​God helps those who help themselves – Common understanding, misunderstanding and devotional understanding

​Congregation program at ISKCON, Columbus, Ohio, USA

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna.
Thank all of you for coming today evening for this programme. And I’ll speak on the topic. One of the topics was mentioned was discover your inner power.
So I will address this topic based on analysing a common saying. That saying is God helps those who help themselves. So I’ll analyse this saying in three parts.
The way it is commonly understood, the way it is commonly misunderstood, and the way it can be spiritually understood in the light of the Bhagavad Gita. So God helps those who help themselves. Now this is commonly used to encourage people to be active in their own lives.
We also have to work hard. We also have to do our part. So if somebody says that, oh, I am surrendered to God, I am devoted to God.
And therefore, I will not do anything at all myself. God will do everything for me. This is not the right understanding.
God helps those who do something to help themselves. There is a story of how a person was drowning. A person was in a flooded area.
And when they was in the flooded area, there was nobody. The water level was rising, rising, rising. And finally, as the person was praying to God, God, please help me, please help me.
So then a boat came along, a rescue boat came along and said, come. Now come. We want to save you.
We come to rescue you. And then this person said, no, I’m depending on God. God will come and help me.
And as the water level rose more and more, and there were no rescue boats also in the vicinity, he was praying, God, help me. And then a helicopter came over there. A helicopter extended a rope down to help the person.
And then the person said, come on, hold the rope and come up. He says, no, God will help me. And finally, the helicopter went away.
And then finally, as the water was rising, rising, he went to the terrace of his house. And then even on the terrace, the water was rising, rising. And finally, he said, oh, God, why are you not helping me? I’m praying to you.
So then suddenly he heard a voice. He said, I help you already. It is I who sent the boat for you.
It is I who sent the helicopter for you. So if we expect God’s help, God’s help doesn’t necessarily have to come in some supernatural, miraculous ways. It is not that when I pray to God, you know, God is some some disembodied hand is going to come down and lift me up.
Or some miracle is going to happen and all the water is going to disappear. No, God can help us. God can do those things also.
But that is not necessarily the only way in which God helps. So we also have to use our ability, our intelligence and whatever opportunity presents itself to help ourselves. So in this sense, you know, human even initiate you and initiating on the human part and dependence on the divine.
No, they are not contradictory. They are complementary. So we endeavour from our side, that is our initiative, our intelligence.
And then God helps from his side. So both are complementary. I’ll elaborate on this a little later.
But this same saying, God helps those who help themselves, is often misapplied to say that actually we don’t have to do anything to worship God separately. If you just do your work, if you just good, then there is no need to do anything else. Then God will help.
Then God will automatically help. So the application is of this verse is taken as, you know, to we don’t have to worship God at all. We just do what it takes in this world and then God will automatically help us.
This idea, basically, this notion or this interpretation of the same basically makes God redundant. Now, God becomes redundant. It is our work which produces the results.
And if I work, the results will come and even God is God will give the results. God will help in getting the results. I don’t have to do anything apart from my own work.
This idea is actually a misapplication of this verse. Now, even in all human endeavours, we recognise implicitly that there are factors beyond our control. Now, among various human endeavours, sports is probably the most performance centred in the world.
Players who are playing any game, they have to perform. If there’s a cricket match going on and the batsman has to bat well, the bowler has to ball well or in America, if you have baseball. Now, the individual performers, they have to perform well in order for their team to win.
And yet, even in such a performance driven arena of activity, the players know that there is there are things beyond their control. And many players have their own idiosyncratic ways, idiosyncrasies by which they try to appease the unknown. In cricket, Australia is considered quite often to be the top team.
It has been dominating, especially one day cricket and for a long time. So now, one of the most successful captains of Australia, he always carried a red handkerchief with him. And he would keep that red handkerchief in his right pocket, one third outside, two third inside.
And he would see this as a harbinger of good luck. And if he was a very good fielder, sometimes he would drop a catch. Before looking at the ball, he would look at the handkerchief.
Has it fallen off? How did I drop the catch? There’s another very well known Australian batsman. He had this belief that before he went out to bat, he would go to the restroom. And he would make sure that all the lids of the commodes were closed.
And if he would get out early, instead of going back to the pavilion, first he would go to the restroom to see if any commode lid is open. And if any commode lid would be open, he would go and blast his teammates. Who kept this open? Because of that, I got out early.
Now, we laugh at this. And it’s not that these players are just one of the main players. They are among the top international performers.
And they would also practise. They would also diligently go through the training, through the net practises, and they would do everything. So, they all know that performance matters.
So, that means, you know, the human initiative, how much they are well trained, how much they are fit, how much they are practised, all that matters. But they also know that the individual performance or individual capacity, individual fitness, that is not all that matters. It matters, but it is not all that matters.
So, especially in sports, where the players have to perform well, but at the same time, there are factors beyond human control, which also shape the result. Now, a team is poised to win the match. And suppose rains come at that.
The match gets washed out and there is no result. It becomes a draw. What could have been a win? It becomes a draw.
So, rains is a very drastic example. But like that, there are players who say that, you know, I am in form right now, or I am out of form. And no player wants to be out of form.
All players want to be performing well at all time, but somehow something goes wrong and they are not at their peak. So, they also recognise that there is something beyond their capacity. And in their own quirky way, they are trying to appease that unknown.
Their own quirky way, they are thinking that, okay, by doing this, this particular ritual, like putting a handkerchief in a pocket, or making sure that the commode doors are closed, lids are closed. And this is not just in cricket. In every sports, there are sports players who have superstitions.
There is a former tennis champion who would wear an earring only in one ear. And he would think that as a good luck charm. Now, why is it that these people who are top athletes, who know the importance of training, fitness, practise, and they know about their own abilities, but still they try to do these seemingly irrational, superstitious things.
That’s because they know that there is something beyond their own control. And they want to somehow appease that. So, in the materialisation of results, in the manifestation of results, there are, we could call this as an equation, karma plus daiva plus kala is equal to phala.
Karma is action or endeavour, daiva is destiny, kala is time, and phala is fruit. So, action plus destiny plus time is equal to the result. So, all these three action, destiny, time, all these three have to come together and then the result comes out.
Let us take a simple example of nature for illustrating this. Say, there are farmers who plough their land. Now, from the farmers, in the farming metaphor, the ploughing of the land and the sowing of the seed, that is the action of the farmers.
Now, after this, water is needed for the growth of the crops. So, rainfall, timely and adequate. Now, neither too much nor too little.
That rainfall in proper quantity at the proper time, that is destiny. So, there is action plus destiny plus time. Even if the rains come, it is not that next morning the crops are going to grow.
They take their own time to grow. So, when action plus destiny plus time, all these three together come together, and then there is result, there is the fruit, there is success. So, now, in this case, the farmer may plough the land and sow the seeds, but if the rains do not come, the action might be there, but the destiny might not be favourable.
Then the action will not produce the result. No matter how well the action is done, the results will not come. At the same time, if the rains come, but if the action has not been done, that means the seeds have not been sown, the land has not been ploughed, then the rains will come, but all that will grow will be weeds.
No crops will grow. So, both are important. The action is important and the destiny is also important.
Now, in this, when we, let’s, with this philosophical background now, let’s try to focus again on this, God helps those who help themselves. What does this mean? In the Bhagavad Gita’s 18th chapter, Krishna analyses the various factors of action and there he says, Adhishtanam. Adhishtanam is the field of action.
The field of action can be the body or the arena where we are doing the action. Adhishtanam tatha karta. Karta is the doer, the person.
Karanam cha prathak vidha. Karanam is the specific senses that are required for doing that activity. And vividhascha prathak cheshta, an endeavour.
The various endeavours that we perform. Daivam chaivatra panchamam. Daiva is fifth.
So, the same three things which I analysed, three things which I said earlier, human action plus destiny plus time which leads to result. Now, the Bhagavad Gita is analysing this further. Action and destiny, it analyses in action what is involved.
First of all, say for example, now if I have come here to give a talk. So, Adhishtanam. Now, my body should be healthy.
If I am sick, I cannot come here. Then karta, the body, there should be a soul inside the body. If there is no doer, the body is just like a dead corpse and nothing can happen.
So, the doer has to be there. Then karanam. Karanam is the senses.
So, I may be healthy, but if just before I come, overall my body is healthy, but if just before I come here, I get a sore throat and I am not able to speak. So, for specific actions, not only the body as an instrument is required, but the specific senses that are there, they are also required. Somebody is a dancer.
