Choosing healthy emotions with intelligence association and devotion
Nama Om Vishnupadaya Krishna Prashtaya Bhutale Himate Bhakti Vedanta Swami Itinamane Namaste Saraswati Deve Kauravani Pracharine Nirvishesha Shunyavadi Vashyati Deshatarine Vancha Kalpataru Vyascha Krupaha Sindhu Bhyevache Patitanaam Pavanebhyo Krishna Vibhyo Namo Namaha Jai Shri Krishna Chaitanya Prabho Nityananda Shri Advaita Gadadhara Vasaadi Gaur Bhakta Vrinda Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare Jai Krishna So thank you for coming. And, so I'll speak something briefly in three parts.
I'll tell one pastime from the Ramayana and especially how it applies to us in general and specifically how it applies to us in our teenage years. And then I'll conclude by talking a little bit about how Bhakti helps us to go through various stages in life and how it can help us in our teenage years also. When Ram is exiled to the forest, Lakshman is furious.
He feels this is a great injustice. And, that anger does not have any direction for him when he is in the forest. Anger, if there is greed, there is a particular thing I like, I want it.
But anger is different. The source of anger and the target of anger can be different. I am angry with you, but then I shout at someone else.
That's how it happens. Especially if you are bigger than me, then I can't shout at you. So then, I find somebody smaller than me and I shout at them.
So Lakshman was very angry. He was angry at Dashrath, he was angry at Kaikai. And, when he was in the forest, they were sitting outside their cottage in Chitrakoot.
Chitrakoot, Adrinike, Tanna Rama and suddenly they heard a loud sound. And, it was an unnatural sound. It was not just like one elephant or something going.
It was a large sound of a big procession kind of moving. So then, Rama asked Lakshman to climb up on a tree. They climbed up on the tree and there they saw a big army coming.
And Lakshman looked at it carefully and he realised that this is the Ayodhya army coming. He could see the flag of the king of Ayodhya over there. Dashrath's elephant Shatrunjay.
Sorry, Shatrunjay was also there over there. And then he saw Bharat coming in full military armour. And, the anger that was there within Lakshman exploded.
He said, this wicked Bharat, he is not satisfied conspiring through his mother to have you exiled. Now, he has come with his full army to kill you. But, he doesn't know that I alone am enough to kill him and kill his entire army.
Today, the mountain of Chitrakoot will drink the blood of everyone who desires to kill you. So, Rama said, cool down, cool down. He said that Bharat's love for me is as much as your love for me.
Why is it that you are so angry with me? Is it that Bharat offended you in some way because of which you are so angry? Or is it that in a rush of sentiment, you agreed to come with me to the forest? But now, when you are seeing how austere the forest life is, so you are feeling unhappy and that's why you are venting your anger at Bharat. If that is the case, when Bharat reaches here, I will tell him to stay in the forest and you can go and become the ruler of Ayodhya. As each of these statements Rama was making, Lakshman was feeling very deflated.
And then after that, when Bharat came and he saw how much was the selfless respect that Bharat had, he said, now you please take this kingdom. Both of them were fighting, arguing practically, you take the kingdom, you take the kingdom. Normally, if two brothers have one toy, I want the toy, I want the toy.
When people grow up, sometimes the father has some inheritance and two brothers fight, I want it, I want it. So, among Rama and Bharat, there was also an argument. But it was not, I want it, I want it.
It was, you take it, you take it. Finally, Bharat took the paduka, the sandal of Rama and he put it on his head and carried it. He said, they will be the king and I will be their servant.
Today, if one brother gives his sandals to another brother, the other brother will take the sandal and beat his brother. So, then when they went away, at that time, Lakshman felt very remorseful. He had made, Lakshman felt very remorseful.
Maybe all of you can come a little here, in case some more devotee is coming. So, he felt very remorseful that so many, that he had made such accusations, he had such a suspicion about Bharat. Then Rama and Lakshman were sitting outside their cottage and Lakshman like a younger brother, little chest, just chastened and he said, why do I get angry so quickly? So, Rama patted him on his back and he said, you are sentimental.
You are sentimental. So, then Lakshman asked, are sentiments bad? Are emotions bad? So, Rama said, no, emotions are not bad. Emotions are very good.
