God as the supreme therapist 1 – Discerning the Prahlada and Hiranyakashipu mentalities within us
[Narasimha Chaturdashi series on Prahlada’s prayers to Narasimha 5.18.8-14]
[Bhagavatam class on Bhagavatam 5.18.8 at ISKCON, Denver, USA]
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Transcript
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.
Om Gyanatmirandasya Gyananjali Shalakaya Chakshurunmulitham Yena Tasmai Shri Gurave Namaha Namao Vishnupadaya Krishnaprishtaya Putale Srimate Bhaktivedanta Swami Itinamine Namaste Saraswati Deve Gauravani Pracharine Nirvishesha Shunyavadi Pashyatya Deshatarine Vanchakalpataru Vyasya Krupasindhu Bhaya Vacha Patitanam Papanimya Vaishnavibhyo Namo Namaha Jai Shri Krishna Chaitanya Prabhu Nithyananda Shri Advaita Gadadhara Shri Vasadhi Gauravatta Vrinda Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare Hare Krishna So I'm grateful to be here on Swamiji's Lotus Feet of Raghavendra and their lordships Gaurav, Narayan, Narayana, Sundara So as Narasimha Chaturthi is coming next Saturday So I'll be speaking over the next week on the prayers by Prahlad to Lord Narasimha The most well-known prayers by Shri Prahlad Maharaj come in the 9th canto of Shri Bhagavatam which is near the climax of the pastime of Narasimha and Narasimha Leela as described in the Bhagavatam There's also another set of prayers which appears here in the 5th canto why the description of the universe and its various residences has been given So these happen to be 7 prayers which we will discuss over the next few days as time permits 7-8 prayers are there So I will speak on the theme of God as the supreme therapist We will analyze the psychology of Prahlad Maharaj, the psychology of Hiranyakashipu and we'll see how the Lord reciprocates with both of them according to their desires In 4.11 in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says that I reciprocate with everyone according to their desires and all people are on my path So even the godly and the ungodly, they are all on the path to Krishna but they are at different directions and their different orientations those nuances we'll discuss Now, about a century ago, if we look at the kind of prayers that people offered even 50-60 years ago the primary vision, there's a book about the history of Christianity and how religions change over time so the primary image of God historically has been God as the cosmic provider that is embodied in the well-known prayer, O father, thou art in heaven hallowed be thy name, give us our daily bread so the idea is that God is our provider we need various resources for living in the world but these resources are not very easy for all of us to attain so therefore we pray to God however in the last 50-60 years, last 100 years we could say, especially in the western world has become significantly prosperous at least at the level of physical needs so the need for God is not felt so much as a physical provider of physical needs in fact many sociologists, especially secular scientists and secular sociologists they predicted that religion and God would die out as science and technology advanced Rene Deschamps had famously or infamously said over a century ago that God is dead so he had predicted the death of God but eventually there has been a surprising resurgence in religion all over the world it is the historical narrative that especially secular historians had thought was that actually as science and technology advances as people start understanding this whole idea of God and everything, believing about the other world and this and that is all mythological and people will reject it and that is the triumph of science so many secular atheists, secularists and atheists who pride themselves on their science they are exasperated why so many people seem to be religious in fact whether it is America where there are evangelical churches which have huge turnouts or whether it is the Middle East where religion is again becoming very very strong even in India more and more people go to various temples and various religious groups so what exactly happened? now of course when all these people are practicing going to some kind of religious practice they may not be practicing properly according to what their scriptures have taught but the point is people have not become atheists en masse as was prophesied by the humanist narrative narrative of secular humanism so if we see especially in the Christian churches now people come to God not so much for getting their material needs or physical needs provided for they come to God for getting mental needs and the churches have also recast God not so much as a provider of physical needs but as a provider of mental needs in that sense the image of God that emerges from the mainstream religious depictions in today's world is of God as a therapist you are agitated, you are worried you come to God and you become peaceful and this is something where modern science has to a large extent failed to provide for inner peace although we have psychiatry which can provide psychiatric medicines but several surveys repeatedly done and rigorously examined have shown that most psychiatric medicines such as antidepressants which people take these are anxiety medicines they have no greater effect in healing people than do placebos placebos are simply sugar pills given to people without telling them so yes, people on taking antidepressants do feel better but they feel equally as much better if they were given sugar pills and they told their