Develop the vision that nurtures devotion
Wow.
Hare Krishna. So, today morning, I will discuss on this topic of the vision that nurtures pure devotion. How to develop the vision that nurtures pure devotion.
I will take this in three parts. And, after each part, you can have a brief pause. If you have any comments or questions, you can discuss.
The first part I will talk is about how we all see the same thing, but we don't see the same thing. How our vision is different for each person. And, second part I will talk is about based on our vision, that which is a shelter for one person is a trap for another.
And, last part I will talk about how we need to intelligently rise from a lower shelter to a higher shelter, ultimately to the shelter of Krishna. So, basically relativity of vision, then relativity of shelters and the ultimate shelter. These are three main topics I will talk about.
So, most of you have probably seen that picture which shows, if you look at a picture, one vision it looks like a young woman, another vision it looks like an old woman. Have you seen that picture? Most of you. See, that is not logical.
That is psychological. So, logically it can either be one this or this, but it's psychological. Psychological means each person's mind is different.
And, based on what is there in our mind, our vision is shaped accordingly. None of us actually studies or looks at the world objectively. There is the study of matter and there is the study of what matters.
So, modern science focusses on the study of matter and it's important in its own way. But, for most of us, we focus on what matters. Right now in this room, if we wanted to describe this room, we could describe hundreds of details.
We could describe the kind of floor that is there, the kind of chandeliers, the kind of roof that is there, the kind of roof that is there, the kind of architecture that is there. We could describe so many things. We could describe the kind of people, which background.
So, now, when you come to here, you focus on the things that matter to you. Say, for example, if you want to hear this class, then you want to sit in a place which is reasonably comfortable. You look around the people who will be sitting next to you.
If you know that some people tend to be distracted or they have their phone on, then you sit away from them. If you need a fan, you will find out whether there is a place below the fan. So, basically, whenever we look at a particular thing, in a particular situation, we focus on what matters.
And there are so many other things about that place which we cannot focus on. In fact, psychologists did some experiment that, say, at a supermarket counter, where people submit a bill and then they pay and then they get the change back along with the receipt. So, in between, what they did was, there was one person sitting over there and standing at the counter, sitting at the counter, and they handed something and then a person dug down and another person came up with it.
And almost 90% of people didn't even notice there was a change of person. Because for them, their vision is basically transactional. It's only if, say, you are given thousand rupees and you expected hundred rupees back and you get only fifty rupees back.
Then you will look, why did you not give me the money? So, there the focus is on the transaction. And as long as the other person does the transaction well, it doesn't matter who the person over there is. Even if one person goes and other person comes.
So, basically, we have a functional or transactional vision of things. It's like, say, when you work on a computer. Now, a computer is an incredibly complicated thing.
Now, an ordinary laptop today has more computing power than what the 1970s spacecraft which are said to have gone to other planets, other celestial objects were having. But for us, as long as the computer functions, I press in some keys and whatever I want appears over there. I press something and what I want to get done, gets done.
So, then that is the level of perception for us of the computer. So, same way with respect to the world at large. That when we function in the world, the world is incredibly complicated.
And we don't think about any bigger picture. Or, we basically could say that there can be a low-resolution picture. A low-resolution picture or low-resolution conception is, I press some keys and what I want appears on the screen.
So, it's a device which does what I want it to do. That's a low-resolution picture. But, if I want a high-resolution picture of the computer, there are so many gadgets, so many chips inside it, so many programmes inside it.
So, we don't look at a high-resolution picture. The same way when we function in our life, most of us function with a low-resolution picture. Low-resolution picture is, say that I have got this job and if I go and work over here, I get this money.
This is my family member. If I take care of them, they'll take care of me. And this is, now why am I calling this a low-resolution picture? Because there are so many other levels of reality which are functional.
I was staying at a devotee's place in America recently and he told me that he had come to India for a fortnight and during that time in his work, he got many emails, but he had gone to Vrindavan and other places. He said, I'm not going to check any emails. He said, when I go back to work, I will go there and I will check.
So then when he went back to work, he went to his office and he found his office only was not there. So what happened? So during the time when he was away, his company had shut down, the office had shut down and now something else was there at that place. So we normally, it's one thing to lose your job, it's one thing to, the office itself would disappear.
Isn't it? So now, normally, we don't think about the economic upheavals or the big picture of a company or the nation. All that is involved. So then we, I was, I was in Australia, a devotee from Zimbabwe had come over there and he told me about a decade or two ago, the currency of Zimbabwe had devalued so much that once he went to a shop to get some bread and he took a bucket full of currency notes and the shopkeeper threw away all the currency notes, took the bucket and gave him bread in exchange for the bucket.
So now we consider a currency to be valuable but there are so many other factors which determine the value of the thing. So we have a functional vision of things and when things don't function the way we want them to, that's when we start looking at either the bigger picture or the deeper picture or whatever. We alter our vision.
Say, if my computer doesn't work, if I give currency and I don't get what I expect back, if I go to my office and there is no office, hey, what's going on? So our functional vision expands or deepens when the functional vision doesn't work. The same way with respect to life at large. Most people don't really think about God much.
Don't really think about what is the ultimate purpose of existence, is there some reality beyond the reality of this world. Most people have a functional vision of life. Maybe about 20-25 years ago when I just started practising bhakti, I was sharing the Bhagavad Gita's wisdom with some of my relatives.
So I was telling about the existence of God and logical scientific reasoning for that. So my uncle said that I believe in God. He is happy there.
I am happy here. So, as a functionalism, let him be there. It doesn't matter for me.
I was at a faith conference in Washington DC and there different religions were discussing about how to share, help the youth become more spiritual. So one Christian pastor was saying what is the prominent conception of a Christian priest or a pastor depending on Catholicism or Protestantism among the youth. So there was one youth who gave a very very intriguing reply.
He said that a priest what is your conception of a priest? They were answering the question. He said a priest is someone who is constantly worried that someone somewhere is having some fun. So their idea is that oh these religious people they tell us don't do this, don't do that, don't do that.
They are simply interfering with our enjoyment. So if that is the conception they have then why would they want they will not care about God at all. So for most people they don't think about God they have a functional vision of life and based on what kind of impression they have like say somebody will spy God is there, I am here.
