Bhakti is an experiential science
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.
Hare Krishna Since most of you are in this direction, so I'll just shift this a little bit. So, I am happy and enlivened to be here amongst all of you. Thank you for coming today evening.
When I was in the room and I was hearing the kirtans, Gaurarti, the spiritual energy was so much, I thought there must be hundreds of people here singing the kirtan. Just a few devotees were there. But the spiritual potency of the holy name doesn't depend on the sheer number of people.
It depends on the sincerity of the devotion. So I will speak today on 9.2 from the Bhagavad Gita about how Bhakti is an experiential science. And I'll make several comparisons between Bhakti as a spiritual science and material science.
And we'll see how that can help us to deepen our appreciation and our practice of Bhakti. So 9.2 in the Bhagavad Gita is Rāja-vidyā rāja-guhiyam Okay, we don't have the verse. Rāja-vidyā rāja-guhiyam pavitra-mida-muttamam pratyakṣāvakamam dharmiyam susukham kartam avyayam So here, the 9th chapter is called as the most confidential knowledge, Rāja-vidyā.
So one of the prominent Gita commentators, Valdevidya Bhushan, explains this Rāja-vidyā, it's a compound word. Vidya is knowledge, rāja is king. So he says that this can mean two things.
Rāja-vidyā, literally we can have vidya as a noun and rāja as an adjective. Then it becomes the king of knowledge, as Śrīla Prabhupāda translates it. But you can see we can use these two as separate nouns.
It can be rāja-nāṁ vidya, the knowledge of the kings. The knowledge of the kings means that although the spiritual knowledge is meant for everyone, the spiritual knowledge is those who are saintly people, they are already expected to have the spiritual knowledge. The kings are people who are living in the world.
And if the kings are spiritually minded, then yatha rāja-tatha vraja. Just as the king is, or the eminent influential people in society are, others will become like that. And that's why in the fourth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, when Krishna talks about how this knowledge has come down in the past, he says, evam parampara-prāptam imam rāja-riṣayo vidhu.
imam rāja-riṣayo vidhu. This knowledge was known to the, was imparted to the saintly kings in the past. So, when Baladeva Vidyabhishan explains, this is the knowledge of the kings.
Not that it is meant only for the kings. But if it is known to the kings, the kings will share the knowledge with everyone. So rāja-vidya rāja-guhyam.
Guhyam means secret. So it is the king of secrets. The secrecy of this knowledge is not that somebody has put it in some secret crypt that nobody can understand, or the manuscript where this knowledge is written is kept in some underground treasure for which nobody has the clues.
The secrecy of this knowledge, rāja-guhyam, is because this knowledge has to be understood in a particular way. Just like if a fisherman goes for fishing and that fisherman uses a fishing net which has, say, 2 cm by 2 cm holes, then all aquatic creatures, all fish that are smaller than 2 cm size, they will just slip out of that net. No matter how long the fisherman keeps the net in the water, it doesn't matter.
That net is not suited for catching aquatics that are smaller than its hole size. So for acquiring or catching certain objects, we need certain tools. Just as we understand this with respect to the tools and objects very easily, but the same principle applies to spirituality.
The net of material knowledge can't net God. The net of material knowledge. Now we, through our senses, we look around the world and we see, okay, this is a wall, this is a chandelier, this is a picture.
We look around and see various things. So basically through our senses we cast a net at the world and we try to catch the world in the net of our senses. And modern science and technology, they phenomenally extend the reach and the capacity of the senses.
But still, they seek material knowledge. They cannot give us spiritual knowledge. So the guia, the secrecy of this knowledge is because the method that is required for acquiring this knowledge, that is not known to most people or that is not used by most people.
I'll come back to this method a little later. Let's first just understand the verse. Pavitram idam uttamam.
This is extremely pure. And uttama, the word tama means darkness. Uttama means that which is beyond darkness.
So it is pure and it is illuminating. Pratyaksha bhagamam dharmyam. And this is going to be the heart of our class.
Pratyaksha. Pratyaksha actually means, normally the word is used, aksha is eyes. Pratyaksha is in front of one's eyes.
That means what we directly see. But avagamam means experience. Pratyaksha bhagamam means that which is directly experienced.
Pratyaksha bhagamam dharmyam. This is righteous knowledge. This is knowledge of dharma.
And susukham kartum avayam. Susukham. This is joyfully performed.
And avayam. It is eternal. So Krishna is giving various attributes of the spiritual knowledge that he is going to share.
And one of the aspects here is that it is experiential. We can experience from within. Now, when we want to experience something, there are different modes in which we can approach it.
So there is the analytic, to give some first examples, then I'll come to the devotional side. We can have an analytical frame of reference. We can have an aesthetic frame of reference.
So, for example, if, say, a boy gives a rose to a girl. Now, that rose would normally be seen as a gesture of affection. And when we are appreciating it from an affectionate or aesthetic perspective, we might look, oh, this rose is so beautiful.
It smells so nice. Its color is so appealing. And when we look at the rose from an aesthetic perspective, we appreciate a rose in a particular way.
But suppose, just spurring our imagination a little bit, suppose the boy gives a rose to a girl and the girl is a botanist. And she says, hey, this is stamen, this is the carpel, this is the androsium, this is the gynosium. And she starts giving a botanical description of that flower to the boy.
What's going on here? So now both frames of reference are true. The flower does consist of all those things. But the way a botanist knows a flower is very different from the way, say, an artist or an aesthetist, you could say, knows a flower.
There are two different ways of looking at the flower. Or consider there's a mother and a child. Say the child falls sick and then the child is taken to a doctor.
Now the doctor may do an exhaustive battery of tests on the child. And the doctor may know, may through those tests, know more about the child than the mother also. May know about the red blood corpuscle, the white blood corpuscle, the platelets count, so many things that the doctor may know about the child, which the mother doesn't know.
But the doctor knows about the child, the mother knows the child. There's a difference between the two. Doctor is knowing the child as a body, whereas the mother knows the child as a person.
Similarly, there is knowledge, that is, we can know about God and we can know God. The two are very different. Knowledge about God means that we know, Okay, Krishna, he is, you know, he is a Hindu God.
Or he's a person who lived some thousands of years ago. He's a person who was a diplomat. He was maybe a philosopher, he gave philosophical knowledge.
So we can have a lot of knowledge about God. But knowing about God is different from knowing God. Knowing about God means we have a lot of factual information about God.
But knowing God means we approach God as a person. And he relates with us as a person. And by that interrelationship of hearts, we come to know God as a tangible reality.
And this, this knowledge of God is Raj Vidya. This knowledge enables us to experience Krishna within our heart. This knowledge enables us to connect with Krishna.
