes us fall down, it also tries to make us fall again. Suppose, I think I gave this example last time also.

Suppose we are living a normal law-abiding life and a friend comes to us and says, I've got a scheme to get rich quickly. He says, what is that? If anybody says that, after that nobody can resist asking, what is it? At least you want to know what is the scheme. So he says, we can rob a bank.

He says, what? He says, no, no, no. He says, no, I've got a foolproof plan. We'll rob the bank, and we'll run away and nothing will happen.

He says, no, no, no. But somehow this plan is very forceful and we agree. And then we go along to rob the bank, and when we are in the bank about to take the money, suddenly some alarm rings.

And this friend runs away and we are trapped. And then we are caught, we are arrested, and brought to the court. And when we come into the court, and we see sitting as a judge, is this very friend? So, our mind is like that.

Our mind first makes us do wrong, and then beats us. You fool, why did you do that? So we decide, okay, I'm going to wake up early in the morning. And then when the alarm rings, the mind also rings.

Go to sleep. And then we go to sleep. In our case, there will be many buttons.

The button we use the most is the snooze button. So we snooze it. And then we keep snoozing it, and then we wake up after one hour or two hours.

And the same mind says, you fool, when will you learn? You are so lazy, you are hopeless, you are useless. So now, what happens is, first, the mind only said go to sleep. And the mind now beats up, you are lazy, you are a fool, you are useless.

And when we wake up late, what happens is, not only we wasted time, but the mind has also put us in a bad mood. And even if we are awake, we can't do anything. So what happens? So if we understand, the mind has this devilish double role.

The devilish double role is, first it makes us do wrong, and then it beats us up for doing wrong. So I'm talking about the point of intention. That okay, even if I couldn't resist the urge, but still I will maintain my intention.

I won't beat myself. Okay, I couldn't do it at that time. Now what can I do? If we maintain our intention, we will succeed.

We will gradually, what will happen? As the urge is moving, the urge may come, we may not be able to resist. But in between, if we maintain our intention, with our intention, we try to practice bhakti, we try to connect with Krishna, we try to serve Krishna, we get our stone-like heart in touch with the Lord's lotus feet. When we remember Him, when we try to serve Him, that's what is happening.

And by that, we will become transformed. So even if we can't resist our urges, we persist between our urges. And by that, we will become strong.

That's maintaining our intention. No matter what happens, I will stay determined to serve Krishna. That's maintaining the strength of intention.

Another point is, you say, but what about the urges? The urges come till they overpower me. Yes, they will overpower us. But, as we stay connected with Krishna in between the urges, we start becoming stronger.

We start becoming purer. And as we start becoming purer, then, we will get the strength to resist the urges also. I'll conclude with this example.

Say, have any of you played arm wrestling? All of you have played? Okay. So when you play arm wrestling, suppose there is like a timed arm wrestling match. You know, say, in three minutes, you have to push the other person's arm down.

And now, other person might be much stronger than us. And they have pushed our hand right down, down, down, down, down. And it's almost gone.

Now you think, ah, this person is so strong, how can I resist it? Now, we can't resist it. But if you remember, it is a timed round. We don't have to resist for all time.

It is just for three minutes. And we might be almost on the ground. But if you resist it, till the third minute, then the round will be over.

And the next round won't start from here. The next round will start from here. So if you can just survive the present round, we will begin on neutral ground.

We'll begin on neutral ground. So our urges are like that. When the urge has a surge, at that time, I just can't resist it.

How long can I resist it? Even if I resist it, eventually I have to give up. So better let me give up now only. But it is not like that.

The urge is not going to stay forever. That's what the mind tricks us. Mind tricks us saying, okay, you're already down, now go down completely.

But no, not needed. The urge will be there for some time. If we tolerate it, the urge will go away.

No urge stays forever. So it's like, when we are trying to resist our urges, trying to fight our weaknesses, we need to know that it's like a timed arm wrestling match. So it's not going to go on forever.