medicines so whether it is the medical science that is healing them or it is just the psychological expectation that I am being treated and so I will heal that is healing them is open to question and in spite of the tranquilizers and antidepressants being taken more and more people are mentally agitated in fact the whole kind of medicine called tranquilizers or mental medicine they were unknown before the 1960s and now they are the biggest over the counter medicines to be sold so there is profound distress at the psychological level and the emotional distress that is there among people this can be treated in various ways so the main difference between psychology and psychiatry is that psychiatrists prescribe medicines psychologists primarily focus on what is called as talk therapy talk with people, get them to express their emotions address their emotions through counseling so psychologists usually are not allowed to do medicines so here are the techniques we can say that people have problems in dealing with their emotions people have problems at the level of the mind there are different ways in which they can be dealt with so one is through biochemical medicines the other is through talks and many people within people say a kind of talk would be religious talks go and hear a spiritual message and that helps people calm down so if you consider God is the ultimate provider of everything that everything comes from God then even peace of mind also comes from Him so to depict God as a cosmic therapist or as a supreme therapist is not wrong however, this can be incomplete understanding of God because with this understanding we may focus only on what God does for me Sri Prabhupada writes in the first canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam that normally there are four purusharthas Dharma, Artha, Kama and Yaksha people practice religiosity so that they can get financial prosperity and then by that they can satisfy their desires and then it leads to Moksha it leads to liberation so now he also says that among these four Artha and Kama is what most people are primarily interested in so if Artha and Kama can come without Dharma if people can get money and pleasure without needing to do any of these activities then they feel Dharma is redemptive if you don't need so that's why when people started essentially secular humanists started saying that through science and technology we can provide prosperity to you through science and technology you can fulfill your desires why do you need God? so it did happen that Dharma seemed to go down but Dharma has emerged again by Dharma or religion I am using it in a very broad sense of having some understanding of some higher reality and doing something to appease that higher reality and to get something from the higher reality so the religion has resurfaced in a big way as a provider of mental peace as a provider of inner well-being so in that sense the idea of God as a cosmic provider and the idea of God as a cosmic therapist both are similar because in both the focus is on what God can provide for me we are not interested in God per se we are interested in what God provides me so if let's say peace can come by some other means then people will say ok I don't need God but if peace doesn't come by other means then they go to God so now I'll speak on this theme of how bhakti heals our emotions how connecting with Krishna actually is the ultimate therapy by which we become gradually and eternally joyful but this is a gradual process which takes time so here the verse om namo bhagvate narasimhaya I offer my obeisances to Lord Nisambudhe and Shri Raghupat writes in the prayers that is karma shayan karma shayan is a strong deep-rooted material desire within us and these desires cannot be uprooted by any means other than devotion and he says that Hiranyakashipu represents the craving for fulfilling material desires and that has to be uprooted randhaya randhaya please destroy so the epics are both historical and trans-historical that means the narrative of Srila Prahlad Maharaj it describes, it is a itihas this is how it happened it describes the narrative that happened millennia ago at the same time it is not just a story of something that happened long ago it is also trans-historical it means it represents transcendental principles that apply to all time beyond the historical context of that particular period so Prahlad and Hiranyakashipu are characters who are representing exalted devotees and incorrigible demons and both of these are also tendencies present in our own hearts so we could apply the epics we could approach the epics and the narratives within them in two ways one is only historical and the other is only metaphorical only historical, this is a story that happened long ago nice story, entertaining story I have heard it once, now what next? so if we apply it only as historical then it just becomes a story for entertainment and then we think how is it relevant to me? after hearing it it is like once we sometimes there is a movie review on a newspaper or something then they say spoiler alert people want to actually go and watch the movie and enjoy it if the review is going to tell the whole story then people say I will not have any fun enjoying it so normally in a story the primary primary enjoyment is in the suspense what is going to happen next? but if we know the story then we feel there is no suspense over there now of course some stories may be so riveting so attractive that we want to just read it