And this is the knowledge that the process of Bhakti Yoga offers us. In the Vrishamad Bhagavatam, it is described that, bhakti pareshanubhava viraktir anyatra ca This bhakti is a process. And this process gives two results.
One is an internal result. The other is an external result. The internal result is paraisyanubhava.
Anubhava means experience. Isha is the Supreme Lord. Para is the one who is transcendental, beyond the senses.
So what does bhakti do? Bhakti gives us paraisyanubhava. It gives us experience of the transcendental Lord. And when we get experience of the transcendental Lord, that is the internal experience we get.
And the result of that is viraktir anyatra ca. Anyatra, other things, virakti. Virakti means detachment.
So the experience of God is so fulfilling that we no longer chase after other experiences. Because we understand this itself is the most fulfilling experience that I can have in my life. In the Bhagavad Gita, in the 6th chapter, Krishna says in the 22nd, 23rd verses, yam labdhva cha param labham manyatena dhikam tatha yasmin sthitona dukhena gurunapi vichalyate tam vidya dukha sanyogam vyogam yogasangitam So he says, yam labdhva, having attained this, cha param labham, that there is something more to be attained.
manyatena dhikam tatha One feels that there is nothing more to attain. One feels completely satisfied by this. Yasmin sthitona, having situated like this, na dukhena, even if one gets great misery, gurunapi vichalyate, one will not be disturbed, even with great misery.
So Krishna says, when we get experience, this higher spiritual experience, the experience of Krishna, then this convinces us, this is the highest experience, there is nothing more to be had. And after that, it convinces us further that actually no matter what great distress comes in my life, other things don't matter so much. As long as I have Krishna with me, other things don't matter.
So, now, bhakti pareesh anubhav viraktirannit jyotam. The result of bhakti is we experience Krishna within, and we experience Krishna within, we don't crave for other experiences. And this is actually the difference between piety and spirituality.
Piety means that many people think, okay, going to a temple or going to another religion, going to a church or going to a mosque, it is a part of the good life. It is something which I should be doing, so that I will be a good person. And this is a good level of approaching God.
However, at this level, one conceives that, Bhaktivinoda Thakur writes in Chaitanya, Bhaktivinoda Thakur is a prominent acharya, on the altar you will see, on the right side. So Bhaktivinoda Thakur writes in his book Chaitanya Shikshamrit, that when people approach God at the level of piety, they think that life has many enjoyable aspects. And religion is one of those aspects.
So, for them, religion is just one part of life. Whereas, yes, that is also a good way of approaching God. Nowadays there are people for whom religion is no part of life at all.
They are total materialists. So approaching God at some level is good. But, actually, the Bhagavad Gita tells us that our spiritual life is not just a part of our life.
Our spirituality is the basis of our life. We, at our core, are souls. And as souls, the life at the spiritual level is the only life that can truly satisfy us.
This does not mean that we neglect material life, but we harmonize the two. So, when one is practicing Dharma at the level of piety, yes, my life has many aspects. This is also one of the aspects.
Then, one does religion more for cosmetic purposes. That means, just as people, in order to look good, may wear some cosmetics. So, similarly, to look good in the eyes of a pious society, people go to a temple.
So, the purpose is, sometimes people go to a temple, not so much to take darshan of God, but to give their darshan to others. That means, they want the whole world to have darshan, that I am such a religious person that I am going to a temple also. So, ātma-sambhāvitāstabdhādhan-māna-valāṇidhāya jante nāma-yajñeste dambhe nāvidhi-pūrvakam.
In the 16th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, 17th verse, Krishna says, such people, yajante nāma-yajñeste, there is nāma-yajña. Nāma-yajña, most of you know, what is that? Chanting the holy names. So, nāma-yajña is there.
But such people, Krishna says, they don't do nāma-yajña, they do yajña for nāma. That means, they do sacrifice, they do chanting, they go to temple for the sake of faith, for the sake of, I am also a good person and people should respect me for my religiosity. Again, this is good because at least for some reason or other, people are connecting with God.
But this undercuts the potential of spirituality. We don't achieve what spirituality can offer us. So, when we say, bhakti-pareśan-bhavirat-tirannitrucha, you know, when Srila Prabhupada, he was going to America.
Actually, Srila Prabhupada tried to tirelessly preach in India, share the message of the Bhagavad Gita and Bhagavatam. And people would come for his programs. But most Indians were at the level of piety.
Yes, they just come, they would attend some classes and then they would go on with their normal lives. And then Srila Prabhupada came to, finally decided that Indians are too enamored by the West. So, if he could go to the West and show Western people what spirituality is, inspire them to practice it, then Indians would also practice it.
So, now he decided this. He was at that time extremely poverty-stricken. And he did not have even money to apply for the visa, what to speak of purchase a ticket and what to speak of travel abroad.
But somehow he kept trying and he would just talk with different people and some people, one person talked with another and they helped and things started falling together. So, he got a sponsor for his visa, but then he had to, he had no money for the transportation. So, he went to a wealthy donor, Sumati Murari, and he told her that you have a transport agency, please send me on, please arrange for my to go to America.
She actually said, I don't have any passenger ships. So, normally people don't travel on cargo ships. But Srila Prabhupada was so insistent, he said, okay, I'll arrange for you to go on a cargo ship.
But still she was hesitant. He said, Swamiji, why do you want to go there? He said, if you want to speak Bhagavatam, then you come to my house, every evening I will hear Bhagavatam. Now, Prabhupada was not interested in speaking Bhagavatam in that way, just as a part of a religious ritual.
It's not to disrespect her religiosity, but it's just that for her, even just you have to speak Bhagavatam, come and speak, why do you have to go to America to speak Bhagavatam? He thought like that. But Prabhupada was not just interested in religion as another ornament in a person's life. Prabhupada was interested in religion as a superlative transformational force in a person's life.
And when Srila Prabhupada went to America, and there people were actually seeking something higher in their lives. And not knowing where to seek, they were looking through drugs. But when Srila Prabhupada gave them the holy name and explained the philosophy, they started experiencing through the chanting of the holy names, something much higher, something much richer, something much deeper.
And after Srila Prabhupada started building a few centers in America, then when Indians, see in 1965 roughly, the American government simplified its immigration rules. So, when Srila Prabhupada went to America, there were very few Indians there. But after that, Indians also started coming in significant numbers.
And those Indians who were there from earlier also, when the International Society for Christian Consciousness started becoming bigger, so at that time, some people started coming. And they saw that yes, we had heard these kirtans in India also, but here there is a fervency, there is energy in the kirtans that we did not experience in India. Because earlier the kirtans were more a part of a performance.
You go to a temple and there is somebody playing a hennai and we sit and fold our hands and we observe or stand and fold our hands. There is nothing wrong with that. But it was more of a part of a cultural performance.
