Counter the cancer of workaholism
So, thank you all for coming here today, morning.
And I'll speak today on the topic of cultivating conviction in our spiritual life. So, there are two broad understandings of spiritual life. One is as an alternative to material life, and the other is as a complement to material life.
As an alternative means, oh, this materialistic way of living is all wrong, and there has to be another way. It's a spiritual, it's an alternative. The other is as a complement.
Yes, material life offers me some things, but what it offers me is not enough. I need something more in my life. That's a complement.
And now both of these ways of looking at spiritual life are valid. In the ultimate sense, we are at our core spiritual beings. And actually, we have nothing to do with this material world.
So in that sense, spiritual life, when we become liberated, will be a replacement to material life. We'll no longer have any material existence. But as long as we are in this world, we are not just bodies, but we are also not just souls.
We are souls who are encased in bodies. In 2.13 in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna that you are the soul. After telling him that you are not the body or the soul, right in the next verse, he tells So he's telling Arjuna, tolerate.
Therefore, tolerate happiness and distress. But significantly, he's using two forms of address for Arjuna. One is Bharata and the other is Kaunteya.
And both of these are related with the body. Bharata means a descendant of the Bharata dynasty. And what is that? That's a bodily connection.
Kaunteya, even that, son of Kunti, that's a bodily connection. So, immediately after telling Arjuna that you are not the body, he tells him that, tolerate. And Prabhupada explains in the Purport over there that these two names, forms of address are used because belonging to a great dynasty means great responsibility.
That means, yes, Arjuna, reacting at the spiritual level is not easy. Tolerate it. And it's not easy, but you belong to a great family, so you can do great things.
So here, rather than rejecting the material as false, the material is seen as an impetus for the spiritual. Yes, you belong to a great dynasty, that means you can do great things. And therefore, you should do the great thing of becoming spiritually enlightened, of acting in a spiritually enlightened way and tolerating material dualities.
So, the material, the spiritual and the material, in that sense, are complementary. After the Kurukshetra war, after the Bhagavad Gita is spoken and the Kurukshetra war was fought, and Arjuna won the Kurukshetra war not by the knowledge of the Bhagavad Gita alone. He won it by the knowledge of archery that he had learned throughout his life.
It was the knowledge of the Bhagavad Gita that gave him the inspiration, the direction, the conviction about how to use the knowledge of archery. So both of them went together. The spiritual knowledge gave him the inspiration and the material skills gave him the capacity for implementation.
So in that sense, spiritual life and material life are complementary. Now, in a materialistic scenario, the tendency is to see not spiritual life and material life as complementary, but spiritual life as optional or as even unessential, as a waste of time. Material life itself is everything.
In the Bhagavad Gita, this mentality is talked about in the 16th chapter which is called the divine and demoniac natures. So Krishna actually goes over an overview of this. In 16.7, he gives the general overview of the behaviour of the ungodly, the demoniac.
In 16.8 and 9, he describes their worldview, their philosophical understanding or misunderstanding, we could say. Then 16.10 to 16.17, he talks about their lifestyle. So there is a summary behaviour, then there is a mentality, and then there is a lifestyle, again he talks about it.
And in 16.16, he states that अनेक चित्तविभ्रान्ता मोह जाल समावृतः प्रसक्तः कामभोगेशु पतंति नरकेशु चवु As such people, अनेक चित्तविभ्रान्ता their consciousness is pulled, dragged, this direction, that direction, I have to do this, I have to do that, I want to enjoy this, I want to enjoy that, and मोह जाल समावृतः So, they are caught in a जाल, in a trap or a net of मोह and it's not just they are caught, they are समावृतः, completely covered over with it. प्रसक्तः कामभोगेशु They are addicted to sensual enjoyment, to self-centred enjoyment and पतंति नरकेशु चवु and they fall to hell. They not only fall to hell, they often make their life itself hellish.
Just yesterday there has been in the news about how this whole phenomena in Japan called करोशी करोशी is work-related death, overwork-induced death. So, it happens that the young employee, a female employee, she worked for, continuously for many weeks, for more than 100 hours every week and because of that she got so frustrated, she eventually committed suicide. Just about a month ago and then so is the top, one of the top companies there and their chief head has submitted his resignation because of that.
And this is not just one-off case, on an average in Japan, between 2,000 to 3,000 people commit suicide simply because of overwork. And that is apart from this करोशी is not just suicide. Suicide is where people kill themselves but apart from that there is there is people get heart attacks, strokes because of just too much overwork.
And in fact in 2001, the then the then Japanese Prime Minister, Japanese head of state, he got a heart attack, fatal heart attack while working and doctors attributed it to overwork. And this is just not in that case. There is a case of a Bank of America employee working in England who worked continuously for 74 hours and he just got a stroke and died on the spot.
So now somebody may say, you know, what can I do? You know, my work is so much. That's what is required in the work culture today. What can I do? I just have to work.
It's interesting that there are, now because this has become the first reported death because of excess work was in 1978 in Japan. I'll talk about the rest of the world later. But then it was called as करोशी in 1980s roughly.
And especially in 1980s, 1990s the economy went through a lot of ups and downs. And in 1991 this whole idea of करोशी entered into the American, in the Japanese mainstream. And since then the government has been keeping statistics.
So many companies have also expressed their concern and so Toyota and some other companies, after 7 o'clock, after 5 o'clock when the work gets, when the work hours are over, after every one hour they make announcements about telling their employees for work-life balance. Now don't overwork. Go home.