They may be overall healthy, but if they just get a small sprain on their leg, they can’t dance. The specific senses are important for specific actions. And then after that, cheshta.
Cheshta is endeavour. Now, as you say, practise makes people perfect. So, the endeavour that we put in, that also determines the quality of the result that we get.
So, some people who just come in and they try to play music or do some musical performance without any practise. Then their performance is okay, mediocre. Somebody has put in hours and years of practise, then their performance is master.
Now, I am an author. So, when I write an article, say if I write a 2,000 word article, so quite often when I write it, it’s 4,000-5,000 words. And then I refine it, I edit it, and then again it comes down to 2,000 words.
So, I may say I wrote 5,000 words and 3,000 words are all gone. It’s wasted. No.
The 3,000 words are present in the 2,000 words. So, the effort that is put in, I could just write 2,000 words at first glow, and I could say I have written an article. But I spend, I revise it, I refine it.
And then the 2,000 words that are there, which have come down from 5,000 words, they have greater power, greater precision, greater impact. So, I’m giving the example that endeavour, I’m giving this example to illustrate that. The endeavours that we put in, the practise that we put in, that also shapes the result.
And then beyond that is the fifth factor is destiny. So, now, why are we analysing all this? To understand how God helps those who help themselves. So, at one level, God’s help comes by sanctioning destiny.
Now, what exactly is destiny? Destiny is not just some unknown inimical force, which arbitrarily works favourably for some people, and arbitrarily works unfavourably for some people. Actually, destiny is the stockpile of our own past actions and their reactions. So, envision, say, if we have a water tank, and in this water tank, so big water tank, in which from one end, water is going inside, and from another end, water is coming out.
So, now, if in the past, I have filled in some dirty water over there, and now that water, or instead of making it like this, we can have from the top water is going in, from the bottom water is coming out. So, now, whatever dirty water had been there earlier, now, if I turn the tap from below, dirty water is coming out. Now, from the top, I may be sending in clean water.
But still, I am getting dirty water from below. Why is that? Because that was what I had put earlier. So, like this whole tank of water, this reservoir of water, that is like the storehouse of our karma, of our actions that we have done in this life and in previous lives.
We are at our core souls who go from one life to another life. And this stockpile of the accumulated reactions to our actions, that is our destiny. So, in a sense, God is not directly involved in karma and destiny.
God, the whole system works under God. But God is not directly involved in the sense that God does not choose one person to favour and choose another person to disfavour. Just like a judge, the judge gives sentences, which passes judgments based on what the person has done.
If somebody has been, has done a wrong, and the judge will punish them. Judge is involved, but the judge is not personally biassed against or for anyone. So, like that destiny works under divine supervision.
But destiny is not partial to anyone or is not biassed against anyone. In the Srimad Bhagavatam, it is said that while describing the Supreme Lord, it is said that this Lord, the Lord is not partial to anyone. He is not envious of anyone, nor does the Lord partial to anyone.
He is neutral. And actually, God is not just neutral. He is reciprocal.
Neutral means that person, like this wall is neutral. It is just non-existent. It doesn’t have any consciousness.
God is not just neutral. He is reciprocal. The way we approach Him, He reciprocates accordingly.
I’ll come to this point a little later when I talk about bhakti and how that plays a role in destiny. But at this point, so when we talk about destiny, that is under divine supervision, but God is not directly involved. God simply allows the we all go through some bad phases in life and too many problems seem to be coming.
And we sometimes go through good phases where we’re getting successes, we’re getting recognition, we’re getting wealth, we’re getting things are going right for us. So, these are phases which are basically the unfolding of our own past actions or the reactions to our past actions. So, sometimes the reactions to our past actions may be unfavourable.
And that is why I may endeavour a lot, but I may not get the result. So, I mean, sometimes some students study in their exams and then they study, study, study. And then right at the time of the exam, somehow some questions come which are out of the syllabus or which they come from books they have not read.
And then they do poorly. And then often we blame. Oh, why did this happen to me? No.
Why do bad things happen to good people? It does happen. It’s sad when it happens, but it does happen. At the same time, if we are honest, we can also see, we’ll also acknowledge that there are times when we do a little and we get a lot.
Sometimes students, they study just one subject or one book and that’s what comes in the exams. And then they get good marks and they get good grades. So, it’s not that destiny is always unfavourable.
Destiny sometimes works unfavourably, sometimes works favourably. But the nature of the human ego is that, you know, success has many parents and failure is always an orphan. That means whenever there is success, everybody wants to take credit.
I worked so hard. I did this. I did that.
And that’s how they were successful. And whenever failure comes, I worked so hard. Why did it not come about? So, destiny is rotten.
So, we often take more credit when success comes. And then when failure comes, we deny responsibility. I did not do anything wrong.
But actually, destiny often works both ways. It sometimes gives us favourable results. It sometimes gives us more than what we have endeavoured also.
And sometimes it may not give us as much as we have endeavoured. This is all basically a result of what we have done in the past, it playing out. Now, this is not all that is there to destiny.
See, destiny doesn’t just determine what happens to us. Yes, it does determine what happens to us. But at that time, we have free will to choose how we respond.
That means, say two people may lose their jobs the same time. Maybe sometimes there is retrenchment, and thousands of people lose their jobs. Now, because of losing that job, one person may sink into depression.
You know, there’s so much competition. How will I get a job? Person sinks into depression, loses one’s self-esteem, and may even become suicidal. Now, another person, they lost their job, they start exploring.
Okay. Now, which is the field that is growing? What is the skill that I can acquire? They learn something new. And then they take their career in a new direction.
And that new direction may turn out to be even more successful what they were earlier. So, the event that has happened is the same. Now, by destiny, both of them were meant to lose their job, you could say.
But destiny did not determine their responses. Sometimes, if the idea of destiny is taken too far in one direction, some people start thinking that everything is destined, nothing is in my hands. Now, this is false.
Because we all see in our life, that no matter how much we work, sometimes factors beyond our control, shape results. So, both these extremes, if we think my endeavour alone is going to determine the result, actually, we set ourselves up for frustration. Because we may think, you know, if I work hard, I can achieve anything.
And we may think this idea is empowering. I don’t believe in destiny, some unknown something, I work hard, I’ll get the results. Now, this may seem to be empowering, but it has a very dangerous flip side.
Because if I am the sole determiner of my success, then that also means that I am the sole person responsible for my failure. And then we start taking failure, not as a event, but as a statement about ourselves. That means when I fail, it is not just that this thing went wrong.
From that event, we start interpreting, I am good for nothing. I am worthless. I will never be able to achieve much.
So, the same ideology that seems to be empowering, or you can do whatever you want, you can achieve whatever you want. That same ideology has a flip side. That means if I don’t achieve, that means I alone am responsible.
And if some people are going through a phase of negative, bad phase in their lives, sometimes they may try 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and all those things don’t work out. You just get completely crushed. I tried so much, nothing works out, I’m lost.
I’m good for nothing. But actually, it’s just that they’re going through a negative phase in life. And they persevere, that negative phase will get over.
So, I’ll just give an example of how the negative phase works. There are leeches. You know, leeches suck blood.
So, suppose a leech catches and starts biting. It’s very painful when the leech is just sucking the blood. And I can sense it when it’s sending its tentacles inside and pripping my, and piercing my skin and sucking out the blood.
Now, I may become panicky. And to save myself, I just catch the leech and try to pull it. Sometimes the leeches have such strong tentacles, that if I try to pull the leech out, it will rip out my whole skin.
And the whole skin comes out. But somehow, if at that time I tolerate, the leech has a tubercle. As a certain quantity of blood, it’s going to suck.
The leech is so tiny, it’s not going to drain my whole blood system. Isn’t it? It’s going to lick a certain amount of blood. And after it sucks that much blood, then it itself loosens its hold.
And then it will sometimes itself fall off, or I can just flip it and it will fall off. So, during that period, when the leech is sucking the blood, if I overreact, then I aggravate the injury. But if I, during that period, I tolerate, then yes, it’s painful to tolerate.
It’s horrifying also to think that somebody, something is taking out my blood, you know. But if I just endure, then it’ll go off. So, like that, similarly, we all go through bad phases in life.
So, that bad phase is like a leech sucking our blood. Now, if at that time I overreact, overreaction can be in terms of, you know, I get angry and I start shouting at others, blasting at others, attacking others. See, this overreaction can be in terms of external attack, external violence.