Whereas Srila Prabhupada introduced kirtan as an eminently participatory activity, where we all participate and by participation, in the association of intense devotees, in the Puranas, it is said that Lord Vishnu tells Narada Muni, naahambasami vaikunthe yoginam hrudayeshiva yatra gayanti madhbhakta tattvatishthami narada So, he says that I don't reside in Vaikuntha. I don't reside in the spiritual world. Nor do I, yoginam hrudayeshiva, nor do I reside in the hearts of the yogis.
Then where does he reside? He says, yatra gayanti madhbhakta, wherever my devotees glorify me, that is where, tattvatishthami narada, that is where I reside. Now this verse is a rhetorical declaration for emphasis. Yes, Krishna does reside in Vaikuntha and he does reside in the yogi's hearts.
But when Krishna resides there, we can't perceive him there. We can perceive him when the devotees glorify him. When we hear his glories, then we can perceive his presence.
When we perceive his presence, that paraeesha anubhav, we get experience of Krishna. And the result of that experience is, viraktir anyatraja, one becomes detached from other things. Not as a force to renunciation.
You should not be doing this, you should not be doing this, you should not be doing this. Not like that. Actually one feels, I don't need these things.
There is something much better available for you. So when we get that, at that time one recognizes that spiritual life is something which is the essence of who we are. In some small way I got this realization 20-25 years ago.
I was studying engineering in India in prominent engineering college. And my dream in life was to be an academic topper. I was always among the toppers, 2nd, 3rd, joint, 1st.
But I was never the 1st. So since my 1st, 2nd, 3rd, that was my constant dream. When will I come 1st? And in my engineering, in my 3rd year, I gave the GRE exam, which is for going to America.
And at that time GRE was out of 2400. So I got 2350 out of 2400. So I was not just, my dream was to be 1st in my college, but at that time I was not just 1st in my college.
I was 1st in the whole state of Maharashtra. I was 1st in the entire history of my college. So I thought, yes, this is all my dreams come true.
I'll be very happy. Yeah, and I was happy for some time. But afterwards, I realized that there's no happiness in looking at the marks.
You just look at the marks, how much happiness is there. When others come and congratulate me, oh, you've done so well. And they congratulate me, then I feel some happiness.
And then if somebody didn't congratulate me, I would get agitated. I said, you know, don't you know what I've achieved? Are you envious of me? I didn't like the direction my thoughts were going. At that time, it struck me that now I have become more dependent on my happiness on others than what I was before.
I've achieved my dreams, but rather than being happy with the achievement of the dreams, I have become more dependent on others. It's just like a simpler example, a more commonplace example would be, that is, suppose we purchase a very expensive dress, very expensive fashionable dress, and then we come into public assembly, and no one notices that dress. What is the point? We'll feel so exasperated by that.
So at that time, as I was, I started, this was like the goal of my life. And I had achieved the goal of my life. And the goal of my life, instead of finding it to be like a pinnacle, I found it to be a quicksand.
I just found that there's nothing here, nothing here. So then just three days after I got my GRE result, all this happened in three days more or less. Three days after that, one friend of mine gave me a Bhagavad Gita.
And if I had got the Bhagavad Gita maybe a few months earlier, I would not have read it, because I was too caught up with the idea that I want to be a topper. And maybe if I had got it a few months later, this awakening that had happened, that might have just dulled away. So Krishna arranged in such a way that I got the Bhagavad Gita and I started reading it.
And when I started reading it, it just struck like a revelation for me. I associated, I got to associate with devotees and I realized that actually in connecting with Krishna, in serving Krishna, in sharing Krishna with others, there is far greater fulfillment than anything else. At that time I was also involved in some social service.
I used to go to, just near our college, there were some slums. And I used to go to those slums and I used to teach over there. So I used to teach the slum children English, mathematics and history.
So I was a part of the social service organization, which was the idea was that my education will empower people. And I had great faith in the power of education also. And I was doing that and almost at the same time, I realized that although I was talking with this, I was helping those children learn the subjects, but I realized they had much bigger problems.
In most of the slums, the parents were drunkards. And normally when I would go there, the father would, not most of the parents, but the father would be a drunkard, usually. So the father, sometimes the father would be there, he would be a nice person, talk with me, thank me for coming and educating the children.
But then the children would tell me that when our father drinks, he becomes a completely different person. And then domestic violence and all sorts of things would be there. Then I would wonder, just by teaching them mathematics, just by teaching them English, just by teaching them history, am I really tangibly helping them solve their problems? One of my friends was actually much deeper into social service.
So he had gone to a nearby village. And he had not only started educating the village, but he had also persuaded most of the parents over there to give up alcohol. And that was considered to be one of the biggest successes of that social service organization, which was there, social welfare organization.
And one day, this friend came back after one weekend, and he just looked shattered, completely, looked shattered. I asked him, what happened? He said, just a couple of days ago, there had been an election. And election campaigning, the local candidate, in order to allure the people to vote for him, he had come to that village with several trucks full of alcohol.
And he had offered it free. And not only the fathers, but even the children had taken alcohol. At that time, we discussed and I felt, how much, certainly education is important.
But more important than education, people may have education, but unless they're empowered to avoid bad habits, their education will not lead them to any good. More or less at the same time, I was among the toppers. But there's one student who was in my own college, he had been the topper throughout, not just in our college, but in all the eight semesters, he had been a university topper throughout.
And he had got the highest paid job in the history of our college at that time. And he, from the first year of his college, had been a chain smoker. He said that he just couldn't study without smoking.
And he had this super high paying job at that time. And within the first six months of his job, he got lung cancer and he died. So it was horrible at that time.
So all this set me thinking that, OK, we could say that those slum dwellers, they're uneducated and that's why they're drinking and destroying their lives. But here was a super educated person, a brilliant person, but even he was destroying himself. So at that time, I started thinking that if I really want to contribute, what is the best way to contribute? And as I myself found meaning and direction in the Bhagavad Gita, I also started sharing Bhagavad Gita with others.
So I was staying in a room in a hostel with a room partner and he was into some bad habits. And somehow he became inspired, not because of me, I would say he became inspired of me. Although I was not a good example, but still he became inspired.
And within just three months, he just gave up all his bad habits. And I found that several other students also became transformed in the same way. They became better students.
They became better human beings. They became better sons, better citizens, better people overall. So after I completed my engineering, I worked for some time in a software company.
And then I felt that actually I saw, I had always a lot of interest in science. I'll just come to the science part in a few minutes. So I saw that the scientific knowledge was like one big body of wisdom.
You could consider it a mountain. And the spiritual wisdom of ancient India was like another mountain. But separating these two mountains was a big chasm.
