Happiness is found not in sensation but in absorption

[Sunday feast class at ISKCON, Chowpatty, Mumbai]

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna.
I welcome all of you to this Sunday Feast programme today. And I’ll speak today on Bhagavad Gita 5.21 and 5.22. And the topic is Happiness is found not in sensation but in absorption. Happiness is found not in sensation, things that make us feel good, that give us good sensations, but in absorption.
So, 5.21 Bhagavad Gita says, Bhagavad Gita. Bhagavad Gita. The wise person, external touches, external sensations, Bhagavad Gita.
That person does not get attached, stays detached from it. And what does the person do? The person is simply passive. Looks for happiness within.
Blights. Such a Atma is Brahma Yoga. It’s connected by Yoga with Brahma.
This is the spiritual reality. Experience is Sukha, that is Akshaya. That is inexhaustible.
That never ends. And why should such a person be Why is that person, Asaktatma, detached from outer sensations? That’s explained in 5.22. Cause samsparshajabhoga. The same word sparsha came in 21 and 22 also.
Krishna is saying that happiness that comes by sensations, that is temporary. It has a beginning, it has an end. And it leads to misery.
Therefore, the wise person does not engage in it. So, basically these two verses are saying that we want happiness. It’s not that we are meant to be denied of happiness.
But don’t look for happiness through external sensations. Asaktatma. Look inside, become absorbed internally.
And in that absorption, we’ll find happiness. So, I’ll talk about this theme in three parts. Recognise.
Recognise the nature of the world. Refocus our energy. And realise our nature.
So, recognise, refocus and realise. So, let’s start with first, recognise. In today’s world, happiness is almost entirely equated with sensations.
Whatever makes us feel good, this is what I’ll do, this is what will give me happiness. And the evidence for this is seen perhaps more than anywhere else in the world. Here in Mumbai itself.
Bollywood is the world’s biggest film industry. And in today, among all the professionals in the world, the people who are paid the most are entertainers. The more than doctors who may save life, more than any other kind of professionals who make any kind of contribution, entertainers are paid enormously.
Now, what a society values reflects its values. That means, if a society is ready to pay a huge amount of money for entertainment, that means it considers entertainment to be so important. Consider entertainment to be such a great need that exorbitant amount of money is ready to be shelled for it.
Now, entertainment has always been a part of human culture, human society. But the obsession with entertainment that is there in today’s world is unparalleled. And if we look at it, what does entertainment offer us? It offers us some good feelings, some sensations.
We watch a movie, we may see some hero beating up the villain, we may see the heroine enjoying, we may see some good ending. It gives us some sensations. Now, we equate life so much with sensations that even horror movies are a big hit.
Why? Because some stimulation is there. It is unpleasant, it is scary, but some stimulation is there. So, stimulation at the sensory level is considered to be the source of pleasure.
But if sensations were the source of pleasure, if that is what happiness would be all about, then we can say, people who drink alcohol or who take drugs, now both these things, when people do it, it makes them feel good. It makes them feel high. The people who do this should be the happiest people in the world.
But are they? They feel high for some time, but after that, they go down and not just to the normal level, further down. And they are actually very distressed people. They become addicts.
And if they want to recover, it’s a terrible struggle for them to recover. If they want to indulge more and more, then they become more and more perverse because of their addiction. They go into criminality to somehow support their addiction.
They lose their morality. They may even become bestial, doing unconscionable things to pander to their desires. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says how if we get excessively attached to desires, that attachment to desires strips away our morality, our sense of right and wrong.
In 16.12, Krishna says that when we become bound by desires, we become bound by desires, then we become driven by, we become dedicated to fulfilling of the desire or to the anger and frustration that comes when the desire is not fulfilled. Kama and Krodha. And then, in order to fulfil those desires, what happens? With great injustice, atrocity one does.
I was a few months ago in America. I was at a university and there was a boy who was just becoming a devotee now. He’s become a devotee.
So he told me that when he was around 18, his grandmother passed away and his grandmother gave a big inheritance. Now this grandmother and his mother, means the daughter did not get along well. So she did not give inheritance to her daughter.
She gave it to her grandson. And at this age of 18, he became legally qualified to inherit. And that was the time he got into drugs.
Just exploring drugs. And he got almost a million dollars. And within 17 months, he spent the whole million dollars.
And he ended up in a de-addiction centre. So it is terrible. The way he got the wealth, so that wealth became a thing which aggravated his addiction.
