From insecurity to inner security
So, thank you very much for your attention and participation. Thank you very much for coming today evening. And I'll speak on the topic of from insecurity to inner security.
Am I audible to everyone behind? Do we need to make it louder or is it clear? Thank you. So, today it's a sobering occasion because we are also observing or honouring two departed souls. As I mentioned, Elisa Johnson and Sri Hariprabhu.
And when some people who have been with us for a long time suddenly they depart from the world, especially when that departure is untimely and sudden, that can lead to a sense of shock, agony, fear, disbelief, a variety of emotions which join us out of the routine of our life. So, this topic will try to contemplate and understand the nature of the world while also offering our prayers for the spiritual security in the departed souls. So, I'll speak this in three points.
And after each point, I'll have a pause where I'll invite you to do some reflections, any point that struck you, which you would like to carry home or meditate or apply or share with others. We'll reflect that, that way we can assimilate it more. So, the three points I'll speak is that our longing for security points to our spirituality.
In the first point. The second point will be the illusion of security is often the greatest enemy of security. And the third point will be that see all security as coming from Krishna and pointing to Krishna.
So, let's look at this. First point is that our longing for security points to our spirituality. We all long for security.
Now, if say, if we are travelling in a boat and suddenly the boat starts waving too much, we have to try to find something to hold on to. Because that's insecure. Now, just as a turbulent ocean can create insecurity for our footing, similarly, there can be different kinds of insecurities.
If we have a particular relationship with someone and suddenly that person behaves in a very unexpected way, then we feel insecure because of that. So now, whenever we feel insecure, say a child is playing, a sudden lightning and the lightning and thunder comes and the child runs to the mother and catches the mother's, and covers her face over there. Why? Because that sudden noise and light causes fear, even terror for the child.
The child holds security. And the mother is the source of security, of safety for the child. The child runs to the mother.
So, we all long for security. And we could say that this is just natural because we are all driven by a survival instinct. We all want to survive.
And insecurity, or danger or insecurity is like a threat to our survival. That is true, definitely. But we could take this question a little deeper and ask, we don't just, why do we want to survive? And it's not just that we want to survive.
We actually want to survive for long. In fact, forever. If we see, death joins us because of its suddenness, also because of its utter unappealability.
Say, there is a court case, we are involved in a court case and the court makes a decision against us. We can always appeal to a higher court. But, death, it has a finality that is utterly unappealable.
So, now, if we look at the world around us, every single thing is destructive. Absolutely nothing lasts forever. Even huge mountain ranges.
India has the Mount Everest, the world's highest peak. Even something as magnificent, gigantic as that, then that is not going to last forever. It was just a few months ago in New York, in America, and he passed by the area where the twin towers had been there.
When the twin towers fell, it was not just the falling of a building. It was the smashing and collapsing of the symbol of Western security and prosperity. And that created a permanent scar on the American psyche.
Not just the American psyche, you could say, the world psyche at large, especially the Western world psyche. So, now, the point I'm making here is, we have a very deep longing for security. To live and to live forever.
To go on and on living. But, if we look at the world around us, whether it is natural things like mountains, or imposing man-made things like twin towers, nothing lasts forever. So, if we were simply material creatures, if we are simply products of the world around us, then nothing lasts forever.
Why would we have a desire to live forever? If we were simply products of our circumstances, products of the matter that makes our bodies and that makes our world, matter by its very nature is temporary. Why would we have a longing to live forever? This longing is as out of place as, say, if somebody comes to a house and suddenly they see a gold ring falling on the ground. Now, if you look, okay, the floor is made up of tiles, the walls are made up of stone, concrete, but there is nothing golden over here.
So, as soon as we see something golden, where did this come from? It doesn't fit into the surrounding, the environment, the setting. So, it's as out of place as that. Or, to give another example, say, if a child in a remote, say, Australian, native Australian community, completely disconnected from the world, having no internet, no television, no phones, a child suddenly one day approaches his mom and says, Mom, I want a pizza.
What? Mother, where did you hear about a pizza? There's nothing in the environment of the child to give him the idea of a pizza. So, similarly, if we look at the world around us, there is nothing that lasts forever. And yet, we long for security by which we can live forever.
So, where does our longing come from? This longing is not to be fulfilled or even manifested at the material level of reality. So, a reasonable inference could be that this points to something non-material. That there is within us a non-material core and that lasts forever.
That is imperishable, indestructible, invincible and that core is who we are. And our longing for security comes from our spiritual core, our spirituality. So, we could make a reasonable inference like this.