Why? Because most people coming from the scientific background or scientific educational orientation, they could not appreciate the spiritual wisdom. This is the arcane language, Sanskrit had become practically arcane even in India. And it is also, many of the great spiritual teachers who were there often, they were not equipped.
They were not trained to present the spiritual message in a contemporary intelligible scientific way. So there were still many people who were religious. But their religiosity was at the level of cultural appreciation.
It was not spiritual transformation. And I felt that these two mountains of the spiritual knowledge and the scientific knowledge, if they could be bridged, that would serve in bringing about these two aspects of human life together. Now Martin Luther King, he wrote that our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power.
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men. We have guided missiles because through our scientific power, we now have phenomenal capacity to control the outer world around us.
But it is spiritual power that enables us to control our inner world. And when we don't have that, we have guided missiles, but misguided men. So bhakti, as I said, bhakti is a spiritual science.
What does it do? It gives us experience of God. And when we get experience of God, that experience becomes so fulfilling that the inner disorder that is there within us, that calms down, that becomes orderly. Now why is there inner disorder within us? There are many reasons.
But one primary reason is that we are consumed by too many desires. Now I want this, I want that, I want that, I want, I want, I want. aneka chitta vidbhānta moha jāla samāvatah prasaktaḥ kāma-bhogeśu padanti narkeśu ca In 16th chapter, 16th verse Krishna says, aneka chitta vidbhānta.
Split apart, our consciousness is split apart by many, many desires. moha jāla samāvatah Last year I was in Ohio State University. I was in America.
I was giving lecture in Ohio State University. So it was there, after my talk, I gave a talk on the mental diet. How we need to regulate our mental diet.
It was a vegetarian society over there. And after that one American boy came up the class. And I talked about how suicide is a big mental health problem.
And the main reason for suicide, there are of course many sociological reasons, but a more underlying reason is actually we are feeding our minds too much negativity. So this boy after the class he came and he told that he was, he had been contemplating suicide just before the class. But somehow he had got the poster and he thought let me come for this class and see what it is all about.
And he realized that he had basically the way we live in today's world, there is so much reason to get frustrated. Why? Why is there so much reason to get frustrated? Because our consciousness is very externally directed. See the greatest need in the world is not just for food, for clothing, for shelter.
All these are important, they are essential, no doubt. But there are so many people who have food, clothing, shelter. Are they happy? No, they have so many other needs which come up.
So our material and spiritual, they are both two important sides. The material side, our material needs are like painkillers. They are necessary but they are not sufficient.
If I am sick and if I am in great pain, I need painkillers, otherwise I will be screaming in pain. But the painkiller doesn't cure the pain, it covers the pain. And the pain recurs after some time.
So like that, we have our material needs. We are in need for food, for clothing, for shelter. All these needs are important.
But they are not actually tools to happiness. They are tools to avoidance of misery. If I don't have food, if I don't have clothing, if I don't have shelter, I will be miserable.
But if I have them, that itself does not make me happy. That is basically a necessity after which I have so many other things to pursue in life. So the WHO has declared that this current century, 21st millennium basically, the biggest problem is going to be mental health problems.
Psychologists are talking about the anxiety epidemic. And curiously, psychologists have found that anxiety has a very peculiar pattern as it is spreading in today's world. Normally, we consider external uncertainty as a cause of anxiety.
Let me say if you are going to some appointment and you have to catch a local. And you are running late and you are not sure whether you are going to catch a local or not. That uncertainty causes anxiety.
Usually, the primary cause of anxiety is uncertainty. And if we see, the uncertainties in the developing countries are far more than in the developed countries. For example, in India, in many parts, if we turn on a tap, we can't be sure water will come out or not.
Is it? Not in all parts, but in some parts it is like that. In the developed countries, usually we don't have this kind of anxieties. Sorry, we don't have this kind of uncertainties.
So, logically speaking, anxiety is caused by uncertainty. And in the developed countries, the uncertainties are lesser than in the developing countries. Therefore, if uncertainty causes anxiety and if uncertainty is less in the developed world, anxiety should also be less in the developed world.
But psychologists have found, sociologists have found universally that it is in the developed countries that the anxiety levels are much higher than in the developed countries. And not only that, psychologists have also found that when people emigrate from the developing countries to the developed countries, especially Indians and Chinese, often their stress levels and anxiety levels increase after they emigrate. So, this raises the question, why is there so much anxiety? If anxiety were caused only by uncertainty, the decrease of uncertainty should decrease anxiety.
Then why is anxiety increasing? See, anxiety is caused not just by outer uncertainty. Anxiety is also caused by inner instability. Anxiety is also caused by inner instability.
Inner instability means that actually the more our worldview and more our life becomes materialistic, then material things are constantly changing. Nothing is sure. Our job, our health, our bank balance, our relationships, nothing is stable.
So, if we think of ourselves primarily or only as materialistic beings, then there is always instability within. Anytime everything may go wrong. What will I be left with? Materialism essentially means matter is all that matters.
Materialism means matter is all that matters. And we talk about being pure devotees of Krishna. So, materialists are pure devotees of matter.
Only if I have material things then I am happy. If I don't, if I lose something material, it's the end of the world for me. So, as materialism increases more and more, then even if we have greater outer certainty, but still materialism causes inner uncertainty.
When there is inner uncertainty, there is going to be anxiety. What do I mean by inner uncertainty? Suppose we are going on a boat or we are going in a river or in an ocean. Now, in the ocean, there are always going to be waves.
And those waves will cause us to go up and down, up and down, up and down. If we are directly in the ocean, we will be tossed lot up and down by the waves. If we are in a boat in the ocean, the movement up and down will be much lesser.
If we are in a boat that is anchored, then the movement will become substantially lesser. So, the material world in the Bhagavad Gita and in the Bhakti literature is compared to an ocean. It's called bhava-sagara.
In this material ocean, there are always the dualities, sukha-dukha, maana-apmaana. So, these are always there and these dualities are the waves which will keep going up and down. Inevitably.
And spiritual culture is like the boat. Even materialistic people, if they just come to a temple, and their kirtan is going on and there is a spiritual atmosphere, they feel some peace. They feel some peace.
If they feel some vibrations over here, which calm me down. So, spiritual culture is like the boat, which decreases the effect of the waves of ups and down on us. And spiritual culture is good.
But the anchor is our own spiritual connection. The anchor, which will give us the greatest stability, coming to a spiritual culture is good. But if we are ourselves practicing spirituality, then we are anchoring ourselves to the supreme unchanging reality.
That is Krishna. And when we connect ourselves with Krishna, at that time, whatever happens in this world, because we are internally connected with Krishna, we gain great stability. One of the Bhagavad Gita's messages is, अपीचेत सुदुराचारो भजते मामाने भाग साधुरेवसमन्तव्या सम्यत्वर्सितोहिसा In 9.31, Krishna says, that whatever we may do, Krishna always loves us.