Without that money, he would not have been able to indulge so much. So, when we look for sensations as sources of pleasure, the result is that we end up with frustration. The sensations never last.
And then we want more sensations. Maybe if you’re watching movies, then more violence, more sex, more, more, everything more. But the sensations, they are superficial.
To seek pleasure only through sensations, that is very superficial. It was, you know, when neighbours or relatives come to a person’s house, and then the person has some child at their home, the relatives may just have some fun, tickle the child. Now, when the child is tickled, when the child is tickled, the child may laugh.
Now, if the child laughs, is that laughter happiness? If the laughter from tickling were happiness, then all of us could get our own personalised perpetual tickling machines. And those tickling machines, we could be happy. But, unfortunately, most of technology nowadays is technology.
It offers us tickling. Whether it is through our phones, we suddenly get some update, we see some photo, we read some news, we watch some video, it’s all giving us some tickling sensation. And it stimulates.
But the technology, it just tickles. It doesn’t satisfy. And that’s why we want more and more and more.
So, we are talking right now about recognising. In recognising the nature of the world, I’ll talk about three things. First is, sensations don’t lead to pleasure.
They promise pleasure, but they lead to frustration. If we keep doing what we like, we end up disliking ourselves. If we keep doing what we like, because it’s taken from very simple things.
If a child in childhood keeps playing, if the person grows up also, just keeps playing video games, keeps fooling around. Now, they may claim I’m enjoying, but as they grow up, they start feeling, what am I doing with my life? I’m wasting my life fooling around. So, if we just keep doing what we like, we lose our self-esteem, we lose our self-respect.
What am I doing? If we keep simply eating whatever we like, we will end up becoming very obese. And then we will end up disliking ourselves. I’m so full.
If we keep doing whatever we like, that means we keep pursuing our sensations, not only will we not get happiness, but we will end up disliking ourselves. This disliking oneself, is such a serious problem in today’s world, that 1 out of every 10 people, throughout the course of their life, will go through serious depression. Serious depression is not just some feeling bad, but they may need some clinical treatment.
And 1 out of every 5 people, will contemplate suicide. If you consider only America and Europe, 1 out of every 2 people, will contemplate suicide. And in the western world, 1 out of every 10 person, actually attempts suicide, during the course of their life.
So, all this is indicating that, we are profoundly unhappy. So, on one side, the world tells us, through all the technology around us, so much sensations are promised to us. So much sensations allure us.
But the result is, that we are not getting satisfaction, we are only getting dissatisfaction, frustration. So, one side is, in the recognise part, I’m going to talk about recognise the nature of the world. One part is that our mind, is fuelled with the expectation, that sensation will lead to satisfaction.
And it doesn’t lead to satisfaction, we end up thinking that something is wrong with me. Everybody is saying this will lead to happiness, but I’m not getting happy. Maybe I need to do something different.
But, it just keeps leading to frustration. Now, the Bhagavatam says, that quite often, in Prahlada Maharaj’s 7th Canto says, दुख्खऊशधम् तदपि दुख्खमतद्धियाहम् भुमान् ब्रह्मामिवदमे तवधास्योगम् He says, यस्मात् प्रिया प्रियवियोग सय्योग जन्मः शोकाग्धिनासकलयोणिष्दुहियमानः दुख्खऊशधम् तदपि दुख्खमतद्धियाहम् भुमान् ब्रह्मामिवदमे तवधास्योगम् So he says, यस्मात् प्रिया प्रियवियोग सय्योग जन्मः जन्मः, our whole life, what does it go in? प्रिय, there is something which we like, which gives us good feelings, good sensations. And with that प्रिय, we want सय्योग, we want to get what we like.
And that which is अप्प्रिय, that, we want वियोग for that, we want to avoid that. But unfortunately what happens is, we get the opposite. The अप्प्रिय, there is सय्योग with that.
That which we don’t want, it happens to us. And that which we want, we don’t get it. So यस्मात् प्रिया प्रियवियोग सय्योग जन्मः Because of this, the whole जन्मः, in getting frustrated because we are not getting the pleasurable, and we are not able to avoid the unpleasurable, the result is शोकागनिना, शोकागनिना.
We are burning in the fire of lamentation. सकल्योणिषुदहियमानः All living beings are burning. And then we human beings, we try to rectify this.
