Does a good result indicate intelligence-guided action and a bad result indicate mind-driven action?
Thank you. So, how do we know whether we are choosing based on the mind or the intelligence? Because sometimes the result comes out good, people appreciate and they say you are very intelligent.
But if the result comes out bad, they say you just acted on the mental platform. People say like that. Yeah, that is true.
See, the Mahabharata talks about whether an option is good or bad. There are broadly three parameters for deciding it. There is intent, there is content and there is consequence.
That means, what is my intention in doing this? That is one factor which determines whether it was the right choice or wrong choice. But good intention alone is not enough. Second is, sometimes we may give some advice to someone.
Do like this, don't do like this. But if some complication comes up which we had no idea about, so our intent was good. If I am not a trained doctor and I give medical advice to someone, my good intention is not enough.
Intent is important. If I am a trained doctor, but my intention is to complicate the patient's disease so that I can earn more money, I will not give good advice. So intent is one factor and there is content.
Content is what actually we are doing. So in a broad sense, there are certain things which are, say speaking truthfully is a good thing. Speaking lies is a bad thing.
So there are general moral understanding, ethical understanding in terms of content. It's not watertight. In certain emergencies, doing something which apparently seems wrong may be right.
So if some rioters have come to, are chasing someone to kill a person, and that person comes to our house, and please save me, please hide me. And we hide that person, that person is our friend, we hide him in our house. And the rioters knock on our door.
Is he here? Should we speak the truth at that time? Speaking the truth will mean that person will die. So we can't only decide based on content. Content is an important guideline, but there is consequence also.
In that situation, speaking the truth is not the right thing because it will cause the death of the person. So broadly speaking, there is intent, content and consequence. All these three are important in terms of making a decision.
So now, when we are practicing bhakti, what does bhakti do? Bhakti, first of all, it purifies our intent. Practicing bhakti yoga, it purifies our intent. So we learn to become more selfless, or we learn to become more long term in other words, short term.
So our intent itself becomes deeper, higher, purer. Similarly, bhakti educates us about content. Today we live in an age of moral relativism.
If it feels good for you, it's right for you. If it feels bad for you, it's bad for you. If it feels bad to you, it's wrong for you.
Now, moral relativism is actually, nobody is a moral relativist, ultimately. Because if you ask any person, do you believe that there are some people in the world who are doing terrible things? And if you ask anybody in the world, they say, yes. Terrorists are killing innocent people.
They are doing terrible things. You turn around and ask them, do those terrorists think they are doing terrible things? No, they think I am doing the right thing. So just our own beliefs, our own feeling about certain things doesn't determine right or wrong.
So nobody can be an absolute, nobody is a total moral relativist. The point is, the scripture which gives us education of right and wrong in terms of content. tasmāt śāstraṁ pramāṇam te kāryā kārya vastitau yātvā śāstra-vidhā nauktaṁ karma-karpa-mihārasi Krishna says in 16.24 in the Bhagavad Gita, therefore basically śāstra understands what is right and what is wrong.
So in terms of content. And then in terms of consequence, it is said that the more we live in the mode of goodness, the more sarva-dvāreṣu deheṣu prakāśyam upajāyate. That actually when we are in the mode of goodness, our senses are illumined with knowledge.
That means we can actually see, if this road is dark, if this room is dark, I can't see what is the next step ahead of me. I can't see if there is a ditch ahead of me. But if there is light, I can see if there is a ditch, I will fall down.
So like that, the more we become substituted in the mode of goodness, the more we are able to see the consequences of what we are doing. And thus we can choose better. Of course, still there is no guarantee that always our choices will be right choices.
But we can learn. So coming back to a specific question about mind and intelligence. Now, how do we know whether we are choosing based on mind or intelligence? Generally speaking, if we act impulsively and that impulse is for something which is not in harmony with scripture, broadly speaking, then we should know that there is a mind speaking.
If something is an important decision to make, and it is best not to make that decision impulsive, just put a freeze button on it. Put a pause. Okay, I'll make a decision, but after some time.
If we feel consistently inspired, if I decide this is what I want to do, I feel like doing this now, I just pause. And after one day also, I feel like the same thing. After one week also, I feel like the same thing.
After one month, I also feel the same thing. Then we can maybe write down our thoughts and look. After one month, we will say, okay, I was feeling like this, but I didn't think about this.
This is not so important. This is not a very reasonable thing. So when we write down certain things, especially I'm talking about important decisions which we have to make, we write down some things, then that written down, getting the thoughts out of the mind, just decreases the mental congestion.
The distance brings perspective. Writing down also helps us to have a snapshot of our mind. And after one week, when I look at it again, oh, I'm not thinking the same thing.
So many other things to consider. We realize, so if something, if we find after one week, our thoughts are very different from what they were one week before, then we understand that this is just a flickering, oscillating mind going up and down. But if a period of time, I'm talking about important decisions, then if over a period of time, it's not that we constantly think about things.
We just write it down, get it out of the mind. We decide, OK, maybe once a week I'll sit down and I'll put concentrated time on thinking about this, thinking through this. And then we figure it out again.
If week after week after week, we find our thoughts continuously go in the same direction. This is not just a flickering impulse of the mind. This is actually, this is more like a consistent inclination or inspiration that I have.
And then when we act on it, we will act with conviction. Sometimes you may make a right choice, but if you're not convinced about it, we will not go through it wholeheartedly. And then we'll not get the right result.
Sometimes you may make a wrong choice also. But if you have thought through it carefully, then we'll be able to do course correction. I thought like this.
Oh, it's not working out like this. So maybe I need to adjust this, adjust that. So he says that plans don't always work.
But planning always works. What that means is that our specific plan, I'll do like this, I'll do like this, I'll do like this. It doesn't always work.
But you know, making plans itself, to some extent, whenever we make plans, we are trying to become the controller. I'll do this, this, this, this. And sometimes we can control things.
But the activity of planning, so making plans and trying to execute plans, that is to some extent in the mode of passion. Because we are trying to be controllers. But planning as an activity is in the mode of goodness.
In sattva mudha. Because planning means you're thinking. If this happens, this factor, this factor, this factor I'm considering.
And so plans may not work, but planning works in the sense that planning gives us an overall perspective. And then even if a particular plan goes wrong, we know I can do this for course correction. I need to do this.
I need to adjust this. That's why if we have to make important decisions, we just don't act impulsively, but we give due thought to those things. And due thought doesn't mean we let them at the background of our mind just keep nagging us.
But rather we get it out and periodically, as per a plan, revisit it. And then we will be able to deliberate and make the decision. Does it answer your question? Ultimately, of course, we need to pray to Krishna.
Krishna gives us the intelligence. But then even when Krishna gives us the intelligence, if we are not receptive, we will not be able to accept it. So when we do our homework, when we use our intelligence and show Krishna that Krishna, I'm using all the intelligence that I have, then Krishna will give us whatever intelligence we are lacking.
And then we can make the right choice.