Sometimes the people become short-tempered, violent, they attack others. Or it can become internally violent, where we start beating ourselves up. As I said earlier, we get inferiority complex, we get low self-esteem, we become suicidal.
Now, both of these are unnecessary overreactions. Because, yes, now failure is an event. Failure is never a person.
No person is a failure. Failure can be an event that happens in a person’s life. But everything in life is temporary.
So, even failures are temporary. Those who have failed once, twice, thrice, five times, ten times, eventually, they will also get success. Nothing lasts in this world.
So, the negative also does not last in this world. So, if we recognise the role of destiny, that sometimes destiny determines results beyond our endeavour, then we do not overreact or we do not beat ourselves up, we do not blame ourselves unduly when things do not work out. Now, this is not to mean, that is why recognising the role of destiny can be empowering.
Because it helps us to see beyond the immediate situations. Yes, these failures have happened. But when we recognise the role of destiny, then we do not take life so personally.
Taking life so personally means that every event that happens in life, we start taking as a statement of myself. I could not do this right, if I wanted to give a talk and I could not give a good talk. I am a stutterer.
I try to open a business and I can’t do, it doesn’t work out well. I think, you know, I have no, I am not savvy about money. We start making statements about ourselves and these statements beat us down.
So, in that sense, this mental beating ourselves up, that can be minimised if we recognise the role of destiny. But sometimes, despite my best efforts, if destiny is unfavourable, results may not come. So, let me just tolerate, let me just keep going on.
And this negative phase of destiny will get over. On the other extreme is that we may just leave everything to destiny. And that is called as fatalism.
Fatalism is the idea that nothing is in our hands, and everything is determined by destiny. And this leads to extreme passivity. And that is also very unhealthy.
So, when I say that destiny is unfavourable, that does not mean that I should not do my part. So, after I do my part, if the results don’t come out, then I can, then I can say that destiny is involved. But if I have not done my part only, if a student studies and then they don’t get marks and they don’t do well in the exam after their studies, that is destiny.
But if the student don’t study only, and the student says that, oh, you know, my destiny is unfavourable. Well, it’s not that destiny is the problem, it’s your responsibility that is the problem. So, destiny is never a licence for, the logic of destiny is never meant to be a licence for irresponsibility.
I had to do my endeavour. So, in the Mahabharata, the relationship between destiny and responsibility is beautifully stated that destiny determines the consequences of our actions, not our actions themselves. Destiny determines not our actions.
It is not that a student can say that, oh, I was destined not to study. No, nobody is destined that. Whether you could study or not, that is up to you.
But after studying, whether you get the grades or not, that is determined by destiny. Destiny determines the consequences of our actions, not our actions themselves. So, now, when we put in endeavour, we do our part.
So, that means for getting results, we have to put in our part well, and also we have to, the destiny has to be favourable. So, when we, when it says God helps those who help themselves, how do we understand this saying in light of destiny and endeavour? Actually, it works both ways that when we connect ourselves with God, when we pray to God, then often the resulting purification that comes by our connection with God that enables us to endeavour better. So, for example, if we are studying for some exam, now I say, okay, I have this much time, every day I will study 6 hours or 8 hours or whatever, I study.
But quite often, you know, our time is taken up not just by activities. Our time is also taken by thoughts. And these thoughts are a time consumer that we often do not take into account in our schedule.
Say, for example, I go in my class, and then I see a friend and I greet the friend and the friend snubs me. I get so angry, how dare he or she snub me like this. And then I go and sit in the class and the next one hour class is going on.
And in my mind, all revenge fantasies are going on. I will snub him or her. Actually, the whole class gets over.
And I’m not even, I didn’t hear anything. So that one thought, it took the full one hour. And sometimes it takes more than an hour.
Sometimes say, if people get, people get addicted to something, say somebody gets addicted to alcohol, then, you know, that student is saying a person is doing some work or studying in a class. But the thought, oh, maybe I can drink, when should I drink? How will I get a drink? That thought is consuming the consciousness completely and the person is not available for doing what they need to do. So there are, when we are to endeavour inside us, there are many distracting and sabotaging forces.
So earlier when I talked about our actions have consequences, you know, and that consequences is destiny. So it was a simple analysis. But a more deeper analysis is that our actions have external consequences and they have internal consequences.
That means, say if a person smokes, in the long run, you know, they pollute the environment, they may get some lung disorders or whatever. That is a long term consequence. But an immediate consequence is each time they smoke, the desire for smoking becomes stronger.
And when that desire for smoking becomes stronger and stronger, eventually it becomes a compulsion, it becomes an addiction. So even, even say an alcoholic, alcoholic also has free will. But their free will is, okay, should I drink this particular brand of alcohol or that brand of alcohol? They don’t have the free will, should I drink or not drink? So what happens? The more we do an activity and again and again, our free will never goes away.
But the scope of our free will becomes reduced, becomes more and more reduced, as we become hooked to a particular activity. So that means our actions have consequences in terms of how we psychologically respond. So by drinking again and again, my capacity to endeavour gets decreased.
Because I’m always thinking about drinking, I’m always thinking about drinking. So now, when we turn towards God, when we start practising Bhakti Yoga, Bhakti Yoga is the process by which we connect with God through the innermost force at our being. That is the power of love.
Yoga is often thought of as exercises. Now we sit in a particular posture to make the body healthy, to make the body more fit, more make the body more shapely looking good. That’s all fine.
But these are postures. And if in cricket or in baseball, the batter is there, the batsman has postures. Now some batsmen stayed with the bat higher, upraised, some people with the legs stretched out, some people stand erect, some people stoop down.
These are all different postures. But the purpose of the posture is what? When the ball comes, to hit the ball with the maximum force. No.
If they stand in a very fashionable posture, but if the ball comes and clean bowls them, that is of no use. The posture itself is not the goal. The posture is meant to facilitate in hitting the ball.
So like that, similarly, the yogic postures that are there, the various asanas as they are called, they are meant to facilitate the launching of our consciousness. Just like the batting posture is meant to launch the ball into a powerful trajectory. So like that, the yogic postures are meant to be like a starting point, a launching pad for raising our consciousness upwards.
Now this raising of our consciousness upwards can be done in various ways. And Bhakti is a form of yoga which raises the consciousness upwards by using the power of love. We all long to love and be loved.
And we all form relationships in this world. Bhakti yoga tells us we have an eternal relationship with the Supreme Lord. And that is the relationship of love.
So when we direct our loving propensity towards God, the Bhagavata reveals that God has, God can have many names. The one absolute truth is known by many different names in different traditions. The Bhagavata reveals that absolute truth to be Krishna.
So when we approach God, approach Krishna with a desire to love, then that desire to love and serve him propels our consciousness upwards. And the higher our consciousness rises, the more it becomes free from whatever constricting factors or constricting forces limited our free will earlier. I said, I talked earlier about how our actions, they restrict our addictions, our attachments, they restrict the scope of our free will.
How is the scope of our free will restricted? Because we think I have to do this. No, I have to drink, I have to smoke, I have to do that. I can’t live without it.
And that’s why the other things that I can do, they become limited because I have to do this. And we not only do that, before doing about it, we doing it, we think about it, after doing about it, doing it, we think about it, it consumes our mental energy. But when we raise our consciousness upwards, then we start experiencing higher non-material fulfilment.
So for example, when you start meditating, when you start chanting the holy names, when you start doing kirtans, we experience a higher happiness. And when we experience a higher happiness, then we can more easily reject lower sources of happiness. So whatever conditionings we have, whatever addictions that we have, whatever attachments we have, we are caught by them because they promise us pleasure.
And if that is the only pleasure that we know, then we can’t give it up. It’s like if I’m in a dark room, and I have a small torch, the small flashlight, which is also flickering, the battery is getting discharged. But if that is the only torch I have, somebody tells give up that torch.
I can’t give it up because I’ll be completely in dark. But if someone turns on the light for the whole room, and now give up the torch, I can give it up, I don’t need it now. So like that, if similarly, just as we need light for moving about, and if we don’t have a bigger source of light, we hold on to a smaller source of light.
So similarly, we all need happiness. And whatever is giving us pleasure now, we hold on to it tightly. Even if that pleasure comes at a great cost.
Alcoholics, they get some pleasure, but it comes at a severe cost. But because that is the only pleasure they know, they just hold on to it tightly. But when by the practise of Bhakti Yoga, we experience non-material happiness, then it’s like the light turning on, then I don’t need this flashlight.
