God as the supreme therapist 6 – Seek not the facility to do whatever we desire – seek the clarity to discern our deepest desire

[Bhagavatam class on 5.18.13 at ISKCON, Denver, USA]

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
chakṣurohaṁ vidadhāmyena tasmaḥ śrī-gurave namah namo om viṣṇu-padāya kṛṣṇa-prasthāya bhūtale śrīmate bhaktivedānta svāmi tīnāmine namaste sārasvati dehe gauravāni prachārine nirviśeṣa śuṇyavādi pāśyati deśa-tārine vāñchā kalpataru bhyasya kṛpāsindhubhya eva ca patitānāmpāpa Vaishnavyabhyo, Namo Namaha. Jai Sri Krishna Chaitanya Prabhu Nityananda.
Sri Advaita Gadadhara Sri Vasadhi Gauravakta Vrinda. Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare. Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.
Hare Krishna. So today morning, continuing this discussion on the prayers of Srila Prahlad Maharaj, wherein now he is saying in this verse that just as the aquatics naturally aspire to be in water and in the water they get strength, similarly we souls get strength when we remain in Krishna, in connection with Krishna, in consciousness of Krishna. On the other hand, just as aquatics loses power when it comes out of water, similarly in this world if we get attracted to worldly things and essential attraction is most powerful worldly thing, then we are like the aquatics that come out of water, we lose our power.
So implicit in this prayer is the aspiration that, my dear Lord, let me stay in consciousness of you, just as the aquatic stays in the water. So the thought flow going on here, in the previous verses he started by saying, let my dear Lord, inauspiciousness be destroyed from my heart. For destruction of inauspiciousness, oh my dear Lord, what causes inauspiciousness is the envy within everyone’s heart.
So let that envy be pacified. And for that envy to be pacified, what is needed? We need actually to not be misdirected by this world, by the world’s prayer, but be directed towards the Lord by hearing about him in association. And if we get such association, then that is much, much more purifying than even going to bathing in the sacred Ganges.
And through this association, we develop godly qualities. So we get attracted to Krishna through his devotees. That was the theme that we discussed yesterday.
And today I will focus on what is real emotional freedom? How do we really become free in terms of our feelings and our actions? So broadly speaking, materialism and spirituality, the word spiritualism often is used to refer to the study of spirits and ghosts. That’s why we don’t use the word spiritualism so much. We use the word spirituality.
So materialism and spirituality have two broad and very opposite conceptions of happiness. So we could say freedom which leads to happiness. So freedom, Hiranyakashipu embodies the materialist and Prahlad embodies the spiritualist.
So Hiranyakashipu thought that freedom means to get facility to fulfil whatever we desire, to get this facility to do whatever we feel. So I feel hot, I should have control over the gods of the weather by which at my glance will decrease the temperature. I feel I want to eat something, immediately that thing should come.
So to do whatever we feel, to get whatever we want, that is what materialistic people consider as freedom. And in one sense, yes, wanting something which we don’t like or not getting something which we like or getting something which we don’t like or not getting something which we like, it is unpleasant. And much of technology today is a way to fulfil our, it is to get the facilities to do whatever we feel like doing.
However, in spirituality, freedom is seen not just in getting facility to do what we feel, but in getting the clarity to perceive our deepest feelings. Our feelings, what we feel, what we desire, it is not just one thing. There are many layers and unless we understand what our deepest feelings are, we will never get to deeper levels of satisfaction.
So the clarity to perceive whatever our deepest feelings are and then to pursue the actions that will fulfil those feelings. So if we consider our consciousness, there can be many different feelings at different levels. Say a student is in a college, in a university and they are studying for their exam.
At that time, the student may feel, oh, the food here is not very good. If only I could find some place where I could get good food to eat, that would be nice. This room is too small where I am staying.
I want a better room. I don’t feel very comfortable in this room. Okay, those are all feelings.
If you are travelling in a train, you may find, oh, I don’t have a window seat. I am feeling very cramped over here. Okay, that’s a feeling.
But a deeper feeling for the student would be, I want to study and have a good career before. So similarly, if you are travelling in a train, getting a good seat is nice. But getting where we want to go, that is much more important.
Now, there are the surface level feelings which keep changing constantly. Now, Krishna, there is a paradoxical verse in 2.54 where Krishna says that, that, जदा समहरते चायं कूर्मो अङ्गानौ 2.54 is, the first verse, सितप्रग्यस्तिकाभाशा समाधिस्तस्तिकेशेवस्तिद्धिकिंप्रभासितकिमासितोजितकि प्रजःतियदाकामान् सर्वान्पार्थमनोगतान् आत्मन्येवात्मनातुष्टः सितप्रग्यस्तदोच्चते So Krishna says, when one gives up all desires, प्रजःतियदाकामान् सर्वान्पार्थमनोगतान् when one gives up all desires which arise from the mind, then, आत्मन्येवात्मनातुष्टः सितप्रग्यस्तदोच्चते at that time, we become satisfied within ourselves, satisfied at the level of आत्म, नतुष्ट, to want to be satisfied, isn’t that also a desire of the mind? I want to feel satisfied. But Krishna is talking, no.
Krishna is saying that when we give up the desires of the mind, when we become, we could say, we transcend the mind’s urges for pleasure, then we descend to the spiritual level. We go deeper inwards to the spiritual level and we experience joy at the spiritual level. So, a simple example, the principle is, if we keep doing whatever we like, we end up disliking ourselves.