And now they have a policy that 8 o'clock all over the company, they shut down the lights. So if the lights, the power only is not there, how will people work? But people themselves are so glued that even in darkness they keep working. They don't leave.
And of course some of them even take their work home and they keep working overtime. So now there come companies which have limited overwork limits to only, overwork means overtime work. Overtime work to maximum 360 hours a year.
That means you can work one hour overtime. Otherwise you cannot work anymore. But in spite of that this is an ongoing menace.
And I was just in Australia last year and I was talking with the devotees there and they said that actually the whole idea of overwork is more a matter of mentality than of necessity. That actually when if a company is owned by Australians and they are working in a company owned by Australians they have as a rule Saturday Sunday off and your boss will never call you on Saturday Sunday. One of the devotees said I work for 40 years, my boss has called me on a weekend only once or twice and if he calls me in 40 years, first he begins with a long apology for disturbing you.
And it's not just a nominal apology and then you get out with the work. It's also genuine apology. So interestingly he said that Australians in general are very laid back people.
They are laid back in everything except cricket. In cricket they are known to sledge and be very aggressive. But the point is that on the other hand if some Indians immigrate to Australia and if an Indian starts a company there then the Indians will have work on Saturday Sundays, will demand their employees to work on Saturday Sundays and it's not necessarily it's not in any way correlated that the Indian companies necessarily do better than the Australian companies.
The Indian owned companies do better than Australian owned companies. So overworking is just one indicator but overworking is more a matter of mentality than necessity. We all live in a society where there is a lot of pressure on us to work.
In the 1920s Maynard Smith was a prominent thinker and he as he started as that time industrialisation or not just industrialisation industrialisation has started a long time ago more than 150-200 years ago but at that time the use of home appliances started becoming more and more. Previous to that industrialisation simply meant that there was a lot of lot of mass scale production of goods but still the goods were not necessarily home appliances that started happening in 1920s 1930s. So he said observing that he said by the turn of the century the biggest problem for people will be leisure because with machines doing all our work most people will not have will not have any work to do more than 15 hours a week.
So there are many predictions that have gone wrong but probably this is one of the predictions that has gone completely off. So still researchers are just scratching their head what exactly went wrong. Yes machines were supposed to assist us in doing our work and in many ways if you look at it that machines have taken up a lot of the work that we do and in the past if we had to send a letter to someone we had to write a letter, put in an envelope seal it, go to a post office put it there and then it would get mailed.
Now with emails and messages and whatsapp we can be wherever we are we just type a message and it goes. So in terms of making things convenient machines have done their part but why is it that our workload has not decreased although machines have eased a lot of our work. If you look at this from the perspective of the Bhagavad Gita the Bhagavata explains that our behaviour is a function of the modes that is sattva guna, rajo guna and tamo guna.
Now what exactly are the modes? The modes are many things. One aspect of the modes is that they are subtle forces that shape the interaction between matter and consciousness. The modes are subtle forces that shape the interaction between matter and consciousness.
So for example three people might be sitting in a bus on three successive seats. First is in goodness, second is in passion, third is in ignorance. The person in goodness is reading a book and the bus is bumping.
Person looks out and sees a lush green forest and that person thinks oh such a peaceful place I could just sit and immerse myself in the wisdom of this book. Second person is in passion and that person sees the same forest and remembers the latest romantic movie that they have seen. If only I had a partner I would enjoy over here.
Third person is in ignorance. Third person is slouching, wanting to sleep and the bus is bumping and not able to sleep. Person looks out and sleeps so happily there.
So the same forest is being seen, same greenery but what is different among the three people? The modes. So the modes shape the interaction between matter, matter in this case is the greenery and consciousness that is the observer. So now in the Bhagavad Gita 14th chapter 12th verse Krishna says that lobha pravrttir ārambhā karmaṇā maśyamaḥ spruhā rajaśyetāni jāyante vivruddhaya bhāratārśabhā So he says lobha gives the characteristics of the mode of passion.
rajaśyetāni jāyante vivruddhaya When rajamuna increases this is what happens. What happens? He says lobha. Lobha is greed.
Greed means I want this, I want that, I want that, I want that. So greed is basically desire that can never be satisfied. Lobha pravrttir ārambhā.
Pravrttir ārambhā means one keeps doing new new things. Start one thing, second thing, third thing, fourth thing, fifth thing. Just keeps new new things.
Even people may read but they read a few pages of one book then they go to next book. Another book, another book, another book. They don't take anything to completion.
ārambhā. Keeps starting. Endeavour is there but there is the endeavour to, there is excitement in starting a new thing.
But sustaining things is not so easy. So they don't do that. Karmanām.
And there is work, work, work, lot of work. Aśyamaha spruhā. Aśyamaha spruhā again means insatiable desire.
Spruhā is desire, there is longing. I want this, I want that, I want that. So these are the characteristics of the mode of passion.
Anshula Prabhupāda in the purport of the section explains that dissatisfaction is caused not by our possession or lack of position. He explains that disposition, dissatisfaction is caused by our disposition. In Rajoguna we think that if only I get that, I'll become happy.
I just get this new smartphone, I just get this new car, I just get this new job, I just get this new house. And we think once I get it, I'll be happy. And when we get it, we do get some pleasure.
But the problem was not what we didn't have. The specific thing doesn't matter in Rajoguna. It is the mentality that matters.