And, because the spiritual arena is not perceivable by our senses, it's by definition non-material. So, we need an appropriate source of knowledge for it. And, that is there are ancient wisdom texts which are considered traditionally as revelations coming from a higher source.
And, some people feel that I want to be reasonable, I want to be rational, I don't want to believe in basically on faith. That's good. But, we can use our reason.
But, reason and revelation, both can point in a free direction. So, what, so reason is like a torchlight. Our rational faculty is like a torchlight.
And, it can show dimly in the dark, the territory ahead of us. So, what reason shows dimly as a torchlight, revelation shows clearly as a sunlight. So, both reason and revelation illuminate the same territory, same reality to different degrees.
So, the Bhagavad Gita is one such revelation. And, it explains what is the spirituality that is the source of our longing for security. It explains that we are souls.
The soul is by nature eternal. And, the soul is a part of the supreme eternal being, that is God, who is known by different names in different traditions. The Bhagavad Gita knows that divine, that ultimate reality by the name Krishna, which means all-attracting, Sarva Akarshi Ti Krishna.
So, life is a journey for us finite souls to unite with the infinite soul. And, we are all on a multi-life journey of spiritual evolution, evolving in consciousness till we realise our spirituality, till we realise our eternality, and then we reunite in love with our souls, with the whole, with God. So, this is the ultimate purpose of life.
And, in this multi-life evolutionary journey, each lifetime is like one phase. If we are going on a marathon, in a marathon run there are many laps, one lap, second lap, third lap, fourth lap, and the marathon keeps going on. Similarly, we are like on a spiritual marathon, and each life is like one lap, one phase in that marathon.
And, we keep moving forward. So, in this vision, death is not a full stop, death is a coma. Death is not a termination, it is a transition.
It is a transition to another level of reality, where the soul's evolution will continue. And, as death does not end a person's existence, death just takes the person's existence to another level, where the evolution will continue. So, this was the first point that our longing for security points to our spirituality.
So, any reflections or questions on this point? Yes? Okay, good question. So, we are eternal beings, but among the eternal also, there are different levels. We are eternal, means in time, we exist forever.
But, there is pervasion in time, and that pervasion is in space. So, we are eternal in the sense that we pervade our existence, pervade across time. But, across space, we are finite beings.
So, each one of us is a finite soul. So, presently, our consciousness pervades across the world. Say, right now, you may be feeling hot or cold, I can't perceive that.
But, you, the soul inside your body, can perceive it. So, whereas, God, or the ultimate reality, is an infinite soul. That means, that infinite pervades across time, is eternal, but also pervades across space.
So, God pervades all of existence. That is one of His defining characteristics, He's omnipresent. So, we need to connect with Him by our consciousness.
So, God is present right now also with us in our hearts, but we're not aware of His presence. So, as our consciousness becomes more and more attuned to His presence, then we connect with Him. Any other comments? So, what was the first point I just made? Points to our spirituality.
Yes, points to our spirituality. Thank you. So, the second point I'll make is, the illusion of security is often the greatest enemy of security.
Now, what do I mean by the illusion of security? Suppose, say, an army is defending a fort or a city or a country, and then there's an invading army that is coming. But the invading army seems to be coming, but then they divert and they go away. And when the enemy goes away, the defending soldiers think that we are safe.
But, if that is simply a strategy and the enemy has gone another direction, and suddenly they come charging in and they catch the defending army unawares. So, if the defending army thinks I'm secure, then that illusion of security is the greatest danger to their security. One of my friends in India is in the anti-terrorism squad.
Some of you have heard that in India there was a big terrorist attack in Kashmir and that has brought the conflict between India and Pakistan to a boiling point now. So, this friend was telling me that working in anti-terrorism is like being a goalkeeper in football. No matter how many goals you save, people remember the goal that you couldn't save.
So, what happens is no matter how many terrorist attacks they foil, if one goes through, that's what people remember. So, he was telling me that actually what we need for vigilance and security, vigilance against terrorism is that not just that we increase more and more the number of anti-terrorist personnel, but also that ordinary citizens also become more vigilant. If they see anything suspicious, they immediately alert us.
So, when we think that we are secure, then we lower our guard. And when we lower our guard, that's when danger comes in. So, why am I talking about this point in this now at the spiritual level where we realise our eternality and we relish our connection with the supreme eternal reality.
That is God. In the last few centuries, the world has seen an enormous amount of material progress. And this material progress has transformed our lived experience of the world.