But the attempts we use to rectify this, दुक्षदम्, the medicine that we seek for it, तद अपिदुखम्, that leads to greater misery. We consider, throughout history, there have been problems for people always. But the sheer level of mental problems that people are facing, depression, anxiety disorders, stress, this is unprecedented in world history.
So, we have made tremendous progress, in terms of technology, in terms of comforts that we have. But these have not translated into happiness. We have enormous level of comforts as compared to the past.
In fact, in many ways, ordinary middle class people of today have more comforts than what kings had in the past. Now, even middle class, upper middle class people can have air condition in their house. In the past, king would have to have somebody to fan them.
We can say at a physical level, we have more comforts than what we may have had in the past. But, unfortunately, we are comfortable, but we are comfortably miserable. The body is comfortable, but the mind is miserable.
The mind is miserable, because the mind is driven by false expectations. The expectation that sensations will lead to pleasure, that getting better and better sensations is the goal of life, that expectation itself leads to frustration. So, to the extent we recognise, that at one level, desire which we have, that causes frustration.
The desire that we should get good sensations, more and more sensations. Even when people come to spirituality, most people equate spiritual with anything that makes them feel good. Oh, I went to this mountain top.
I felt so good. Such a spiritual place. Well, okay.
What do you mean by spiritual? Oh, it made me feel so good. So, feel good is considered to be equal to spiritual. However, yes, spirituality will ultimately make us feel good.
But, just feeling good is not spiritual. That way, tomorrow somebody may say, I take alcohol, it makes me feel so good. It’s spiritual.
We may limit that. Simply, feel good is what we call as spiritual. But, there may be a difference.
Somebody may say, oh, I go to mountain top, I feel good. Yes, that’s good, because you are going to nature and feeling good over there. That is, in the mode of goodness.
So, there are three modes of material nature. Satvaguna, Rajoguna and Tamoguna. And, in these three modes, we get different kinds of sensations.
And, those different sensations make us feel good in different ways. In the mode of ignorance, we go into an imaginary world. And, there we try to feel good.
So, there are some kids who just spend their whole day and whole night just playing video games and looking at movies. And, they don’t come out of their room also. They live in that world.
They are not doing anything at all. So, they are trying to feel good in an imaginary world. That is, in the mode of ignorance.
So, we are seeking good sensations in an imaginary world. In the mode of passion, Rajoguna, we seek good sensations in the physical world. We want the most best food to eat, the best houses to live in, the most attractive people to be with.
We want everything very attractive around us by which we feel so good. So, this is the standard of progress in western civilisation. Srila Prabhupada writes in the 14th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, Parpot, that in the past, progress was considered in terms of elevation in the mode of goodness.
Now, progress is considered in terms of mode of passion. That means, the more physical level comforts are there, we feel good. Then, in the mode of goodness, it’s more evolved.
So, it’s not just gross physical sensations. It’s deeper. Go close to nature.
I do some deep breathing. I read some nice book. I hear some music.
And, that makes me feel good. Now, definitely, the mode of goodness is better than the mode of passion. The mode of passion, we can say, is better than the mode of ignorance.
So, seeking good sensations by going to nature, by hearing some soothing music, all this is good. But, at the same time, even that is external to us. So, the nature of the world is that sensations soon lose charm.
If we go to a hill station, it’s so beautiful. But, there are people who live in the hill station. And, they don’t feel that it’s so beautiful.
They see it every day. So, what happens is, the beauty of that, it is there. But, there is a law of diminishing returns.
With respect to any pleasure coming from sensations, there is a law of diminishing returns. So, what gives a lot of pleasure initially? Eventually, the pleasure starts going down, down, down. So, then, if this is the nature, that actually, we cannot get pleasure at the level of sensation.
Then, where do we get the pleasure? So, as I said, the more we seek pleasure at the level of sensation, the more it causes frustration. So, when we recognise this, what do we do after that? We understand that we naturally need pleasure. So, we need to redirect.
Redirect means, or refocus. That means, our endeavour, if it is to just get more and more sensations. Then, we will just be dependent on externals which may or may not come.
And, even if they come, whatever sensation they will give, it will be less and less gradual. So, rather than sensation, if we look back at our own life, the most meaningful, the most joyful, the most cherished moments of our life are the moments when we are absorbed. And, not just absorbed in anything.
Somebody may say, I can be absorbed in sensation also. I was absorbed in watching this movie. It felt so good.