again and again or watch it again and again that is something more than just a plot turn that is some emotional connect that we make with the characters in the story that is why you want to see how it is going so same way if you just see this past time as only historical there you feel there is no suspense then what is the use? and if you have to make an emotional connect with the characters in the story for that we have to see the relevance of those characters with us and for seeing that relevance we have to see that this story is not just historical so the other approach could be to treat the stories simply as metaphoric but actually this didn't happen Kulukshetra is just a battlefield Kulukshetra represents the human consciousness and the Pandavas represent the good desires in us the Kauravas represent the bad desires in us the bad desires always outnumber the good desires now this is a reductionistic way of looking at scripture while scripture is reduced to simply a metaphor now these scriptures do have metaphorical dimensions to them but when normally the word metaphorical is used it is used to supplant the literal that means it is only symbolic there is nothing literal but in the Vaishnava understanding the metaphorical supplements the literal it doesn't supplant the literal supplement it doesn't supplement the literal supplant means to replace that means only metaphorical not historical but the metaphorical supplements the literal means we accept the metaphorical we accept the literal but we also see that it is a trans-historical narrative and it has higher values to it so Shri Madhavacharya in his commentary on the Vinaya Sutra called Brahma Sutra Bhashya mentions that the epics can be understood in three ways they can be understood as literal they can be understood as ethical and they can be understood as spiritual or metaphorical so literal means that this is how it happened and just hearing it will purify us we don't need any analysis just hear the recitation of the past tense and it will purify us ethical means that we understand that this character acted like this in this situation but this was a wrong decision this character acted like this so we draw lessons for our own life in terms of how we should act ethically in these situations so this is beyond the historical we are looking at the relevance and at the spiritual level we understand that the past tense happening in the spiritual world and they can happen even in our own hearts so Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur has written this metaphorical explanation of Krishna Leela where he says the various demons in Krishna Leela represent the anarthas in our own hearts he has talked about it in Krishna Samhita and especially in Chaitanya Krishna Samhita which are two of his books and then he says that when we hear a particular passage of Krishna then the demon which is represented by that the anartha the unwanted disposition the unwanted emotion the unwanted thought pattern that is there within us that and that is represented by a particular demon so that unwanted thought pattern those unwanted desires will get eliminated from our heart they will get purified by hearing the Krishna Leela so we could see Hiranyakashipu and Prahlad as historical characters and we could see them also as representations of mentalities within our own hearts and these mentalities within our own hearts they make us act in particular ways so by understanding now of course whenever the scriptures teach anything they often teach by giving extreme examples so extreme examples means if we consider to talk about how attachment can distract us so for us when we were reading some scripture and suddenly some facebook notification comes up and we start reading that or watching that it is a distraction of 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 1 hour but in the Bhagavatam also it illustrates distraction it talks about how Bharat Maharaj had left the world, gone to the forest for the purpose of exclusive concentration and then he got attached to a deer and by being attached to a deer he got so distracted that he spent his whole life tending to that deer that deer became his foremost attachment and it was not just for a few hours that he was distracted or even for a few years it was for a whole lifetime he was distracted and not just that lifetime but even the next lifetime when he was with the deer of course during the deer's lifetime he, by the mercy of the lord remembered that he was distracted he was careful but you could say he lost almost 2 lifetimes so the power of distraction is illustrated in a very extreme graphic and scaly way in the Bhagavatam by showing how just attachment to something like a deer now a deer we could say Bharat Maharaj's distraction was sattvic it was not rajasic or tamasic it was not in a mode of passion or ignorance he was not chasing after sense pleasure he was not chasing after intoxication or anything like that he simply wanted to protect a deer that was bereft of its mother but even that could distract so the Bhagavatam illustrates its teachings by giving extreme examples so similarly we can say Prahlad and Niravnikashipu both are extreme examples of the devotional mentality Prahlad is extreme generally the word extreme is used in a negative sense we could say Prahlad is the example of an exalted devotee and Niravnikashipu is a representative of an extremely demoniac person now we don't have devotional tendencies within us as strong as Prahlad's nor do we have