Similarly, when we experience higher happiness, then our attachment to lower pleasures, it becomes more resistible, we can break free from it more easily. And that way, when we start practising Bhakti, because we are not consumed by so many desires, so many cravings, so because of that, we can focus better. So at one level, Bhakti involves doing activity that directly connects us with God.
But another level, that connection pacifies our mind, it purifies the mind of various agitated desires. And then whatever we are doing, we are able to do it more effectively. So that means Bhakti helps us to maximise our endeavour.
We’re talking about this in terms of how we perform and how we achieve. So in achieving, there is endeavour and there is destiny. So we are talking about how God helps those who help themselves.
So we say that to help ourselves, it is not just that we work, but we spend time connecting with God, devoting ourselves to God, practising Bhakti Yoga, then that helps us to help ourselves, because that helps us to endeavour better. So when we are more calm, when we are more focused, we are less distracted, in the same time, we can do more activity. We can be, we can be actually more productive when putting in the same amount of time.
And that is because we are more focused. So the thoughts, earlier I said the thoughts also take our time. And they are not there, thoughts taking up our time, we can’t put it in our schedule.
But when our minds become calmer, when we become purer, then the thoughts don’t take all that time. And we will also be surprised that in the same amount of time, I will do so much more. So that’s how when we devote ourselves to God, our endeavour becomes better.
And at the same time, that is not the only thing, destiny. Now, is destiny absolutely unchangeable? At one level, I explained that destiny is what happens to us. It is not how we respond.
So how we respond is always in our hands. But if I’m conditioned, if I’m habituated to certain modes of thinking, if I’m caught by certain habits, so if say, well, if I have developed a habit of drinking alcohol, I think I get pleasure, I get relief in drinking. The next time a problem comes because of adverse destiny, although I can respond naturally, but the tendency will be, oh, I’ll drink.
No, there’s no problem so big that a bottle of alcohol can’t solve. I drink and try to forget away my problems. But then the problems don’t go.
The problems only become bigger. So we have free will to respond whichever way we want. But if we have habituated ourselves to behave in particular ways, then we will repeatedly act in that way only.
And that way, we become habituated to certain forms of responding. And spirituality helps us to act more wisely because it frees us from the conditionings of our past by giving us access to higher realms. That’s one aspect to it.
The other aspect is with respect to destiny means what happens to us. Can that be changed? Actually, Krishna says at the end of the Bhagavad Gita, sarva-dharman parityajya mam ekam saranam vraja aham tvam sarva-papebhyo mokshe shyami ma shuja Krishna says that I will free you from all sinful reactions. So Krishna can actually change what is going to happen to us also.
Just as suppose a person has been punished and they are sentenced to 10 years in jail. But if in the jail, they behave in a very exemplary way and engage in constructive activities, then in the purpose of the government, the purpose of the jail is not just to incarcerate, imprison the person. The purpose is to reform the person.
So if they see that, okay, this person is reformed, then they may reduce this 10-year sentence to a 5-year sentence. Another 5 years, the person may be released. So similarly, the purpose of the whole system of karma is not to punish us.
The purpose is to prompt us towards wiser choices. And the more we move towards wiser choices, the more the karmic consequences can also be diminished by God. That is Krishna s omnipotence.
Now as devotees, we do not go about demanding that Krishna free us from all problems. Our mood is Krishna, let me serve you whatever situation comes in my way. Because sometimes problems are necessary for our growth.
I will conclude with two examples to illustrate this point. That Krishna, we can say is God and He can do anything. He can free me from all my problems in the next moment.
Yes, He can. But those problems sometimes are necessary for us to move towards spirituality, to focus on spirituality, to prompt our spiritual growth. Once a person was walking through a forest and while walking through the forest, he saw that there was an egg and that egg was moving.
And he saw that suddenly the egg cracked and a wing came out. And then he said, oh, there is a bird inside and the bird was trying to come out of the egg. And then he saw the egg moving again and another wing came out.
And you know what, the egg shell was quite hard. So as the wing would come out, it would crash back again. It would fall again and the bird would be in pain and struggling to come out.
And this person thought, oh, this poor baby bird is struggling so much. Let me help it. So he went and he just broke the shell.
He broke the shell. Then the bird just came out. The bird was, oh, bird, look at the light, look at the sun.
And started moving around. And then as it was moving around, this person was thinking, oh, I did such a nice thing. I freed this bird from the shell.
But at that time, a predator swooped down. And this bird tried to move, tried to fly, but it just didn’t have the strength. The predator swooped down and consumed it.
And then this person realised that actually inside the shell, the bird would have been protected. And if it had struggled on its own to break the shell, in that struggle, its strength would have increased and it would have had the strength to fly. So sometimes, you know, the problems are what are necessary for us to grow.
So Krishna, if he allows problems to come in our life, we should not think that he is uncaring. First of all, we should never think that he is causing the problem. No, God is not the cause of our problems.
It is our own past actions which are coming back as problem, which are coming to us as reactions. So Krishna can remove the problems, but sometimes removing of a smaller problem can lead to a bigger problem. And we don’t know what kind of problems we may have in future or we may face in future.
Krishna knows it better than us. And secondly, if we approach God, sometimes we half trust him. Now what does half trusting mean? That means we understand that God is very powerful.
I have this big problem, I can’t solve this problem. But God is powerful enough to solve this problem. So we accept God’s omnipotence.
And then we want to form a partnership with God. What are the terms of the partnership? The term is God, your power, my brains. I have this problem which I can’t solve, but you have the power to solve it.
So I’ll tell you, you use your power to act according to my brain and solve this problem. Now, any way we approach God, that is good. But Krishna is not just omnipotent, he’s also omniscient.
So not only is he more powerful than us, but he’s also wiser than us. So if we trust Krishna, then we trust that not only in his power, but also in his intelligence, that he knows better than us what is best for us. So he knows better than us what is the best for us.
And yes, if we feel that this is a problem, and this is the solution to the problem, certainly you can pray. This is a big problem that is troubling me, please help me to solve this. And this is what I am going to do, please help this to work out.
But as it is said in the Bible, let thy will be done, not mine. So we surrender and we keep open to what God has in store for us. So if we trust Krishna’s intelligence also, not just his power, then what we’ll focus on is Prabhupada, the founder of ISKCON has asked, what is the best prayer that we can offer to Krishna? He said, pray to God, please give me the strength to serve you.
Whatever situation comes in my life, please give me the strength to serve you. If we have that attitude, then no matter what problems come in, we will find out, okay, I can do this, I can do that, I can do that, and we can move on. And sometimes when I say a child is hungry, and the child goes into a forest and sees, oh, there’s a mango tree over here, the child shakes the mango tree.
And no mangoes fall. The child prays, oh God, please let the mangoes fall. And he shakes.
And still no mangoes fall. A child is so caught in looking at the mango tree, that from the nearby apple tree, several apples have fallen down. But the child has not seen them only.
So like that, sometimes in our life, we shake a mango tree, but we become blind to the falling of apples. That means we want a solution to a particular problem. When we expect the solution on our terms, sometimes the solution comes.
The child’s basic problem was not wanting a mango. His basic problem was wanting food. So whether it’s a mango or apple, the hunger is satisfied, either way.
So when we are too caught in our expectations of what the problem is, and what the solution to the problem is, then when some other solution comes, we don’t stay open to it. And a solution comes, and a solution goes also, and we miss it out completely. But if we stay open, knowing that God is not only stronger than us, but He’s also wiser than us.
Okay, I just meant, God, Krishna, please give me the strength to serve you. Then the opportunity that He opens up, we will be open to detecting them and utilising them. And in due course, we’ll find out that what He has in store for us is actually better than what we have planned for ourselves.
And that way, by becoming more devotional, we can truly help ourselves. So when you say God helps those who help themselves, what does that mean? We help ourselves by connecting with God. By connecting with God, we’ll be able to endeavour better.
By connecting with God, we will be able to respond better to whatever comes in our life. And even when destiny deals us a raw deal, gives us a raw deal, at that time, we will be open for hidden opportunities in that. And we will tap those opportunities and move on.
And this capacity to connect with God, that is actually our inner power. We have various talents, we have various abilities. Some of us may have more talents, some of us may have less talents, but the most important power all of us have, and that power is to connect with God, to approach Him through devotion, to approach Him through prayer, to approach Him through meditation and connect ourselves with Him.