If we keep doing whatever we like, if a student has gone to university for preparing for exam, they sit in their computer and they say, oh, but this notice pops up. Okay, let me watch this video, and they watch that video, and another video, another video, another video. They spend hours and hours doing whatever they feel like doing.
And then when the exams come, they’re not prepared and they fail in the exam. What a fool I am. When we keep doing whatever we like, we end up not being able to do things that are important for us, and we end up losing our own self-respect, our own self-esteem.
We start disliking ourselves. In fact, a common psychological problem in today’s world is self-loathing. Many people just loathe themselves.
You know, I am such a terrible person. I did this, I did that, I did that. But they will not tell this publicly to others.
In front of others, they may appear very happy, or I am such a good person, I am such a great person. It’s a show that is made. But internally, we end up disliking ourselves.
Another example could be that, if we keep eating whatever we like, then eventually our body will balloon out, and we will fall sick, and then we will end up disliking ourselves. So, if we keep doing whatever we feel like doing, we will eventually end up disliking ourselves. Now, this doesn’t mean that we have to start doing what we dislike to do.
That is not the point. The point is that there are feelings which are circumstantial. They just come and they go, and they’re not very important for us.
And there are feelings that are extremely important for us. So, for a student, the kind of food they get in their university, that’s important. But the studies that they do in the university, that is much, much more important.
The student spends all the time just searching for good food to eat, and doesn’t study. Then, well, good food they could have got anywhere in the world. Why seek good food in the university? Then they come for good education.
Similarly, the Bhagavatam says that, that now that we have got the human form of life, endeavour for self-realisation. Endeavour to fulfil the deepest longing of the soul. That longing is for eternal life and eternal love.
As far as sense pleasure is concerned, that is available everywhere. Sometimes people feel that, oh, practising spiritual discipline is very repressive. Oh, you can’t do this, you can’t do that, you can’t do that.
Well, we will feel it repressive if we identify with our surface desires. If we identify with our surface feelings. Oh, I’m not, I can’t do this, I can’t do that, I can’t do that.
But if we understand that I have feelings at many levels, I have desires and needs at various levels. And if I keep pandering to my surface needs, surface desires, actually surface desires, they feel like needs at times. But if I keep doing that, then my deeper desires, I will not be able to fulfil.
So, this multi-layered understanding of the self. Okay, the body has certain needs. I feel hot, let me, I feel too hot, let me turn on the AC.
I feel cool by that. The mind has certain needs. Oh, I’m feeling agitated, I have to calm myself down.
But if we just let our life go in fulfilling whatever our body and mind tells us to do, then we will never be happy. Hiranyakashyapu depicts this kind of person who thought that by getting more and more power to control the externals, I will get happiness. And he thought of freedom means to get the facility to control the whole universe.
But even when he did that, the Bhagavatam says he was not satisfied. Why? Because his mind and senses were not controlled. Now, what happens when the mind and senses are not controlled? And no matter how much we have, the mind and senses will always be craving for something that we don’t have.
I have 100 things, but the 101st thing that I don’t have, the mind and senses will keep looking for that. So, if I have these many things, I think if I get this, I’ll become happy. Now, yes, getting that thing may give me some pleasure.
But even if I get that thing, the dissatisfaction when I had this was not because I lacked this thing. A dissatisfaction was caused because my mind is habituated to looking at what I don’t have. And unless I address that, even if I get this, even if my possessions are still here, my mind will see something which I don’t have.
And it will keep me dissatisfied. So, therefore, the cure for dissatisfaction is not greater possession. But greater purification.
The cure for dissatisfaction is not greater possession. Even if I increase my possessions, mind will look at what I don’t have and still keep me dissatisfied. The cure for dissatisfaction is greater purification.
When the mind is pure, it starts looking more at Krishna. And Krishna is always there within us, in our hearts. Even if we have nothing in this world, He is there.
Akincana Vittaya, Kutti Maharani in her prayers says that Krishna is the one property which no impoverishment can ever take away from us. Even if there is the world’s biggest recession, the world’s biggest drought, the world’s biggest famine, still that kind of financial upheaval or environmental calamity can take everything away from us. But Krishna is the property that nobody can ever take away from us.
But we can turn away from Him. So, Prahlad embodies the devotional mentality, the spiritual understanding that happiness comes by fulfilling our deepest desires. And at one level, we have a body, we have a mind, there is a soul.
So, the body and mind, they are also aspects of who we are. But what the body and mind wants is superficial. What the soul wants is actually the core of what we really long for.
And the soul longs to be in connection with Krishna, in consciousness of Krishna. And that is what devotional service fulfils. So, even when we are practising Bhakti, till now we’ve been talking about how we have to be very careful that we shouldn’t hurt each other’s feelings.
That when new people are coming, we should be sensitive to how they are feeling. That we devotees should embody the attractiveness of Krishna as much as we can so that people get attracted to us and through us to Krishna. So, this is all about channelling the positive emotional energy so that that energy can work for our spirituality instead of against our spirituality.
So, the dynamism, the magic of Bhakti is that it can use the power of emotions to help us grow spiritually. Normally, in spiritual life, emotions are considered to be obstacles because they distort our perception. And that’s true.
When we get emotionally attracted to something, we don’t really see the whole picture. We see only the attractiveness of that person, that object and we fall for it. So, emotions can distort perception.
But our emotions, when they’re directed towards Krishna, they can actually become accelerators of our spiritual journey. So, we have been discussing about how we can channel our emotional energy towards Krishna. But along with that, it’s equally if not more important to recognise that there will always be emotional currents within us which will go away from Krishna.