I don't want, no need to bother about it. I won't bother him, he won't bother me. Or God and religion are simply there to interfere with my enjoyment.
So I don't want anything to do with them. So basically we have a functional vision of life and depending on what kind of conceptions we have acquired God we will see as having some functional role or no functional role in it. When we are living in this way it is only when our existing functional vision doesn't work that's when we think of altering, expanding or deepening the vision.
So Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita says that there are four kinds of people who approach Him. Those four kinds are those who are distressed, those who are distressed, those who are distressed and those who are distressed. There has to be some basic denominator of dissatisfaction with the world for people to turn towards something higher.
Now Krishna says four kinds, those who are inquisitive, those who seek knowledge, those who are distressed, those who seek wealth. But none of these people necessarily need to come to God especially in today's world. In one sense progress means providing people more and more alternatives.
Do this or do this or do this. But if the progress is in the Godless context it means providing people more and more alternatives to God. So in today's world if somebody is distressed they can go to a psychiatrist, they can go here, they can go there, they can go to a therapist.
They don't necessarily have to come to God. If somebody needs money they will go to a bank for a loan. They will not come to God.
If somebody is inquisitive they can just Google and actually I was giving a class in Microsoft in in Seattle. So I often give software examples. So they told me that if you are going to give a software example don't use the word Google.
Why? Because Microsoft promotes Bing. So they have a different search engine. So don't use Google.
So everybody has their relative perceptions. But anyway we can just search on the internet whichever search engine we use. But we don't have to be inquisitive and come necessarily to God.
So basically when there is some denominator of dissatisfaction or distress so great that the functional vision functional material vision doesn't work that's when we start expanding or deepening our vision to perceive something higher. To perceive something deeper. So in that sense disruption of our existing situation is required for us to turn towards something spiritual.
Now the disruption can broadly happen in two ways. Our life becomes so distressful as it is right now that how can I live? I need something higher in my life. Or we have some goals we achieve those goals and after we have achieved those goals we find them unfulfilling.
Oh I achieved this, I achieved that and still it's there is no satisfaction in this. So either we can be frustrated by failure or we can be frustrated by success. But when we get some kind of frustration Prabhupada gives in a lecture and he is talking to hippies in a lecture so he says that human, you know all of you hippies are said to be frustrated Americans don't appreciate you very much because you are considered to be frustrated people.
He says, but I appreciate all of you. Human life is meant to be frustrated. It is when we are frustrated then we will enquire about spirituality.
Athato Brahma Jignasa So it's interesting, you know Acharya has given this kind of elaboration of this, Athato Brahma Jignasa When will we do Brahma Jignasa? When we are frustrated with life. Brahmanacharya in his Vedanta Sutra commentary has almost a 100 page commentary on this verse and talks about how does the urge for Brahma Jignasa come upon. So he talks for example it can come from previous life, it can come from this life's association but whether it is a previous life's inclination or this life's association there has to be some frustration at a denominator.
So for all of us to take shelter of God, here it is said Mayi Drishte Akhilatmani Mayi Drishte, Drishte is vision. That's how what I am talking about is related with this verse that when will we get this vision that Krishna is the Akhilatmani the supreme soul the soul who is the soul of all existence. We will seek to get that vision when our current vision doesn't work.
When with the current vision when we are functioning in the world something goes wrong with that function. That's when we seek to expand that vision. So this is the first point I was making that we all have different visions and when our existing vision is disrupted so we see that that's when we turn towards God or at least we intensify our turning towards God.
And the whole Bhagavatam is describing dramatic incidents. Dramatic incidents where somebody's existing way of living was disrupted. Parishad Maharaj living virtuously but then suddenly he was cursed and he took shelter of the Lord.
It was not that he was not sheltered earlier he was living a devoted life but at that time he took even more intense shelter of the Lord. Rudrasir was living a demoniac life but because of his body and his conditioning his behaviour was demoniac but below the body and its conditioning was the soul and the soul was attracted to Krishna based on his previous life samskaras. And when he faced the imminent death on seeing the uncounterable weapon in the hands of Indira that's why in one moment if you see the verses in the 6th canto till a particular point he is describing you Indira are braatraha, you are the killer of your own brother, you are guruha you are dvijaha, you are the killer of your guru, you are the killer of a brahmana you are the killer of a brother, I will kill you and then suddenly one word he changes if however you kill me today then I will give up this body I will absorb in the remembrance of the lord and thus I will transcend this world and suddenly from a very confrontational kshatriya kind of speech his speech becomes suddenly very transcendental and devotional that's because the functional vision is no longer works, he realises this is a weapon I can't fight against so then whatever earlier impressions he had from his previous life, they come to the fore Gajendra was living a luxurious life and suddenly when he realised that I can't get rid of this crocodile get a functional vision hey what is this crocodile, I'll kick it off how dare it interfere with my enjoyment but he realised he just couldn't kick it off, couldn't kick it off tried and tried and tried and when he couldn't, finally then Narayana kilaguro bhagavan namaste he expanded his vision and that's when what he had done in his previous life came back to him so basically the disruption of our present functional vision leads to the expansion of our vision to perceive Krishna, to perceive the spiritual side of reality so any questions or comments about this yes yes thank you very nicely described perception matters and even in Bhagavad Gita when Arjuna desired the Lord, show me how you can change this universe the Lord showed him so there was a, you know he required that vision to be given then at the same time he realised that that's not something, he realised that the two are more efficient, much more pleasing yes then that vision that constantly in a universal form where he is absorbing everything and he is passing all the audience into the mouth he didn't like that because he actually had a higher vision so when you have a higher vision lower vision again, your perception is like you don't accept it so easily so your perception does matter very nicely explained and in Bhagavad Gita also you get a glimpse of that yeah, thank you that's a good example of the 11th chapter how Arjuna is that Acharya has explained in two different ways at one level if you consider Arjuna to be like a human being then to get the darshan of Vishwaroop is an elevation of his vision but if you consider Arjuna to be an intimate devotee of the Lord then from that level to see the universal form is a lower level vision and Prabhupada uses a fascinating phrase over there he says a devotee is not interested in such a godless display of opulence now actually God is displaying his opulence and Prabhupada is saying this is a godless display of opulence how is that? because this is just a show of power is not something which attracts a devotee thank you, beautiful example so, yeah you need a mic? correct how did Ritrasur shift from functional to devotional vision Ritrasur was fighting at that time and initially he had overpowered the devatas devatas were fleeing but then Indra got this astra which was made with the body of Dadeshi