And if we tap this power, then that can enable us to transform our remaining life by endeavouring better and by responding to life’s ups and downs better. And as we can move onwards towards actualising our potentials, doing justice to our God-given talents and making substantial contributions in life. I’ll summarise.
So, I talked about how do we discover our inner power in the connection with the saying, God helps those who help themselves. So, a standard understanding of this saying is, don’t just depend on God, do your part also. In the story of the person who was drowning in a, who was caught in a flood area, the person expected God to help in some miraculous ways and neglected the boat and the helicopter.
So, God helps by giving us intelligence, by giving us abilities, by giving us opportunities. And we should see that also as God helping us. We should not neglect them and expect God’s help in miraculous ways.
That’s a valid understanding. But an invalid extrapolation of this is that if we do our work, then the result will come. We don’t have to do anything separately to connect with God.
And in that connection, we discuss that does our work alone produce result? We discussed there is our endeavour plus destiny plus time, which produces the result. We give the example of farming for that. The farmer has to plough and explore the land, sow the seed, and then the rains have to come, and then season, time has to go, then the harvest will come.
So, when we think that our endeavour alone produces the result, then we sentence ourselves to insecurity, inferiority, and negativity. Because if I am the, if I am responsible for my success, if I alone am responsible for my success, then I alone am responsible for my failure also. Then failure doesn’t remain an event, failure becomes a person.
We start taking life personally. And then by not recognising the role of destiny, we disempower ourselves. When we are going through a bad phase, we think that bad phase defines me, rather than that bad phase just being a phase in my life.
So, like a leech when it bites, at that time, if I just tolerate its sucking, it will loosen itself on its own. Like that the bad phase, if I just tolerate it, it will go away. But if I try to pull out the leech, it will pull out my skin.
So, like that, if I overreact during the bad phase, I can overreact externally by attacking others, verbally or physically, or I can overreact internally by beating myself up. Both ways we worsen the situation. So, by recognising the role of destiny, we can minimise the problems that we are facing in life.
We don’t have to aggravate them. So, we also discussed that even in sports, there is such a performance driven activity, but there also sports players have their own quirky superstitions. Because they recognise that there is something beyond my power, which also determines the results, and they try to appease it in their own ways.
And then we go to the other extreme, somebody may say that, okay, destiny only determines everything, and then it becomes fatalistic. But that destiny determines the consequences of our actions, not our actions themselves. We always have the capacity to choose.
And destiny, we should not use, nobody should use destiny as a justification for irresponsibility, a rationalisation for irresponsibility. Students have to study. And after studying, they may, if they don’t get the marks, that’s destiny.
But if they don’t study at all, that is not destiny, that is irresponsibility. And then we discussed about, so in this chain, there is endeavour, and there is destiny, and then there is result. So, in this light, how do we see the saying God helps those who help themselves? In this we discussed how our endeavour is often undermined or sabotaged by negative thought patterns within us.
Our time is taken by not just activity, but also by thoughts. So, if our thoughts become more regulated, more focused, then we can endeavour better. So, our actions produce reactions also in psychological terms.
Every time, say, alcoholic indulges, the urge to alcohol becomes stronger. So, by habitual acting in a particular way, our free will, our free will scope becomes minimised. So, when the free will scope is minimised, we cannot endeavour because we are distracted by all those forces.
But when we start practising bhakti yoga, when we connect with God, that is the way we help ourselves. How? By connecting with God, our consciousness rises upwards, and we experience higher fulfilment. And that higher fulfilment enables us to resist lower pleasures, just as when the light turns on in the room, I don’t need a candle or a torchlight.
So, like that, we can reject lower pleasures when we get higher pleasure. And for raising our consciousness upwards, for experiencing higher happiness, yoga is like a posture. The yogic postures are meant to be launching pads.
They are not ends in themselves. It’s like a batsman’s posture meant to hit the ball. So, bhakti yoga helps us to launch our consciousness upwards by the power of love.
That means when we learn to love God and serve Him lovingly, then the power of our emotions, it helps raise our consciousness upwards. And that’s why it very rapidly helps us connect with God. And that way, it helps us maximise our endeavour.
And in the other part of destiny, how does by connecting with God, we help ourselves? Now, God can change the destiny also. And purpose of destiny or the purpose of the law of karma, the purpose of any system of justice is not to punish people, it is to reform them. If they are reformed, the quantity of punishment can be decreased.
And similarly, God can minimise our karmic reactions also. But we don’t demand that. More important, we focus on trying to respond positively to whatever situations come in our life.
And so, when we turn towards God, at that time, if we demand His help in particular terms, then we are half trusting, trusting His power, but our intelligence. We fully trust Him, then we open ourselves to His plan. And we submit to Him.
We use our intelligence, but we submit to Him. Then if we stay open like that, trusting both His power and His wisdom, then even if a problem is coming, when the solution comes in some unexpected way, we’ll stay open to it. It’s like a child shaking a mango tree, child is also open.
An apple falls, then Jesus serves. So like that, if we stay open to God by being devoted to Him, when opportunities come amidst adverse destiny, we will stay open and we’ll tap the opportunities. In this way, God helps those who help themselves by connecting with God.
We help ourselves by connecting with God in devotion. That way we can maximise our endeavour and we can find the best opportunities even within whatever destiny hands us out. So, thank you very much.
Are there any questions or comments? Yes, please. You were talking about the shell of the bird and how the shell was necessary for the bird. You caught the one point I forgot in my summary.
Good. In my summary, I forgot to mention sometimes problems are needed for our growth. When we have problems or when others have problems, should we think that this is for their good and we should not help them? Like that person who helped the bird, he actually did not help the bird really.
So, what is the take? So, I gave the example of the person helping the bird come out of its shell and that help actually was a harm. So, does that mean when people are having problems, we should not help them? Should think these problems are there for their growth? See, every example that we give, it is like a rubber band. You know a rubber band? If I have an object which does not have an easy handle to carry, I put a rubber band around, rubber band gives a hold to it.
But now if I stretch the rubber band too much, it breaks. So, like that any example we take, if we stretch it too much, it will break. So, the point of this example is not whether the man should have helped the bird or not.
The point of this is that the bird needed to go through that to develop its wings. So, similarly, when others are facing difficulties, when we are facing difficulties and there does not seem to be any solution to difficulty, we should see that this difficulty is for my growth. But when others are facing a difficulty, we have to adopt that attitude which is in harmony with our duty.
That means, if we take a simple example for this, philosophy has to be applied in a way that enhances our consciousness. So, for example, if I have a sickness, although I have always followed a very healthy regimen of diet and exercise, still I get some sickness, then I say that, okay, this must be because of some past karma. But, you know, if somebody is sick, oh, they are sick, that means they must have done some very bad karma in the past.
So, let them suffer. No, that is completely insensitive attitude. So, actually, our spirituality is meant to enhance our humanity, not inhibit our humanity.
So, if somebody is suffering, then naturally, there is sensitivity, there is compassion, there is a desire to help. So, we should help others if we have the capacity to help. And we also use our intelligence in how best we can help.
Now, if somebody, you know, there’s one, there’s a drunkard who comes out of a bar with five bottles of alcohol to take home. And then he sees another beggar outside. Beggar also wants a bottle.
He gives a bottle in charity. This is my charity to you. Well, that is not really beneficial charity.
That is harmful. That can very well be harmful charity. So, we certainly, when we want to help others, we have to use our intelligence to see how we can best help.
That’s why, as far as possible, as devotees, we give help, which is not just material, but it’s holistic, material, psychological and spiritual. And that’s what the bhakti tradition offers. So, certainly, we should help people according to our capacity.
When others are in trouble, our focus should not be what is the cause of their trouble. Our focus should be what is my duty in this situation. So, if my duty is to help, then I should definitely help.
Did I answer your question? Yeah. I’m, you know, being married the rest of my life with small kids. All we’re trying to do is do some basic services and do some chanting.
In that situation, like, not sleepless nights, and work is tight. And it’s very hard to chant also, you know, sometimes with a quality chanting. So, all we’re doing is just a chanting, like there is no time for reading and all the things.
In that kind of situation, how do we enhance our spirituality? Because we have to, you say, we have to develop a loving relationship with Allah. So, in that case, it’s a matter of a duty we just pass our grounds and go on. So, how do we develop the faith and how do we get it, because this is not an excuse.
Yeah, I understand. I’m unable to do that, so I can keep that whole life. Okay.