So, if we consider the ocean, on top of the ocean, we just appear to be one large body of water with waves moving on it. But if we observe the ocean carefully, meteorologists will tell us that there are different currents in that ocean. So, one current may be going like this, another current may be going like this, another current may be going in the opposite direction entirely.
So, there are different currents. Similarly, if we consider our consciousness to be like an ocean, then there are different currents in that consciousness. In that ocean of our consciousness.
Now, we want to make sure the primary current, that we can direct a current within that consciousness towards Krishna. But it’s impossible to direct all the currents within our consciousness towards Krishna. So, there are certain currents, which we will never be able to direct them towards Krishna.
They’ll just be going in other directions. And we have to ensure that we don’t go along with those currents. Let’s say, a person wants to swim from here to here.
Now, we can swim with one’s own effort, even if the current is in the opposite direction. But it will require much, much more energy. If the current is moving in that direction, and say, there are five currents in the river.
One is moving this way, one is moving this way, one is moving this side, one is moving this side, and one is moving another side. Now, if I want to go in a particular direction, situating myself in the current, which is going in that direction makes things much easier. But that doesn’t mean I can stop the currents which are going in other directions.
What we can do is, simply, we ensure that we don’t get situated in the currents that are going in other directions. We situate ourselves in the current that is going towards Krishna. Similarly, in the current that is going towards our destination, when we are swimming in an ocean.
Similarly, for us, in our consciousness, there will be many different currents. There will be the current of some anger towards someone. There will be the current of resentment towards something that has happened.
There will be the current of some material desires which you want to fulfil. And there will be also the current of our devotional aspirations. So, we could say, our consciousness is filled with various different currents.
And we need to situate ourselves in the current that takes us towards Krishna. And to the extent we do that, moving towards Krishna will become easy and joyful. If you are situated in some other current, then going towards Krishna will become very difficult and it will also be painful.
Because we will always feel, I am being deprived of this. I can’t do this. I can’t do that.
I can’t do that. So, for us to understand, generally, the word freedom has a great emotional appeal. And few words have been as misused as the word freedom.
So, the word freedom can be used to make people do anything. So, there is, I was studying the issue of abortion once. I wanted to write a book on it, but later on I decided not to write on that topic.
But I was studying that. So, some of the arguments which those who propagate abortion, they are writing. So, one of the arguments they said is actually, Prabhupada uses a standard argument that if a man and a woman unite, the man may go away, but the woman becomes pregnant.
So, they turn this around and they say that actually pregnancy is nature’s slavery upon women. And abortion is technological freedom from nature’s slavery. So, it’s such a distorted idea that actually pregnancy is a special unique privilege by which new life comes into the world.
It is a privilege of womanhood to become a mother. But when people don’t want to do something, they just phrase it in terms of freedom. And so, the abortion movement, they call themselves a pro-choice movement.
So, if the word freedom is associated with something, we just get caught by it. Yes, I want to be free. Who doesn’t want to be free? But we have to see, is this really making us free? From a sociological perspective, all that has happened by the legalisation and the easy availability of abortion is that in the past, if a man and a woman would have some contact, the man would be forced to take responsibility and the child would eventually be taken care of.
That’s some social structure. But now, because of abortion being easily available, men can do whatever they want and the woman gets abortion. And eventually, there is greater loneliness, there is greater distress.
Actually, people are free to get their bodies in contact with each other. There are karmic consequences of that in the long run. But people are more and more lonely because of that.
Everyone knows who are involved in this culture. There’s a Harvard Medical School which did a survey of this sexually liberated generation, the youth who were participating in this free sex revolution. And they found that most of these people, they felt profoundly lonely and guilty.
Lonely because they knew that they were not really connecting with anyone else. Guilty because they felt that I’m using someone to satisfy my age and somebody else is using me to satisfy their age. So, it actually leads, this idea of freedom leads not to any deeper bonding or any deeper relationships.
It leads to greater alienation and eventually greater tribulation. So, similarly, when we are practising bhakti, we have to understand clearly what freedom is. If we define freedom in terms of the facility to fulfil our material desires, our desires to enjoy the pleasures of this world, then bhakti is not free.
It is limiting. It is binding. But if you understand that these desires are just surface desires.
They are not what I really want to do. They are not what is my deepest aspiration. When we are going to die, are we going to be proud of, say, how many gulab jamuns we ate throughout our life? We will be craving, I want to eat a gulab jamun.
I want to eat a gulab jamun now. But is that what we are going to be? Is that our contribution to life was that? My contribution to the world was that I ate a million gulab jamuns in my life. No, right now, that craving may be there, but that’s not really something very important for us.
So, as long as we identify with our surface desires, our surface feelings, and think that fulfilling them is freedom. If I don’t fulfil them, then I’m repressing myself. Then bhakti will never make sense to us.
We will never be able to apply ourselves to bhakti wholeheartedly. When we understand, yes, I have these feelings, I have these desires, but they are trivial. Deeper down, I have much greater, I have desires that are much more valuable.
I have feelings that reflect truly who I am. So, when we understand this and start focussing on those aspirations, as I mentioned yesterday, bhakti is not just exclusive. Bhakti is not just about chanting Hare Krishna and hearing scriptures and doing Deity Varshis.
Bhakti is also about serving Krishna in this world. So, we all have certain abilities, certain talents, and we want to use them constructively in Krishna’s service. But even to do that, we need, we need determination to go beyond our emotions.
Determination can be understood in many different ways. One simple way to understand determination is, determination means to keep our intention above our emotions. My emotions will keep coming, going up and down.