and which was blessed by Narayan and when Ritrasur saw that this is a weapon I can't counter so when he faced death right in front of him that's when the functional vision what is this? that got disrupted and see what happens is when we say that our spiritual impressions are carried from one life to another purva abhyas what we have done in our previous lives that comes over spontaneously to the next life now that is true but that doesn't mean it will happen right from birth it's no matter even if a soul is very very advanced and that soul is born next life as a baby, it's not likely that the baby even comes out of the mother womb and the baby will be saying Hare Krishna so based on the the soul is encased in a particular body at that time so naturally the soul will cry but then when circumstantially soul is exposed to bhakti, to some spiritual stimuli then just take it up take it up with fascination I was in Brisbane just a few months ago and I met one devotee normally when we meet devotees, he is Australian so I asked him how were you introduced he said his introduction was through the Sanskrit syllables he said he read the Devanagari, he was searching something on the internet and he saw the Devanagari script he saw he said this is fascinating what is this he was so captivated by that he said what is this, what is written in this, I want to learn more about this and he searched around who can teach me Sanskrit who can teach me more about Sanskrit and he went to the local temple and he was a little disappointed because nobody knew Sanskrit over there so then they said somebody was going to Vrindavan he went to Vrindavan and met Gopi Vrindavan Prabhu who was a very scholarly Prabhupada disciple and it was like people take years to learn Sanskrit within just a few months he is so captivated, he said that I never feel attracted to English script the way I am attracted to Sanskrit so when the situation came up that captivation that attraction arose so that attraction towards the transcendental even if it is impressed within us it may require a political situation when it is brought out for Uttarasur that facing death was a situation when it came up so the first point I discussed was how we all see the same thing but we don't see the same thing because our vision is functional and based on what is important what matters for us, we all see differently the second point I was going to make is that how, you know what one vision sees as a shelter another vision sees as a fetter, sees as a restrictor sees as a prison I was in New Zealand and there is a devotee this person has become a devotee he has a construction company and he was showing me his company website and the slogan over there was like some people have mottos our houses are as comfortable as your mother's womb now he was just very newly introduced to Krishna Consciousness so probably he has not heard about the third canto and all that but then I was talking with a devotee doctor actually now if you consider from the biological perspective the mother's womb is designed by nature to be a very safe and comfortable place it is from the perspective if you consider the baby to be like a biological banner there is enough protection of course the mother also has to take care but for the various shocks and jerks that might come, the womb is a comfortable place but if we consider that the baby is a conscious being then for a conscious being to be constricted in a very small cramped space that is not at all comfortable so from a biological perspective yes the womb is a comfortable place nature designs to maximise the possibility of survival and the baby is so tender that the basic level of comfort is there so what will seem comfortable in one vision, the biological vision will seem uncomfortable in another vision that is the vision of a conscious being being there so similarly if we consider at various levels what one person may consider as a shelter another person may consider as an attachment now what do i mean by this, like one person may think as a shelter another may see as an attachment that if we consider a small bird now birds are said to be dwijor, they are born twice so first they are born inside the mother's shell inside the shell the shell basically the mother gives out the egg and they are born inside that now for the baby birds the shell is an essential shelter and if they are prematurely brought out of the shell then they can't live they can't survive, just like if a baby is prematurely born then you need to replicate the conditions that were in the mother's womb so that can survive so the shell is a protector for the for the baby bird but when the bird is grown up sufficiently then it has to come out of the shell and there is a laborious process for that, it's a painful process, the bird has to break the nest so not the nest, the shell it cracks a little bit and then when it comes out and the wing flaps then the shell cracks on its, closes back on its wings and it is impaled and then it pushes again, just like when the baby comes out of the mother's womb the labour is a painful process the labour is a laborious process so basically we could say that there is one level of order which is inside the shell or inside the womb and there is another level of order which is outside and we could say that for the baby life outside the womb, for the bird life outside the shell is much bigger much freer, much brighter but you cannot go from inside the womb or shell to outside before the right time and to go from here to there requires disruption so basically we could say there is order, there is order at one level and there is order at another level to go from order at one level to order at another level in between there is chaos basically order means what order means when we do something and we expect a particular result and that result comes chaos means that what we do and what result comes there is no predictability all of you are sitting in this class peacefully everyone of you is almost 100% confident that suddenly the person next to you is not going to turn at you and slap you in the face now you could say it's possible but it's not probable and that level of order is essential so that you can focus and hear say if you are travelling in a crowded local and then you want to hear a class and somebody has elbow digs into your chest then you cannot concentrate at that so there is order and there is another level of order and in between there is chaos so similarly for us we usually live within various material shelters so we live in the shelter say I belong to this, I am a member of this family I am a member of this community I am a member of this state I am a member of this country so when that order is threatened when chaos comes up when the order is threatened that's where we think about some higher order and try to go towards that higher order recently this cricket world cup was going on and I was in Australia at that time so I was in touch with a devotee friend in London he was telling me that his friend had come from India to London just for the India Pakistan cricket match and at that time there was a fear that there would be heavy rains, there was rains going on the match might get wiped out so he had purchased the tickets and it was something like he purchased a ticket for 2000 pounds that's almost like nearly 2 lakh rupees one ticket and he said this friend was an atheist but he was also praying please there will be no rains when the match takes place so what happens when the existing order doesn't work so you go for a cricket match and what you expect is I will be able to see the match over there but when there is chaos what happened India was expected to defeat New Zealand but when we got defeated there is chaos so now there are hundreds of articles doing post mortem analysis you know what went wrong what went wrong so it's like everybody is expert at giving advice in fact there is no charity that we give as freely as advice so what seems a shelter at one level so for a bird when it is when it is tender it needs to be inside the shell for a baby it needs to be inside the womb but then it has to come out so similarly for us we live inside certain shelters certain functional visions of life which give us some shelter and to go from that shelter to another level of shelter that requires the disruption of our existing order it's only when the existing order is disrupted then it's like this is order, this is chaos and this is order so we have to go through chaos to the order but the challenge is suddenly we are trying to people