Yeah. Suppose, as parents, we have small children, and taking care of them requires a lot of time, sometimes sleepless nights. That’s why we can’t do much spiritual activity.
And even the basic spiritual activity that we do, it often becomes just ritualistic, just getting it done. So, how can we enhance our spirituality at that time? See, we sometimes have this fragmented vision that this is spiritual, this is material. And that is good at one level, so that we give due time to spiritual activities.
That means we give due time for our meditation, for our scriptural study, for our association with devotees. So, we can separate the material and the spiritual, so that we give some good time for the spiritual directly. But after that, we need to integrate the two and see that our whole life can be spiritualised.
So, if our family responsibilities are there, now there are also ways in which we can serve. Say, if we’re taking care of our children, those children are sent by God into our life, and by taking care of them, we are doing our duty to God. So, see, there are three levels of functioning.
There is paradharma, which is, we could say, spiritual duty. There is aparadharma, which is material duty. And there is adharma, which is irresponsibility.
Person doesn’t do anything at all. So, now, the Bhagavatam is spoken to people who are already very good at aparadharma, at material responsibility. So, taking care of one’s family, taking care of one’s children, it is assumed that people are doing that.
And then, the Bhagavatam tells them, don’t think that this alone is enough. So, if somebody thinks my aparadharma, my material responsibility is all that I need to do, and by that, I’m already automatically devoted to God, the Bhagavatam says, no. You also have to have time for devotion to God.
So, from the perspective of rising people from aparadharma to paradharma, from material duty to spiritual duty, the Bhagavatam often strongly speaks against material duty, in the sense that it says, you know, what is the use of it all? It’s all temporary. Ultimately, you’re getting attached, you’re getting entangled. So, but it is from that perspective of raising people from material duty to spiritual duty.
It is not from the perspective of rejecting or minimising material duty itself. Material duties are also important. There are, you know, as compared to irresponsibility and material responsibility, material responsibility is far, far better than material responsibility.
So, sometimes what happens, we divide things into material and spiritual, but within spirit, within material, there’s a huge range. There can be material responsibility, there can be material responsibility, and it makes a big difference in other people’s lives, in our own lives also, how we act materially. So, the aparadharma is also dharma.
The material responsibility is also a way we are connecting with God. That is not the only way we connect with God. We need a more direct way to connect with God also.
But this is also a way we connect with God. And that’s why we should see our material responsibility also as sacred. Now, the problem comes when we see only them as sacred and we think I don’t need anything else.
Then it is a problem. But we think only the spiritual responsibility is sacred and we don’t think of the material responsibilities at all as important. Then that is wrong.
You know, in the early days of our movement, devotees had the idea that we should distribute books. Prabhupada will be pleased if we distribute books. And you distribute books and then there were devotees, householders who also live in the temple.
And the mothers who had small babies, they were told that you just go out and distribute books. Others will take care of your babies. At one time, one devotee, lady, she wrote to Prabhupada, she said that, you know, I should heal my small baby and go out and distribute books.
Prabhupada said, who told you that? You know, your children are the special souls sent by Krishna. They are Vaikuntha children. I’m surprised that you are ready to give this up and go out and distribute books.
You should take care of your children. So it’s not just women taking care of children. Prabhupada has given a general principle that our material responsibility is also important.
So from the perspective of getting consumed by material responsibility, neglecting spiritual responsibility, that should not happen. But we should not reject the material responsibility as mundane. It is also a way in which we can serve God.
To look at it from another perspective, the spiritual growth is essentially a growth in selflessness. The more selfless I become, the more I grow spiritually. And actually, every relationship offers us an opportunity to become selfless.
Any relationship that I form, you know, if a man and a woman come together in marriage, then before the marriage, they can just do whatever they want. But then they also have to think about their spouse. And that brings some level of selflessness.
When parents have children, that makes them more selfless. So in the sense of expanding the scope of our selflessness, our material responsibilities and spiritual responsibility, they are like a continuum. The same culture of responsibility that I have in material life, I can take it further in my spiritual life.
So if we see our as children who are given to us by God, and by taking care of them also, then we don’t have to say that actually I’m not doing bhakti. So we do need some time. But in our life, there will always be phases.
And in some phases in our life, sometimes our material responsibility may take much more time. That’s fine. Later on, as the children grow up, they don’t need so much time, then we can focus on bhakti more.
And if we can make some arrangements by which we can make due time, maybe have some other relatives or daycare people or whatever is required for helping and we get time for bhakti, that’s also fine. But the important thing is we don’t have this, when we are doing our duties, we should not be half-hearted. If I’m doing my job, if I’m doing my housework, I shouldn’t be thinking, oh, this is material, why am I doing it? If I’m doing it, let me be wholehearted in it.
See, Arjuna, when he was practising his archery, they were not thinking this archery is just mundane. And he did not know at that time, eventually there’s going to be a dharma yuddha in which I am going to use my archery skills for Krishna’s sake. He’s a kshatriya, and as a martial guardian of society, he excelled in his archery.
And eventually Krishna provided an avenue for him to use his archery skills. And we saw how diligent he was. At night, he would learn in the daytime.
And at night also he would keep practising, keep practising, trying to hit targets even if he was not able to see them. So that is also an aspect of Arjuna. Sometimes we don’t focus on that.
So Arjuna was diligent even with material responsibilities. And that material expertise helped him eventually in his bhakti. So we need to have an integrated vision of our life that once our purpose is Krishna, then everything can be spiritualised.
And there are phases when the material responsibility may take more time. That is fine. And later on, we need to also give time for Krishna.
We need more time for Krishna. Does that answer your question? Thank you. Any other questions or comments? He has a list of questions.
I have a list of questions. These questions may not be related to the same topic today. But however, there is one point.
If you take any religion, there are so many religions in the world. Some are man-created. Some are God-human.
And then everybody, whoever religion they follow, they think they are best. One thing that is right. So if you take any religion, Hinduism, Islam, Zoroastrianism, they have certain principles, certain religious practises supported by their philosophy.
When they do that, they really think this is the best. I mean, this has to be the number one. There is nothing else.
So they think that is one of the best. But everything is the opposite. Like, you know, it’s very common people try to connect the dots.
Hey, I have something in this religion. I have something in this religion. I think both are right.
No, both are right, but that is wrong. There are so many things. But you know why? And also, that philosophy has to justify.
Sometimes the justification may not be the philosophy. Sometimes they have their own concoction. So now, when you see that, how do you address that? How do you understand? So every religion has its own conception of how it is the best.
And then they also have their own philosophy, justification of how they are the best. And this can, this often leads to conflict. So how do we understand why every religion has this idea that they are the best? You see, within every tradition, every religion, there are exclusive statements.
This is the best way. This is the only way. And there are plural statements.
Other people want to follow their path, let them follow their paths. There are statements like that also. Now, it depends on the leaders of that tradition, which they emphasise.
Now, in one sense, why are the exclusive statements present? They are present to create focus. Just like a patient has gone to many doctors and has taken the diagnosis from here, diagnosis from there, diagnosis from there, and has actually not applied, taken any prescription. Finally, that patient comes to a doctor.
A doctor says, okay, this is your diagnosis. And this is your prescription. No, no, but I went to this doctor and he said that.
I went to that doctor and she said that. And I went there and the doctor will say, just forget it all. Just forget all that you heard.
Just do what I’m telling you. You’ll be cured. Now, this statement, just forget everything, just do what I’m telling you.
This is not meant to be a rejection of all other doctors. It is just meant as an emphasis for the patient to take that treatment. So, when this context is forgotten, and you say that this doctor said forget all other doctors, that might seem like an exclusive statement.
But similarly, when people come to any path, at that time to get them to focus on that path, this kind of statements are always there in every tradition. So, their purpose is not to convey an absolute universal truth. Their purpose is to create focus among the practitioners.
Now, if the leaders of the tradition, they emphasise on this statement as absolute truth, then that tradition often becomes supremacist, trying to say that we are the best, we are supreme, or they become intolerant, they become fanatical. And this danger is there in all traditions. That’s why in the leaders of the tradition, it is important for them to convey the statements according to their context.
Now, that way, if we see this kind of superiority, it does not require religion for that. Now, we can see regions, we come from India, and there are people of each state, they think we are the best people. You know, there are people of races, even among, there are people who think our Hitler Nazis, they thought we are the best race.