Emotions are the ornaments of life. That they are what make life worth living. But, he said, we have to choose those emotions that inspire us to do the right thing and avoid the emotions that make us do the wrong thing.
We have to choose the emotions that lift us up and avoid the emotions that drag us down. So, emotions are a very powerful force and usually for us, the emotions when they come, just shake us up. So, we all have our intelligence, but we also have our emotions.
So, imagine there is a big elephant. On top of that, the elephant is sitting a mahout, elephant rider. Now, if the elephant rider loses control of the elephant, in terms of size, the elephant is much much bigger than the rider.
And, the elephant can just go in any direction, throw off the rider and crush that rider also. So, basically, our emotions are like that elephant. And, we are like the rider on that elephant.
So, sometimes our emotions can just go wild. It can be anger, it can be desire, it can be fear. So, many different emotions come and we are sitting on top of that elephant.
Now, if an elephant rider is riding an elephant, Do you know what elephant rider uses to control the elephant? Whip, that is for a horse. Stick, yes, stick with something specifically. Point, spear, gourd, yes, thank you.
Very good. Spear would kill, yeah. So, it's called a gourd.
So, gourd means, it's a stick like object with a sharp nail like protrusions to it. So, gourd is it. And, that gourd is what enables the rider to control the elephant.
If the rider loses that gourd, then the rider has very little chance of controlling the elephant. So, similarly for us, there is this, we are like that rider and the elephant is like our emotions. It can just go wild at any time.
So, the gourd that is required for controlling that elephant is our intelligence. Our emotions, I can feel angry like this, I can feel like that, I can feel like that. But, if our intelligence is not there, then the emotions can just drive us crazy.
So, the intelligence, like Ram told Lakshman, emotions are good, but we need to choose the emotions that inspire us to do the right thing. And, avoid the emotions that make us do the wrong thing. Now, what do we mean by right and wrong thing? Last year when I had come to America, I had gone to one college.
There I met one boy, he is becoming a devotee now. So, he told me that when he became 18, he got a big inheritance from his grandmother. So, his grandmother and his mother, her daughter, they did not get along very well.
But, her grandmother loved her grandson. So, whatever inheritance she had, she gave directly to her grandson. She said, I will not give anything to my daughter.
So, this boy is 18 and that is the age when he matured. So, he could have access to his inheritance. And, around the age of, towards the last part of 17, he had got into drugs.
He started taking drugs. And, of course, drugs are expensive. He didn't have money.
Whatever little pocket money he had, he would use it to take drugs. His mother was trying to caution him, alert him. Now, his grandmother did not know.
She had been quite sick and she had just arranged her will like that. She did not know about this. So, for this boy, he told me that at the age of 18, he got a huge amount of money.
And, that was the worst thing that could happen to him. So, on one side, he had got into drugs. And, now he got a huge amount of money which he could spend on drugs.
And, he just, his whole inheritance, he lost in less than a year. And, at the end of it, he ended up in a drug rehabilitation centre. Somehow, he had some intelligence.
So, the last money that he had remaining, instead of using it, he felt, I should go and take drugs. But, somehow, he got the intelligence. He went there.
He used the last money that he had to admit himself in a drug rehabilitation centre. And, there, somehow, he met devotees. He started practising bhakti.
And, now, he has become free from drugs. So, he was telling me that at that time, his mother came to know that he has got this inheritance and she is in drugs. His mother was trying to caution him.
Now, be careful about this. But, he said, this is my money. My grandmother, she gave it to me, not to you.
So, you don't have any right to tell me what I should do with it. Of course, he was not non-Indian. He was a western boy, American.
So, basically, what happened to him was, there is, in our teenage, our youth, there is an attraction to something new which you have not explored. So, for him, drugs was like that. And, there was an emotion, yes, I want it.
I want to explore it. I want to enjoy it. And, of course, this happened primarily because of his friends.
So, he is here. His friends are here. And, his mother is here.
He did not have a father. His mother was here. So, his friends were telling him to do one thing.
Come on, let's take drugs. Let's enjoy. His mother was telling him, don't do this.
So, what happened basically was that his mother was just a sideline. She heard his friends. His friends took drugs with him.
And, it was that, different friends would come and take drugs with him at his expense. Different friends would come and take drugs with him at his expense. But, he would be there with all the friends and he would end up taking the maximum drugs.