are living in their own particular conceptions of life and we want to get them to come to the Krishna conscious conception yes you may have many shelters but Krishna is your ultimate shelter and take shelter of Krishna so to some extent whenever we are sharing Krishna consciousness it is preaching means to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comforted so that means if somebody's existing order is already disrupted and they are already afflicted this has gone wrong, that has gone wrong then give them the shelter that actually Krishna is still in charge, that Krishna is still with you and give them a perception of a higher order and that's how comfort the afflicted and then sometimes if somebody is comfortably situated inside their own shell and they don't want to come out then you have to afflict the comforted this shell is not going to be as it is as you think it is going to be but what may happen is if we break the shell if we try to break the shell and that breaking of the shell involves creating some chaos but the purpose of that chaos is to get them to a higher level of order to get them from the lower shelter to the higher shelter but if this is not done carefully then what happens is that people because this chaos is very very difficult to navigate and if during that chaos there is not proper guidance, not proper support not proper encouragement then people basically we break this shelter and instead of coming to this higher level of shelter they go down further into a further chaos say for example if somebody is say worshipping a particular particular particular conception of god so there are demigods and there are semi gods so semi gods are say me god I am god so there are people who claim like that now when somebody is worshipping someone like that we may say that this is not correct and we may want to get them to worship Krishna where the intention is good but if somebody starts saying this is not god, Krishna is god they get confused and if we have not developed enough we have not helped them create faith then they may say this religion business is very confusing now different people claim this is god, this is god I have nothing to do with religion and they become materialists and atheists so they had some order here we wanted to get them to this higher level of order but if we disrupt their order and they go down to a lower level of disorder, a greater disorder or a much smaller order then we are not doing service we are doing disservice so many times when devotees are preaching I don't like the word preaching also because it is such a preachy word it seems as if you are putting yourself on a higher position and preaching but whenever we are trying to share Krishna consciousness at that time we often say ok, I brought this person to Krishna so many people came to Krishna because of me I made so many people into devotees so sometimes as preachers we may become proud of that and we may keep attracting so many people may become devotees but who among us keeps track of how many people didn't come to Krishna because of me sometimes we might have disrupted the way they conceived and they thought of things and because of that they may have gone away from Krishna so Krishna says na buddhi vedam janaye ajnanam karma samvinam joshet sarvakarmani vidvan yukta samachar na buddhi vedam janaye do not disturb the minds of people, it is interesting this is 326 in the Bhagavad Gita Prabhupada translates it as mind but the Sanskrit word is buddhi na buddhi vedam bheda means to divide to create bones na buddhi vedam janaye ajnanam karma samvinam even if people are ignorant and attached ajnanam karma samvinam still na buddhi vedam don't disturb what? based on people's minds, how their mind is, they acquire certain conceptions and often people use their intelligence to justify whether to justify whatever they are doing say if somebody is walking and they slip and fall down, now for many people if they fall down nothing is injured but their pride is injured so did you fall down? no no, I was just checking whether gravity is still working laughter laughter laughter that is benign reality so somebody say an aeroplane crashes and then the airline does the investigation and then they decide why did the aeroplane crash? it crashed because of gravity that is not an explanation is it? yeah gravity is always there in spite of gravity it has to work so what happens is based on the conceptions that people have people use their intelligence to justify the existing order that they are in and they don't want it to be disrupted that's why although it is Sanskrit is na buddhi vedam janaye and Prabhupada uses the word mind say don't disturb people's minds based on how people's minds for most people their intelligence doesn't control their mind their intelligence obeys their mind that means what I feel I use my intelligence to justify that na konna buddhi vedam janaye so anyway the point I was making is that when we disrupt people's existing level of order we need to take responsibility to take them to a higher level of order otherwise we simply disrupt their order and they end up going to a lower level of order I remember maybe 20-25 years ago I was just introduced to Krishna Consciousness maybe a year or so so there is what is called the zeal of the new convert where you want to convert everyone else so I used to work in a company and one of my from the same college there was another student who had also been hired in the same company so we used to go by bus so my stop was a little before him and his stop was two stops afterwards and it was about a one hour ride so usually I would chant or I would read or I would hear something all these people are materialists I am talking about that so then this friend one day made the big mistake of asking me what are you doing and then in the next 45 minutes I gave a concentrated six session course on the Bhagavad Gita starting from how God exists, evidence for God's existence evidence for soul's existence evidence for karma, evidence for how this world is dukkhalaya, evidence for how Krishna alone is the supreme personality of Godhead, how chanting is the yuga dharma and I was figuratively patting myself on the back how intelligently I have concentrated the whole six session course in 45 minutes and then I didn't even notice that his eyes were glazing and then after that whenever he would enter that bus normally bus has two doors so he would peep in through the door look at where I was sitting and enter from the door far away from me so recently I was in Seattle yeah in Seattle and then his sister has now become a devotee so probably his sister undid the damage that I did at that time so then he had come to meet me and then both of us, we remembered and then I apologised to him for that, so he was laughing so for him it was just a casual enquiry, I didn't have to give like a complete philosophical dose to him at that time so we need to present Krishna consciousness in a way that can help people rise from where they are to the next level so what might seem like an attachment for someone at one level, oh you are attached to your worldly way of living, okay but that is giving them the shelter at that particular point now if we are going to disrupt somebody's existing shelter, we have to be there to help them rise to a higher level of shelter if we are simply going to disrupt shelter then we may be well doing disservice to people so of course Krishna is ultimately there and we don't do anything it is Krishna who does through us and through others so we need to understand that we can't just dismiss people and say you are attached, no that might be what shelters them at that particular point in life and from that point for them to rise to a higher point it might require a gradual process, some people can go rapidly some people may go slowly but we just can't disrupt people's existing order and leave at that we have to help them rise to a higher level of order and I will conclude, this was the second point that what seems like shelter to one can seem what seems like entanglement for one can be like a shelter for other, so I will go to third point then we can have some questions so now last point I was going to say is that we need to intelligently for ourselves as well as for others, rise from our existing shelter to a higher shelter what does that mean? that let's look at the past name of Dhruva Maharaj Dhruva was just a small 5 year old boy and he was in school and when he went to the forest he was so hurt so angered because his father had neglected him and his