So, this human ego that is there, that wants to prove itself to be superior, to be the best. And the purpose of spirituality is to transcend the ego. But unfortunately, sometimes the ego misappropriates the spiritual path.
And instead of going beyond the ego, we end up perpetuating the ego. So, I have to understand that actually, I am not a Hindu, I’m not a Muslim, I’m not a Christian. I am actually a soul, and I am a spiritual being and I have a connection with God.
So, I have to, I have to gain that realisation. That’s how I transcend the ego. But instead, what happens is, just as the ego wants to claim superiority by maybe getting more wealth, getting more power, getting more position, or claiming my country to be the best, my race to be the best.
Similarly, the ego also wants to claim superiority by claiming that my religion is the best. And when that happens, then actually religion gets hijacked by the ego. And when religion is hijacked by the ego, it can actually become very dangerous.
And much of the violence that happens in the name of religion, that is because the religion has been hijacked by the ego. Where the religion is no longer a spiritual search for the truth. But it has become a material search for power, a political search for territory, or social search for wealth or economic search for wealth or whatever it is.
So, the ego can misappropriate the traditions teachings for its own purposes. And that’s why we have to be very alert. In our practises, that we remind, remember that we want to go beyond.
When Prabhupada was in Iran, he had sent some devotees to Iran to share Krishna Bhakti there. And at that time, he was talking with them and in the background, suddenly, they started hearing the prayers of Namaz. And Prabhupada folded his hands and closed his eyes and he became absorbed in those prayers.
And then after Prabhupada opened his eyes, his eyes were bright. It was a big jubilee and he said, wasn’t that beautiful? Now, these young devotees, they thought, oh, we are going to deliver the whole world. So, one of the devotees asked Prabhupada, Prabhupada, wouldn’t it be better if they chanted Hare Krishna instead of Allah o Akbar? So, Prabhupada looked pained and he said, why are you making me sectarian? Since we are worshipping God in our way and they are worshipping God in their way.
So, you know, there has to be that broad-mindedness. And if it is not there, then that means the ego has hijacked the religion. So, this can happen and we can’t blame any particular religion.
All of us, we also have that tendency. So, for inspiring commitment to our path, it is important that we have faith in the potency of our path. So, it is, it is at a level, for creating focus, the statements of exclusive, exclusive sounding statements, supremist sounding statements, they can be seen as impetuses for creating focus.
But if they are seen as absolute truths, then they become tools for the ego to hijack our spiritual growth. And then we end up perpetuating the ego instead of transcending the ego. Does it answer your question? Yeah, the Bhagavatam offers a non-sectarian criteria.
That religion is the best which helps us develop love of God. It doesn’t say this religion or that religion. So, in similar lines, you say that Hare Krishna, Mahamantra is the best mantra to chant in the Bhagavatam.
But there are too many other religions, they will not be chanting Hare Krishna. What is their destination at the end of their life itself? The destination of other religions who are strictly following their religion is same as Vaishnavas who are chanting Hare Krishna. Okay.
So, you say Hare Krishna, Mahamantra is the yoga dharma for this age. What about other religious traditions who may chant other mantras or other prayers? Do they get the same destination as devotees get by chanting Hare Krishna? See, Hare Krishna or chanting Hare Krishna, in that there is a principle and there is a practise. The principle is to chant the names of God, to connect with God through sound.
The Hare Krishna, Mahamantra is a practise. There can be other mantras also. There can be Om Namo Narayanaya.
There can be Shri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram. There can be many mantras. And they also connect people with God and they also help people to get elevated.
So, when we say the Hare Krishna, Mahamantra is the recommended dharma, there is a practise over there. Okay, this mantra is there. But there is a principle also.
Principle is connecting with God through the sound of His holy names. So, that principle is also potent. The principle is also important.
And so, if people are accessing spirituality through the names of God in their own language, their own culture, Bhaktanath Thakur in his book Chaitanya Shikshamrita states that the same truth is revealed at different place according to language, according to culture, according to psychology of people. There are so many factors which determine how the same one truth is presented. So, people may chant names of God according to their tradition, their language, and they can also be elevated.
And as far as whether they can attain Krishna or not, you know, we have to know that there is no guarantee that we ourselves will attain Krishna. Just because we are chanting Krishna’s names. Certainly, we will be elevated.
Certainly, our chanting of the holy names will elevate us. But attaining Krishna is not just a matter of change of location. It is a change of disposition.
It’s like say some, say some Indians come to America, and they think, oh, if I just stay in America long enough, I get American citizenship. And then I become American citizen. So, you know, somehow I get this job, I do this, I pull this string and I get a green card, then I become a citizen.
So, it’s not like that somehow, you know, we pass some bureaucratic loopholes and then we are in the spiritual world. It’s not like that. So, attaining Krishna’s abode is not so much a change of location, it is a change of disposition.
Even if somehow we attain Krishna’s abode, but if we have not developed love for Krishna, we will be bored in the spiritual world. Everybody is talking about Krishna, I want to watch TV. You know, for a person who is materialistic, the spiritual world, if you tell them no TV over there, that will seem like hell for them.
So, actually, chanting Hare Krishna is a very efficacious means for developing love for Krishna. And the criteria for going to Krishna is not just chanting Hare Krishna. It is chanting Hare Krishna and developing love for Krishna.
So, when we develop love for Krishna, we will attain Krishna. If people in other traditions develop love for Krishna, they will also attain Krishna. Love for God, as they have understood in their tradition, they will also attain God.
So, Srila Prabhupada was once on a TV show, a left screen show with a Christian feature. And that feature was asked, you know, so do you believe that these people who follow Bhagavad Gita, I could pronounce it also, they will also attain God? He said, he didn’t answer that question. So, what do you believe? He said, you know, the path to God is very narrow.
The path to God is very narrow. So, what do you mean? Will they attain or they’ll not attain? No, Jesus is the only way. He said that.
And he turned to Prabhupada. So, will those who follow the Bible, they’ll attain God? Prabhupada said, yes. Anybody who follows the path given by God, they’ll be elevated.
If they develop love for God, they will attain God. So, Bhakti is not sectarian. It is, when we say the Hare Krishna Maha Mantra is the only way, at one level, we are talking about the practise.
But at another level, we are talking about the principle. And the principle is connecting with God through devotion. So, if people develop love for God by practising their particular path, then they can get elevated.
See, another example to illustrate this is, see there are two universities. Two universities. One university has maybe very good teachers, very good facility, very good library, very good culture of studies.
And another student who, another university, which doesn’t have such good facilities, such good teachers, such good library. But if there’s an industrial student in the second university, and there’s a complacent student in the first university. The industrial student in the second university, despite having lesser facilities, may actually learn more and grow more.
And the complacent student in the university with better facilities may also not learn that much because of the complacency. So, like that, even if for argument’s sake, we say that, okay, in the Bhakti tradition, as we get it from Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, there is more mercy available, there is more facilities for spiritual growth. But the facilities have to be utilised.
So, if we just become self-righteous thinking, oh, I am chanting Hare Krishna, and we become complacent, we may not grow spiritually. On the other hand, somebody, maybe in another tradition, where there are not so many support systems available. But if they are diligently practising, they may grow more than us.
So, we have to be, in that sense, broad-minded. Bhaktivinoda Thakur says in a famous section in Chaitanya Shiksha Amrit, he says that if I go, if we go to a place where God is worshipped in a way different from what we see, now, what should we do at that place? We should be in a prayerful mood over there, thinking the same God whom I worship has manifested himself in a different way. Although I cannot understand exactly how God has manifested, but seeing him manifested thus, you know, my appreciation of his mercifulness is increasing.
And I feel more inspired to devote myself to him in the form that I am familiar with. So, for example, you know, if we are travelling and we see some Muslims offering namaz at fixed times, sometimes, you know, we forget to chant the Gayatri mantras, but they are timely and doing the namaz. So, rather than saying, oh, they are following some other path, I am following some other path, because along that path, they are so diligent.
If we see Christians, you know, they give often, they often give, I think, they do very diligently or they go to church every Sunday or whatever. We see their practises, we appreciate their practises and we try to learn from them. So, that way, we don’t have to see different religions as competitive.
It’s not that, at the material vision, there might be competition. But spiritually, it’s actually, it is one God who is trying to elevate different people through different paths. So, if somebody is, if God’s potency is manifesting in attracting people through one particular manifestation, we can become more inspired that, that same God is manifesting here for me, let me become more attractive and devoted to him.