Rajoguna induces the mentality which glues our eyes to the things which we don't have. So what I have doesn't matter in Rajoguna. Even if I get something which I don't have, the conditioning of Rajoguna will glue my vision to that which I don't have.
So the moment we get there, there disappears. And there reappears over here. And the moment I get there, there disappears from there also.
It appears over here. So in that sense, Rajoguna indentures us to unending labour. Indentures us.
Indenture means in the past there was slavery and one level below slavery was indenture. Indenture means a person who rebonded to work for another person for 10 years, 20 years or whatever like that. So Rajoguna indentures us to labour that is practically endless.
And if a person in Rajoguna is to be happy, the only way to happiness is not through increasing one's position. It is through elevation of consciousness. Only when the person from Rajoguna comes to Satoguna, will that person become happy.
So this means not again, I was going back to the earlier point of spiritual life and material life being complementary. So when we are in Rajoguna, then there is the result of being in Rajoguna is that we end up becoming addicted to work. So I just have to work, work, work, work, work.
And when we are hooked to working, one thing, second thing, third thing, fourth thing, such people, they are, they feel if I am not busy doing something, I am not doing anything at all. Now we should be busy, but there are different kinds of busyness. You know, there is there is the busyness where one acts first and thinks later.
And that kind of busyness, which is very reactive, that often is not only unproductive, it is counterproductive. I do work and then I realise, oh I should not have done this, maybe I could have done like this, maybe I could have done like that. And then we waste time.
He said that some people make things happen, some people watch things happen and some people wonder what happened. So this you can correlate roughly with Rajoguna, Satoguna, Rajoguna and Tamoguna. Satoguna people also, they are thoughtful, but they plan properly and then they execute, they make things happen.
Rajoguna people want to do a lot of things, but they try to do one thing and because they don't do it very thoughtfully, this goes wrong and that goes wrong and that goes wrong and that goes wrong and they watch, hey what is happening, what is happening, watch things happen. And Tamoguna people are completely lost. They wonder what happened.
Everything is going on here and there. So, actually if we have to practise spiritual life seriously, we have to understand the right attitude in our practise of spiritual life. And that is that we cannot succumb to the endless demands of the materialistic way of living.
There was a psychologist who in I think Parkinson or somebody, he said, he found a principle, he said work expands to occupy the time available for it. And his principle was that means if you have one hour to do something, you will do it in one hour. But if you give it 10 hours, it will take 10 hours.
They say, why? Because we will get distracted, we will do this, we will do that and we will waste time. So, by compartmentalising our life, this much is the time I have for this, this much is the time I have for this. At one level, it may seem to create stress, but actually it brings focus.
Okay, I have to do this in this much time and however well I am able to do it, I will do it, but this is the time I have. So, if we don't in this way compartmentalise our life and give time to our spiritual life, then materialistic way of living will not only take away, the time will erode into, eat away the time for our spiritual life, it will actually eat away the time even for our other aspects of our material life. There are people who are workaholics, they, they work so much, they don't even have time for their family.
And it's not only, they say that I am working so hard for my family, but actually they internally often see their family negatively as a interference from their work. They feel that, that, that, oh, you know, my kids, I don't know what to do with them. They are always so rebellious.
My spouse, I don't know how to deal with. So, they think the solution is throw money at them. so there was a survey published I think by the London School of Economics, they called when office becomes home.
So, people spend more and more time in office because they feel, yes, everything is here. And with a, with a licentious culture, people can get their, what they feel are their sexual needs also fulfilled through some affairs in office. So, they feel that home is just a somewhere we don't even need to go to.
I was just in Australia sometime last year and they are telling that in Australia practically more than 97% of people don't get married. They don't become brahmacharis. They don't get married because they simply live together.
They feel marriage is such a complication and so what is happening here? The materialism is so great that leave alone spiritual life, there is no time even for balanced material life. This is the result of Rajoguna. It's not that Satoguna is required for spiritual living.
Even for peaceful material living, Satoguna is required. And when the environment becomes too passionate, then even materially people cannot be satisfied. Now, people may not show this directly because they want to portray an image of being successful.
And one part of the image of being successful is appearing happy. So, even when people are internally dissatisfied, they will appear as if they are happy. They will pretend to be happy.
Yes. They may have crying hearts but they have smiling faces. Yes, smiling faces.
Why? Because that's part of the facade they put on. And I wrote a poem about this. Their hearts are filled with fears.
Their minds are pierced by desires. Their hearts are filled with fears. Their minds are pierced by desires.
They are on the verge of tears. And they say cheers. So, it's a show.
It's a sham. Actually, a disproportionately materialistic life is a recipe for misery. 16th chapter, 11th verse, Krishna says, 11th and 12th verses, he says, that there is chinta, there is anxiety.
And what level of anxiety? Aparimayam cha. Immeasurable anxiety. Chintamaparimayam cha.
And Pralayantamupashyatah. Till the moment of death. And why is that? Kamopabhogaparamah.
Because one has decided that materialistic, that material gratification is the only way to happiness. Etavat iti nishchitah. This is certain.
So, I just met a third standard student when I was in UK. I just had a we had a very important seminar in our school today. What was it? Stress management.
A third standard student. They are also burdened. They are also burdened.
So, when you say till the moment of death, it is practically from the moment of birth. Small children, they also get stress. I have to do this, I have to do that, I have to do that.