Krishna always cares for us. Krishna is always there with us. So, Krishna is not a God who catches us when we do wrong.
No, Krishna is a God who catches us when we fall. He is not a God who catches us when we do wrong. He is a God who catches us when we fall.
He is there to help us. He is there to support us. In the Vishnu Sahasranama, Vishnu Sahasranama has thousand names of Lord Vishnu, which come in various places in the scriptures.
So, there are two names which seem to be contradictory. निमिष्यो निमिषय स्वाग्री वाच्यस्पतिरुदारधी निमिष्यो निमिषय So, निमिषय is one who blinks his eyes. And निमिषय means one who doesn't blink his eyes.
So, how can there be two contradictory names like this? Either God blinks his eyes or he doesn't blink his eyes. So, Baldevidya Bhushan, a prominent Acharya, Bhakti Acharya, he has written a commentary on the Vishnu Sahasranama. And there he explains the significance of these two names.
He says, what does it mean when Krishna blinks his eyes? He means that if a devotee accidentally commits some wrong activity, Krishna blinks his eyes and overlooks it. And the example is, we all know, Putana. Putana came with the intention of killing Krishna.
But Krishna closed his eyes. And Krishna purified her, elevated her and liberated her. That is Krishna's magnanimity.
And अनिमिष्यो means Krishna always opens his eyes. Krishna doesn't blink his eyes. What that means is that Krishna, when a devotee tries to serve Krishna, Krishna unblinkingly, जगनागले सुबद्रामया की, गौनिताई भगवानी की.
So, Krishna unblinkingly notices, takes note of even the smallest service that a devotee is doing. And Krishna eventually rewards that devotee. In the tradition associated with the Mahabharata, there is a story that how once when Krishna had come to meet the Pandavas, he was with Arjuna.
And Draupadi had brought some fruits for them. And because they were talking privately, Draupadi just started leaving. At that time, Krishna took a fruit and was about to cut it with a knife.
And as he cut it, the knife slipped from his hand and some blood started coming from his hand. So, when Draupadi saw this, she immediately came back. And she was wearing a silken saree, she was a queen.
But she immediately ripped apart her saree and tied it on Krishna's finger. And as she tied it, she was in anxiety but Krishna was smiling. And Krishna told, O Krishna, Draupadi is also Krishna.
She is as well complicated. O Krishna, I remember what you are doing and I will reward you for that. And when did Krishna reward? Yeah, when Dushasan tried to disrobe her saree.
Actually, it was not just Krishna who supplied unlimited saree. The Vaishnavacharya explained that Krishna incarnated as her saree. And Krishna protected her honour.
So, Animisho Nimishasvak. Krishna, he is a God who notices what we are doing. And he rewards what we are doing.
So, therefore, when we connect with Krishna, when we develop our personal connection with Krishna through the practice of bhakti, through the way we study scripture, through the way we chant his holy names, through the way we render seva, then we get great inner stability. And that inner stability enables us to weather the storms of life. No matter what storms may come, we can weather those storms.
And we can continue to constructively. I'll conclude with one point. Bhakti, as I said, it's a balance of the material and the spiritual both together.
That means, Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita in 18th chapter 46th verse that Svakarmanatam abhyarcha siddhim vindati manavah. He says, by your work, worship him. So, Krishna doesn't tell Arjuna to renounce the world, but he says, worship him.
How can we worship Krishna? Yes, there are direct activities of worship which we do by coming to the temple, like worshipping the deities, like chanting his holy names. By these we connect with Krishna. And after we connect with Krishna in this way, our heart becomes connected with Krishna.
Then everything other than things that we do, they also become acts of worship to Krishna. So, Svakarmanatam abhyarcha, by your work, worship him. So, what we are is God's gift to us.
What we become is our gift to God. What we are, the talents we have, the resources we have, all those things, these are God's gift to us. And how we use them, not just what we do in this world, but what we become by using them, that is our gift to God.
So, the Bhagavad Gita helps us to re-envision life, the whole of life, as an offering of love to Krishna, as a reciprocation of love with Krishna. And in that sense, whatever we do in this world, that is also our devotional service to Krishna, when we have devotionally connected ourselves with him. So, I talked about how our material needs are like painkillers.
So, bhakti is the medicine, bhakti is the curative medicine. A proper treatment, if a doctor, if a patient, if pain goes to a doctor, the doctor doesn't tell the patient to stop the painkiller. But if the patient thinks that the painkiller is relieving me of pain, why do I need the curative medicine? And the patient uses the curative medicine, then the painkiller becomes, the painkiller stops working after some time.
And you need more, the patient needs more and more dosages of painkiller. And afterwards, even that doesn't help. So, like that, the Vedic scriptures offer the balanced program of material and spiritual growth.
So, it is not, Krishna did not tell Arjuna to renounce his material duties. It's not that we have to give up our material side. But at the same time, it is, for the sake of our material, we shouldn't give up our spiritual.
When we balance the two by connecting ourselves with Krishna, then we can find, as Krishna says, we can find life's greatest satisfaction. Even in this world and at the end of this life, we can be connected with Krishna eternally, in his eternal abode. So, I'll summarize, then you may have questions, if any of you have.
I started talking about how bhakti is an experiential science. So, bhakti is, the knowledge about God is the king of knowledge. And it is the knowledge for the kings, because for the kings it can be disseminated to everyone.
And we discussed about two modes of knowing. Basically, when we talk about king of knowledge, why is this knowledge secret, Rajagohiya? Because it has to be known in a particular way. Just as a fishing net cannot catch fish smaller than what its size is, just as a botanist who looks at a flower from a botanical perspective cannot appreciate the beauty of the flower aesthetically, just as a doctor who studies the clinical parameters of a patient, of a child, cannot know the child as a person the way a mother knows.
Similarly, we may know about God, but we may not know God. If we approach God simply in an informational sense or simply in a cultural sense, yes, it's a part of my culture to go to a temple, then we may know a lot about God. We may hear stories about God also, stories about Krishna, but we will not know Krishna.
We know a lot about Krishna, but we want to know Krishna. To know Krishna, we have to approach Him as a person. And that happens when we connect with those who are approaching Krishna as a person.
Another connection I discussed, how Shri Prabhupada wanted to share spirituality. So he did not want to speak the Bhagavatam just as an ornament of the pious culture. When there is piety, people think bhakti practice is like a social cosmetic so that I look good in the world.
But bhakti is a spiritual transformation. And so Shri Prabhupada, when he decided to go to America, and for the Americans, when they first came to Krishna, they had no conception of bhakti as a social cosmetic. They just heard from Prabhupada and they saw it was so profoundly transformational and they took it up.