I feel like doing it. I don’t feel like doing it. But I keep my intention above my emotions.
No matter what happens, I am going to do this. When we are trying to practise bhakti, especially if you are trying to practise bhakti lifelong, not just get started with the practise of bhakti, a question often comes up. It says we all should serve according to our nature.
So, how do we know what is our nature? Now, this question is a very important question. But if we let our mind answer this question, what is my nature? The mind will say, whatever you are doing right now, that is not your nature. Whatever service you are doing right now, that is not your nature.
Therefore, don’t do it also. And the mind will simply make us irresponsible, negligent and incapable of doing anything. Yes, we want to understand our nature and serve according to our nature.
But understanding that also requires, to some extent, the mode of goodness. We consider our consciousness to be like a body of water, in which below there are some jewels. Now, if the body of water is either unclean or turbulent, then we cannot see what is at the bottom.
Unclean means there are contaminations in it, dust particles and other things in it. And there is too much motion in it. So, contamination and agitation in the water body prevents us from seeing what is at the bottom.
Similarly, if we consider our own consciousness and we want to understand what is my nature, then we have to look inwards to understand it. But as long as our consciousness is in the modes of passion and ignorance, then it is contaminated, it is like contaminated and agitated water. Even if we look, we cannot perceive much.
So, therefore, when we try to work according to our nature, first thing we need to do in our spiritual life is just learn to serve Krishna according to whatever service is available. And we do our sadhana bhakti well and by that we start coming to the mode of goodness. When we come to the mode of goodness, then the water becomes calm, the water becomes clear.
And then we can start perceiving what actually is my nature, what are my deeper desires, what is that I really like to do. Not like in a superficial sense, but like in a substantial sense. And even when we understand our nature, still it is not that the mind will like doing that all the time.
If I let myself be carried away by the mind’s feelings, then even if something is my nature, the mind will not always feel like doing it. For example, one of my major services is writing. And the time when I am writing every day, most of the days I get very absorbed and I love it.
But there are days when I just don’t feel like writing. I write on this Gita every day. Most of the days, that’s the brightest part of the day.
But some days I start thinking, why did I start this service of writing every day? It’s such a burden. It’s such a burden. Sometimes there’s no idea comes over there.
That’s what is called as a writer’s block. Of course, it’s a mental block more than a writer’s block. And that block can come for anyone.
But that block becomes very apparent because when we are doing physical activity, you can just keep doing something. But when you’re a writer’s block, what do you do? There’s one writer, there’s a writer’s interview. He asked, is writing easy? He says, writing is the easiest thing in the world.
You just sit in front of a computer and glare at the screen till drops of blood form on your forehead. What that means is that sometimes nothing seems to work. So the example, I’m not going to talk about writing per se, but the point I’m saying is, even somebody who loves to write, it is not that their mind will always like to write.
So even when we do something which we love to do, the mind is so flickering that it will say, I don’t like it. So if a writer gives up writing because they say, oh, I don’t like it, then that mind’s dislike was just fleeting. Mind dislike was just fleeting, but their liking for writing was much more lasting.
But because of that fleeting dislike, they gave up something which could have been much more lasting. The same principle applies to relationships. In every relationship, there are some problem or the other always.
But overall, if the relationship is going on okay, then if incidentally there’s some dislike, we understand this is just a level of the mind. I don’t have to get carried away by it. So the point I’m making here is, the mind will not allow us to understand our nature, and the mind will not allow us to act according to our nature also.
That doesn’t mean the mind always opposes us, but most of the time it does oppose us. So real freedom comes not by getting the facility to do whatever our mind tells us to do. Real freedom comes by going beyond the mind to see what really matters for us, to what is our soul’s deepest aspiration, and what the soul when it is embodied in this body is meant to contribute.
So for this freedom, we need to have the capacity to perform the austerity of saying no to our superficial feelings. So bhakti is not just about feeling good. There is, there is the whole world of spirituality in today’s world is about feeling good.
Anything that makes me feel good, I call that a spiritual. That’s the way people think of spirituality. Bhakti is not about feeling good.
Bhakti is about realising the good that is already there within us. The soul is good. The soul is a part of Krishna.
The soul is not, a soul is never contaminated. The Christians talk about the good news. They say the good news is that although we are sinful, Jesus has come to save us.
The Vedic understanding is significantly different. It says we at our core are not sinful. We at our core are pure.
Soul is always a pure part of God, but the soul is covered by contaminations. And we have access now by Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s mercy to the process by which we can go beyond the mind and realise the good that already exists. Our good is not independent good.
We are parts of Krishna. To the extent we become connected with Krishna, to that extent the goodness of the soul starts manifesting. And not only do we, when we start rising to the spiritual level, not only do we start feeling good, but we also start actually being good.
So if we equate spirituality with feel good, then the austerity that is sometimes required in spirituality, we will not do it. And that’s why to go beyond the mind, we need the clarity. Okay, this mind, whatever the mind is saying is not what I am saying, or it’s not my desire.
To the extent we study philosophy regularly, to that extent our buddhi, our intelligence remains strong. And that intelligence helps us say this is the mind saying this. I don’t have to do this.
Jiva Goswami says that it is our buddhi which keeps us on the spiritual level in the sadhaka stage. For the siddhas, for the liberated souls, it is their priti, their affection to Krishna that will keep them spiritual. But for sadhakas, it is the buddhi, the intelligence that will keep us spiritual.