So, the materialistic way of living actually it is sometimes when a war happens, there is a policy, take no prisoners. Take no prisoners policy means that you just kill whoever you find. So, take no prisoners.
Because if you take prisoners, then you have to feed them, you have to maintain them. A certain code of conduct to be maintained, to be followed when you are maintaining, when you are having prisoners of war also. So, take no prisoners.
It is like the materialistic way of living, it actually spares no one. It spares no one. And one of the increasing concerns in today's world, and I will conclude with two points of how this materialistic culture takes no prisoners.
Now, there is an increasing in today's culture romanticisation of old age. Now, old age is the time when one's body starts deteriorating and that is the time when one should start thinking about spirituality. What is there eternal? What is there something beyond the body? But unfortunately, the materialistic world is so exploitative and now there is systematic propaganda that now, there is a big advertising company which says life begins after 50.
Their idea is what life begins after 50 means? Till 50 you have been building your career, you have been making a position for yourself, you are taking care of your family. Till now your life was for others. Now your life is for you.
Your life is for you. And then they have all kinds of enjoyments specially catered for elderly. And in much of the western world, there are actually dating websites only for people above 50.
So, what has happened? Most people they don't, even if they have marriages, they have divorces. Actually, if you go to America, it's considered a bad etiquette to ask anyone, who are your parents? Because most people have two mothers and three fathers. So, you are not meant to ask that.
So, most people have no stable relationship. They say after 50, now is the time when you can look attractive and find partners and enjoy. And there is a big, big exploitative market over there.
So, even after 50, when people have lived most of their life, they are not, materialism doesn't leave them alone. And if you have diseases, no problem. Digestive problem, we have this digestive remedy.
If you have some heart problems, we have this heart remedy. If you have the eyes problem, we have this eye remedy. What they don't have is an illusion remedy.
That's what they need. It's illusion remedy. So, materialism will, if we let materialistic way of living seep into our heart, it will never leave us alone.
Even if people grow old, still it will not leave them alone. So, it's, one way is in old age. Another increasing concern in today's world is what we are calling as the sexualisation of childhood.
Sexualisation of childhood means, say, according to nature's own course, people become adolescent by the age of 12, 13, 14 and that is the time when they primarily become aware of their sexuality. And that is a part of nature's own course. People can eventually find partners and settle down in life.
But, with the sexualisation of the whole culture, there are two researchers who have written a book called, the book is called The Porning of America. The sexualisation of American mainstream society. So, what has happened is that even children who are 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, right from the age of 5, 6, they are advertisements are targeted towards them so that they can appear sexually attractive to potential partners.
And so, there is there are there are children and then there are teens. So, they have this phase between so that teenage years is the time when adolescence comes. And actually, adolescence is a very turbulent period for most people.
Because that time when youthful passions start hitting a person. And then one's own search for identity. Because when one is a child, he is identified, okay, I am the son of so and so, when we become adults, then we have our own identity, you know, I have this degree, I have this job.
But in adolescence, one is searching for one's identity. We don't, teens, they don't want to be identified, I am the son of so and so, they want to have their own identity. But they don't have any position right now.
No degree, no job. So, it's a turbulent, it's emotionally, socially, physically, it's a very turbulent period. And one author was once asked, I am an author, so I keep writing.
So, one author was asking, how do you get ideas for writing? He said, if you have survived adolescence, you have enough ideas for writing for a lifetime. So, especially in the western world, where the society is not so structured. In India still, although there is a lot of materialism come up, but still there is some level of structuring of society.
Where society is not structured, adolescence can be a period of madness. Sometimes we feel that, oh, you know, I don't have enough freedom. I have this rule, that rule, that rule, that rule.
But actually, many times rule, freedom is not necessarily a, cannot be seen uncritically as a virtue all the time. Now, sometimes certain amount of structure enables us to get on with the really important things of life. See, for example, if you have to send a message with your phone.
Now, if you think, if you go into the settings, for every message, there could be so many settings. Which font do you want? What font size do you want? Do you want italics? Do you want some shadows in it? Do you want some ornamental layout in it? Do you want some different colour in it? Now, imagine every time if you have to send a message, if it prompted you, all these settings we have to fill in. Font size, font colour, font, font shading, background image.
You know, so much time would go in that that we would not be able to send a message out. So, there are certain things which are already set and that default settings help us to get on with the main task of sending the message. Now, if for specific purposes we want to change the default setting, that's fine.
But actually making people choose all these each time when they have to send a message, that would cripple them. That would waste so much of their time and energy. So, it is not necessary.
Here, you may say, no, I have the freedom which font I want, which font colour I want, which font size I want. But is that freedom really important? Exercising through all that freedom takes away the freedom to actually do the main work, that is send the message. Because every freedom involves, the positive side of freedom is the capacity to choose.
But the negative side of freedom is the responsibility for the choice. We are taught only freedom to choose. You can do whatever you want.
But when we choose, we have to bear the consequences of choosing. And the consequences are often quite troublesome. So, because in America medical care is, they call it medical scare.
Because there is so much litigation that comes up, if a doctor gives some treatment which the patient feels is wrong. So, actually if we go to a doctor, this is, if you go to a doctor, and the doctor will do a set of tests, and the doctor will report. See, you have this symptom, this symptom, this symptom, this symptom.
These four symptoms can indicate either this disease, this disease, this disease or this disease. And if you have this disease, you can take this treatment, this treatment, this treatment, this treatment. So, there are four possible diseases which you may have, and each of them have four possible treatments.