And thereafter, many Indians who came and met Shri Prabhupada's followers, early followers, they saw, yes, these people are following our culture, but they are following it so much more seriously. And there is such zeal. There is some spiritual potency here which was not really there earlier.
That was because for them, the bhakti was not just a matter of piety, it was a matter of spirituality. It's a matter of inner transformation. And in that connection, I told briefly about myself, how I discovered the potency, the vibrancy of the Bhagavad Gita through the futility of material achievements and through the inadequacy of material welfare work.
And in the later half of the class, we discussed about how the life of bhakti is a life of balance between material and spiritual. Just material progress is like a painkiller. We need it, but it's not enough.
And then we discussed how an anxiety epidemic is there. People are even becoming suicidal. And all that is, normally anxiety is caused by outer uncertainty.
But in the developed world, although there is greater outer certainty, still there is anxiety because there is inner instability. And this instability increases when we have a materialistic worldview. Because there is nothing which is unchanging, nothing which is going to give us constant shelter.
And how can we connect with the unchanging? It's because like in an ocean, if we are in a boat, we become relatively stable. And if in an ocean we are in a boat, which is anchored, then we become even more stable. So like that, this material world is like an ocean where there will be ups and downs.
And they will cause instability. But if we are a part of a spiritual culture, that becomes like a boat. And if we have our own spiritual connection, if we devote ourselves to Krishna through our practice, then that becomes our anchor.
And then for inspiring ourselves to anchor ourselves with Krishna, we discussed some attributes of Krishna, how he, his love for us is unfeeling, animesho, animesha. If we commit mistakes, he blinks his eyes and overlooks, as he did for Putana. And if we render some service, he opens his eyes and unblinkingly notices, as in Vidrapati.
And by just meditating on Krishna's glory, if we offer ourselves to him wholeheartedly, we can ourselves experience an inner strength, which will enable us to not only weather the storms of life, but also bring out our best. Bhakti, as I said, is the balance of the material and the spiritual. So what we are is God's gift to us.
What we become is our gift to God. Thank you very much. Are there any questions or comments? So out of them, by karma, I mean, overall, who is better? I mean, what is the right karma to have? Okay.
So if somebody is a brahmachari serving Krishna in the temple and somebody is working outside and through science, technology, contributing to social well-being. And he is also serving Krishna. Both of them are similar devotees.
Both are serving Krishna. So who is better? See, who is better is a wrong question to ask. The right question is, what is better for me? We cannot make an absolute decision for everyone.
Different people are different. The shoe that fits one leg bites another leg. Because different shoes are of different sizes.
So we can't make an absolute principle about… Some people may be more inspired in the renounced order. And they may contribute to society more through the renounced order. Some may contribute more through the engaged order.
So rather than trying to make a universal assessment for what is essentially an individual decision, we should focus on what is the best for me. And this whole attitude of who is better, that leads to an unnecessarily competitive mentality where what we need is a cooperative mentality. So the renounced order and the householder order, all of them are actually serving Krishna.
And the way they serve Krishna, that is different. So we could say that they are basically, if we consider, continuing the hospital metaphor which I had used earlier in the class, these are basically two different departments in the hospital. So both of them are not only taking the treatment themselves, but both of them are also in their own ways sharing the treatment with others.
So based on, firstly, our own inclinations, what is our temperament, what is our nature, what is our inspiration, we can observe and we can decide. Objectively speaking, if we see that both orders are important. In the renounced order, relatively speaking, one can share Krishna's knowledge directly more.
One has more time, more facility and more of overall opportunity to study scripture deeply and share the scripture wisdom deeply. So if that is what is one's inspiration primarily, to directly serve Krishna more and more, then the renounced order is what may be the best suited for a person. But if one's inspiration is more to serve Krishna, not just by directly engaging in devotional activities, but also engaging in the world more, then that inclination will be better suited to be engaged in the grahastha life.
So in the Krishna consciousness movement, there are two forces which are working. One is the Vedic or you could say the Vedic social model and there is the Bhakti model. So in the Vedic social model or Vedic cultural model, if you say, the renounced order is considered higher than the householder order.
So the renounced order is, because they renounce the world, they sacrifice that for God's sake, they are considered higher. So grahasthas in that sense, always respect and honor sannyasis or even brahmacharis for that matter. But in the bhakti hierarchy, in the bhakti perspective, what matters is not one's external order, what matters is one's inner devotion.
And we see this in the Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, when he went to South India, he met Ramananda Rai. And Chaitanya Mahaprabhu heard from Ramananda Rai. So bhakti can actually invert the hierarchy.
In both ways, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was a sannyasi and Ramananda Rai was a grahastha. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was a brahmana and Ramananda Rai was from a lower family, a shudra family. But still Chaitanya Mahaprabhu heard from Ramananda Rai.
So where bhakti is there, bhakti can invert the normal hierarchy. So once we try to get into which is better or which is higher, yes, from the cultural perspective, the renounced order is higher. But we are not just a cultural organization.
Bhakti, Prabhupada gave us bhakti as a primary legacy. And bhakti can invert the normal hierarchy also. So that's why I said don't get into this whole complex of which is better or who is better.
Focus on what is better for me. And we can talk with senior brahmacharis to understand more about brahmachari life. We can talk with senior grahasthas to understand more about grahastha life.
And also we need to, if we are talking also, we need to find out mature brahmacharis and mature grahasthas. Because otherwise brahmacharis will criticize the grahasthas and grahasthas will criticize brahmacharis. And that leads to unnecessary bad blood.
And if we are ourselves having to take this decision, and the most important thing is don't spend too much time worrying about this decision. Because otherwise it will become paralysis by analysis. Should I do this? Should I do this? Should I do this? No.
Our first purpose is to serve Krishna sincerely. If we are doing our sadhana nicely, if we are doing our seva nicely, if we are doing our responsibility nicely, then by that we show Krishna that I want to be connected with you. And then Krishna will guide us how we can be best connected with him.
Dadami buddhi yogam tam yena mam upayanti te. If you serve me diligently, Krishna says, I will give you the intelligence about how to come to me. So don't make a hasty decision based on just others' pressurization and don't try to make a universal assessment of what is right or wrong.
But focus on trying to get a mature understanding and on trying to connect with Krishna wholeheartedly, yourself, and then Krishna will guide how best we can serve him. Does it answer your question? Thank you. Any other questions? Yes.
My question is, why is for the mental disorders, there are so many different gradations, so many different types of mental disorders and usually the cure of these disorders, medical treatments, so many types of medical treatments, so many varieties of medical treatments. Why is the spiritual aspect being neglected, even though mental disorder is so prominent now, as you said, it's becoming a world health issue. Why is the spiritual aspect not being taken seriously by the modern society? So when mental problems are becoming so severe, why is most treatment gravitating towards medical treatment in terms of, say, treating some, it is a brain disorder to be cured through chemicals, rather than looking for spiritual solutions.