That’s okay. But, the absorption, that comes through contribution. When we are involved in something bigger than ourselves, and we work with a committed spirit, getting absorbed in that activity.
Then, that is where the most meaningful phase of our life comes. We may be working to take care of someone. We may be working for some social cause.
We may be working for some humanitarian cause. Whatever it is, something bigger than ourselves. If we are looking for sensations for the self, how will this make me feel good, how will this make me feel good? Then, the self is like a black hole, in which everything sinks and nothing brings real satisfaction.
But, when we look for a cause bigger than ourselves, and then work for that cause, then, that absorption in a mood of contribution, that is what gives us a higher satisfaction. When we are absorbed in a mood of contribution, then, it is not that all the time the sensations we get are good. When a mother has a child, at one level, the child, anytime at night, wakes up.
The mother has to wake up, feed the child, take care of the child. At one level, it’s difficult. But, there is a deep satisfaction.
I am taking care of this child. This is my child. I am helping him to grow up.
One is not just living for oneself. One is living for something more than oneself. And, those moments when the parents take care of a child, and they help the child grow up, that brings a higher level of satisfaction.
Krishna says that, when we look for something higher than ourselves, in 12.12, he says that, when we work not for ourselves, but for a cause bigger than ourselves, the satisfaction that comes from that is what brings us deep fulfilment. Now, what does it mean to redirect? There can be many different causes in which people can get absorbed. And, they can do it in a mode of contribution.
This can also be in the mode of passion, in the mode of ignorance, passion and goodness. In ignorance, somebody may become a terrorist. And, sometimes the way the terrorists, they plan and execute a bombing or whatever, somebody who is a suicide bomber, they are actually ending their own life.
But, that is completely perverse. It is in the mode of ignorance. They want to be involved in some cause bigger than themselves, but they are seeking a cause that is destructive.
It destroys them, it destroys others. But, somehow at that perverse level of mind, they think this is what is worth living for. So, we want a cause bigger than ourselves, but what is it that we are looking for? That will also be depending on our consciousness.
If we are in tamohuna, we look for something that is destructive. If we are in the mode of passion, we will look for something that will increase the control, the power, not just of ourselves, but our group, our community, our country, our society. So, when the Britishers came to India, relatively speaking, they were a small group of people.
And, they conquered not just all of India, at one time practically the whole world was being ruled by Britain. So, how did that happen? Somehow, they had that idea. Oscar Wilde is a prominent British author, playwright.
So, he wrote something which he called the White Man’s Burden. So, he said that actually somehow the whole world is uncivilised. And, we British people are civilised.
So, it is our white man’s burden to civilise the rest of the world. So, actually they did not think that when they conquered India, they conquered the rest of the world, they were thinking that we are actually doing good to all these primitive people. They are backward, uncivilised and we are doing good.
And, if we look at their lives, they worked very hard. To achieve anything in life requires hard work. They were absorbed in their causes.
If you see, India was invaded by Muslims and then by Britishers. The big difference was Muslims came to India, many of the Muslims made India their home. But, the Britishers who came, the industrial revolution started in Britain.
And, relatively speaking, Britain was much more comfortable than India, which was a tropically hot country. So, the Britishers actually thought going to India is like a sentence. You know, you are going to be disease filled, poverty stricken, miserably hot country, you have to go and live.
But, they went and lived because they thought, we are fulfilling the white man’s burden. We are going to civilise these people. But, in the whole process, what they ended up doing was, they just plundered India.
India, something before the British came, India had something like 25% of the world’s GDP. Now, if we say, it’s less than 5% or something like that. So, just astronomical amount of wealth was just plundered.
So, in the mode of passion, when we absorb ourselves in a cause bigger than ourselves, there can be absorption. And, there can be in that move of contribution, some satisfaction over there. But, that satisfaction doesn’t lead to any good.
It actually leads to harm for others. In the mode of goodness, when we look for some cause higher than oneself, then, relatively the product is good. Somebody may decide that, okay, I am going to write this story.
Some historical character story I will write. Or, I will write some novel. I will write this.
I will write that. And, get absorbed in that. There is an author, he writes in one place, Oliver Wendell Holmes.
He wrote that, actually, he wrote a letter to his friend. I spend my morning very productively today. He said, in one of my new poems, after breakfast, I put a comma.
And, after thinking for three hours, before lunch, I deleted that comma. That is a very fruitful work of one day. How gets pleasure in that? There is one author who wrote a very complicated paragraph.