Out of these 16, which do you want to choose? Now, how is the patient supposed to choose? You know. Now, for a patient who is sick, who has got a stomach upset, well, the patient simply wants to get on with life. I want something which cures the stomach upset, so I can get on with life.
But if the patient has to go through 16 possible treatments, then what happens? So, that is not really freedom. That freedom is not freeing, it is burdening. So, in that sense, we need to recognise that not all freedom is freeing.
It is also burdening. Freedom provides us the scope to choose. In that sense, it is free.
But freedom brings upon us the responsibility for the consequence of the choice. And in that sense, it is burdening. So, the point I was making over here is that where there is no structure in society, then once children start getting a little bit of freedom, 11, 12, 13, 14, they can just do anything and everything.
And then when they start doing anything and everything, they are not able to decide what is more important and focus on the more important things. So, all kinds of sensual engagements, all kinds of intoxication, everything they get into that. So, this has always been a problem when people get into adolescence.
But now, with the excessive materialism, this has gone even into the pre-adolescent stage where there is systematic marketing done to snag the minds of pre-adolescent teens. They call them twins. Twins.
Not twins. T-W-I-N. It's T-W-E-N.
T-W-W-E-N. Twins. So, the idea is that twin means it's a short form of between.
They are between children and teens. But you try to sexualise that and exploit people. So, girls who are just 7-8 years old, they are taught to strut like beauty queens.
And boys who are just 6-7-8 years old, they try to portray a macho man image. And innocence of childhood is completely slaughtered by this. So, materialistic civilisation, materialism is such that if it is allowed to spread, it can sap into the vitals of the human heart.
It can destroy everything. This is not to condemn materialism in the sense that material aspect of life is important. But growth for growth's sake is the agenda of cancer cells.
Cancer cells in one sense are just like normal cells in the body. But the difference between cancer cells and other cells in the body is all other cells grow in proportion. Cancer cells grow out of proportion.
The normal cells, their growth is for enhancing bodily function. Whereas cancer cells, their growth is simply for growth's sake. And by their growth, they impede, endure and immobilise other bodily functions.
And that's how they can kill. So, similarly, material progress is not the problem. We all had a particular situation.
We want to do well in our academics. We want to get a good job. We want to have good salary.
All that is fine. But when this becomes the only purpose of life, then this mentality becomes like the mentality of a cancer cell. When growth is only for growth's sake, then it destroys.
The cancer cell by its growth, destroys all other aspects of the person and ultimately destroys the person. Similarly, materialism, when that becomes the sole focus and purpose of a person's life, then that destroys not only spiritual life, it destroys even other aspects of material life also. So, when we practise bhakti, that is ultimately… We are souls.
The soul can only be happy in relationship with Krishna. And the ultimate purpose of practising spiritual life is to attain eternal love for Krishna and to attain Krishna's abode where our aspirations for happiness are eternally and completely fulfilled. When we are young and when we have so much passion in our body, that attaining the spiritual world can seem very far off.
That's fine. But we have to know that bhakti can actually complement us even in our material life. Without the practise of spiritual life, without giving attention to spiritual life, our very pursuit of material life will destroy our material life.
We are not talking about material life destroying our spiritual life. We are talking about material life destroying us materially also. So, we all have a lot of pressure.
But bhakti is a complement to our material life. And bhakti is not just a complement to our material life. The vision of bhakti actually goes deeper.
Bhakti underlies our material life. In 18.46 Krishna said in the Bhagavad Gita that svakarmanatam abhyarcha siddhim vindati manava that Krishna, this is a famous verse where it says that svakarmanatam abhyarcha, by your work worship him. Many people like to translate this as work is worship.
Now that is not what the Bhagavad Gita is saying. Work is not worship. It is saying by your work, svakarmanatam abhyarcha, by your work worship him.
So, work automatically is not worship. If work itself were worship, then a donkey would be the greatest worshipper. Isn't it? So, work is worship is a valuable ethical principle to infuse the sense of dignity of labour among all people.
So, that means some kind of work is looked down upon, frowned upon. It is a low class work. Now, all work it can be, it can it should be valued.
There should be dignity for all kind of work. And that is the mood. So, that level, say work is worship is fine.
But it is not a philosophy. It can be ethical principle for infusing all work with dignity. But it is not a philosophical principle.
Work itself is not worship. Otherwise a thief may say, I am killing, that is my worship. I am robbing, that is my worship.
It doesn't work like that. By our work, we are meant to worship the Lord. And how is it that by our work we can worship the Lord? We may say, yes, I can go to temple, I can do aarti, that is the worship of the Lord.
But how by my work we worship? So, that is told in the first two lines of this verse. यत्तः प्रवृत्तिर्भूतानाम् येन सर्वमिदं ततं यत्तः प्रवृत्तिर्भूतानाम् means from whom everything has come. And येन सर्वमिदं ततं by whom everything is pervaded.
So that means this verse is telling us that Krishna is not just somewhere there in the spiritual world and this whole material world has nothing to do with it. The material world has also come from Krishna. It is also connected with Krishna.
And the material world is also pervaded by Krishna. That means that we can access Krishna even here in the material world. So as devotees, we do want to spend time on direct devotional activities, you know, on our chanting, on our practise of bhakti.
That is important. Along with that when we are doing our material life, material activities, whether it is our studies our job, whatever, we don't think of it dismissively. This is something I have to get over with so that I can get on with my spiritual life.