demoniac tendencies as strong as Niravnikashipu's but these tendencies are both there within our hearts and we will, over the next few days look at this pastime from a psychological perspective understanding what thoughts were going on in whose minds and how that affected their actions and how that reflects the way they perceived God and the way they related with God so Karmashaya is deeply rooted within his desires and this verse offers a prayer that please remove them from my heart randhaya randhaya tamo krasa krasa these arise from ignorance my dear lord please remove them so this Karmashaya this craving for worldly pleasure that represents the Niravnikashipu in our heart and that is like the Niravnikashipu in our heart and a prayer for the lord randhaya randhaya please destroy om namo bhagwati namsah mahaya I offer my obeisances to you please aviraviravirav please become manifest this is the devotional tendencies within us this is the Prahalad within us when nowadays so there are these two tendencies within us the Prahalad tendency and the Niravnikashipu tendency the godly tendency and ungodly tendency and this notion that there are there are multiple forces within us or atleast two forces within us this is implicit in the very name of the genre of literature that is the most popular that has become the most popular over the last one century or so among the in literature there are two broad categories fiction and non-fiction in non-fiction the literature genre of literature that sells the most is self-help is self-help that's all memoirs are there there are do-it-yourself books are there there are history, geography all these various genres come in non-fiction but among them the most widely read are self-help now when we talk about self-help let's try to analyze the concept the self is going to help who? the self the self is going to help the self that means that there is an understanding that there are two selves there is the self that is going to help and there is the self that needs help so there is the self that is going to help that means you know, when you feel like this do this so that means there is a self that is feeling like this when you feel depressed and you feel negative thoughts coming in start feeling positive that means there is a self that is thinking negative and there is a self that is choosing should I think negative or not maybe I should think positive so this idea that there is there are multiple selves within us or at least there is a dual self within us that is implicit in in the very name self-help so we could take this same principle and expand it now self-help can sometimes be in a religious context where some people say return towards God and he will help you the power of positive thinking was one of the most popular books in self-help it was written by a Christian pastor Norman Nelson Peale and he said widely promoted the genre of self-help literature so there are many others who are secular humans they are not necessarily against God but they are not necessarily for God also so self-help can be just there is a self which needs help and there is a self that can offer help so this if we expand this further we could say that the self that needs help is the eradication of tendencies within us and the self that can offer help that is the Prahlad tendency within us but in bhakti the self that offers help ok do this, don't do this that self doesn't depend only on oneself we get self-help the self connects with the supreme self so there is a popular saying God helps those who help themselves so Prabhupada would also quote that and his mood in quoting that was that we have to work hard we have to endeavour to serve Krishna and then Krishna will help us so that is true but the way often in the material world this saying is used God helps those who help themselves is that actually you don't have to go to any temple and pray to God you don't have to do religious rituals if you just do your work if you help yourself by doing your work properly by being disciplined, by being determined then God will help you so God helps those who help themselves can be seen in a non-devotional context or in a devotional context in a non-devotional context we see it, actually Krishna himself speaks this in the Govardhan Leela when the Yajna for Indra at that time Krishna says actually if we take care of the cows if we do our duty Indra is obliged to do this we don't have to worship him so Dacharya has explained here that Krishna is simply inciting Indra and Krishna is not necessarily speaking the absolute truth over him he is just a small child it is a part of his Leela so you see hermeneutics hermeneutics means the branch of knowledge which analyzes how to understand scripture it is the art of understanding scripture or understanding truth it is so important that sometimes the absolute truth may not be speaking the absolute truth Krishna is the absolute truth but he may not be speaking the absolute truth that's why statements always have to be seen in context if we don't see the statements in context then we can make a mess of understanding things in philosophy of language the question comes up where is the meaning of word store is the meaning stored in the dictionary or is it stored in the minds of people who are using them actually it is both the meanings the words certainly have some meanings but which meaning applies when that is dependent on context and usually also meanings suppose somebody asks you why did Humpty Dumpty have a great fall