And, he became addicted terribly. So, he had some emotion in relationship with his mother. And, he had some emotion in relationship with his friends.
So, emotion is not bad. But, the emotion with his friends, what it did was, it dragged him down. It made him do something very bad.
Whereas, the emotion with his mother, don't do this, do this. If he had cared for his mother, he would have been protected. Not only he would have saved from the addiction, but he also would have had the money.
Which he could have used for his college, for his future career, for his future home. But, he has lost everything. So, for all of us, we have the emotions and the emotions lead to desires.
Desires are very interesting. In the sense that, desires can pull us in some direction or another direction. And, desires are not just linear, they are triangular.
What do you mean by triangular and linear? Linear means that, I see something, say, there is prasad and in prasad there is gulab jamun. Oh, gulab jamun, I like it. So, I see the gulab jamun, I get the desire to eat it.
So, that is a linear desire. The object is here, I am here and I get the desire. But, some desires are triangular.
When I had gone to Australia, I and couple of devotees where we were taking prasad and the devotees there bought something called baklava. Do you know what is a baklava? Yeah, it's an Arabian, Turkish. It's a sweet item.
It doesn't look at first glance especially attractive. So, then when I saw it, I said, should I take it or should I not take it? And, I was just watching it. But, then the devotee was there with me, he took it and he ate it.
It's ecstasy. It's ecstasy. And, I saw that, he gave me also.
And, I also took it. So, basically here what happened, just seeing the baklava did not create the desire. But, seeing somebody enjoy the baklava created the desire.
So, this is, our desires are triangular. Triangular means, just seeing the object does not create the desire. But, we see somebody enjoying that object.
Then, that creates the desire. And, this is what many advertisements use. Many sports players or movie stars, especially sports players, sometimes they don't earn as much money by playing the sports as they earn by endorsements.
So, Virat Kohli says, this phone is good, this mobile is good, this car is good. Then, what happens, people say, oh, Virat Kohli says this car is good. Yes, it must be good.
So, what happens, just seeing the car doesn't create the desire. But, seeing some celebrity saying this car is good, that creates the desire. So, our desires are triangular.
Not just linear, but also triangular. And, this triangularity of desires is what influences us a lot. So, going back to the starting incident, Ram says to Lakshman, our emotions are not bad.
But, we have to choose the emotions that help us to do the right thing. And, avoid the emotions that make us do the wrong thing. So, how will we do that? It is based on our association.
So, triangularity of desires means that whichever desire we have. Suppose, it's not just about desires. Say, if I have an exam coming up and I am worried.
Will I pass this exam? Will I not pass this exam? Will I get good grades? Will I not get good grades? And then, I meet someone who is even more worried than me. I am in tension, that person is tension, that person is even more tension to me. Then, what happens? Their tension gets transferred to me.
And then, I am in anxiety and my anxiety increases. So, if I am stressed out, if I meet with someone who is even more stressed than me, then what happens? Stress is contagious. One person who is worried can make everybody else worried.
What if this happens? What if this happens? What if this happens? Some people, when they come into a room, they just infect everyone. If they are happy, they make everyone happy. If they are worried, they make everyone worried.
Somebody has studied also. I was in college and there was one student, who was a very good student. But before the exam, he had a habit.
I was staying in a hostel. So, he would study very well. And the night before the exam, he would go to the rooms of everyone.
And tell them, have you studied this? And he would talk about something from some reference book. This is a very important concept. And nobody has studied it.
And he will go to another room, have you studied this? No, you have not studied this. It is very important. And he would go room to room to room and he would transmit anxiety everywhere.
Make everyone, you have not studied, you have not studied, how will you pass the exam? This is very important, this is very important. And in that way, he would come back, have everybody worried and he would go to sleep peacefully. So, it is said that some people bring happiness wherever they go.
And some people bring happiness whenever they go. So, some people when they come, feel so happy, oh I am so happy to meet you. And some people, when they come, everybody becomes tense.
It's like, being with them is like walking on a landmine. You say something, what will cause an explosion, we don't know. And when that person goes, feel relief.
So, our desires are triangular, our emotions are also triangular. So, some people just increase our stress a lot. Some people like to make everyone else worried.
Some people are friendly, calm down, everything will be alright, take care. Some people go about and they spread calm. So, we are very much influenced by the kind of people who are around us.