No, this is also important. That is also one way we can worship the Lord. So the way I have put it, what we are is God's gift to us.
What we become is our gift to God. What we are we have certain talents, we have certain abilities, that is God's gift to us. And we are meant to use these talents, we are meant to use these abilities and what we become by this, not just in terms of what we achieve in this world, but in the process of commitment our own character develops.
And what we become is our gift to God. Arjuna, he was able to play a vital role in the battle of Kurukshetra, not just because he was a devotee of Krishna. It is also because he was such a great archer.
And how great an archer was he? He is known as Savyasachi. Savyasachi means ambidextrous one. He could fight equally well with both hands.
Now to understand how difficult it is, in there cricket is the most popular game. So in cricket there are batsmen who are right-handers and left-handers. And the whole strategy, say if a batsman is batting right-handed, then the whole opposite team has a game plan.
We will have this bowler bowling, we will have this pen set like this, we will have this many players on the on side, we will have this player on the off side. Now imagine suddenly while batting right-handed, the batsman starts batting left-handed. The whole opposite team will be thrown off track.
What to do? Our whole game plan, how to deal with it? Imagine, every alternate ball, the batsman starts batting one's right hand another left hand. The bowler will not know what to do. Completely thrown off track.
And till now there have been so many great batsmen, nobody has had this skill. A good batsman is either a good right-hand batsman or a good left-hand batsman. Because to actually be so good with both hands is a phenomenal skill.
And Arjuna was ambidextrous like that. And despite that sorry not despite that. Now how did Arjuna become so superb at archery? He had some innate talent.
But it was not just talent. He practised. One of his names is Gudakesha.
That he would not he had conquered sleep. What does that mean? Practically all night on the day he would learn archery from Drona and then late in the night he would be practising. He would not waste time.
He would not think oh this is all mundane. When the work had to be done he did his work. So that way when we are doing our material life, there's no need to be half-hearted about it.
But we shouldn't let material life take up all our life. It was not that when Arjuna was sitting and the sages had come and they were discussing philosophy he would say, no no it's my archery practise time. I'm going now.
No. So when he was doing archery, he was whole-hearted about that. When he was doing spirituality, he was whole-hearted about that.
So what we are is our gift to God. What we are is God's gift to us. What we become is our gift to God.
So in that way when we infuse our work, our contribution in this life with this devotional vision then we see our work not as an interference from our devotion but as a limb of our devotion. I have my direct devotional activity and my work is also a part of my devotion. In that way we can spiritualise our entire life and thus we can sublimate it.
We can actually find fulfilment because when we work hard, if we are in the materialistic conception of life, then we depend on the world for recognising us, for appreciating us. If I study very hard, if I don't come number one, then what is the use of my studies? But if you are doing it to please Krishna, you are doing it as an act of service to Krishna, yes we will be able to do well and we will succeed also but even if we don't succeed we will not, our sense of self-worth will not depend on that. I have worked as Krishna has seen, Krishna is pleased and that sense of that inner security will enable us to work with greater, to respond with greater maturity when things go wrong and that will lead us to be able to contribute much better in our life.
So what we become will be truly a gift to God. Not only in terms of what we achieve but how we live our life while going through the ups and downs of life. That will be an example that will inspire many others also.
So I will summarise. I talked about cultivating conviction in our spiritual life and for that I started by talking about two views of material, of spiritual life. One is as an alternative and the other is as a complement.
So as an alternative it's ultimately true when we become liberated we have no material life, we only have spiritual life. Right now it is a complement. So Krishna tells Arjuna you are not the body but then immediately uses two body connected addresses to encourage him to live spiritually.
And then I thought but some people may say no spiritual life is not a complement, it is actually unnecessary only. And that was the whole gist of the class that materialistic mentality how it can erode into all aspects of our life. I started talking about Karoshi a work related death either because of because of strokes or heart attack where it's involuntary, person is working suddenly person just, the body breaks down because of say working 70-80 hours continuously or because of just working for overtime for long long long time or sometimes a person emotionally breaks down and commits suicide.
So Japan is considered to be one of the biggest success stories after second world war when they were devastated and now they become one of the leading economies in the world. So that is just one side of the story, the flip side is almost 3000 people, Japan doesn't have a big population that is small country and in that 3000 people committing suicide just because of overwork related stress that's an alarming number. and that's not just over there that sort of, this problem may be more intense there but the problem of overwork, workaholism is there everywhere and work expands to occupy the time available for it if we don't compartmentalise our time and give due time for our spiritual life then we will not only not have time for spiritual life, we will not have time even for other aspects of our material life.