step mother had derided him and mocked him, actually his step mother mocking him his step mother mocking him did not affect him as much as his father neglected him children are very perceptive small children sometimes if you come into a room if there are two people and there is some tension between them, so almost you can perceive the atmosphere in this room is tense so sometimes you enter into a room, it appears like you are walking into a land mine and there might be no specific word that anybody has spoken but you can sense the tension in the room and just as we can perceive that, small children can perceive that so there is a tension between Suruchi and Suniti and even Dhruva as a small 5 year old boy could perceive that so Suruchi speaking harshly to him didn't hurt him that much because that was to be expected but when his father neglected him did not stop her that was what hurt him the most this is the harshest words of our critics don't hurt us as much as the silence of our friends critics that's what they want to do they are going to criticise but our friends we hope, we expect that they will defend us so basically for Dhruva he was living a comfortable life in his home and suddenly that order was disrupted it's chaos now when that chaos came up at that time his mother realised that I can't resolve this way now his anger was directed towards his father he said you did not allow me to sit on your lap I will get not just sit on your lap I will sit on the throne that you are sitting not just on the throne you are sitting I will sit on a bigger throne I will get a kingdom bigger than yours and sit on that throne so then he started his mother told him I cannot help you but that same lord who helps all that he needs will go and take shelter of you now he was ready to go through all the chaos for a small child to go into the forest at the age of 5 all alone it requires a lot of courage when he went there at that time Narad Muni Narad Muni is is almost omnipresent in the Bhagavatam he is like Krishna wherever he is needed he is there of course many people feel he is not needed also Kamsa thought that he was not needed why is he coming here but Narad Muni is always there so Narad Muni immediately came there and when he came there what happened is Narad Muni first told him that you are a small child and children sometimes get teased they quarrel and then they resolve sometimes two children quarrel and then when they quarrel they say cut it and now we are going to talk with you and the next day they are playing together so they don't take it very seriously they say you are a child children small things happen don't take it very seriously or if you think you are adult then those who are really mature they understand that honour and dishonour keep coming and going in this world so just tolerate this go back and everything will be alright so now he said the words that you have spoken are right but they are not right for you I have been so terribly hurt that I cannot just tolerate this dishonour I want to solve this I want a kingdom bigger than you better, bigger than what my father has if you can help me, please help me otherwise let me go my way so basically what happened is you could say that Dhruva's anger was material dishonour in that situation was simply a material emotion but when Narada Muni offered him the shelter which was too high for him to take it was too, too high for him to take then he couldn't take that shelter and he said I can't take it traditionally many of the temples are say on top of hills like if you are Tirupati or others now of course you may have buses to go up but in the past if you have to go to take darshan of Tirupati you have to climb up and that's quite tiring but those who are devoted they are ready to take that climb but Prabhupada when he was asked what is the most suited place for a temple he said that which is most accessible to people where most people can easily come so the idea is that those who are devoted they will take that huge leap up but most people are not that devoted and then we can't expect them to take that big leap we have to help them take baby steps forward the whole point of having temples in the cities, having many many centres in different parts of the world and different parts within the cities also is that people can easily come so for Dhruva this order to that order, this disorder this order was oh you are comfortable in your home and just tolerate dishonour he said I can't do that it is too big a leap for him when it was too big a leap Dhruva could have taken that leap oh Naraguni is giving instruction how can I disobey but he did not do that because he knew he would not be able to sustain it and he said this instruction is not right for me and when he was candid like that then Naraguni gave him an order in between what was that? basically we can approach God with two moods and devotion itself has these two moods one is to transform the world and the other is to transcend the world so devotion has this world transcending and world transforming aspects and we see these two very dramatically in the contrast of the emphasis in Bhagavatam and Bhagavad Gita Bhagavad Gita is spoken to Arjuna who has to fight a war to establish Dharma in the world and Arjuna says I will renounce the world Krishna says no Dharma samstha you have to help to establish Dharma so the Bhagavad Gita's entire focus is on transforming the world, acting in the world to recreate some order in the world which has been disrupted to create a pious virtue Dharmic order in the world the Bhagavatam is spoken to someone who has already renounced the world and that person is already accepted that I am going to die in 7 days so then he just renounces the world and focusses on hearing the Bhagavatam that is world transcending now for most of us our life is like a you could say a wedding of both of these there is some situations we need to transcend the world, so for example when we are doing sadhana say when we are doing our japa when we are hearing a class at that time if a class goes for one hour, we will be anxious how many messages have come on my phone I want to check it many of us are like that but I gave a class in Denver University on do you need to break up with your phone people have the idea of breaking up in their relationships so do you need to break up with your phone so I was asking the students over there do you need to do you feel, are there any times when you have very seriously been distracted from something important because of the phone so many of them give such incidents most common is you are driving a car and then you are distracted because a message comes up so basically the point I am making by this example is that there are some times when we need to transcend the world just put aside the distractions but we are also serving in this world not only do we have our families and our jobs, but even as devotees when we are serving Krishna in this world we are trying to spread his mission at that time we need to focus on transforming the world transforming the world means doing what is required to make changes in the world so we need to know so for example this is the order over here I say we have a particular order is that the order is that okay I have my family I have my job, I have my temple and this is how my life is going on and the higher order is that ultimately Krishna is in control of everything so now there is a we could say a practical level of order that is also required for us to serve Krishna and sometimes the practical order is disrupted and we take shelter of the ultimate order nothing is working, I take shelter of it but for our day to day functioning we have to maintain the order say for example now all of you have come for class now after class there is prasad if prasad is not there that is a disorder what happened so somebody has to take care of that so that the prasad comes on time so we cannot just we cannot we cannot transcend the world when we are meant to transform the world long ago I was given a when 20-25 years ago when I started speaking about Krishna I was given by a senior devotee 10 guidelines for how to speak in public for Krishna so the last guideline was depend on Krishna it is in bracket but only after you have prepared your class so if I come I may be speaking about depending on Krishna but I have to prepare the class so preparing means transforming transforming my thoughts so that they are in a proper order so there are situations for most of us in our life we need to have our present level of order established and