And anxiety, stress, worry, it is something which everyone faces. It is, the anxiety is something when it comes upon us, we need someone who will help us decrease that anxiety. But if we have others who increase our anxiety, then we will just become helpless.
We will just become completely paralysed. So, when we are practising Krishna Bhakti, like all of you said you like Kirtan Vaisheshika, many of you said that, like Kirtan Vaisheshika, you have got a group. I have travelled all over America, I have not seen any place else with such a big group of devotee students who are like-minded and who are together.
So, you are very fortunate. Sometimes, one or two devotee kids are just trying to practise Bhakti, do their studies, maintain their social circles. It just becomes extremely difficult.
So, when you have this friend circle, then here you will find that you will be able to both be spiritual as well as be social. You want to be with friends, you have friends, but then whatever spirituality you want to do, you can do that also. I told earlier that the elephant and a goad, if the rider on the elephant loses the goad, rider will be in great danger.
So, that goad is like the intelligence. And our intelligence is also developed by the kind of people we associate with. So, if somebody is foolhardy, they are on an elephant and they say, I am so powerful, I am so good, I am so expert, I don't need the goad.
And then throw away the goad. See, I can do without the goad. They may do for some time without the goad, but afterwards they will find that elephant will throw them away.
So, they throw away the goad, the elephant throws them away. So, like that, what happens is, sometimes with some people, why bother about the right thing, wrong thing, just do whatever you like. But then we do whatever we like, the result is that eventually, we just get caught up, like this boy got caught up in drugs and was ruined.
So, like that, we get caught up in things. At the end of the Bhagavad Gita, does anyone know what is the last verse of the Gita? Or what does the last verse of the Gita say? Yes? Oh, very good. Thank you.
Wherever there is Krishna and where there is Arjuna, there is prosperity, there is victory, there is success, there is morality. So, it's interesting. Why does the Bhagavad Gita say that wherever there is Krishna and Arjuna, there is victory? Isn't it that wherever there is Krishna, there is victory? Yeah, very good.
Thank you. So, wherever there is Krishna, there is victory. That is true.
But, the Bhagavad Gita is about a partnership. That Krishna and Arjuna are together. You know that story when Arjuna wanted to say that, by tomorrow evening, I will kill Jaya.
That happened on the 14th day. So, 13th day, Abhimanyu was killed. And that night, when Arjuna took the vow that tomorrow either I will enter fire or I will kill Jaya.
So, after that, Krishna and Arjuna were both going back and Krishna told Arjuna that you took a very rash vow. Tomorrow, the Kauravas will arrange their whole army to stop you. It will be very difficult for you to reach Jayadratha.
Why did you take such a rash vow without consulting me? Krishna was in anxiety. And Arjuna said, Krishna, I don't understand your anxiety. He says, you know my power and I know your power.
Who can overpower us? So, you know my power and I know your power. So, together, no one can overpower us. So then, that night, Arjuna went to sleep.
And Krishna couldn't sleep. Krishna was just in so much anxiety. Then Krishna called his charioteer, Daruka.
And he told him, with all my weapons, you just be on the outskirts of the Kurukshetra battlefield. And if it happens that somehow Arjuna is not able to reach Jayadratha, then Krishna said, I will jump right from Arjuna's chariot onto my chariot. And I will use my Sudarshan Chakra and destroy all the Kauravas.
I will ensure that Arjuna will not be injured, that Arjuna will not be defeated, that Arjuna will not lose his life. So, Krishna is always victorious. But Krishna's desire is that Arjuna become victorious.
So, just like Krishna and Arjuna are on the chariot, like that we as a soul is also on the chariot of the body. And Krishna is there as a super soul, as the Paramatma with us. So, Krishna, just as he wanted Arjuna to be victorious, he wants all of us to also be successful, to also be victorious.
In his service, we are all meant to do wonderful things. But for that Krishna and Arjuna have to be together. If Arjuna goes alone, it happens at the end of the Mahabharata, Arjuna tries to fight a war alone and he is defeated.
So, the emotions that Arjuna uses to connect with Krishna become his strength. And similarly, if in the association of devotee friends, we connect with Krishna, that becomes our strength. And with that strength coming from the connection with Krishna, it will be stress, it will be negativity, it may be fear, it may be anger.