And that's why Krishna says, Such a person is well situated. Who? One who tolerates. So tolerance means what? Hand is almost down, but no.

It's down, but it's not out. It's down, not out. And I just hold on, hold on.

The urge will go away. And that's how you just maintain the intention. Even if we can't have the execution, I can't have my hand straight.

Let's maintain the intention. By that intention itself, purification will come. By that intention, connection will stay.

By that intention, purification will happen. And Krishna ultimately sees our intention. He also knows that we are conditioned.

He knows how much we are struggling with our conditionings. He knows our weaknesses. But he just sees how much is our intention to connect with him.

If we just maintain our intention to connect with him, then he will give us reciprocation. He will give us purification. He will give us devotion.

And when he gives us, he gives us attraction to him, then, by maintaining the intention with our intelligence, our inclination changes. Once our inclination changes, we become naturally attracted towards Krishna. We become naturally attracted towards doing constructive things in his service.

And thus, at that time, our stone heart, just as the halyas got transformed, our heart also gets transformed. From stone hearted, we become soft hearted. Our heart becomes soft like, like what? Butter.

And butter thief comes and steals it. When he steals our heart, then, our heart is safe with him forever. So we want Krishna to come and steal our, change our stone hearted heart, stone heart into a soft, butter-like heart, and come and steal it.

That's why when we chant the holy names, when we worship Krishna, when we do seva, it's what we are trying to do is, we are trying to get the lord lotus feet to touch our stone heart. We are trying to get him to steal our heart. When he does that, we will become transformed.

Then the inner war will no longer be there. Not only there will be no inner war there, but rather there will be inner joy, as we stay steadily and joyfully connected with Krishna. So I'll summarize quickly.

I spoke on this theme of inner change, and I started how we want to change, but something changes us back to the original, although we change for the new. So why does that happen? So I talked about the story of Ahalya, how she gave in to a moment of weakness. She is not a victim, she is not a villain.

She is in between, like all of us. We are not entirely bad, we are not entirely good. We are in between.

So her weakness was that she felt proud that a person as great as Indra is coming to attract her to him. So when she became desensitized to her higher duties, to her relationship with her husband, to her dharma, then the desensitization led to her getting completely desensitized and becoming like a stone, becoming a stone. And Lord Ram's lotus feet coming and touching his, touching her stone body transformed her.

And what happened historically, and when Lord Ram came, that can happen in our hearts also. And I talked about how when we want to transform ourselves, I talked about three I's. What is it? Yes, excellent.

First was inclination. That we are naturally inclined towards certain things. And this is almost like a programmed response.

Some of it can be good, some of it can be bad. And we, and by the way we act, we also shape our inclinations. It's like an animal slaughterer's son, first doesn't want to kill, but then habitually starts killing.

Because they become desensitized. A stone can't harm anyone, but a stone hearted person, because they are desensitized towards some people, they can do a lot of harm to others. So, when we, ultimately we want to become purified and have our inclination towards Krishna.

Right now we need to be aware of our inclinations so that we can guard ourselves. And I talked about intelligence, is that some people are brilliantly stupid. They use their intelligence to fulfill their lower desires.

Like using a car gas tank to have alcohol within it. So, what we need to do is, instead of thinking of bhakti as a ritual, we use our intelligence to creatively think, how can I resourcefully serve Krishna. Then when we start using our intelligence like this, our bhakti will become stimulating for us.

And the last was intention. I talked about how our urges sometimes overpower us. But the urges are not always at the same level, they sometimes surge.

And even if we can't resist when the surge happens, even if we can't resist our urges, we can persist between our urges. And I talked about this mind being like a person who first makes us rob a bank and then judges us and punishes us for robbing it. Like my mind says go to sleep in the morning and then beats us up.

Why are you so lazy? So, okay, even if we succumb to the urge, we don't listen to the mind after that. I will maintain my intention to serve Krishna, no matter how many times I fall. We may fall down, but we don't fall away.