restored so that we can practise but we don't want to be restricted to this level of order only we don't know that there is a higher order also and this order is meant to help me go towards the higher order just like say for a child there are parents children who are without parents or single parent families or whatever it is very difficult for them to have normal psychological growth so the normal family structure is very important that's the order but if the parents are devotees and the parents can help children to also at least get impressions of Krishna this is the order that facilitates the higher order but if the parents are godless in fact there are some atheists who are super aggressive, they are not atheists they are anti-theists they are on a mission against god and they say that for parents to pass on their religious beliefs to their children is child abuse and in UK especially UK has one of the world's most aggressive anti-theists so they are saying that parents don't have the right to indoctrinate their children like that children also have their own choice and they will grow up and make their choices in due course but you cannot just leave the children to do whatever they want parents have to discipline guide their children so there has to be an existing order but that order should be such that it facilitates the higher order so for all of us we need to wisely know when to transform our existing situation so that the order is restored and when to transcend the existing situation to rise to a higher order and this can be done in three broad ways which I will conclude this talk I call this as basically when our existing order is being disrupted so we have three options tolerate, mitigate or emigrate so tolerate let's say for example if we are travelling in a local and while travelling in a local at that time it's a localised capacity of 50 people but there are 300 people in that local they are squeezed and then in every group of people there are always some bullies so say we are standing and the person next to us is pushing us you think you are a boss I will show you what I am we push them back and they push us and we push them back and we get so caught in pushing and counter pushing that our station comes and goes we are still pushing you know that is ludicrous so it's a small thing ok you want to show off your strength half an hour ride so at that time tolerate so tolerate means what keep small things small so that you can focus on the big thing so the order is that we are all sitting in that car we are all standing in that train and the order is that we want to go to our destination so there is some disruption in that order but tolerate it's a small thing small thing is how comfortable we are in that situation the big thing is whether we get to our destination or not so keep small things small so that we can focus on the big things but suppose that person starts pushing us, not just pushing us but pushing us out of the train then we can't tolerate that because there is no longer a small thing it's interfering with the big thing so then we have two options either mitigate mitigate means we call out to other people for help call out at TC or do something to counter that situation or if that person is like a part of a gang and everybody else is ganging up with them then I just go to another coach so immigrate so either we can mitigate or we can immigrate so similarly for us when we go through difficulties basically whenever we face any difficulty that means we have certain vision, we have certain attachment based to that vision and that is being disrupted so now what do I do at that time so at that time what do I do is that I have to find out what is my big purpose my big purpose and focus on that big purpose you focus on that big purpose and the small purpose even if it has gone wrong it doesn't matter that much it doesn't matter that much so we keep the small things small so that we can focus on the big things and when we have this vision of focussing on the big thing then we can decide whether to tolerate to mitigate or to immigrate so when the order is disrupted so at that time how best should I work to restore this order or should I just transcend this transform the situation, restore the order over here or should I decide that this can't be transcended, this can't be transformed so let me just transcend this situation so we could say tolerating is like transcending the situation, just leave it as it is ok, it is like Krishna's arrangement that the situation is like this so we need to have expertise to know when to tolerate and when to mitigate or immigrate and that's where I said we need to be wise, we need to be expert so I was at a I was at a programme in Harvard University and there after that one one Hindu boy had come he was like a little sceptical so before that somebody had come and given there a fire and brimstone kind of class on karma so he said you know if you so I said if you kill animals you will become an animal and you will be killed you will be slaughtered, if you slaughter animals you will be slaughtered, so if you if somebody slaughters cows, they will become cows and they will be slaughtered so this boy asked this question and the previous time when he had asked the question, it was like the whole programme had been reduced to a laughing stock and the speaker had become very embarrassed by that, so he said his question was that if you say that if you slaughter cows then you will become a cow in your next life and you will be slaughtered that means that all those who are cows now, they were cow slaughters in their previous life so what's wrong in getting slaughtered now now this is this is in logic it is called the error of the antecedent error of the antecedent means what if A then B that doesn't mean if B then A that means if it rains, the pavement will be wet if A then B but if the pavement is wet that doesn't necessarily mean it has rained it could be that there is a water there is a leakage over somewhere somebody was carrying some buckets of water and some water spilled over it could be that there was a garden which was being watered and some water went over there so unless you can prove that B only causes A you cannot infer if B then A so yes, those who slaughter animals, the principle of karma is that whatever wrong we have done that wrong, we will be accountable for that and this idea that if we kill animals we will become animals, that is indicative the law of karma is gahana karma nuvvati it is not necessary that each time it has to happen that way the point is that if a soul is in a cow's body if a soul is in a cow's body right now we have no knowledge that how that soul has come in the cow's body it could be that the soul has evolved over many lifetimes it could be that the soul is a devotee of the lord and is in a body that is very dear to the lord we don't know so for us we can't judge people based on their previous lives we have to function with people based on the order that is there in this life so in this case the order is disrupted and we are trying to protect animals especially cows and their protection is not there that order needs to be restored so we need to have the right vision the right vision is that in this case we have to do what we can to help Krishna to assist Krishna in establishing that order so here rather than focussing on what is whose karma we have to focus on what is my dharma not what is whose karma but what is my dharma so sometimes our dharma is that ok things are such that we can't do anything about it we just have to tolerate but if we have the power to change then we need to change so there has to be order in this world so Krishna if you see 7-8 in the Bhagavad Gita he says dharma samsthapna that is transforming the world and 9 after that is 4-4-7-8-9 4-9 is this is talking about transcending the world you become absorbed in me and you let go so Krishna has both these purposes to transform the world and to transcend the world Prabhupada was in Vrindavan and he was transcendental and he could have stayed transcendental but Prabhupada came from Vrindavan left Vrindavan to go to America actually that is an incorrect understanding Prabhupada did not leave Vrindavan to go to America Prabhupada carried Vrindavan with him to America and wherever he went he created replicas of Vrindavan he created replicas of Vaikuntha but he was on a mission for transforming the world and tirelessly he went across travelling, travelling, transforming the world and then when his body although his body was old still he went about