Especially through technology, we experience the kind of comforts that were not available even for royalty a few hundred years ago. Even kings couldn't imagine turning on a button and just becoming protected from the vagaries of the weather. It's hot, suddenly become make your house cool.
It's cool, it's cold, make your house warm. Just press a few buttons and connect with anyone in any part of the world. So, because of technological progress and because of the comfort that technology has brought to our lives, one thing that has happened is that we have started getting more and more an illusion of security.
In fact, there's one social critic who said that technology is the art of arranging reality so that we don't experience reality. Technology is the art of arranging reality. So, it will be very hot but we create an air-conditioned environment so that we don't experience the heat at all.
Now, this is not a bad thing. It's not that if it's hot we should be tormented by the heat. But, it is just that if we live in denial of reality, if we live in ignorance of reality, then when reality intrudes into our life, it can come as a sudden shock.
So, because of technological progress, we, to some extent, have started living more and more in denial of the reality of death. Now, any one of you will are you going to die? Of course, you won't ask anyone like that, generally. But, if you ask anyone, are you going to die? Nobody will say no.
Yes, I'm going to die. But, we talk about it in such a remote and abstract sense, as if the death is an event going to happen to someone else. Someone else at some other time.
There's a well-known western thinker, American thinker, he read Indian literature and he read Indian spiritual literature, Buddhism, Hinduism and he said, why are these Indians so pessimistic? They always talk about how the world is a place of distress. Life is enjoyable. Why are they so negative? But, then he came to India and saw the Indian metros.
The metro capacity, one coach has 50 capacity and there are 300 people in it. The world is full of distress. So, now, distress is there everywhere in the world.
But, when there is a lot of technological advancement and comfort in there, then the awareness of distress and death gets numbed. Now, of course, it's, we all in a sense encounter death through the entertainment industry. In movies, in novels, in video games, death is very much present.
But, there, the focus is so much of entertainment that, rather than focussing on death, we focus on death simply as a plot twist in the entertainment. So, death becomes incorporated as an element of entertainment. In fact, there is, in the Bhagavad Gita, the concept of reincarnation, where the soul goes from this body into another body.
And, much of the Indian movie industry, just like in the West there is Hollywood, India has Bollywood, yes. It's in Mumbai, so it's called, it's Bombay, it's Bollywood. So, Bollywood, many movies have this theme of, they, many of the movies are based on romance, and in romance, they integrate reincarnation.
So, hero and heroine are trying to unite, and they have a lot of opposition, and both of them die. And then, both of them are born exactly looking the same. And then, they continue their romance from the previous life.
So, in fact, I have written a book on reincarnation. So, when I speak in colleges in the Western world, in India, especially on the topic of reincarnation, one common question that many young people ask, do we all have soul mates? Do we all have soul mates? So, I often say that, let's focus on the soul first, not on the mate. Let's focus on the soul.
So, that there is something eternal that is important to understand. Like, one boy asked me a question. marry you, but somehow our parents are not agreeing.
So, it's just not working out. So, can you please tell me what karma I can do now by which I can marry her in my next life? So, even the awareness of death, what has happened, it has become co-opted as just a plot twist in entertainment or in romance or whatever else like that. So, we talk frequently about death without actually ever even thinking about it.
We talk about death in the sense of an entertainment plot twister without actually contemplating the reality. And now, the result of this is that when death comes up in our life, we just jolted. How did this happen? Where did this come from? And this, the security we are souls living in a material level of reality, security is to be found in the spiritual.
But, as long as we think that the material level of life is comfortable, is wonderful, takes away all our impetus to explore life's spiritual side. And thus, the illusion of security, actually, no matter how much technological advancement we can do, we may make, ultimately, we can't stop death. Death is something which every single person has to go through sooner or later.
But, the idea that, okay, death is something long time ahead. So, that thing, it deters us, it destimulates us from exploring our spiritual side. And thus, we stay in illusion.
The illusion of security acts as the enemy of security. How the enemy? Because, we find security ultimately in the spiritual level. But, by thinking that I am secure here, we lose the impetus to explore life's spiritual side.
And this is not just at an individual level. This has happened also at a broader social and global level. If we could separate historical and there is the pre-modern age, which was before the scientific revolution and then the technological juggernaut started off.
Then there was the modern age and now we live in what people call the post-modern age. So, a defining difference between the pre-modern age and the modern age is the many differences, because the technology came up, came on its own, science developed, all that is true. But in terms of worldviews, whether you look in Europe or in Australia or in India or in America or in Russia, people everywhere there had an understanding that there is another world beyond this world.