Actually, spiritual solutions are also being adopted. Many people do practice meditation and many doctors also recommend meditation, but meditation is seen more as an alternative therapy or as an additional therapy. It is not seen as a mainstream therapy.
If you want to understand the reason, you have to go actually into the history of science, that science, as it developed historically, chose to focus on material explanations for material phenomena. This is a methodology of science called naturalism. That means science observes the world and looks for natural explanations for all phenomena.
So this has its utility. That say, if somebody has got black plague, so there were people in Europe at that time who believed that there are some evil spirits who have caused the black plague. So the scientific approach was, if we look for some supernatural explanation, then we would have never found a cure for that.
So look for some natural explanation. And this is good. Look for natural explanation for natural phenomena.
That is good. But what if natural explanations are not complete? Then ruling out as a matter of principle all non-material explanations, that becomes a stumbling block in the progress of knowledge. So because of this methodology of naturalism, science tries to treat the whole human body, not just human body, the whole human experience itself, as a material phenomena.
And because it treats as a material phenomena, it has to be treated also materialistically. And that's why the mind or consciousness, whatever you want to say, because in the Western intellectual circles, beyond the brain and the body, whatever is there is called by the common word mind. In the Bhagavad Gita, there is a soul, there is the mind and the body.
But in the Western world, there is matter and there is spirit. Sorry, there is matter and there is mind, which they often equate with spirit. So the point which I am making here is, without getting into technicalities, that the mind is reduced on to matter and mental problems are treated as material problems, material means physical problems, to be treated by physical means.
And because of that, the most of psychology is reduced on to psychiatry. Now, there are some situations where there may be authentically some disorders in the brain. Some chemicals may be in imbalance, sometimes there may be brain damage.
And at such times, we can't expect, at that time bodily treatment is required, physical treatment is required. But there is a tendency to try to find chemical solutions to human problems. Chemical solutions to human problems means, if I have anxiety, if I have stress.
Now this is, I can't just take a chemical and solve this problem. It's a matter of lifestyle, it's a matter of mental attitude. And antidepressants have become one of the biggest drugs which are being sold today.
But still people continue to be depressed. Antidepressants basically act like painkillers. Sometimes the depression goes off, you feel good, but afterwards again it goes down.
So holistic treatment needs to recognize that consciousness is not just material. That there is an irreducible spiritual basis for consciousness. And because science has not yet recognized that, that's why the focus is more on biochemical treatment, to brain map, to administering the brain chemicals.
But it is very hazardous. I am currently writing a book on psychology and spirituality. So I have done some, I did a lot of study of this subject.
So there was, so this is not just, it is not that we are religionists, we are criticizing science. No, even with the mainstream science there is a lot of concern. That psychiatry is not seen as a science, as equally authoritative as say orthopedics or heart surgery or something like that.
Why? Because in psychiatry you can't really take any germs. You can put on a plate and put under a microscope and treat them. So what, as an experiment there was, they did that, there was one patient who had 8 symptoms.
Okay, I have stress, I get panic, I start palpitating. And he took 8 symptoms and he went to 8 different psychiatrists. And all 8 of them gave entirely different diagnosis.
So how is that, how could they have given utterly different diagnosis? Because there is nothing tangible on which to base a diagnosis. So out of those 8, say if one psychiatrist focused most on say anxiety, then you could say there is a social anxiety disorder. Well, anxiety is a human problem, just give it a name, social anxiety disorder.
It doesn't change anything. But it is just people think that oh I have a disease and I have to take treatment for it. No, it is just basically fear which you have to deal with or anxiety which you have to deal with.
So trying to find a pill for every mental problem, that doesn't work. And that's why spiritual wisdom is very important. And as devotees if somebody is facing mental problems, some problems of the mind, we should not stigmatize them saying that you know, that is also a big problem, stigmatization.
You are just weak minded. Well, okay, even if we say they are weak minded, if a child is weak physically, now we help the child to become strong. We don't just label them as weak minded.
So that is another problem that if somebody is having mental problems, people start saying that maybe you have gone, you are on crack or something like that. It is not like that. Mental problems also come sometimes because of past karma.
And if somebody has a relative, some people can have a sickly body, some people can have a healthy body. So just like some people, they can eat anything and still they stay healthy. And others just eat a little imbalance in their diet and they fall sick.
So now why is that? It's just their bodily natures are different. So sometimes like that similarly, some people can take a lot of mental input and still stay calm. Others a little mental imbalance and they get very worried.
So this is also just as we are understanding if some people want a very regulated diet. We are understanding that is their bodily nature, that is what they should have. So like that if some people, their capacity to take up mental pressure is relatively less, then we should also be understanding.
We should not label them as weak minded. They also need to, then maybe just as people take physical diet properly, according to their constitution, according to their nature, then people also need to take up professions where the stress level is not too much. Even in bhakti one should take up services which are more or less gelling with one's nature.
So the mental problems should not be labeled simply as weak mindedness. Just become strong. It doesn't work like that.
One has to actually go through a purificatory process by which one's orientation may change. So they also need to be supported. So we can't say that it's only a physical problem.
Just take chemicals and solve it. We can't just say it's a mental problem in the sense that just buck up. Be strong man.
It doesn't work like that also. We can't at all times say there is only a spiritual solution. Somebody may be having clinical depression.
We can't say just chant Hare Krishna and everything will be alright. So we have to actually, if somebody is facing this kind of problem, we have to be very understanding and help them in a way that they are helped rather than becoming judgmental about them. I know someone, a devotee who was actually bipolar.
Ultimately the solution was to go to medical therapy. Yeah, there are certain disorders where medical treatment is required. And to make a principle that a devotee should never take medical treatment for mental disorder, that is also wrong.
But to think that every problem will be solved by medical problem, just medical treatment, every mental problem, that's also wrong. We need a balance based on a holistic understanding. Thank you.
You had a question? Do we have time for one more? Yeah, sure. Prabhuji, how would you explain untimely death? Like whenever there is a death, we say that it's the will of the God. But when you take the case of a newborn or a non-born or a teenager, how can I say to the grieving mother that it's the will of the God? So is untimely death of, say, a newborn or a young-born or even a teenager, is that the will of God? Or how is this to be explained to those who are grieving? These are two separate questions.
And if you look at the Mahabharata, when Abhimanyu is very young, just a teenager, and when he is brutally slaughtered by the six Kaurava maharathas, at that time, actually there are two scenes over there. Usually here of how Arjuna became angry. First was grief-struck and he became angry and then he avenged by killing Jaidra the next day, on the 14th day of the war.