All this can be dealt with. Krishna and Arjuna are fighting a physical war. Most of us don't have to fight a physical war so much.
But we have to fight a war with our own fear, our own worry, our own unwanted thoughts, our own anxieties, our situations. But just as Krishna and Arjuna were always victorious, similarly, if we become devoted to Krishna and stay connected with Krishna, whatever obstacle comes, Krishna will enable us to overcome that obstacle. Krishna is there with us.
Last year when I had come to, I'll conclude with this. Last year when I had come to America, I was at an airport and I was just going through the security and suddenly a big alarm rang. And when I go, I use a wheelchair, so I was just sitting on the wheelchair and suddenly six American security guards with their guns pointed at me.
I said, what happened? They said that while my crutches were going through the security, they got a high explosive alert. So, high explosive alert. So, they said that, that's why we'll have to take you to a separate chamber and we'll have to have a full checkup.
And then another security person came and says, you know, your crutches, we have got a high explosive sound in that. So, we are going to have to break your crutches. So, I said, if you break my crutches, how will I walk? So, this person was in a bad mood.
He said, that is not my problem. That is your problem. I said, what do you mean? So, then at that time I was thinking what to do.
I like to recite verses from the Bhagavad Gita. I constantly like to recite verses. So, at that time I was reciting the 18th chapter in my mind.
So, somehow I came to this. 18th chapter, 61st verse, Krishna says that, He says that Krishna is present in the hearts of all living beings and He is guiding the vanterings of everyone. So, initially I was just annoyed.
Why is all this getting delayed? But when they pointed the gun at me, they said we are going to break the crutches, not just annoyed, I became anxious. But then I just recited this verse. Somehow a thought came in me.
I have travelled to so many countries, gone through so many places. So many things could have gone wrong at any place. Krishna has guided me through all that.
If I understand I am a soul, and I have gone through so many lifetimes, Krishna has guided me through all that also. So, Krishna will guide me now also. I prayed to Krishna.
Krishna, you guide me what to do. He says, I just recited this verse and offered the prayer and suddenly this security person in charge was there. It seems his boss came over there.
Because it was a big alarm. He says, what's happening over here? And then he looked at me. He says, why are you troubling him? So, I said, no, no, we found a high security alert in it.
So, then he said, okay, what is the problem? So, then he looked at the crutches. He said, we have to break the crutches. Why do you need to break the crutches? He says, no, we have to find out.
Then it struck me that actually my crutches are openable. You can just remove the screw and open the crutches. So, the same crutches actually.
So, he said, you can open the crutches. And then they took the crutches. Then he told this other person who was a little angry mood.
He said, it's not my problem. He says, you go, I'll handle this. So, then he opened the crutches.
And then what had happened, before coming to America, I had gone to Vrindavan. And in Vrindavan, I had gone to near the Jamuna. So, at that time, the crutches have this rubber padding below at the bottom.
So, that side, that rubber padding is there. So, that rubber padding had come off at one point. And the dust of Vrindavan had gone into my crutches.
And because it was the banks of Jamuna, there was a lot of pollution and the dust had high metal content in it. So, that dust of Vrindavan, they had thought that this is an explosive. So, then they opened the crutches and they looked, what is this? So, I said, I don't know.
It's in your crutch. He said, I don't know what is there. Then they started, they got some kind of pointed object, they are pulling it out.
He said, what is this? I looked at it. He said, what does it look like? He says, it looks like dirt. He said, it is dirt.
He pulled it out further. He said, there is so much dirt here. Then I remember, I was wondering.
It was only in one crutch. It was not in second crutch. So, then I remembered what had happened.
I told him, this is simply dirt from a place in India. Oh, really? He pulled it out. That's all there is.
He said, ok, clean it up now. They cleaned it all up. And then, they put the crutch again in the security.
There is no alarm. So, then I came out. So, basically, what they thought was an explosive was simply Vrindavan dust.
So, actually, at one moment, I was in great anxiety. But somehow, at that time, I just remembered a Bhagavad Gita verse. And then I just prayed to Krishna.
And what happened? This other person came up and he handled everything. And then, they said, because this whole thing had taken time, I said, I missed my flight because of this. So, I had actually missed the flight.
He said, don't worry. You tell them that the security clearance took some time. And they will arrange another flight for you.
So, by the time I reached there, my flight had gone. But after one hour, there was another flight. So, I just reached smoothly back.