And that world is life's ultimate purpose. That world is the world where there is security. That world is the place where there is, that is our ultimate destination.
Jesus famously said that this world is like a bridge. Don't build your house on it, cross over the bridge. And similar passages can be found in various world traditions.
So, the defining difference between the pre-modern age and the modern age is that in the modern age, the idea of some other world was rejected. There is some other world which is a paradise, forget it. We, with our science and technology, we will make this world into a paradise.
Why do you need a spiritual paradise when we will make a technological paradise world? And now certainly technology has advanced. There is nothing, technology is very powerful and technology can be extremely useful. But if we start believing that by technology we can eliminate death, we can change the fundamental fabric or nature of the world, that is illusion.
So, spirituality became something we just re-seen it into people's background and their mind and just went out of their mental space because all their hopes became pinned on this world and thus we live in a situation where we think this world is the only real world. This world is the only world that matters. And therefore, when something terrible happens in this world, when suddenly death occurs, it just disjoins us.
So, the illusion of security, the illusion that we can make this world into paradise is the greatest enemy of our pursuit of spirituality. The illusion of security can be the greatest enemy of the insecurity. That is the second point I was going to speak.
So, any reflections or comments or questions on this? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, Yes, sir.
Any other points of reflection or questions based on all you have discussed? Yes, please. We are in this material world, which is too long to live in. We are born in this material world, born in this spiritual world, and we are bound to face all these difficulties in the spiritual world.
We have to go through this. It's a good question, now can we avoid the distresses in this world when we are here? There are certain amount of distresses that are unavoidable, when we see that this world is a place of distress, the Bhagavad Gita for example uses the word Dukkhalayam, this is a place of distress, what does it mean, that's to be carefully understood. If we see the Bhagavad Gita was spoken to Arjuna and Arjuna was so distressed at the start of the Gita that he was crying publicly, so he was a fierce warrior, the embodiment of manliness and virility and yet he was so distressed that in public without any sense of shame or anything he was crying and Krishna didn't tell him, this world is a place of distress, you are distressed, now stay distressed, no, Krishna spoke the Bhagavad Gita's message by which his distress went away, he became pacified, by the end of the Gita he was peaceful, so the point here is that there are distresses are unavoidable in the world, but our actions can aggravate those distresses or our actions can contribute to the minimisation and ultimately to the elimination of distress, so an example to illustrate this would be when we said the world is a place of distress, see distress is a feature of the world, distress is not the purpose of the world, it's not that this world is created to give us distress, rather existence of this world is characterised by distress, in that sense the world is like a hospital, anybody who is in a hospital will have some distress, but the hospital is not a torture centre meant to cause pain to the inmates, so the distress just as pain is present in the hospital, but pain is not the intent of the hospital, so similarly distress is not the intent of the hospital, and to the extent the patient, to the extent the patient takes the treatment properly, to that extent the pain can be managed and even the disease can be healed, so similarly to the extent we live in a spiritually harmonious way, which is like a treatment for us, to that extent whatever pain, whatever distresses we are going to go through, they can be minimised, so that brings me to the last point, the last point of that, see all security as coming from Krishna and pointing to Krishna, so the flow is that first point I said we long for security and that points towards spirituality, but however in today's world we look for security at the material level, through technological advancement, through comfort, through material progress, but that is an illusion, that illusion because it deters us, distracts us for spiritual growth, so it is actually the enemy of our spirituality, enemy of real security, now when we are in the world, obviously we seek security in different ways, so if say we come to know that there is some infectious germ spreading in the area where we are living, and the doctors advise take this antibiotic or take this immunity enhancer, then we will take that, because that will give us physical or medical security, so while existing in the world, we need various kinds of securities even at the material level, and we seek those securities and try to get them as much as possible, but we don't see that security as separate from Krishna, see all security as coming from Krishna, in the sense that everything that provides us security, it is ultimately God's blessing in our life, it is God who is providing us security, and this vision we can have right from birth itself, when the child is born, at that time an infant is born, the first life sustaining activity for the infant is that, the infant is picked up by the mother, and the mother offers her instrument to the infant, and the mother naturally feels a great love for her child, this is wonderful, at the same time if you think deeply, the mother did not do anything special to inject her breast with milk when the baby was coming, the same divine arrangement that send a baby through the belly of the mother into the world, that's to the womb of the mother into the world, that same divine arrangement also provided for milk through the breast milk, so yes, the mother is definitely a source of security for the baby, but the mother is not