But prior to that, before when Yudhishthir came to know that Abhimanyu had been killed, Yudhishthir was shattered. Because the whole Chakravyuha had been arranged as a plan to arrest Yudhishthir. That was Duryodhana's desire and Drona had made that plan.
And Yudhishthir had told Abhimanyu that you alone know how to break the Chakravyuha, so you go inside and we will follow you. And he had gone inside, but Jaidra had prevented all the others from going inside. So Yudhishthir, for him, Abhimanyu was his nephew, like a son.
And it was not just that Abhimanyu's death itself would have been a devastating news. But on top of that, Yudhishthir, there was the guilt that I sent him to his death. Even for an ordinary person also, that guilt can be crippling.
And Yudhishthir was so dharmic, he just couldn't bear it. He was so shaken, he said that, at one time he just resolved that, let me go into the war and I will fight. Either I will avenge his death or I will die.
How can I face Arjuna like this? So as he was charging into the opposing army, it was almost evening by that time, at that time Vyasadev appeared over there. And as soon as Yudhishthir saw Vyasadev, although he was grief struck, he was still a cultured person. So he immediately got off his chariot and offered obeisances to Vyasadev.
And then he poured out his heart to Vyasadev. So Vyasadev told him, at that time, three main things. First is, he says, no one in this world can violate the law of death.
He says, yes, Abhimanyu was a wonderful person, he was heroic, he was young, he was brave. But even kings who have been far more pious, far more virtuous than Abhimanyu, they also died. So no one can violate the law of death in this world.
Then what is the purpose of life? He says, in this world, the purpose of life is ultimately spiritual elevation. So no matter how high a person rises materially, material illusion can drag that person down from that situation anytime. But now Abhimanyu has gone to a spiritual destination from which he will never be dragged down.
So he has succeeded in life's mission. Therefore, rather than grieving for one who has succeeded like this gloriously, those of us who have to stay here, we are objects of grief. And then he says third thing, that the inscrutable will of the Lord works for the good of all living beings.
If we follow his will, we will understand how in due course of time. That means the Lord's will is inscrutable. Why such things happen, we cannot know at that time.
But if we continue doing what is in our capacity, if we continue serving Krishna, then we will understand in due course of time. This itself is a, this can be full, I have given full lectures on these three points itself, analyzing, explaining. There is also, I have a website called spiritualscientist.com, where I have written an article based on this called Tears of Gratitude, Tears of Love.
So basically, I won't go into the technicality, but I'm just right now talking about the principle of karma. So the point is here Yudhishthir, Vyasadev doesn't talk to Yudhishthir about Abhimanyu's karma. So the purpose of karma, talking about karma primarily, is not post-mortem.
It is prognosis. That means when somebody is suffering, it is not that you did karma because of which you are suffering, you have to say that. Now when Draupadi is dishonored, nobody tells her it was your karma because of which you are dishonored.
When Sita is abducted, Ram doesn't say it was her karma only. No. When such situations, when some problems are being faced by someone, our concern is not what their karma is.
Our concern should be what my dharma is. So Ram did not think what was the karma of Sita because of which she was abducted. Ram asked what was my dharma.
I am her husband, it is my duty to protect her. And he focused on his dharma. So firstly, if somebody is grieving, talking about karma is usually not appropriate.
We should say our dharma is to offer solace to them, to offer encouragement to them. So the most important thing that we can tell them is that the love we had for our loved ones, that love we can continue to express because their souls are eternal. And although they may not be available in their bodily form for us to love, but their souls are eternal.
And if we pray for them, if we offer bhakti, sacrifices for them, the results can go for them wherever they may be. And is this the will of God? We can't really say the will of God. It is the sanction of God.
It is not that God wants bad things to happen in this world. And it's certainly not that God causes bad things. It is rather that this world is a complex chain of action and reactions.
And it happens under God's will. So God is the sanctioner, not the desirer of these things. There is a difference between sanctioner means something is happening and God allows it to happen.
Desirer means God wants it to happen. So God doesn't want the bad things that happen in this world. He doesn't want them to happen per se.
We see this most graphically in how Krishna himself went as Shanti Doodh to Duryodhana to try to avoid the war. His purpose was that he recognized that he didn't want the war because it would be catastrophic. So what this demonstrates is that Krishna going as Shanti Doodh, that God does not interfere with the free will of people.
Sometimes people may act wrongly and that some reactions may come because of that upon them and upon others also who may be victimized by that wrong action at that time. So God is not up there causing these problems. Rather God is in here.
And he is there to give us shelter and strength no matter what problems we may be going through. So if we keep asking the question why, why, why, why this, why me? The why questions lead only to frustration. But if we shift to not why but how now? Krishna how can I serve you? What am I supposed to do now? How should I move forward? Then we will find that at the time of distress, the remembrance of Krishna, the devotion to Krishna can offer us shelter and strength the way nothing else can offer.
So we all have to make choices. If somebody has passed away, at that time they have gone and we have to move on with our life. A materialistic worldview means that they have just gone forever.
And why do things happen? Materialistic worldview simply means that, you know, life is like a lottery and we just got the bad deal. So that just makes us victims of pitiless chance. But if you look at a spiritual worldview, we understand that God exists and God cares.
And the way he cares that we may not be able to understand. But actually, if we focus on the loss, when such things have happened, then at that time, we can be burdened and crippled. If we think that God is the cause of the loss, that is a big misunderstanding.
God is not the cause, God is the solution. God is not the cause of our problems, he is the solution to our problems. So if you focus on seeking shelter of Krishna at that time, we will find that we will get solace.
So it is not that the grief will go away, but gradually we will be able to rise above the grief. So this sort of situations have to be very sensitively dealt with. Even when Arjuna is crying, at that time Krishna doesn't tell Arjuna, you know, it's his own karma or whatever, why are you crying like this? Very sensitive, very, very carefully.
We should, even philosophy has to be spoken in a way that people are benefited. And people, we are not meant to be just messengers of God's knowledge. There are three things.
There are some religious teachers who are messengers of God's anger. If you don't do this, you are going to go to hell. That is not what devotees are supposed to do at all.
That is, we are messengers of God's knowledge, but more importantly, we are messengers of God's love. So when people are in distress, we have to give knowledge, but knowledge should be subordinate to the offering of affection, offering of support. Does it answer the question? Thank you very much.
Shreemad Bhagavad Gita ki Jai. Shreemad Prabhupada ki Jai. Gaur Bhakta Vindhya ki Jai.
Gaur Premananda ki Jai. Thank you. Very wonderful kirtans in the morning and evening.
Kirtans were very energetic. Sorry? No, not loud. Nice.
Thank you very much. Very nice. That was wonderful.
Very, very nice. Happy to be of service. Thank you.
We will see you tomorrow morning. Yes, sure. Definitely.
Thank you very much, Prabhu.