And, then, when his editor asked him, you know, what does this mean? So, he read it once, blinked, read it second time, blinked, read it third time. Then, he said, when I wrote this paragraph, I and God knew what it meant. Now, only God knows.
So, in the mode of goodness, we may find some better causes. Some higher causes in which we do something which is contributing to the good for us. So, we may work for humanitarian causes where we see people who are poor and starving.
We want to do some good for them. We see people who are hooked to some bad things. We try to help them.
So, where we see distress, we try to remove distress. And, we work for some cause higher than ourselves, that is in the mode of goodness. Now, among the three, working for a cause higher than ourselves in the mode of goodness is better.
But, still, even in goodness, there is not complete knowledge. And, I was in a college in America. I met one student who was doing a degree in social service.
Social work is now a big career field. And, there are many people who open NGOs. And, then, they try to… There are ways by which they use corporate social response, CSR, to channel funds from the first world to the third world.
And, it’s a professional field now. So, he was telling that he was working to help some drug addicts. But, he said that after trying to help them for several years… He was not a student.
He had been a student. That time he got involved. Now, he was an adult.
So, he said that basically he found that initially his belief was that if we just give people education, if we just provide people facilities for a better life, then they will give up. Whatever it is that they will be addicted to drugs, they will be addicted to alcohol, they will be addicted to smoking. So, there is this idea that why do people become bad? It is called as environmental determinism.
That they are put in bad situations. They are born poor. Why is this person drinking? Well, he saw in his childhood that his father was also drinking.
And, that is the community he lived in. That’s why he drank. So, there is this idea that we are shaped by our environment.
And, if we change our environment, then we will change. Now, it is definitely true that we are shaped by our environment. But, quite often it happens that even if you take people, even if they are in good environment, still they may become bad.
Sometimes people in bad environment, still they may emerge good. So, it is not just by changing environment. So, he said after years of observing many social welfare programmes, his conclusion was that actually we can’t change.
To change people, just changing their environment is not enough. Something internally needs to be changed. We may take a person who is a drug addict because of a difficult situation.
Put that person in a comfortable situation. But, that doesn’t mean the drug addiction will go away. Or, even the person not addict, whatever the negative behavioural trait is, for some people it goes away, but for many people it doesn’t go away.
There is something inside us that makes us act in destructive ways. So, this understanding what it is and addressing that is the highest cause. The Bhagavad Gita talks several times about the term Krishna.
It is said in 5.29 that Krishna is surudham sarva-bhutana. That he is the well-wisher of all living beings. bhoktaraṁ nitya-tapasāṁ sarva-loka-maheśvaram surudham sarva-bhutanaṁ jñātvā māṁ śānti-vicchati So, he says this in 5.29. And then in 12.13, he says that his devotees are advaiṣṭhaḥ sarva-bhutanaṁ maitraḥ karuṇa eva ca So, as the Lord is, so his devotees become.
The Lord is the well-wisher of everyone. The devotees also become well-wishers of everyone. So, there is a force within us which makes us act against our best interests.
And unless that force is addressed, now whatever good we try to do for ourselves or for others, it will not have a lasting result. So, the process of bhakti-yoga is a process of both inner and outer transformation. We are talking about redirect right now, refocus.
You know, if we understand that sensations alone will not lead to satisfaction, then we want to have absorption. We are in a mood of contribution. So, where can we contribute? We discuss causes in ignorance, passion and goodness.
So, in bhakti, what happens is that inside us is our worst enemy and inside us is our best friend. Inside us is our mind which presently acts as our enemy. Whatever we are doing, the mind always comes up with something negative.
This will go wrong. That will happen. That will happen.
That will happen. Do something. We often end up doing something foolish.
Why did I do that? There was a world champion boxer. In a boxing match, he was playing. And when he started losing the match, he got so angry that he just pounced on his opponent and bit off the ear of the opponent.
And after that, he asked, why did you do that? So, he asked what this person said. Mike Tyson, he said that, actually there are demons inside me. There are demons inside me.
There is a demon inside me and it makes me act terrible. So, now, he may not understand what that demon is, but people, even ordinary people sometimes just behave in terrible ways. And even if it may not be as graphically horribly destructive, but we all can look at our own lives and we will find times when we sabotage ourselves.
We are going on a proper path and suddenly we do something foolish. And that ends up hurting us. So, inside us is our mind, which is our worst enemy.