an independent source of security, the mother is able to give security of providing life-sustaining milk, because God has arranged through nature for her breast to secrete milk at that time, so see all security has coming from Krishna, so everything that gives us security in this world, when a violate gives us security, it is valuable and even vital, even technology, if technology works, then we can see that whatever facility, comfort, security technology is providing us, we can see that is also coming from Krishna, it is Krishna who is the source of the intelligence of everyone and the scientists who work hard, the technologists who work hard to develop this technology, it is Krishna who give them that intelligence, they work hard to use their intelligence and thus the security is there, so if we are sick, now we are sitting here in the house of Dowjipuram, he is a doctor and he works tirelessly to provide medical care to devotees and people in general, now he sees his medical skills, his medical ability as a gift from Krishna, so he provides security, but how is he doing? It is by God's grace, I was in a hospital which has a spiritual care unit quite active and they had a slogan over there, we treat, he heals, now we treat, he heals, as doctors they offer the treatment, but the healing is not in the hands of the doctor, sometimes doctors may offer the best treatment, but sometimes the doctor, the healing may not work, I have a friend who has a serious liver issues and this particular chemical, it has to be like around 5 to 10 is the level, in his body it is 300, and doctor told him, you are going to die in 6 months, and the doctor told that to him 15 years ago, and after telling that to him, the doctor died in 3 years, but he is still alive, so there is definitely, doctors say that it is a medical miracle how he is alive, so definitely the medical treatment is important, but it alone is not all defining, it alone doesn't determine life and death, so if we see and seek security in the world, we may do exercise to have good health, we may work and earn and save to have financial security, we may try to have good relationships, good community, so that we can have social support, all these forms of security at a practical level are needed, now we can see them as independent from God, and depend only on them, or we can see them as coming from God, and we can connect, we can appreciate what whoever is doing for us, but we can also connect with Krishna, when Srila Prabhupada, the Founder Acharya of Krishna Consciousness Movement was going to America, he was 69 years old, he had never even gone out of India, and he was going in a cargo ship all alone to a land where he didn't know anyone, he didn't even know whether he was a pure vegetarian, he didn't even know whether vegetarian food would be available in America or not, so he took some stock of vegetables and greens with him, and then his sponsor, she was a piot lady, Sindhiya, a steamship company owner, and she knew that Swamiji was a vegetarian, so she told her captain of the ship that you arrange for a good stock of vegetables and greens, and Prabhupada wrote his diary, his journal in his travel, and there he writes a very beautiful endearing statement, he says that thanks to Lord Krishna for enlightening Miss Sindhiya from within her heart to provide all these nice food for you, so he is acknowledging that it is coming from him, but he is also acknowledging that it is Krishna who guided her through this, so when we see security, we can appreciate when it is coming, from where it is coming, at the material level, but we also see that that is not the ultimate source, the ultimate source is Krishna, so whatever, whoever is doing for us, it is ultimately Krishna doing for us through that, so when we see that all security is coming from Krishna, then we won't get into illusion, thinking that okay I have the security, I don't need anything more, because it is coming from Krishna, and sometimes the person who is giving the security, despite their best intentions, tomorrow they may not be able to avoid security, we might work for a very good boss, I was speaking recently in a company, we might be working for a very good boss, and the audience started laughing, good boss is oxymoron, good boss is basically opposite ideas coming together, but anyway, we might be working for a very good boss, and that boss might pay us well, but tomorrow if the economy goes down, that boss has to lay us off, that boss cannot provide us financial security to work, even if they want to, so if we see security as coming only from that horizontal source, then when it doesn't come, we will just be shocked, but if we see that the security, they are not the source, they are the channel, and it is Krishna who is providing us that security, and suppose that security starts from that source, from that intermediate channel, then we focus on Krishna, we connect with Krishna, ultimately, the horizontal security, the material security that we get, the material security is not meant to make us settle down in the world, like I quote in the Bible, the world is like a bridge, don't build your home on this, cross over it, so material security is meant for us to peacefully focus on our spiritual journey, not to settle in material life itself, thinking this is perfection of my life, so that's why I see material security as pointing, see all security as pointing to Krishna, now I have got the security, now my health is good, let me try to understand, what are the purpose of life, let me try to connect more with Krishna, let me try to practise bhakti for connecting with Krishna, so going back to the hospital example I gave earlier, if a patient is sick and is in pain, then the doctor gives two kinds of medications, an antiseptic and an analgesic, antiseptic is the curative medicine, the analgesic is the pain medicine, now the pain medicine helps the patient to get relieved from the pain, and the antiseptic, it cures the patient of the underlying disease that is the cause of the pain, from the doctor's perspective, among these two, which is most important, which one, the antiseptic, because that is going to really cure the patient, but