So today is, I believe, Jnanan Prabhu’s disappearance day. So one of the things which, his whole life is inspiring, but one of the things which I found about him is that, which found inspiring is that he would often use affirmations. Affirmations, you know, every morning when he would wake up, and shine for Krishna.
Normally when you wake up, the first reaction is I want to turn off the alarm and go to sleep once again. So the mind has its own fuzziness. But affirmations are something which materialistic people often use.
But as devotees also we can use them. We need some way to get out of the mind’s fuzziness. And if we, chanting Hare Krishna actually is also a spiritual affirmation.
It is, Krishna, I am your servant. Please engage me in your service. I sometimes put it this way, if I am going to colleges or companies where we have to appear non-sectarian, secular.
I say, what does the Hare Krishna mantra mean? Say, it’s a spiritual affirmation, O part, return to harmony with the whole. O part, return to harmony with the whole. We are parts of Krishna, Krishna is the whole.
So we want to serve Krishna, and serving is the way we harmonise with him. So chanting Hare Krishna is also an affirmation. But sometimes the mind becomes deadened, and we just don’t feel like chanting.
So if we use the power of the intelligence to take up affirmations which inspire us. So then we may take some scriptural verses, we may take some quotes based on scriptural verses, and we use them as a tool to go beyond the mind’s fuzziness. The mind says, I don’t feel like doing it.
No, I don’t feel like waking up. Wake up and shine for Krishna. So this way, when we learn to recognise that mind’s feelings are there, but I don’t have to identify with them.
I am deeper than the mind, and what I want is different from what the mind wants. Just as a ship, just as the aquatic always wants to be in the ocean, the soul always wants to be with Krishna, in consciousness of Krishna, in connection with Krishna. And when we start identifying ourselves with the soul, not with the mind, that means identifying with our deeper feelings, not our surface feelings.
Then we will start seeing bhakti as something which empowers us, not something which restricts us. Freedom is not, for a person, freedom is never absolute. For a fish, if you get the fish out of water and say you are free to go wherever you want, that is not freedom.
That is actually the death sentence for a fish. So freedom means actually to be in the situation where we can be our best. The fish can be at its best in the water.
Similarly, the soul can be at its best in Krishna. And to get ourselves in Krishna requires disciplining ourselves. So discipline and freedom can sometimes be seen as opposite.
But discipline is the only pathway to freedom. Discipline means I do not do what I feel like doing at a surface level, so that I can do what I really want to do. So suppose somebody is an athlete, and they want to win the Olympic gold medal.
But then they may not want to do their, they may not feel like doing a workout someday. They may feel like eating some food here and there. But discipline.
They have to have the discipline. No, I will not do this. I will not do this.
I want to stick to my workout. I am going to do my training. And by that discipline, they become more and more free to run faster and faster.
So freedom means being in a position where we can be the best that we can and to get ourselves into that position, we need to be disciplined. So bhakti practise, which involves disciplines, they actually lead to the ultimate liberation. The soul is, when the soul becomes liberated, when the soul attains Krishna, that is the ultimate freedom.
Because we become situated then in a situation, in a place where it’s Krishna mind. It’s filled with Krishna everywhere. Everybody is purely devoted to Krishna.
Everybody is remembering Krishna. Everywhere are stimuli that remind us of Krishna. And nowhere within our consciousness are any contaminations which will distract us from Krishna.
And that is supremely joyful. There will be nectar at every step of life when we become thus freely absorbed in Krishna. I will summarise what I spoke today.
I started by speaking about how, how can we become truly free. Freedom is not in getting the facility to do whatever we feel like doing. Freedom is in getting the clarity to understand what we most deeply feel and then and to pursue that.
So Hiranyakashipu embodies this materialistic definition of freedom. Get more and more facility to control out of things, then we’ll get happiness. But although he controlled the whole universe, still he was not satisfied.
Because dissatisfaction comes, not because we don’t have something, because of a lack of possession, but dissatisfaction comes because the mind is disposed towards looking at what we don’t have. Even if I get this, still my mind will look at something I don’t have. So the cure for dissatisfaction is not increasing our possessions, but increasing our purification.
And in spiritual life, we understand that the real freedom comes by understanding our soul and fulfilling the longing of the soul. So we can have desires and feelings at various levels, related with the body, related with the mind, and ultimately related with the soul. And just as a student in a prestigious university has concern about food, has concern about comfort of the place where they’re staying, but the most important thing is to study and get a degree.
Similarly, the Bhagavatam says, you know, getting the facilities for worldly enjoyment, that is being done in every species of life. In the human form, it’s like we are in an elite spiritual educational institute now, in the human form itself. So now the focus on spiritual growth.
So if we identify ourselves with our surface feelings, then we will think bhakti is limiting. But actually, by identifying with those feelings, we will end up disliking ourselves. If we keep doing whatever we like, we end up disliking ourselves.
Like a student who keeps watching movies and then ends up self-loathing oneself because of failing in the exam. Or a person who keeps eating whatever they feel like eating, and then they start hating their own figure. So we need to go beyond the surface likes of the mind to understand the deepest aspirations of the soul.
And for that, we need the philosophical intelligence to identify who we actually are. The word freedom is very much misused in today’s world to make people do more and more materialistic things. It’s like abortion has been called as freedom from nature’s slavery on good people.
This is a complete misrepresentation of reality. So similarly, our mind tends to misrepresent reality and make us think that doing things just superficial to us is actually freedom. But when we understand through philosophy that I am the soul, then we, rather than just doing whatever we feel like doing, we focus on doing that which will purify us, that will calm and clear the water of our consciousness, by which we can look deeper and understand our deepest nature and our deepest needs.