So, for all of us, you know, anxiety will come. And from where it will come, we don't know. But from wherever the anxiety comes, Krishna is there inside us.
And if you remember Krishna and pray to Krishna, He will help us to deal with that anxiety. So, that is our great strength. Different people deal with anxiety in different ways.
But as devotees, we have the opportunity to connect with Krishna. If you do that, stress will come, worry will come, fear will come. I basically said three things for this.
One is, for dealing with the elephant, we need the god. It's like a sharp object. So, that is our intelligence.
Second I said is, our desires are triangular. So, we need association. And third is, we need to have the connection with Krishna.
Krishna and Arjuna are always victorious. So, if we are remembering Krishna and praying to Krishna, then even if there is negativity, even if there is anxiety, with intelligence, with good association, and with the guidance of Krishna, we can face whatever situation comes in our life. We can grow through it.
Go through it and grow through it. Krishna says, if you become conscious of me, you will overcome all problems by my grace. Sometimes when problems come, we feel, it's such a big anxiety, this is a big problem.
So, don't tell Krishna how big your problems are. Tell your problems how big Krishna is. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. So, do any of you have any questions or comments? Yes. Sorry, there is? You said something about there is one human being in the hostel.
My dad also needs one person. So, before the camp, he makes sure the other person gets to be a big fan of him or whatever. So, that he could be able to study.
That's true. Some people are like that. They get some joy in agitating others.
So, we have to keep a distance from them. Otherwise, unnecessarily we will get agitated. Thank you.
Hare Krishna. Yes. Good question.
Pretty dumb. Yeah, I think what happened at that time, they probably could have seen the diet. But, they are super suspicious.
Because there is a lot of fear of terrorist attacks. So, when they see something, if you see their camera, it shows some object is there. But it doesn't necessarily help them to identify that object.
And inside a crutch, the crutch is normally meant to be hollow, if some object is there, you just see some brownish pattern or something like that over there. What exactly it is? When it is dirt, it is difficult to identify. Because you just see the outline of the object.
You don't see what the object is made up of. That's why they found it difficult. Thank you.
Anything else? Okay. What will the mind do in the spiritual world? The mind will be our friend which will help us serve Krishna and love Krishna. Because the mind we have, we are the soul.
But the soul has a body in the spiritual world also. And there is a mind also over there. But everything in the spiritual world is made in such a way that it is meant for serving Krishna.
It is meant for loving Krishna. So, the mind also helps us in remembering Krishna. Our mind is filled with ideas.
Maybe I'll play this, maybe I'll watch this, maybe I'll do this, maybe I'll do that. So, our mind is filled with many ideas for doing many things here. But in the spiritual world, the mind is filled with ideas for serving Krishna.
I just said that Radharani, when she cooks for Krishna, every day she cooks new items. And she has been cooking from the eternity, but till now she has never repeated any item. Every day she is cooking new items.
Now how can you create so many new items also? That, the mind keeps giving ideas. We can do this, we can do that, we can do that. So, the mind helps us in serving Krishna by giving us more and more new ideas to serve Krishna.
Yeah, usually it is not possible to figure it out. So, rather than thinking where the thought is coming from, we can think where the thought is taking us. If I act on this thought, what is going to happen? If I get a thought that, okay, I should read more scripture today.
The thought is going to take me closer to Krishna. That is good. So, generally it is, look at the fruit.
Look at the result. It's very difficult for us to pinpoint the source at our stage. Thank you.
Oh, yeah. Is? What is, is? Oh, right. What is? Okay.
Okay. So, is the earth flat or is it round? Well, the earth, which we are living on, is round. No doubt about it.
But what Dutta Karmaprabhu is talking about is something different. He, in Sanskrit, there are sometimes similar words used for different concepts. So, there is Bhuv Mandala.
Our earth is called as Bhuv Gol. Gol means round. Earth as round.
But there is Bhuv Mandala. Bhuv Mandala is the earthly planetary system. So, that is, it's like say, if you have a multi-story building in which say you are staying in one house at the 7th level.
But in that 7th level, there are many other buildings also. Many other houses also. And that 7th level is spread far and wide.
So, like that, there are 14 planetary systems. We are in the 7th planetary system. So, the earth is part of the Bhuv Mandala.