from the patient's perspective, which seems the most beneficial, the pain medication, the analgesic, so we can say that in this world, God provides us both, our material security is like the analgesic, and the spiritual process of bhakti, the spiritual security is like the antiseptic, it is the process of bhakti that will actually cure us of our disconnection with Krishna, and it will help us to attain Krishna, so now from Krishna's perspective, it is the process of bhakti that is the most important, that is what will take us to him, but from our perspective, we feel this material security is most important, and if that is lost, we feel everything is lost, but yes, it is important, when pain is there, pain is, to put it tautologically, pain is painful, nobody wants pain, so if we consider, if it is very hot, if it is very cold, it is annoying, it can be painful also, if we are hungry and we don't have food, it is painful, we are thirsty and there is no water, it is painful, at the same time, say if we are hungry and we get food, food is a vital necessity, at the same time, food is like a pain killer, after 5-6 hours, again we are going to feel hungry, after another 5-6 hours, again we are going to feel hungry, now food, this is not to minimise the importance of food, but it is also, we can't ultimateize it, we can't think this is the ultimate thing, so our material needs and the material security that provides us those material needs, that is basically like an analgesic, that is basically like a pain medication, it is important, but it is not all important, whereas our spiritual practise is like the antiseptic, it is the curative medicine, and sometimes, if the pain medication stops, the patient starts screaming, I am in so much pain, and other patients over there or the relatives of the patient may say, what are you doing doctor, the patient is in so much pain, but from the doctor's perspective, doctor also doesn't want the patient to be in pain, but from the doctor's perspective, if the curative, the antiseptic is going on, the patient is on the path to recovery, is on the path to recovery, so the patient needs to see that both the analgesic and the antiseptic are coming from the doctor, and suppose the patient starts thinking, actually this analgesic is quite cheap, this antiseptic is so expensive, and I take the antiseptic and nothing happens, I take the analgesic and I feel so much relief, so why do I need to take this antiseptic, and the patient starts taking only the analgesic, and the patient is cheating oneself, because in turn the disease is worsening, so that is what happened in today's society, that we are so infatuated with material progress, that we have completely neglected life's spiritual side, so we are focussing on the analgesic and we are trying to increase the dosages, get more and more and more and more, but it's a pain killer, many times nowadays young people, they are so busy, just playing video games, surfing on the net, watching some movies, and I was in Chicago, I was talking with one young boy, and he said, I can't imagine how people in previous generations lived without video games, their life must have been so boring, so I told him, actually it is because your life is so boring that you feel the need for video games, it is, what has happened is that we have become so spiritually empty, so spiritually deadened, that we obsessively need entertainment, entertainment is simply like a pain killer, we could say emotional or psychological or mental pain killer, and entertainment has always been a part of human society, but the kind of obsession with entertainment that we see in today's world, it is unheard of in human history, in a few days in India, the Indian Premier League, the major cricket tournament will start, and this IPL is cricket players, they earn in 50 days, what 95% of Indians don't earn in 50 years, astronomical sums of money, and where is that money coming from? It is coming from people, and why are people providing so much money? Because they desperately feel the need for entertainment, so if entertainment is a pain killer, and people desperately need entertainment, that means the disease has become so much, you just can't tolerate the absence of the pain killer even for a short time, so basically this is the direction where the disease is worsening, and we are not actually becoming secure or satisfied, we are simply going into delusion, but if we see all security as coming from Krishna, even if somebody seeks entertainment, like we had now these wonderful puritans, sung by all these young devotees, all these devotees together, now this is also an entertainment, it is uplifting, but it takes us towards Krishna, it is about Krishna, it takes us towards Krishna, so if we see all security as coming from Krishna and as taking us towards Krishna, then sometimes if some security suddenly stops, say suddenly somebody's health breaks down, suddenly somebody loses a job, or at a more extreme level, suddenly somebody loses their life, all that has happened from the ultimate spiritual perspective is that one analgesic has suddenly stopped, but the treatment is still going on, and the soul can still evolve spiritually, so for all of us, we are on this journey of spiritual evolution, and to the extent we stay focused on that journey, to that extent we can experience security in a way that takes us towards the supreme security, so how do we experience that spiritual security? We seek material security through our jobs, through our families, through our social circles, and that's fine, but we try to connect, see all that security as coming from Krishna, and to point towards Krishna, to connect with Krishna, we practise bhakti yoga, bhakti yoga is the process by which our consciousness comes in contact with Krishna, bhakti is the process which gives us anubhav, experience of Krishna, so when we chant Hare Krishna, when we worship Krishna, when we hear about Krishna, at that time, the more we get absorbed in it, the more we'll experience relief, the more we'll experience shelter, the more we'll experience strength, so Krishna says that when we become absorbed in him, the distresses of the world will hit