the mission of transforming the world but eventually when his body literally broke down then he again returned to Vrindavan and then he told devotees don't disturb me with any managerial issues till that point, devotees would write to him from various parts of the world and he would respond to them hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of letters Prabhupada would give practical guidance he was focussing at that time on transforming the world but then when he went, when the last time came he was disconnected from everything to transcend the world so our practise of bhakti has to be a dynamic dance of world transcending and world transforming so when we are to transcend the world and when we should transform the world so if we are working at our jobs we are working at taking care of our family that time our mind starts saying I want to go to the temple, I want to chant, I want to read shastra yes, there is a time for that I will do that, but right now let me do this in the mood of service to Krishna this is world transforming and then when we come to the temple, when we are doing our japa when we are doing our puja, when we are doing our shastra study, at that time our mind will say, oh I have to do this, I have to do that our mind will say that, no ok, all those things I will do later so our mind messes up our bhakti by making us want to transcend when we are meant to transform and making us transform when we are meant to transcend but that's why if we are wise if our intelligence is sharp we know when to transcend and when to transform so when we learn this expertly then our devotion will become like a dynamic dance doing what is required at the right time, but through it all moving towards Krishna consistency if we focus too much on transforming or too much on transcending then our devotion will become imbalanced but balance means to know when to transcend, when to transform and that way although our life will have ups and downs but we will be able to find our way towards Krishna steadily and ultimately when we become absorbed in Krishna and at the end of our life if our love for Krishna has become more than our love for the world then Krishna will take us out of this world to his eternal abode so I will summarise I spoke on this topic today about how to cultivate the vision that will nurture devotion so I talked about first the relativity of vision that we all see the same thing but we don't see the same thing our vision is functional we have a low resolution picture of things based on not what it is made of but what matters to us not what is matter but what matters and that applies to gadgets that applies even to people and that applies to the world so in our functional vision there may not be any place for God or there may be a small place for God but when that functional vision is disrupted then we start thinking of something higher so then I talked about how what can seem like a bondage for one person attachment for one person can be like a shelter for another so there is order at one level, there is order at another level but in between there is chaos so for a baby or a baby bird the womb or the nest are order and it's needed for a particular time but then beyond that time, that order starts suffocating so the transition from the order through chaos to order requires expert assistance, expert guidance so when we are preaching one part is that we need to disrupt people's existing order but also we need to raise them to a higher level of order if we only disrupt their existing order, then they may go down to a lower level of disorder and then we are doing a disservice we may count how many people came to Krishna because of me, but how many people didn't come to Krishna because of me, that is also an important thing to keep track of so don't disturb people's minds, Krishna says that means that don't disrupt people's existing order without raising them to a higher level of order and how to raise others or ourselves to a higher level of order we talked about how there is two aspects to devotion, world transforming and world transcending, world transforming means that we try to restore order at this world level and world transcending means we just focus on the ultimate order that Krishna is in charge so the Bhagavad Gita has the mood of world transformation the Bhagavatam the mood of world transcending and we all need to know which vision to adopt when to transform, when to transcend I talked about tolerate, mitigate and immigrate so tolerate is like this existing order mitigate and immigrate means we transform and we talked about how Dhruva when he was given a very high level of order to seek, he said I can't do that I can't just tolerate he was given a devotional vision but with a transforming focus he was guided by Naraguna to attain a big kingdom by which he could transform and when he transformed he transcended, he was so satisfied by that connection with Krishna so for all of us in our personal practise of bhakti balance means to know when we should focus on transforming the world and when on transcending the world when we have that sense of purpose of connecting with Krishna then our life will become like a dynamic expert dance of transforming and transcending through which we will move towards increasing our attachment to Krishna and ultimately attaining Krishna thank you very much, Hare Krishna are there any questions or comments ok over there yes yes Hare Krishna thank you very much for nicely explaining world transforming and world transcending aspects you explained how to deal with maturity on personal level by tolerating mitigating or regulating but on organisational level also there is lot of differences of opinion between liberals and conservatives about how to what extent on organisational level we should be engaging world transforming aspect and world transcending aspect so will you please put some light on this yes so at the organisational level there can be differences of opinion and different preferences what is, how much you engage in world transformation and how much you engage in world transcending yes in general in conflict resolution there is a principle every story has how many sides any idea yes, not two side three side, my side your side and the right side so basically there is no one answer to this that say conservatives basically they say that let's maintain the existing order the way things were we should continue because they are working and they have work and those who are liberals they say actually but they are not working you see this is not working, this is not working, this is not working so we need to make changes now what, now Prabhupada himself was he conservative, was he liberal he was both the fact that he went to the west that itself indicates that he was not ultra conservative because traditionally Sanyasis are not meant to, it is according to some injunctions that Sanyasis are not meant to cross oceans and go to the places where there are lot of contamination, Prabhupada went there Prabhupada spent time with people initiated and elevated people who were you know the hippies you see in India at least traditionally in culture the western people were considered degraded but the hippies were considered degraded even by western standards so they were considered degraded by the degraded and Prabhupada spent time with them, Prabhupada cooked with them, Prabhupada washed their plates, Prabhupada accommodated them in hundreds of ways so we can't say Prabhupada was only conservative Prabhupada was liberal in many ways to accommodate people so rather than getting into this controversy of conservative and liberal we have to see what is effective what is purposeful what helps people to connect with Krishna the best so it's like we could say that life, our life journey we could say at an organisational level it's like a winding path it's like there is there is a winding mountain path with steep falls on both sides so sometime the path is winding towards the right and sometime the path is winding towards the left so some things they need to be kept as they are so you could say moving towards the right is the conservatives let's keep things as they are, going towards the left is the liberals, change things so now should we change or should we keep things as they are we have to do what will take us along the path the path is going towards the left then we have to move towards the left, the path is going towards the right we have to move towards the right So now how do we know? In life, you can't really see the path ahead of you, clearly.