Both the soul’s spiritual need for Krishna and the psychophysical nature that we have. If we depend on the mind for answering the question, what is my nature? Then the mind will tell us whatever you are doing is not your nature and will keep us restless. Even when a writer likes to write, still there are times when the mind will say, I don’t like it.
So we don’t have to let the mind’s flickering dislikes take us away from our heart’s enduring likes or enduring loves. In our consciousness, there are multiple currents. So we want to situate ourselves in the current that is going towards Krishna.
And the other currents which are going in other directions, we can’t stop them. But we don’t situate ourselves in them by understanding that these are surface desires, these are surface feelings. But this current towards Krishna is my deepest feeling.
And lastly, I concluded by saying that freedom ultimately means being in a place where we can be the best that we can be. For a fish, freedom is in water. Similarly, for the soul, freedom is to be in connection with Krishna, in consciousness of Krishna.
And to get to that connection and consciousness of Krishna, we need discipline. So discipline and freedom are not opposites. Rather, discipline is the pathway to freedom.
And to keep ourselves disciplined, when the mind makes us want to be impulsive, we can use affirmations, we can use our intelligence and use the intelligence condensed in certain inspiring statements, quotes from scripture or certain quotes based on scriptural wisdom, and use them to go beyond the mind’s fuzziness to our deeper levels of being. And then we will relish more and more how bhakti ultimately frees us in this life to stay connected with Krishna. And beyond this life, in Krishna’s abode, there is no distraction for Krishna, everything attracts us to him.
Thank you very much. Are there any questions or comments? Okay. So when our surface desires are prompting us, say when we are eating a little halwa, but we want to eat a lot, how do we stop ourselves? How do we remind ourselves of the deeper desires? Generally, in the midst of temptation, or the midst of indulgence, it may be very difficult to stop ourselves.
But later on, we can introspect. What exactly happened? It is our consciousness, it keeps moving up and down like a sine wave. So sometimes the worldly desires go up, sometimes they come down.
Now, regulation of our indulgence, it can be done at three levels, at the physical level, at the mental or the subtle level, and at the spiritual level. So at the physical level, if we ensure that the sense of objects are not easily accessible to us, that itself decreases the indulgence a lot. Just a few months ago, I was speaking, a month ago I was speaking in Google.
So in Google, they had a big problem that their employees were becoming very obese, because most of the work is sedentary. And then they consulted some psychologists and they got the advice that in their cafeteria, they had many sweets, candies and others. So they told them, the psychologist told them, just cover those candies with non-transparent paper.
Earlier they were just in transparent glass containers. And just by doing that, they found almost 30% of the consumption of sweets decreased. So it is said that out of sight is out of the mind.
So there are many times circumstantial desires that come within us. And oh, I see this object, let me enjoy it. If the facility is there, we will enjoy it.
If it is not there, okay, we will not go there. Now, of course, sometimes the desire may be so strong that what to speak of, of you know, even if it is not visible, we may go across the town to get something to eat also. That is different.
But many times there are surface desires that come. So in general, at a physical level, creating some distance between us and the objects helps in not getting caught by the surface desires. At a second level is the intellectual level.
So even when we are taking prasadam, generally if we take prasadam at regulated times, or if we take prasadam with devotees, then even if our mind tells us to eat a lot, there will be some limits as to how much we will eat. Because if we are going to eat at a particular time, we will not be eating at any time and all times. So at a physical level, we can plan how we can combat that indulgence.
At a mental or intellectual level, we need to, the mind will give its desires. But to the extent we have internalised spiritual knowledge, to that extent when the desire pops up, we will get the, do I really need to do this? Or maybe I should, or maybe I shouldn’t. So basically, the impulse comes up within us and then there is a response from us.
So the stronger a habit, the lesser is the distance between impulse and response. So for an alcoholic, the desire, the impulse to drink comes, the stimulus comes in, and the response, I want to drink. So the lesser the distance between the impulse and the response, that’s because it’s stronger the habit.
And willpower simply means creating a distance between the impulse and the response. So the greater the distance between the impulse and response, the greater is our willpower. So we need to nourish our intelligence, so that the impulse, the stimulus is going to come up.
I can eat this, I can eat that, I can eat that. Those stimuli are just going to come in our consciousness. There are some temptations which we can just avoid.
Say somebody is alcoholic, we don’t need alcohol to survive. But food is something which we need to survive. So we can’t, there are some temptations we can just get rid of completely, but some we have to learn to regulate.
So with respect to food, if we nourish our intelligence, by which we can remember, okay, last time I ate, I ate so much, I just felt so lazy and tired and I couldn’t do anything after that, or my stomach got upset or if we, it’s just not worth it. So use our intelligence, not just to quote some scripture, but to, whatever we have heard from scripture, we try to see our own experiences in that light. Scriptures say there’s not much pleasure in this.
Then, okay, last time I ate that, how much pleasure did I get? Not really much because it’s superficial. So then what will happen is, then if we can connect our intelligence based on scripture with experience, then that gives us realisation. See, realisation means, simply means, that that which is a reality, we accept it to be a reality.
So scripture tells us that there’s not much pleasure and gratification. But when we contemplate, hey, I did that, what is the pleasure? It’s so temporary. As long as that food is in my tongue, it is there.
But after that, it is no pleasure at all. So then when I, in this way, what scripture is telling, I harmonise it with my experience, then that gives me realisation, that strengthens our conviction. So if we are in situations where we tend to get tempted, then maybe writing down some inspiring scriptural statements, or writing down our own realisations of those scriptural statements, and periodically reading them, that helps.