us, but they won't hurt us, life's problems will still come, but if we are not obsessing those problems, they won't trouble us that much, many times when problems come in our life, it is, I conclude with this point, that when problems come in our life, it is not just the problem that troubles us, it is the way we think about the problem or keep obsessing over the problem that troubles us, life determines our problems, but we determine the size of the problems, life determines the problems in our life, life determines our problems, but we determine the size of those problems, what do I mean by the size? Let's say, if we go for a get-together, and we greet somebody, and that person snogs us, and then, immediately we get so angry, and that snog might happen in 10 seconds, but next 10 hours, we are burning internally, how dare this person do like this, so now, yes, if that person snogs us, that's annoying, that's distressing, but do we have to keep vegetating on it, burning because of it for 10 hours, not needed, but what happens, our mind seems to be like an iron filing that is attracted to the magnet of problems, so, whenever any problem comes in our life, that problem becomes like a magnet, and our mind becomes like an iron filing, it just gets attracted and keeps thinking about the problem again and again and again and again, on and on and on, and if we consider, say a graph of problems versus time, if we have a problem, and we don't think about the problem at all, that is also a problem, if I'm sick, if I've got diabetes, or I've got some issue, and I don't think about it at all, then I won't go to a doctor, I won't take the treatment, I won't avoid the prohibited foods, I may not do the exercise, so, if we consider this is the problem, and this is time, initially the graph moves linearly up, that means the more we think about the problem, the more equipped we become to deal with the problem, okay, this is the problem, this is the medicine I have to take, this is what I have to avoid, this is the exercise I have to do, think about it, my capacity to deal with the problem increases, however, this graph doesn't keep going straight linearly, after some time, it flattens out, sometimes we keep thinking about a problem, and there is no solution that comes, why did I get this diabetes, maybe I ate that at a time, maybe that happened, maybe it's in my genes, diabetes is not infectious, how did that person give me diabetes, so what happened, just keep thinking, it doesn't lead to any help, if you keep thinking about it, and after some time, this graph goes down, that means the more we think about the problem, the less becomes our capacity to deal with it, because we become so overwhelmed by it, say, if we suddenly lose a job, lose our job, then, okay, we have to think, okay, what do I do now, okay, I have this financial security right now, and this is my qualification, this is where I can apply for a job, this is what I can do, but after that I keep thinking about it, oh, I lost my job, I lost my job, I lost my job, then, that doesn't really lead to any solution, if somebody has lost a job and they want to find a job, okay, you treat finding a job like a full time job, you know, okay, maybe 6, 7, 8 hours, just work full time to get a new job, but no need to keep worrying about it 24 hours a day, no need to make your own life miserable and make everyone else's life miserable, after some time, this graph just goes down, the more we think about the problem, the more we become overwhelmed by the problem, our mind keeps going round and round and round and round, there is a fan here, when the fan goes round, it cools us down, but when our mind goes round, it heats us up, it heats us up, so, that is what I mean, life determines our problems, but we determine the size of those problems, if we keep thinking about the problem, the problem starts becoming bigger and bigger and bigger, but if we think as much as is necessary to deal with the problem constructively and afterwards, we think of Krishna, we focus on Krishna, we connect with Krishna and Krishna can act as an inner secure place for our mind, we all need some satisfying, pacifying, secure object of thought, something to think about, which will make us peaceful, which will make us joyful and Krishna is that object, the more we think about Krishna, the more we become peaceful, the more we feel sublime sense of peace and serenity coming up within us and then that empowers us not only to keep moving forward towards Krishna, but also to work in the best possible way to get whatever material security that was lost, so, there is a problem, that means the material security was lost, we can work to get that as much as possible and at the same time, we can keep moving towards Krishna, so, when we see all security as coming from Krishna and pointing towards Krishna, then we can become deeper in our Krishna consciousness and when we are Krishna conscious, even amidst problems, we can have security, we can have, there is relief from problems and there is relief amidst problems, there is relief from problems means the problem goes away, but relief amidst problems means the problem is there, but if we don't keep thinking about it again and again and again, that itself gives us relief even when the problem is there, it's like it's extremely hot outside, relief from the heat means the season changes and it becomes cooler, but relief amidst the problem means that we come to a nicely air conditioned room, so, thinking about Krishna, focussing on Krishna is like coming into the air conditioned room, when we come in there, we get the relief, we get the relief amidst the problem also, even if the problem is not there, and in due course, the problem will go away, life will go on, life will be bad right now, things will become better in due course, but if we are connected with Krishna, that means that we will stay on the most auspicious course in our life, so Krishna is our ultimate security, and we all may face different problems in our life, but as long as we are connected with Krishna, we will be led towards supreme security, we will find security in Krishna in this life as well as beyond this life eternally.