We don't know the future, but we have to pool the best intelligence together and based on discussion, understand. That's why having discussions, respectful discussions is very important. Whenever there are differences of opinion, see, when discussions stop, it is not that the confrontation stops.
There are differences, there are discussions, and then there is destruction. So when discussions stop, the differences don't stop. The differences grow so much that destruction happens.
So therefore, there has to be regular discussions. And sometimes the conservatives are right, sometimes the liberals are right. So if both of them have a respectful discussion with each other, then we can move forward.
And Prabhupada said that our love for him will be shown by how we cooperate. Now cooperate, at the most basic level we could say. Cooperate can also mean co-operate.
You know, you do this, I will do this. I will operate here, you operate there. But it's co-operate, at least don't criticise each other.
Ultimately everybody is here to go towards Krishna and take others towards Krishna. So if a particular method of getting people towards Krishna works, then that's wonderful. Others will also take it up.
If something is not working and something else has to be done, Prabhupada did that. Prabhupada was in America and the American preaching model was basically make people into full-time devotees. But when he came to India, nobody was interested in moving to the temple and becoming a full-time devotee at that time.
And Prabhupada created something new, life membership. So Prabhupada was dynamic. So whatever works, whatever connects people to Krishna, we need to do that.
And rather than getting caught in criticising each other, we need to focus on just doing something constructive and wherever we can connect and explain, that is good. But it's only through discussion based on understanding the purpose. The purpose is to move forward on the path.
And we have to discern whether the path is going towards the left or towards the right. So when there are discussions in a respectful setting, then this can be resolved. Thank you.
Yes. Thank you for a very insightful talk. My question is that what is the difference between the functionalism and transactionalism? You also talked about the transactionalism.
That's same. And what if someone takes shelter of the transactionalism to enhance his spiritualism? Let us say, for example, there is a student and he wants to wake up at the right time of the dawn to perform his morning puja rituals or something like that. But he is not able to get up early to do that.
And when he thinks that let me just wake up for some study and he wakes up very early in the morning and does his study and then he does his puja or something rituals. So in that sense, he is having some transactionalism or functionalism. And then he is moving towards his spiritual goal.
So again he is taking shelter of the functionalism. But we have to transform or transcend. So if we are having a particular order, if we use it for functional purposes only and not for transcending or elevating our consciousness, the two don't necessarily have to be contradictory.
They can be complementary also. In the material, there is sattva, rajas and tamas. Goodness, passion and ignorance.
So much of what is in goodness is very favourable for practising bhakti. Much of what is in ignorance is quite unfavourable for practising bhakti. So if the existing order is in ignorance, then it definitely has to be disrupted.
If somebody's existing order is that they are sleeping at 4 o'clock and waking up at 10 o'clock in the morning. Well, that is not so healthy. Even from the material perspective, what is the spiritual perspective? Somebody already had a habit of waking up early and then they were doing their studies.
Okay, you can study but do something spiritual also. So we don't have to indiscriminately reject any particular order that we have. We have to expertly understand how much of this order can I use for my devotional purposes and which part I need to now put it aside and rise.
So it doesn't happen. Sometimes the two can be contradictory but quite often they can be complementary also. And if they are complementary, then that's very good because then practising devotion is not that much of a disruption in our day-to-day life.
It's more of a progression rather than a disruption. Thank you. You had a question? Yeah, you can speak.
I'll repeat. You said that one should not disturb the order that a person is having unless you have a better order to be with. But what if one says that whatever a person is doing should not be done and there are other better ways to do it and the other person is also somewhat convinced about it and after disrupting the earlier order the other order being told is also not convincing to them.
What is the right thing which should have been told by the person telling? Okay, good question. Say somebody is not satisfied with their existing order but when you tell them about a higher order, they are not ready to accept that also. So what do you do? Yes.
It's like, I was, say, I invited a friend to come for a, I was in America, in New York so I had an old friend. I invited him to come for a programme. So he said, a definite maybe.
A definite maybe. That means, maybe I'll come, but a definite maybe, that's an oxymoron. You know, two opposite words you use together.
So basically, some people, they are not satisfied with the way things are but you offer them something higher. They are not ready to take that also. So it's actually very easy to point out what is wrong but to accept what is right, that requires a leap of faith and that is not so easy to take for most people and because it is not so easy to take, it will require, some people say, growing pain.
That means if somebody rejected this order, but they don't want to rise to that order then they will have to go through that chaos and we can help them go through that chaos but sometimes they may not just be ready to help. So we can always, we can always work with our best intentions but we don't have to deliberately disrupt people's existing order. Sometimes, what can we do? We disrupt the order and they don't rise to a higher order.
We give them both, but they rejected the lower level but they didn't take the higher level. So then that is, that's unfortunate. So this is something which we can try to avoid as much as possible but ultimately people have to be intelligent enough to recognise that they need some order in their life and if that order is not there, then their life will become completely chaotic.
And complete chaos is something which one just can't sustain for very long. Sometimes, if we just maintain a cordial relationship with them then maybe when that chaos, they find it too unbearable then they will come towards a higher order. So we can't control what choices people will make but we can at least take the responsibility to make sure that they have a healthy choice available with them.
See, we can only help the unable. We can't help the unwilling. There's a difference between the two.
It's like sometimes we are driving a car and the car doesn't start. Then maybe some people come along and they push the car from outside and then we are steering the car from inside and the car starts moving. So it's cooperative endeavour.
But suppose that person is inside the car and the car is not moving and then we come and push the car from outside but the person from inside has gone to sleep or they are pressing the brake from inside. Then the person from outside, why should they keep pushing, isn't it? So if somebody is unwilling, then we just maintain a cordial relationship with them and leave it at that. When they become willing, we can help.
We have to know that we are limited beings. Bhagwat Dharma says, My dear Lord, तोमारा इच्छाये सब होई मायावश, तोमारा इच्छाये नाश मायारवरश that it is by your will that others will come out of illusion. तो अलंकरत कोरीबार कहमता तोमार My dear Lord, please ornament my words so that they can become understandable to these people.
So we can only do our part. Thank you very much.