because they had a great spring get it so fall can refer to falling down fall can refer to a season so there is a great spring and there is a great fall so the words can mean different things at different times why did Humpty Dumpty have a great fall because they had a great spring where I am going with all this is that when we look at the context that is when we understand things properly without any other context if you just look at certain statements then they may be misunderstood so similarly with respect to the idea of worshipping God with the idea of praying to God and getting some help getting some relief for our inner distress by our worship of God the principle is that what is the context in which I am worshipping what is the context in which I am worshipping so if the context is this world is a place of enjoyment and God should arrange for my peaceful life in this world I want peace of mind so that I can be peaceful and happy in this world so that is the context of materialism or if you are coming to God you could say that is the context of mixed devotion and if I am going to God and praying to God please let my mind be peaceful so that I can serve you better so that I can practice the process of bhakti better so that I can purify myself better by which I can become absorbent by which I can ultimately attain you so that here the context is the context of pure devotion so approaching God can also be done in a material context or it can be done in a spiritual context and largely in today's world when people approach God as a therapist they approach Him in a material context that okay, you can make me peaceful so that I will be happy here but when we as devotees are approaching the Lord, we also need a peaceful mind because with a peaceful mind we can study Shastra properly with a peaceful mind we can chant Hare Krishna properly with a peaceful mind we can interact with each other in a sensitive respectful and harmonious way so just as we need food as a body we need for functioning in the world similarly we need a peaceful mind so that we can function in the world so food is a need of the body peace is a need of the mind and if it is provided for within a devotional context then it can help us to practice bhakti more and more if our mind is agitated then we can't focus on Krishna so as devotees, do we approach Krishna as a therapist? We don't approach Krishna primarily as a therapist within a material context we want Krishna to heal us completely so that our desires get redirected from this world to Him by which we can ultimately attain Him so the Hiranyakashipu and the Prahalad who are there within us, the ungodly and the godly tendencies we want, when we are approaching Krishna, it is like the Prahalad within us is approaching and Hiranyakashipu is there in my heart my dear Lord, please eliminate, please free me from Him in that mode when we approach the Lord, then we can slowly but steadily become peaceful as well as pure so there is there is pacification of the mind and there is purification of the mind I'll conclude with this theme which I'll be elaborating much much more in the future sessions that when we say oh Lord, please destroy the ignorance within my heart tamo andher andher the ignorance that is there in the heart my dear Lord, please destroy it so now, what exactly is the ignorance? the ignorance can be understood in various levels, if I'm driving a car I don't know how to drive the car, or I don't know what traffic signals mean, that is ignorance at the physical, functional level that prevents me from acting properly at the physical level there could be deeper ignorance there could be medical ignorance I have cough but when I go to doctor, doctor says you've got TB for me it is just cough but for the doctor, the diagnosis is TB so I may have a lot of I may just have a lot of negative thinking about it, I might be very anxiety ridden for me, it's just some people are less worried some people worry less, some people worry more I may just why do I worry so much? but the Bhagavatam says that these lust, anger, greed and deprivation they are also things, they are impressions within the mind and they can't just be wished away if somebody worries too much tell them, stop worrying sometimes it may help, but if it's a if that worrying has become a tendency in the mind, then they just cannot but worry the mental level is also a real level it's like somebody is feeling cold and you tell them I am feeling cold, don't feel cold what do you mean don't feel cold? I am feeling cold so if somebody is worried, they don't worry what do you mean don't worry? I am worried so I will analyse further is worry just an emotion that comes within us or is it an object within us which makes us worry we will discuss this a little later which we will be analysing how to deal with the negativities of the mind at various levels but the point which I am going to make here is pacification and purification pacification means I am agitated and I become peaceful that is Krishna I want to come, I want to become peaceful and we come to Krishna we come to the temple, we take darshan of the deities we hear the kirtans, we do feel peaceful but if that is all we come to Krishna for if we are involved in some intense project we are doing some book distribution we are doing some temple management we are wanting to build a new temple we want to arrange a program at that time when we come to the temple the coming to the temple may cause us more anxiety I have to get this done, I