I discussed how even when companies close the power at 8 o'clock still people continue to work in the dark the problem is not just the necessity, the problem is the mentality that say Indians who make companies in Australia they try to bring that excessive work culture ethos there also, although Australians may not have that culture, that mentality is caused by Rajoguna I talked about the modes, the subtle forces that shape the interaction between matter and consciousness give the example of three people in a bus looking at a greenery and seeing it as a place for reading, a place for romanticising and a place for just sleeping so when we are in Rajoguna when we are excessively materialistic then even if there is external regulation still we will not be able to regulate our life. I discussed how offices become the home for people and people are not even able to give time for their family so much so that they don't have, in many countries they don't even have the marriage, they just have living kind of relationships and children especially get terribly affected by this and then I talked about how materialism when it is allowed to be allowed to take control it will not only take control of your work life it will take care of control of your whole life not just in terms of time in working but also in terms of the whole life span itself how there is this whole romanticisation of old age life begins after 50, when people are meant to at least have time for spiritual life there is concentrated propaganda to induce them to enjoy and similarly there is the sexualisation of childhood so adolescence itself is a turbulent phase people are searching for their identity people are struggling to deal with the hormones that have come in the body and it's a turbulent period but then that turbulence is taken further earlier and there are systematic advertisements which are made to make children whose body has not come to puberty but they are infused with sexuality artificially a slaughter of the childhood and in that way people are subjected to needless anxiety and that anxiety leads to misery so when we practise bhakti, bhakti will ultimately liberate us but here in this life it will help us to balance so that we don't become victims of the cancerous materialistic mentality cancer cells are normal cells but with the abnormal agenda of unidimensional growth, of disproportionate growth, so like that the desire to grow is fine even in our material life but when that becomes the sole motivating force of our life then that wrecks other aspects of our life and when we start practising bhakti we give time for our direct devotional activities and along with that we also infuse a devotional vision within our material activities our work is not worship work is worship is an ethical principle, it's not a spiritual principle but our work can be made into worship what we are is God's gift to us what we become is our gift to God Arjuna was a great devotee but he was also a great archer ambidextrous archer like a batsman who could bat left and right and both and he became like that by tireless practise so when we are doing our material life we don't just think of it as a burden to get over with we do it wholeheartedly but we don't let it consume our whole life and we see that everything material also comes from Krishna it can be offered to Krishna so with that vision when we have in our whole life can be harmonised with our spiritual growth thank you very much Hare Krishna are there any questions or comments yeah I have a question regarding something yeah like we have equal friends personally so like how should we deal with them means in Narada Muni has spoken that we should think that equal just friends but then like what is actual friendship because sometimes we become too casual with our friends and we not commit any affairs I will come back to this question any other questions related to the topic there are deadlines and if we are not able to and if we don't see ourselves working together then work becomes a burden yeah so when we have deadlines and we are unable to meet them then we feel that work is a burden see deadlines are not necessarily bad because the fact is we are not just in Rajoguna we are in Rajoguna and Tamoguna so quite often if we didn't have deadlines we would never get anything done so sometimes we may not do things because we are just trying to do a small thing very perfectly and perfection takes time sometimes we are just too lazy for doing things and sometimes there might just be too much to do so all three possibilities are there perfectionism often comes as a distortion of Satvaguna I want to do every small thing perfectly we can't do like that we have to have a sense of proportion and in Tamoguna we just don't do anything in Rajoguna we just pile up the work Prabhupada talks in 7.15 about self-created beauties so when we have a deadline it is good to clearly differentiate between what is essential and what is optional ok this is the work which I have to do and this is the essential level and beyond that if I do this it is also good so what happens is the mind obscures this line between the essential and the optional and in trying to do things which are not really essential which are good but they are not essential our time gets deteriorated and then we are not able to do the essential this is from our side from the other side if we see sometimes it may be that we are just given an unfair amount of work this is the only time I have let's not do this so much work it's just not possible then we have to maybe discuss, negotiate it's not possible for me to do this much can I get some more time get some extension or then we as we say, economise see life is all about making adjustments so if you find that this much work is there and I cannot do this much just like if you have to go for a trip and you have only this much money then we find a cheap way to go for the trip find a cheap place to stay we adjust accordingly, we economise so then we may not do the same amount of work same quality of work we may not do we may do something simpler within the within the available amount of time the important thing is that once we start seeing the work as a burden then we see only the closed doors this can't be done whenever one door is closed in life life opens some other door for us but often we are so caught in glaring at the closed door cursing the closed door blasting at the closed door that we miss out on the door that is open and this is where if we are practising bhakti then we can have an attitude of service if Krishna, I am meant to serve you please give me the strength to serve you please give me the intelligence to serve you if we think this is the way I have to do things and they are not working this way, we feel frustrated but if we have that attitude of service ok Krishna I want to serve you, I just can't see how I can serve you please guide me then that openness to Krishna's guidance will help us find a way Prabhupada writes in a purport that a devotee may be perplexed but a devotee is never discouraged perplexed means to not know what to do discouraged means to not feel like doing anything so we all will face situations where we will be perplexed but only when we keep looking at the closed door and think oh why, why, why why is this happening, why can't I do this why is life so unfair so just change the question from why to how how means how can I deal with this situation how can I serve you now how can I do the best in this situation the why question basically basically makes us like a martyr, makes us like a victim and it immobilises the whole problem is out there the problem may be out there, we are not denying that but it immobilises us just shift the question from why to how how can I respond now how can I act in this situation and that is energising and we will find some door opens up and we will be able to move on so just try to three things, first is that don't see deadlines negatively because most of the time deadlines is what enables us to get work done because we are often influenced by tamoguna or by distorted sattvaguna by which we become perfectionist or lethargic so see deadlines positively as means to get a work done for ourselves secondly, when we have a certain amount of time, we try to differentiate between the essential and the optional and focus on the essential thirdly, when what is essential also seems very difficult to do rather than resenting with the question why, try to open the mental doors by asking