And that planetary system is considered to be flat. But the earth itself is one, what we call as Bhuv Gol, is one object within that planetary system. And the earth itself is not flat.
But the earth belongs to a bigger structure which is flat. This is getting a lot of questions from me as well. I have a question.
So, the 7 planetary systems that are being the Bhuv Mandala, are they going inside or it's the plane below? Plane. Okay. First of all, are the 7 planetary systems below us, are they going, are they subterranean? That's what they are called.
First thing is that Bhagavatam is describing a cosmology from a very different perspective than what we see. So, a simple thought experiment follow up. Suppose you have chalk and you have coal.
You take a hammer, break the chalk. Take a hammer, break the coal. You get two powders.
Now mix the two powders. When you mix the two powders, you get a, one was white, one was black. You get now grey.
Now you take that grey powder and look at it through a microscope. Will you see grey powder? What will you see? Green. Okay.
Black particles and white particles. So now, whatever is there in that beaker, is it, is it grey or is it black and white? How both? It's a perspective. It's more of a, more precisely, not just perspective, scale of observation.
Thank you. It's at the level of the human eye, naked eye, it is grey. But, at the level of microscope, it is black and white.
I once saw one video, you know, it was showing some surface which looked like filled with mountains and valleys and peaks and rocky surface and then they zoomed back, zoomed back, zoomed back, zoomed back and actually what looked like a rocky surface was the face of a beautiful woman. So, the scale of observation can make a dramatic difference in what we see. So now, similarly, when we look at the Bhagavatam's cosmology, it is from a different scale of observation and what we observe is from a very different scale of observation and unless we have the bigger picture, it's like, if I, if, if say, now, if I could see from microscope and I can see from the naked eye, then I can see at this level, this is grey and this is grey, at this level it is black and white.
But if I, if I could see only one and not the other, then I would just not understand, why are you saying this is grey? No, I am seeing black and white. So for us, what happens, when we look at the universe, we have, we can see it only with our naked eye. The Bhagavatam is describing cosmology from a different perspective and that's why trying to make sense of the Bhagavatam's cosmology using our, our eyes and our, our inference or reasoning based on what we observe from our eyes, it's very difficult.
And that's why we have to understand the Bhagavatam's cosmology is from a different perspective. Its primary purpose is to help Parikshit Maharaj fix his mind on Krishna. Because although he describes many things, ok, this planetary system is here, that planetary system is there, but ultimately what he is saying, ok, in this planetary system, the residents are praying to Vishnu in this form.
They are praying to Vishnu in that form. So the emphasis of it is that, O Parikshit Maharaj, throughout the universe, everybody is devoted to the Lord. Therefore, you also become devoted to the Lord.
So the point of the Bhagavatam is not to describe cosmology. The point of the Bhagavatam is to inspire devotion. So that's why, suppose somebody say, you know, Prabhupada's life story is described in a book called Lila Amrit.
Do any of you know that book? So Lila Amrit describes how Prabhupada travelled to different parts of America. Now say, 500 years down the line, all the maps of America are destroyed. And we have only the Lila Amrit.
And based on the Lila Amrit, if you have to construct the map of America, very difficult. So the Bhagavatam is like that. So within our tradition also, the Bhagavatam's cosmology has not been used for any practical purposes.
So, even if, say, there is Jyotisha, there is astrology, which requires, this star is here, this planet is here, this is here, this is here. Now for that, there is a whole different group of astrological texts called Siddhanta Shastras. Jyotisha Shastra, Surya Siddhanta is one of them.
They use that. And even our acharyas, when they want to do astrological calculations, they use these scriptures. They don't use the Bhagavatam.
So basically, what I am driving at here is that, we don't have to necessarily see the Bhagavatam's cosmology and modern scientific cosmology as either competitive or contradictory. They are just from two different perspectives. They are meant to serve two different purposes.
So when we position scripture as a competitor to science, science says this, scripture says this. So science must be wrong, scripture must be right. When we do like that, we position scripture as a competitor to science, we devalue scripture.
Because scripture is meant for a higher purpose. Science is meant for a different purpose. So that's why I would say that the Bhagavatam's cosmology is something if we want to study specifically, we can study.
But we have to study it from its reference point of view. If we try to study it from our reference point of view, it will be very confusing. Thank you.
Thank you very much.