have to do this I have to do that, I have to do that so at that time if our expectation is that I am going to be peaceful then I say serving Krishna is not making me peaceful actually trying to serve Krishna is causing me so much anxiety so then where am I getting the peace so here it runs in pacification simply means that whatever is the agitation agitation I just remove it from my mind so for example I may go to a natural scenic place and everything around is gentle breeze blowing I can see the vasca I can see a stream moving along I can hear the birds chirping this is what this kind of scene is what is depicted through most guided meditation sessions and these are immense problems people sit down and they meditate and the meditation guide tells them to close their eyes, take a deep breath and transports them through visualization to a peaceful place and people don't feel peaceful over there this peacefulness they do experience it but it is temporary what causes agitation is not just the external situation what causes agitation primarily is the inner disposition if I have lust anger, greed envy, pride, illusion these are within me I will be agitated sooner or later so it doesn't matter if I go to a peaceful situation I feel peaceful but again I come back again I am agitated so what bhakti does is sometimes bhakti basically puts us externally in a situation which is increasing agitation I am in the middle of the city I have to go here, I have to go there Shri Prabhupada was peaceful when he came to America he had to go here, go there there was anxiety about that but what bhakti does is it is externally putting us in a situation that has some agitation also but bhakti removes the internal cause of agitation that is the attachments within us the unwanted unalters that are there within us so bhakti will offer us purification and through that purification when our heart is attracted towards Krishna purely therein is a supreme peace and a supreme joy and pacification pacification is to offer us some temporary relief but pacification, purification is the cure now how within a devotee's life pacification and purification can both be provided by the Lord is something which we will discuss in our future sessions I will summarize what I spoke today I spoke on the theme of God as a supreme therapist we are discussing Prahlad's prayers to Narasimhadev in the 5th Kancho and while discussing these prayers, we talked about how historically God was seen as a cosmic provider but now in the rest of the world the basic material, physical needs are being provided for the secular humanists thought that God and religion will become redundant and people will become wholesalers but religion has shown remarkable resilience and even resurgence why? because there is some need of people that is not being provided through material technological progress and that is the need for peace and for fulfilling this need for peace God has been recast in mainstream religions today as a cosmic supreme therapist not as a cosmic provider of physical needs but as a provider of inner peace and within this narrative the idea is that people when they are agitated through medical psychiatric means, sometimes they get some relief but it's a blessing it doesn't last, they become more and more dependent on that so through religion in a more healthy way, they can get relief now the I discussed about when we approach God we approach him within a particular context so the idea that God is a therapist is not necessarily wrong nor is it necessarily right it is how we approach it we could approach God in karma khanda as a cosmic provider where we are interested in God not in who he is but in what he is doing for us similarly, we want peace of mind also we are interested in God simply for getting peace of mind and if we get it by some other means, then what is the need for God? so I discussed about how words don't have meanings in isolation we have to look at the context to understand the meaning of the word so that context is needed also for understanding Krishna's words in Govardhan Lila, the absolute truth does not always mean the absolute so harmonetics is important to understand the context by which to understand the content similarly, our basic world view is the context which determines our actions so if we approach God as a therapist in a materialistic world view then we stay at a better level of consciousness and that is either materialism or mix, that is between piety or mixed devotion but if we approach God in a spiritual world view, making him as our ultimate goal and going to him to serve him eternally as our ultimate goal then we approach him within a spiritual context so just as food is the need of the body peace is the need of the mind and we as devotees need food for serving Krishna and we also need peace to serve Krishna if our mind is agitated we can't chant, we can't study, we can't interact properly at the same time, if we make peace as the sole expectation for connecting with Krishna then services which require responsibility, which sometimes cause anxiety, what is the point of doing this so we differentiate between pacification and purification if we just going through external, physically peaceful stimuli, projecting us mentally to a scenic situation, then you are pacification, but the real cause of agitation is not just an external stimulus, but the internal anartha within us and that anartha needs to be removed so I talked about how Prahlad and Nirendra Kashyapu are historical characters