And then, not only can we persist between the urges, but we can resist the urge also, if we understand that, actually, this surge in the urge is not going to last forever. It's like a timed arm wrestling match. If I just survive the present round, I will resume on neutral ground.

So, by maintaining the intention to serve Krishna, even if we can't have execution right now, we attract His mercy. Because He sees the sincerity, the seriousness of our intention. And then, when He gives His mercy, just as He touched Ahalya and transformed, similarly, He can touch and transform our stone heart into a soft heart.

And when He attracts our heart, like Krishna steals butter, He steals our heart, then our heart goes with Him. It's permanently safe and permanently joyful. Thank you very much.

Hare Krishna. Any questions? Good question. Are intentions and desires the same? Not exactly.

I would say desires are something which are more fleeting. They come and go. If you see 2.17 in the Bhagavad Gita, So here, Krishna uses this beautiful, very pregnant phrase, compound word, Now, literally what does it mean? The desirer of desire.

What that means is, the example that is given is also very interesting. It's an example of rivers flowing into an ocean. And just as rivers flow into an ocean, similarly, desires flow into the consciousness.

Normally, we don't think so much of desires flowing into us as desires flowing out of us. Isn't it? We see some object and we desire it. So, normally we think of desires going out from us.

So, what is Krishna referring to over here? This is a river flowing in. So, what it means is that, That means the desire comes, Don't be a desirer of desire means, Don't, you could say, don't have intention toward the proposition. So, the desirer of desire means, Desire means the temptation comes from outside.

The proposition comes from outside. And intention is what I accepted. So, I would say that desires, we can't stop.

Desires will just keep coming. Of course, when we become very pure, even the desires may stop coming. It's like say, suppose some of us might have been eating meat earlier.

But we start practicing bhakti now for a few years. Then even if we are travelling in a train or a plane and the neighbour opens some food with meat, we don't think, oh, I want to eat this. At least for that temptation we can say our lips curl in distaste.

At least for that it happens. So, what happens is the desire has not come. But for most of the temptations, desire may come, but the intention may not come.

If we start thinking that desire itself should not come, that's too difficult. It is, we are trying to, if we make that the standard, we will set ourselves up for frustration and disappointment. Desires will come, because to some extent, desires are biological responses.

It's like when Ekadashi also may be fasting. But you see some food, some non-Ekadashi food, there's some water in the mouth. Now if I start saying my mouth should also have water, that is a test of my purity.

Well, that may not happen. So we cannot deny, there is the biological, there is the psychological and there is the spiritual. So, there will be certain biological responses, which will automatically come.

And the biological will come to the psychological level also. Just like say, when you say desirable food, mouth starts watering and the desire comes. But by the spiritual intention, we can ensure that the biological doesn't take over the psychological completely.

It may come in the mind, but we don't entertain it. That's why I say temptation may come, we don't have to welcome. Thank you.

Any other questions? Yes, thinking, feeling, willing are the basic symptoms of consciousness. So desires will come. Prabhupada says in one place that Krishna consciousness means to desire everything for Krishna.

So whatever desirable objects are there in the world, we see, we see somebody very intelligent. So this person becomes a devotee. That's what Vaishnavas in Navadvip say.

If this Nimai becomes a devotee, he can become such a powerful devotee. If somebody is very attractive, they become devotees, then people are attracted to attractive people. Then through them people can get attracted to Krishna.

Yes, desire is always going to be there, but what we desire or for what we desire, that can change. Very brilliant. You explained that it could be applied to everything, wherever we have inclination.

Yes. I seek your blessings so that I can apply myself. It's easy to talk about these things, but to apply is always a struggle.

We are all struggling. So these are all like weapons. I am also using this in my inner world and I hope these help you in your inner world also, all of you.

Thank you very much. Prabhupada Ki Gaur Bhakta Vindaki Jai Gaur Premanande Haribol Let us thank His Grace Chaitanya Mahaprabhu by three times Haribol Haribol Haribol Haribol Wishing of prayers.