The mind is an enemy not just spiritually, the mind can be an enemy even physically. Physically means that some people are drug addicts. And some countries, especially in Europe and other places, they are welfare nations, welfare states.
That means if you don’t have a job, the government will maintain you. Government will give you dough. So, many drug addicts, they take the dough provided by the government and use it not to get food for themselves, but they use it to take drugs.
And they go high while their body is starving. So, the mind that is attached can become an enemy even of the body. And in that way, there is our worst enemy within us, the mind.
Now, how bad it will hurt us, that will vary from person to person depending on situation, depending on past impressions, depending on how much one listens to the mind. But there is this inner enemy. However, apart from that inner enemy, there is also the inner friend.
That is Krishna. He is there in the hearts of every one of us. And this Krishna, who is our greatest friend, connecting with him and helping others connect with him.
That is what will bring us real happiness. So, now I am speaking about third part, realise. I talk about refocus means, we learn that focussing our energy on serving Krishna and helping others connect with Krishna, that is what is the best cause.
So, realise means, we have to realise that inside us, there is an enemy and inside us, there is also a friend. So, Krishna is there within us. And this Krishna, his voice from within can guide us.
Just as the mind’s voice can misguide, similarly Krishna’s voice can guide. So, all of us, for us presently, the mind’s voice is quite strong. And much of the external culture, it fuels the mind’s voice more and more.
So, we often get misguided. The misguiding can happen in various ways. We do terrible things by which we hurt ourselves.
Or sometimes, we just imagine big problems will come in our life. And that’s how we hurt ourselves. The mind keeps worrying about things.
The soul has come from animal species to human species. And when we live in the animal world, at that time, there is danger, physically also at every moment. If a deer is there, a lion may pounce on it anytime.
A tiger may pounce on it anytime. So, the animals are trained to live in constant fear of danger. When the soul comes from animal body to human body, then in the human body, we have physically the human body, but the mind has still come from the animal species to the human species.
And that’s why the mind stays fearful. Now, we don’t live in a world where a tiger will pounce on us, a snake will come and bite us. That kind of dangers are not there.
But because the mind is conditioned by the momentum from the lower species, so now, we imagine fears. What if this goes wrong? What if I get cancer? What if this happens? What if that happens? What if that happens? Once, there was a woman. She went to a doctor and said, Doctor, doctor, there is a frog in my stomach.
Please remove it. The doctor said, no, there cannot be a frog in your stomach. She said, no, no, I can feel it.
The frog is there. No, it can’t be there. No, it’s there.
The doctor did not listen. She just went to another doctor. The other doctor, just to entertain her, did some tests.
He said, no, no, there is no frog over here. No, I can feel it. She went to third doctor.
After that, she went to ten doctors. And finally, the tenth doctor, when he heard that she had gone to all these doctors, the doctor decided to play along with her. He told her that, okay, let us do a test.
And he did a test. Oh, you know, you are right. He found that there is a frog in your stomach.
Oh, really? What to do now? We have to do a surgery to remove it. When do you want to do it? Right away. Please remove it.
Immediately. So then, the doctor gave her anaesthesia. And he did a small surgical incision on her belly.
And then he asked a nurse to go to a nearby pond and get a frog from there. And then, when she came back to consciousness, he told her, see, we found this frog in your belly. Oh, doctor, thank you so much.
You saved my life. Nobody was ready to believe me. At least you believed me.
Now, I am relieved. Now, when she went away relieved and happy, the medical staff thought it was a very clever solution. They thought, now she is happy and she won’t trouble the doctors again.
After one week, she came back. Frantic. Doctor, doctor.
Doctor said, what happened? The frog had babies. So, here what has happened? The mind keeps imagining problems even when they are not there. So, on one side, the mind imagines unrealistic pleasures.
But the mind also imagines problems. So, there is, we have to realise that our mind acts as our enemy. It often makes problems far bigger than what it needs to be.
So, sometimes there are no problems, only it imagines it. Sometimes there are small problems, it imagines it to be very big. So, first we realise that there is this enemy within us.
But beyond that, there is Krishna within us. And He is our greatest well-wisher. He is our greatest friend.
To the extent, we can tune ourselves internally to Krishna station instead of the mind station. To that extent, we can become internally peaceful. To that extent, we can become internally satisfied.
The Bhagavad Gita says that. These people find happiness internally. So, how do they find that? By tuning.