but they are also trans-historical Madhacharya says scriptures can be understood literal, ethical and spiritual or metaphorical levels, so two extreme approaches could be seeing scriptural narratives simply as historical or simply as metaphorical we see them as both historical and trans-historical so Prahlad and Nirendra Kashyapu are historical characters and they are also tendencies within our hearts so in self-help, there is a self that needs help and a self can offer help similarly within us, there is a Nirendra Kashyapu that is creating trouble for us and others and there is a Prahlad who wants to who wants to deal with it so we want to empower the Prahlad tendency in material life, self-help simply means that we think we can help ourselves, but a devotee seeks self-help by connecting with the Supreme Self, so God helps those who help themselves, but we help ourselves by connecting with Krishna through the process of bhakti so how the connection with Krishna can give us inner peace, that we will discuss in our future sessions, thank you very much Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Are there any questions or comments? Yes Thank you Guru just about the verse, I have a question you know, he is mentioning please take care of our hearts and drive away our ignorance he also says to vanquish our demon-like desires and I am just noticing you are using the word are instead of my and I am just I am wondering I wondered about this a lot before because you know, we don't want to see others as like you know, ignorant or demons or something, especially devotees but it seems like this kind of prayer is a special focus to not just pray for myself but to pray for all of us you know, like all of you please help us Krishna not just please help me and to ask for help one has to, you know, think that they need it, you know, so if I want to pray for help for others, then I also have to think the same, if I want to pray for others to get out of ignorance or to purify their, you know, materialistic tendencies or demonic desires I also have to think that they have those desires so, is that okay? to have that kind of mentality because we are all afflicted by demonic desires please purify all of us Krishna or is it more important to just keep a reverential mood towards all the devotees they are all, you know, they are all serving Krishna you know, it's just me okay, good question so if we say that if we the word plural is used us is used also so, if we, can we pray that others be freed from their demonic desires or should we try to just see that everybody is serving Krishna and not even think that others have some lower tendencies within them we cannot live in the world with closed eyes, this is physically we cannot walk about with closed eyes similarly, relationally also we cannot interact with people by closing our eyes not looking at the individual natures and every individual nature is a constellation of strengths and weaknesses so now we can't not notice the weaknesses that people have there is one thing which is noticing it and the other is stressing it harping on it reducing people to their weaknesses let me say some people are just forgetful now if we label them they are forgetful and then that determines everything that we all of our interactions that is unhealthy at the same time if something important needs to be done and we know that they are forgetful either we give it to someone else or we give them repeated reminders so we have to be real in our interactions with others but while being real we need to focus on others' good we are aware of people's shortcomings we don't have to harp on them we don't have to reduce people to those shortcomings we have to see that everybody has good within them and we try to get inspiration from their good and we also try to engage their good side as much as possible according to our position Shri Prabhupada was obviously aware when he came to America of the many deficiencies that his early disciples had their only regulative principle of the hippies was to break all the regulations but Shri Prabhupada saw the good they have some interest in Krishna they have some eagerness to serve Krishna and that is what he found so praying for others especially the word demoniac is a little strong I prefer the word ungodly godly tendency and ungodly tendency it's a little softer word and we don't want to say that devotees have demoniac desires but we all have lower desires we have ungodliness within us and praying for someone else specifically asking Krishna to help them overcome a particular weakness generally the more specific a stimulus the stronger becomes the emotion associated with it more specific a stimulus the stronger the emotion associated with it for example if I say the earth is being ravaged by global climate change ok it's a big thing there is a garden there was a beautiful forest near my house where in my childhood I used to play and that has destroyed the climate change then that actually evokes stronger emotion so in general abstract principles they may appeal to the head they appeal to the intelligence but they don't evoke emotion it is specific facts specific examples so if I say the world is filled with suffering Krishna please relieve the world of suffering well ok yes but if I have a specific this devotee has got this disease this devotee has got this problem Krishna please help so the emotion is always stronger than the specific stimulus not just a universal principle the same principle applies even