Because, Prabhupada says in the sixth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, that the intelligence is meant to control the mind, just like a medicine is meant to control the infectant. But sometimes when the infectant is virulent, then it controls, it overpowers the medicine. Similarly, the mind sometimes overpowers the intelligence.
That’s why we regularly need to nourish the intelligence. In general, studying scripture nourishes the intelligence. But, if we have a specific temptation that we need to combat, then we need this specific intellectual nourishment necessary for combating that temptation.
So nourishing ourselves intellectually is the second level. Third level is ultimately spiritual. We need to connect with Krishna.
And, that connection with Krishna can be both bottom up and top down. Bottom up means, we endeavour to stay conscious of Krishna. We endeavour to do our sadhana bhakti nicely, by which, when we are in Krishna consciousness, we’ll see, this food, it’s not just food meant for my enjoyment.
This is Krishna, who has manifested as prasad. So Krishna will purify me. And I’m grateful that Krishna is purifying me in a form that is so tasty.
But, the taste of this food, rather than seeing that as an independent source of enjoyment, I see that the taste of this food is a glimpse of how sweet Krishna is. And this food, I can never, no matter what happens, I’ll never be able to eat this 24 hours a day. But if my consciousness gets connected with Krishna, I can relish that connection 24 hours a day.
So when we see that, no, by regulating this food, I’m not depriving myself of pleasure. But rather, the taste of prasad is a glimpse of the taste of Krishna. And I’m grateful that I’m getting this glimpse right now, even through my tongue and through eating.
But the real, real full experience of the sweetness is when my heart develops love for Krishna and gets connected with Krishna. Then with that spiritual vision, we can appreciate the taste of the prasad, but at the same time, we can not indulge in it too much, but we focus on connecting with Krishna. So this is the bottom-up connection with Krishna.
We strive to connect our consciousness with Krishna. But there is also the top-down connection that happens. That is when Krishna reveals His attractiveness.
That is when Krishna’s mercy comes, and then our consciousness becomes filled with such spiritual taste that worldly pleasures don’t even attract us. Sometimes if we have heard a very good class, or we participate in a very nice kirtan, or we have had a very beautiful darshan, even if we go for a feast after that, there’s a lot of food, we don’t feel like indulging in too much. Why? Because our consciousness is enriched with Krishna’s sweetness and Krishna’s loving presence, merciful presence.
So that is the ultimate cure, that when Krishna’s attractiveness permeates our consciousness, then we go beyond all temptations. But till then, we need to combat the physical, mental, and the spiritual levels. So one very common example is something that I have heard a lot, is that after 15 years of practise, and this actually was a part of the course we were living in, people practising the practise of meditation, and then it became very interesting how the music of this, in other words, for perhaps a superficial design, instinct, instinct is very, very strong in that it seems very, very difficult to separate yourself from it.
So then since the topic of the discussion is separate yourself from it, and when you see about everything, you see what I’m saying. And this generally happens, I know this, after some years of practise. So yeah, after some years of practising bhakti, you may start feeling unloved, and this is not a superficial feeling of urge to eat something or do something, but it’s a, it’s a deep sense of emptiness that we feel.
And how do we, how do we deal with it at that time? And we also start, our mind starts finding evidences, this happened, this happened, this happened, because of which I get confirmed that I don’t love, nobody loves me. And then we try to become very selective, avoiding interaction which involves a, getting the, which will make us again get the confirmation that I’m not loved. So what do we do? I would say in the first few years of our life, it is we are, of our spiritual life, we are with seniors, and they take care of us.
Like Pancha Varshaani Lala says that, what is the first five years, pamper the child. So like that, in the initial years of our spiritual life, we often have seniors who attend to our needs, they take care of us. And that, and that kind of care, we may not have got so much in our previous life, or because the seniors, they are spiritually advanced, we respect them.
So getting that affection from them, we find it very fulfilling. But then as we grow up, the very nature of the world, our movement is so big, life is so complicated, sometimes those same nourishing relationships may not be there anymore, or at least they may not be accessible at the same level. And as ours is a preaching movement, sometimes we focus more on new people than on existing devotees.
One devotee was saying that, when we, when we are new, when devotees come in new, we feed them fried pakodas. When they become serious devotees, when they become old, we fry them like pakodas. So sometimes it may happen, that once a devotee has been around for a long time, just take their presence for granted.
You know, they are here, they are meant to do this. Why are they not doing it? So what happens is, when we start taking, what does it mean to take somebody for granted? That means that when they do something good, they are meant to do that. We don’t, we never appreciate that.
We just take, we just assume, they are meant to do that. But when they do something bad, we point it out. Hey, you didn’t do this, you didn’t do this.
They might have done 50 things right, but one thing we did wrong, 50 things right, we don’t appreciate that. The one thing wrong did it, we speak about that. And then that starts creating negativity in the relationship.
So generally, we appreciate each other, we appreciate new people, even they start chanting one round, from one round to two rounds, three rounds. Now once you come to 16 rounds, you know, if I say, oh today I chanted my 16 rounds, nobody’s going to appreciate me for that. But if one day I don’t chant my 16 rounds, what have you done? You’re not taking, you’re not stuck to your vow, what are you doing? So now actually chanting 16 rounds every day is also not an easy thing to do it, because we just, we’re just thinking you’re initiating, you’re meant to do it.
So the world may not appreciate us for that, and world may not be materialistic, but even devotees may not appreciate us for that. So many things which we do, it just becomes a routine expectation that we are meant to do it. And the struggles that are involved in doing that, they are not recognised.