the question how if we ask the question how, we will find some door by which we can keep moving ahead so when we are with equals and it is said that we should become friendly with our equals but what does friendship mean, sometimes we become very casual with our friends the essence of friendship is what Rupa Goswami talks about, the six exchanges dāti pratigrahanāti gohiya mākhyāti pichuki bhūṅte bhojaite jaya so giving gifts, receiving gifts and speaking our heart, hearing them speak their heart and offering them food taking prasad from them so this is the essence of friendship among these three I would say the most important is the second so when we open our hearts to them or they open their hearts to us first of all we should not be we cannot make friendship a legislated activity no actually we have to see where our hearts, there are some people with which we just click this makes sense to me the way this person thinks, the way this person just clicks for me if you find even one friend like that, even if that friend is somewhere far away some other place invest some time, invest some energy in developing that relationship so when you talk about friendship first is we find somewhere where it clicks and invest time in developing that relationship but along with that we are living in a particular group of people and there also we may have some people with whom we need to have good relationship so then we can find out while dealing with them that where are our shared interests there are if we consider two people, say we are both like two circles or two sets, when we form a friendship the friendship has to be founded in some point of intersection between the two sets and from that intersection our area of interest may also expand, I may not have say, I have a friend who who say loves to study Gaudiya Vaishnava literature the literature say written with the songs of Narottam Das Thakur or songs of Kavi Karanapur now I may not have much interest in that but when I became a friend, our interest might have been that devotee is a Bhagavad Gita scholar, I also like to study the Bhagavad Gita, so that Bhagavad Gita was our intersection point but through that intersection point when we are talking about Bhagavad Gita, that devotee okay, this point is illustrated from this song also hey, I don't know, tell me about this song so then our interest develops so we have to find first some shared interest and from that shared interest we expand so that we become interested in what they are doing and they may also become interested in other things which we are interested in so now the the centre of the relationship has to be the shared interest and from there it can move on and it may be that with some people there is just not many shared interests we are all different people and I said that what can be legislated is functional relationships it is not heart to heart relationships functional relationship means both of you are working together in this project, so have a functional relationship and functional relationships are also important so in general in the devotee community we should not have harsh relationships with anyone, there may be always when we are working together there is some friction here and there but then we can ruffle the feathers afterwards and try to have a cordial relationship with everyone so when we start feeling that we are we are taking others lightly taking others lightly is not just a matter of you know you call someone without using the word Prabhu, that can be one way but that is a very external thing when we take people lightly that essentially means that we take their words lightly and we give the words we give to them lightly so for example if I tell them I will do this it is not always possible for us to do what we do but then it is our responsibility to inform ok I said I will do it but actually I was not able to do it, this is the reason and I will either do it or I will ask somebody else to do it or you please adjust, tell them in time so basically in every relationship there are some amount of commitments which come up so if we take those commitments seriously then the form other things in that relationship that will not matter so much there will be different devotees with whom we have different flavours of relationships some devotees with whom the relationship may be such that there may be a greater level of intimacy and then high degree of formality will interfere with that relationship so we should not think that just because somebody is very informal that means they do not value the relationship or just because somebody is very formal that means they value the relationship the value of the relationship is based on how much we value the words given and taken in those relationships if we are taking care of that then other things will fall in place in due course does that answer your question? did you have a question? like if you have a nephew and you have got some small kids so how do we help them not to go into that extreme if you explain that small children are being spoiled and you can't direct ok yeah you see if you have nephews who are becoming too materialistic because of the culture how can we help them? we all have a certain circle of influence and we have a much bigger circle of concern so certain things may just not be in our circle of influence so first of all you have to recognise that can I actually do anything practical in this situation if we cannot then we have to recognise our limitation and then focus on what we can do so if you are geographically so far away usually we can basically influence other people only in one of three ways we can set an example we can we can provide knowledge and we can create facilities it means somebody wants to go on a journey we can set an example say if you want somebody to go to Vrindavan you can set an example I go to Vrindavan every year that's an example every year you go ok fine then provide knowledge what is there in Vrindavan then give some facility you know there is a group of people of your age going you can go with them but you cannot literally pack them in a suitcase and take them to Vrindavan so like that we can see among these three things what can we do so we if there is some local group of devotee kids over there we can try to find that in that area connect them with them nowadays a lot of things happen online also there are there are although social media can be a big distraction but there are many people who get spiritually connected through the social media also according to the Pure Research Foundation it's a it's a research organisation in America which focusses primarily on religious organisations and they found in the age group of 20 to 40 almost 30 to 50 percent of people who joined Christianity in the last 10 years they all came through online outreach through social media the substantial amount of people coming to spirituality also through this so we can find out if there are some online groups through which they can be enroled and whenever we find some some nuggets of wisdom which we feel they can relate with just giving them books they are unlikely to read them but if we ourselves find some nuggets of wisdom, this point is very insightful we share it with them so within our limitations we try to offer them whatever resources we can so that they can make healthy choices and of course beyond that we can pray to Krishna Krishna is in their heart and Krishna will guide them and sometimes some people have to take their time to learn so trying to legislate someone too much even if they are going to make wrong choices then they may not do the wrong thing at that time but they will develop a wrong attitude towards us eventually when they get freedom they just rebel completely sometimes some people have to learn through experience so even if we tell somebody to do something and they don't do it don't make it a personal rejection I told you why did you do it don't make that a personal rejection understand that they have to go through that phase so if after they go through it they bear the consequences and then they realise that I was wrong at that time we shouldn't be gloating I told you then it will become a very ego issue for them then they will not come but if you are available for them see we open the door for them and invite them to walk through if they don't walk through it is not that we slam the door in their face we keep the door open and whenever they want to connect they will connect at that time ok so thank you very much.