So, I'll summarise, I spoke on the topic of from insecurity to inner security, so I spoke three points, the first point was that our longing for security points towards spirituality, we all want security by which we can live on forever, but nothing either natural or man-made lasts forever, then where does our desire to live forever securely come from, it's as out of place as a gold ring in a stone building or as a remote tribal child wanting a pizza, so this longing for life eternal doesn't come from our external, it comes from our non-material core, that is the soul, what reason, this is a reasonable inference, and what reason reveals dimly like a torchlight, revelation reveals clearly like the sunlight, so the Bhagavad Gita is a revelation which tells us about the spiritual level of reality, we are souls, finite eternal beings and there is the infinite eternal being, it's God, Krishna, and we are on a multi-life journey of spiritual evolution to reconnect with Krishna in love, and in this multi-life journey, death is not a full stop, but a comma, and we can keep moving forward in life and in death on this evolutionary journey, this was the first point, second point was the illusion of security is often the greatest enemy of security, I talked about how we in today's world, death is just a fact of life, but we often live in denial of death because technology has provided us so much comfort, that when we talk about death also, we talk about it as happening to someone else or happening in a very distant time, and in entertainment we quote death as a plot twist, but not as something which is going to happen to us, and in this modern times or from modern time onwards, people in general have replaced the spiritual paradise with a technological paradise, and that's why all our hopes are pinned on this world alone, and that's why we no longer seek security by growing spiritually, and that's how the illusion of security, because at the material level, we cannot avoid death or distress ultimately, so the illusion that we can do so is the greatest enemy of seeking security at the spiritual level, and the last point was that see all security is coming from Krishna and pointing towards Krishna, so when a newborn infant gets to the security of the mother's lap and the mother's milk, that is the mother giving, but not just the mother giving, it is Krishna giving through the mother, when a doctor treats us and gives us medications, it is the doctor treating us, but it is Krishna giving us through the doctor, so when we see all security as coming from Krishna, then if some security stops coming, we don't become shocked or devastated, but we stop looking at that channel alone and look towards the source, and give the example, the world is like a hospital and we are all patients, and material security is like the analgesic, is the pain medication, and the spiritual security that comes by connecting with Krishna, by becoming absorbed in Krishna is like the antiseptic, the curative medicine, and from the patient's perspective, it is the pain medicine that is most important, but from the doctor's perspective, it is the curative medicine that is most important, so what we consider insecurity is the loss of the pain medication, but sometimes when that pain medication is lost, that is the time when we can fully focus on the curative medication alone, so when we lose material security, instead of just becoming disheartened or disoriented, we can focus on connecting with Krishna, and that connection with Krishna and that absorption in Krishna through bhakti, we can experience relief amidst the stress, even if we don't immediately experience relief from the stress, and we talked about how, how do we experience this relief? Krishna acts like a satisfying object of thought for us, satisfying, pacifying object of thought, and today the pain medication, the pain has become so great, that people need more and more intense dosages of pain medication, one example of this is the hyper-obsession with entertainment, and when we connect with Krishna, then our mind becomes, gets a satisfying object of thought, and thus it doesn't obsess over the problems that we have, and that itself provides relief, when we have problems, often our mind becomes like an iron pine, rushing towards the magnet of the problems, and obsessing over it, so if we consider time versus problems, if we think about a problem, initially our capacity to deal with it improves, we become more equipped, when we keep thinking about it, we just vegetate on it, and after we keep thinking about it, we become overwhelmed by it, so we think about a problem adequately, but don't vegetate on it, so life determines our problems, we determine their size, and if we have Krishna in our life, we focus on Krishna, we connect with Krishna, then we won't exaggerate, we won't aggravate the size of the problems, but we'll deal with them constructively, by connecting with Krishna, we experience the spiritual security, like coming into an air-conditioned room in summer, and we also get the inner calmness and clarity, by which we can best seek whatever material security is possible, so if we stay connected with Krishna, that is the way to security in this world, as well as beyond.