And sometimes there’s a lapse, that’s what it’s focused on. So sometimes you may, as a preacher, you may give 100 good classes, but in one class somebody speaks something which is a little objectionable, this preacher is like this, this preacher is a deviant, this preacher is a blasphemer, this, that, that. So now in some ways this is unfortunate, in some ways this is the way the world is.
So there is, how do we deal with this when we feel that at one level when we analyse this, we should not take others for granted, we need to appreciate. So there are times when, times when devotees services should also be recognised. Maybe we don’t want to make the birthday celebration a big celebration, but at least on somebody’s birthday we can appreciate the services that they are doing.
Or we may have some other day, let’s say if we have a big festival and everybody’s worked very hard for the festival, then after the festival we appreciate the devotees who have done some services. Not appreciated, just all these devotees, but specifically what they did. So we have to create systems where, not so many systems, or facilities you would say, by which the devotees who are doing service in a regular way, they are also appreciated regularly.
It’s not just assumed that they are meant to do it. And even if there is no such system in the broader institution, we can at our individual initiative do that. This is very much lacking.
A certain thing we just take for granted and we forget that every one of us is here as a volunteer. Even if we have taken a vow, nobody is obliged to honour that vow. Of course, we are honour bound to honour that vow, but people have free will, they can go away.
So we need to create a culture of appreciation. Even in corporate companies, nowadays they have a lot of concern because there is a lot of flux. Employees keep leaving from one company to another and they always get a chance because they may get more pay.
So some surveys have found that people want to work at a place, not just where they get good pay, but where they are appreciated and valued. If somebody feels in a company they are appreciated, they are valued, they may stay on there for a longer time. So now, along with remuneration, the top corporate gurus are actually recommending that you should give periodic appreciation of the employees.
So just remuneration alone will not keep them, but they need appreciation also. That’s also a human need. Sometimes we say that appreciation is ego.
No, if it makes me proud, that is different. But we need at least that what I am doing is valued and it is recognised. That’s a human need.
So now, if we are not being appreciated like that and we feel that need, generally what makes us feel loved or unloved? Broadly speaking, it is that whatever we are doing, if it is valued in some way, whether it is through words or through actions, then we feel loved. So we have to see in our own life, if I feel unloved, if I don’t feel valued, then what is it specifically that will make me feel valued? So is it that I need the time of senior devotees? I remember one devotee, they had arranged a programme for their spiritual master. And then, now the spiritual master came for that programme.
And then there were many new people that had come for that programme. It was a western programme. Not many western people usually come for our programmes.
So after the programme, the spiritual master spent about two and a half, three hours talking with all the students, all the people that had come for that, answering all their questions. And after that, these two devotees that organised the programme, they said, Maharaj, we want to spend some time with you. And the spiritual master said, no, I am so tired now.
It was almost like 11.30 or something. No, I can’t spend any more time. And now they felt, we organised such a big programme and our spiritual master is not giving us any time.
But from the spiritual master’s perspective, the time that he spent in that programme, talking to the people whom they were cultivating, that was his way of expressing his appreciation for them. He said, how many times? We just do a programme, half an hour we must spend, go away. Somebody is spending two and a half hours.
So what happened here was, the spiritual master was expressing the appreciation by spending time. But their need was that it is not just you spend time with these people, you spend some time with me also. So if that is their need, I told them that you should have communicated this earlier.
We also need to talk with you to get some guidance about how to do the programme, whatever it is. Otherwise, from the spiritual master’s perspective, I have done so much and still you are not satisfied, still you want more. So sometimes what happens is, we feel unloved, not because people are unloving, but because we don’t clarify our expectations.
So if my need is that some senior devotees give me some time, then I should specify that. Or if some senior devotees are not ready to give me that time, then I may need some senior devotees, some other senior devotees ready to give me that time. If I feel loved when somebody appreciates me, then I may need to, not go and tell, please appreciate me, not like that, but we need to have some kind of reciprocation.
So where we tell some devotee in advance, if say we are giving a class, you tell me something to improve and something which you like in the class. So if we clarify our expectations, people can fulfil it. Or at least we can find who will fulfil it.
So to understand this also, what is our need? Is it that say we need some recognition? Again recognition can be ego, but recognition can also be a facility that can enable us to do some service more. If I am a preacher, and then this person is one of the preachers of the Bhakti Bhukti leaders of the temple. If I officially recognise like that, then that may give some facilities.
Now that facility again can lead to pride, but it can also help us to do one more service to Krishna. So we have to understand what it is that makes us feel loud and makes us feel unloved. And how do we understand this? By looking at our own lives and seeing what were the times when we felt most loud and what were the times when we felt most unloved.
And then think what happened just before that. And then okay, at this point, I expected this and this did not happen. And then that agitated me very much.
So then I understand this is my need. And this, they just did, sometimes some devotees do a small thing. Some people, you give them just a small gift.
For them, oh, you remembered me and gave me this gift. The gift may not be a big thing. They feel so happy just by giving a small gift.
So then that is the way they feel valued. So similarly for us, if we find that out, then we understand what is my need and we make sure that we take it as a responsibility to connect with those who will fulfil that. And if others understand that this is important, then they will do it.
Because it is not that devotees don’t value each other. Usually we do value. But often we feel that, we feel that, okay, we may not know the right way to express our appreciation for each other.
So if we help each other to find a way of appreciation, then we can fulfil that need to be loved. Does it answer your question? Can you talk or can you talk privately afterwards? Thank you very much.