when we are praying for a devotee just Krishna please bless this person that's also a very generic prayer you could offer that prayer that this person could be interchangeable you could just replace A with B with C with D but if it is a more specific prayer Krishna this devotee has this this ability please help them to develop this ability by which they can serve you more and please protect them from pride while they are using this ability in your service then because stimulus becomes more specific then the emotion also becomes stronger so in general offering specific prayers which acknowledge people's strength which focus on people's strength but also acknowledge their weakness and pray to Krishna to help them develop their strength and help them to manage their weakness they can actually become very powerful ways in which we can ourselves connect with Krishna and evoke Krishna's blessings on others ok thank you who else ok can we discuss this tomorrow I mean this is an elaborate subject I'll answer it briefly but in the future session I'm going to discuss this more is mental health a result of karmic reactions mental health problems a result of karmic reactions or is it coming something like a physical stimulus ok do mental reactions exist yes of course Baldevidya Bhishma says in the Govindamashya that sometimes some people get bad dreams so I know one person he is afraid to sleep because as soon as he sleeps he is ugly and ugliness it's a terrible condition to be in the boy needs sleep but he just can't sleep so now Baldevidya Bhishma explains that in the dream state Ishwara uses the dream state to give us reactions to our minor karmas reactions to our major karmas come in the Jagat stature so I may meet with an accident I may fracture my arm that's a major reaction coming at the physical level but in the dream my car collides with another car and I get injured I get a fracture that's also painful, it's scary but that is relatively short lived so in that sense if we could say that dreams exist at the mental level the body is not involved physically so much but the mind let us see so there is an example of a reaction at a mental level similarly if we consider every desire that we indulge in there is a physical reaction to it if somebody drinks alcohol repeatedly then they are going to suffer from some liver diseases or other health issues but a more damaging consequence is that that desire becomes stronger and stronger so the indulgence making the desire stronger that is also a reaction at a mental level and generally another way is that I might be living in Sattva guna, in the mode of goodness but then if I keep indulging wantonly, I may go down to Rajoguna and Tamoguna and that brings into the whole mindset which makes me more and more vulnerable to negative emotions so mental reactions do exist the mental level is also real and now specifically when something happens to us whether it is a result of past karma or whether it is a result of present karma or present situation that separation is very difficult to handle say, I am walking along the road and I slip and fall and I fracture my leg now did I fracture my leg because of my past karma or was it because I was just lost in my own world and I did not see that there was water spill over there it's both it's both karma is a complicated subject but generally we say karma means action this action produces this reaction but actually in our daily life you may see, sometimes a small action causes a big reaction and sometimes a big action may have a very small reaction we may sometimes drive drunk for 6 hours and nobody catches us and sometimes somebody may just drive drunk for 5 minutes just a little distracted and then knock over someone and the whole they are put in jail and a big reaction comes up so basically the law of karma is gahana karma that we sometimes think of karma as this action produces this reaction but it's not that simple action produces reaction but which action produces which reaction and when and in what way in that past karma also comes into the picture so for somebody who is meant to have a healthy body they may walk on the water but they may just look around, they may slip on the water when there is a pole nearby, they catch hold of the pole and nothing happens to them somebody else who has got a bad karma at that time they slip on the water and not only fall down but their head falls where there is a sharp rock over there and they crack their head so the same slip may happen and both may happen because of inattention right now but the consequence may be very different for two people because it's not that A will produce B as a reaction to A alone when A produces reaction B that also is determined by our past karma so similarly with respect to mental problem also now if there are two people A and B and both of them are chastised for making some mistake now A just takes the chastisement take a blow on the chest and moves on and B gets chronically depressed by the chastisement and feels I can't do anything and just gives up now why is it such a big reaction because by their past karma they were in a vulnerable position at that time and their mind was fragile this became moral by that so mental reactions do exist and for us rather than focusing on why something has happened is it because of present karma or past karma our focus should be on how best I can deal with it and what that means practically we will discuss in our future sessions so thank you very much thank you thank you bro.