Does that answer your question? Okay, do we have time? Sometimes, you know, in different religions, like the practises are, I mean, they are all worshipping God. But, for instance, in India, there is great controversy about cow killing. Now, which is perfectly bona fide in some religions, because they think this is, but according to Vaishnava understanding, it is the grossest kind of sin.
So, there is a conflict about such principles. So, what do you think? Okay. So, say, in some, yeah, in some traditions, say, for example, in the Vaishnava tradition, cows are considered sacred.
Whereas in, say, in some other religions, you know, cows are commonly killed. And sometimes killing of animals is considered sacred also. It is a part of some certain celebrations.
There are conflicts like this. So, how do we resolve this? So, actually, there are, in every religion, there are, there is an esoteric aspect and there is an exoteric aspect. Esoteric is internal, exoteric is external.
And in the exoteric aspect, there will always, there will be differences. Just like, say, if we are driving. Now, in India, we have to drive from a particular side.
When we are driving in America, we drive from a different side. So, even now, whenever I go to a car, I always go towards the wrong side. I go towards the driver’s side, because that is the other side in India.
So, now, these are details. The principle is, whether we are driving on the right side or the left side, the principle is, we want to have orderly movement of traffic on the roads. So, whether, which side a person is driving, that is a detail.
The principle is, we want to have orderly movement. So, somebody can see the difference and say, oh, these two are opposite. Here is going on left, here is going on right.
But that’s fine. The purpose is to have orderly movement. So, the esoteric aspect, the exoteric aspects, even in this world, can be different while having the same common internal purpose or common purpose.
So, sometimes, in some schools, say, a particular way of teaching may be more emphasised. So, interactive learning may be more emphasised. In other schools, maybe didactic learning is more emphasised.
So, now, the purpose is the same to teach the student. So, the methods can be different. So, like that, in different religions, there are esoteric aspects and there are exoteric aspects.
So, the esoteric aspects remain the same, the exoteric are different. With respect to the specific practise of, say, cow protection or cow killing, see, in the Bhakti tradition, there is a revelation of God in a particular manifestation. So, there is a revelation of God as Krishna and Krishna is Gopal.
So, there is a whole cultural context in which the sanctity of cows is emphasised. So, naturally, therefore, cow protection is given great emphasis. Now, in other religious traditions, that cultural context may not be there.
And even if we look at the Quran, if we consider, say, the Quran, first of all, we have to look at the context. It is spoken at a place which is largely a desert. And in a desert, grains are often not available.
So, eating flesh, eating non-veg, that is necessary for existence in many places, especially in those times. So, even within the Quran also, there are many Muslims, not many in terms of majority, but many in terms of a significant number, many Muslims also who are vegetarians. And there is a vegetarianism in Islam, it’s a whole book.
I think I have a copy of the book also. But the point is, there are Muslim scholars who have clearly stated that meat eating is not essential for Islam. Firstly, it is not essential for Islam.
And secondly, it is also that there are sections in the Quran where Muhammad seems to say that if you have an option, settle in places where you can get grains, where you can have stable agriculture and subsist on grains. It’s not a mandate. It’s a recommendation, not something that you have to do.
But if you can do that, it’s good. So, we have to see that that message was revealed in a particular context. Now, as far as killing of animals is concerned, there is Bakri, there are other occasions where animals are killed.
Now, if you see originally, how it is described in that tradition, they actually, they have to cut the animal and cut the animal in a painless way, in a particular way, cut a particular slit or cut a particular vein of the animal, the animal dies quickly. And only when the animal is killed in that way, is that meat considered to be halal. Halal means that which is eatable.
Otherwise, even that meat is considered to be haram. So, in that sense, when animals are slaughtered in slaughterhouses, and then their flesh is brought, that is actually even from the Islamic point of view, haram. That is not the kind of animals killing that is recommended in the Quran.
And over the centuries, there has been a lot of politicalization also. So, for example, in India, there is a lot of communal tension between Hindus and Muslims. And it is, although there has always been some history of conflict.
But, oh, I think it was especially in the British period, that this conflict was used to weaken both, that is highlighted. So, for example, now many Muslims in India believe that killing goats or killing animals is a part of our sacred duty. And it’s, you know, we have to, this is a part of our religious rituals.
And we have to kill a goat or kill certain animals. And sometimes they do it for cows also. But if that is their sacred duty, why is that not being done in Indonesia, Malaysia, there are countries that the cattle is not there only so much.
Almost everybody is Muslim. And if every Muslim had to kill a goat, you know, they would have to have as many goats as there are Muslims. They don’t have that many goats.
In the Middle East itself, is it that in the Middle East, is it that all Muslims actually perform Bakri, where they all kill animals like that? They don’t, specifically in the way that is done. So, the popularisation of this festival in India was often done by politically motivated forces to aggravate the tension between Hindus and Muslims. So, you see, people’s irrational emotions, few things trigger them as much as the propaganda that your religion is under threat.
As soon as religion is under threat, people just become irrational. Whatever it takes, you do that. Unfortunately, when it comes to cow protection, that can also be made into an irrationally, irrationally sentimentally charged cause.
When that happens, then people can become fanatical. So, what is called cow vigilantism in India that has happened where some people are attacking others and even killing others in the name of cow protection. This is not the Vedic tradition.
See, the Vedic tradition is primarily a tradition of education. To educate people about the importance of cow protection. They may not see it in terms of spiritually, but even from economic perspective, cows are very valuable resources.
So, instead of education, a force is done. Now, there is also some investigation that has revealed that actually it was not even Hindus, it is not serious Hindu practitioners who actually killed those, attacked those people who were dealing with cows. It was just some antisocial elements who hijacked the cause.
So, in any cause, the leaders of that cause have to be very careful about what is their emphasis. So, cow protection is important for us to follow the Vedic tradition. And if you look at the broad principle in other traditions also, there is the understanding that we should minimise violence.
We should live in harmony with nature. But the extent of emphasis may be less or more depending on the context in which that particular tradition is being practised. And if the conflicting aspects of those traditions have been highlighted, that is often because of factors other than those that are inherent to the religion.
There are other political factors, social factors that cause the highlight of the conflicts. There will be differences, but we can have differences without differences are degenerating into divisiveness. The Bhagavad Gita offers us three modes of material nature.
There are different people in different modes and they will be elevated differently. So, if we have an inclusive understanding, we can have diversity without divisiveness. There can be diversity, different people practise different things, but there cannot be divisiveness.
That happens when we see the overall purpose and we focus on the esoteric aspects, not the exoteric. So, people who are practising their religions, traditions, they can be elevated from where they are to one step higher, to one step higher. And if religion becomes a tool for other things, for political power or other things like that, then the conflicts become aggravated.
Is the answer your question? I was also saying that Bhagavatam, Parikshit Maharaj is ready to kill that man who is trying to… Okay, last question now. I will stop with this. So, in the Bhagavatam it is said that Parikshit Maharaj was ready to kill the person, Kali personified, who was attacking a cow.
So, should we also do something like that? I am not saying that. Okay. So, okay.
So, let us see. In general, there are different situations and they call for different kinds of action. If we see, when Krishna came, the Lord came as Krishna and he came as a Kshatriya and his devotees also came as Kshatriyas and they fought the cause of dharma, you know, and they established.
But that same Lord, when he came in Kanyuga, he came as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, he came as a Brahmana. And most of the devotees are also Brahmanas. And Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did not fight Maharashtrian war.
He actually shared the process of bhakti. And that is how we recommended the elevation. That is how we help people to get elevated.
So, according to time, so that means even the Lord demonstrates, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu when he comes as a Brahmana, he does not take up weapons and start fighting. The Lord also demonstrates that according to one’s position, one should do one’s part in establishing dharma. So, as a Kshatriya when he comes, he does Kshatriya activity.
When he comes as a Brahmana, he does Brahmana activity, that is sharing spiritual knowledge. So, Srila Prabhupada said that he established ISKCON primarily for establishing a Brahminical culture. So, our purpose should be on promoting education.
See, there are only two verses that are repeated in the Bhagavad Gita. One is manmana bhava mad-bhakto, and the other is shreyansva dharmo vimuna para dharmah sunshritah. Because you act according to your dharma.
So, you know, we are primarily a Brahminical society. So, we are meant to share spiritual knowledge with others. I will focus on that.
And by that, the change of consciousness will be gradual, but it will happen. And that is a sustainable way we can do it in our situation. Thank you very much, Srila Prabhupada.