So, Brahma Yoga Yuktatma. Yoga is a process for tuning oneself to Krishna, to Brahman. The process of Bhakti Yoga, in which we chant the holy names of Krishna, we hear about Krishna, we worship the deities of Krishna, we come in the association of the devotees of Krishna.
All these are meant to tune our consciousness. As our consciousness becomes more and more tuned to Krishna, we will find that our problems will become lesser. Externally, the problems will be there, but our mind, it obsesses on the problems and makes it worse.
And further, our expectations will become more realistic. And then that happens, our frustrations will also go down. Because the higher the expectation, the higher the frustration.
When we moderate our expectations, our frustration… So, as we become more and more conscious of Krishna, and we become less and less tuned to the mind, the mind’s voice will not trouble us so much. So, one way is, we won’t magnify problems, and the other is, we won’t have unrealistic expectations, which lead to unnecessary frustration. And both ways, even in this life, we’ll find that we will become more peaceful, we’ll become more joyful.
So, this tuning to Krishna’s station comes not just by doing some religious activity in the mood that this is a ritual, Oh, I have to come to a temple, I have to worship the deity, that is good. We have to do this, not just as a ritual, but as a method for self-transformation. As a method for inner transformation.
When I’m not doing anything, what am I doing at that time? That means, when I’m not having anything active, is my mind just thinking about this problem, that problem, that problem? Or is my mind thinking of purposeful service to Krishna? So, if we become tuned to Krishna’s station internally, we will become much more peaceful. So, I’ll conclude with one incident, one experience which I had in America, and then we can have question-answers. First time I went to America in 2015, I had gone to a university, where I spoke on regulating our mental diet.
It was a vegetarian society, so I chose that topic. How to make sure that we take in positive input into our mind. If we take in negative inputs, then the mind will also speak negatively to us.
So, after that programme, one boy came and told me that just before this class, he had been contemplating suicide. He had been in a relationship with a girl, and that girl had broken up with him. And she had just sent a text message to him, that I am breaking up, and she had blocked his phone.
So, he had become so frustrated by it, that he thought of ending his life in frustration. At that time, I was surprised why somebody would do something like that. But then, just recently I was reading about fear, and I was looking out what are the different kinds of fears that people have.
So, what were the fears of people in the 18th century, 19th century, 20th century, 21st century. So, some of the fears are common. But there are two new fears that have come in the 21st century among the top ten fears of people.
One is, of course, fear of terrorists. The second, which is a new fear, is the fear of rejection. People now live in a world where relationships don’t come formed in a structured way to them.
So, when they are going to form relationships, what if I get rejected? What if I am left alone? That fear of rejection can be a very crippling fear. When in a particular relationship, we get rejected, at one level, it’s not just that relationship that is broken. We start feeling, something must be wrong with me.
Yes, something may be wrong with us which we need to correct. But at that time, the mind makes us feel something is so wrong with you that you are useless. To feel unloved is depressing.
But to feel unloveable is devastating. If I am alone, if I feel nobody cares for me, people have rejected me, when I feel unloved like that, then that is very depressing. But if I feel that I am so flawed because of which nobody will love me at all.
To feel unloveable, it is not just depressing, it is devastating. So, when people in today’s world define themselves in terms of the kind of relationships they can form, the kind of partner they can attract, so if somebody rejects them, it can devastate their world. So, this boy, he told me that he was contemplating suicide.
But then he came for the class and then he heard about how the mind is inside us and how the mind is an enemy. So, he said, now I understood that actually, it is not I who wanted to commit suicide, it was my mind which was telling him, do this, do this. I said, you have understood a very deep point.
If you can understand the difference between yourself and your mind, you can keep yourself out of a lot of trouble. So, I told him that you can understand the mind much better by reading the Bhagavad Gita. I gave him the Bhagavad Gita.
I invited him. It was a university programme. So, I connected him with other devotees.
Because I didn’t tell them that he had attempted suicide. That is his private thing. But I connected him with other devotees and told them to get connected with the programme.
I also write on the Gita every day of Gita daily. So, a small article. So, I told him, you can read that to understand how the mind works also.
Then every year or every semester when I go to America, whenever I go to that university, I keep meeting him. So, this year, or rather last year, last September, October, again I had gone to America. And again this time I met the same boy at the university.
And he told me, a few weeks ago, he had gone through exactly the similar situation. He said again he had been in a relationship with a girl and she had just broken up with him. Completely unexpected.
So then, he said, when I got that message, I just went straight to my room. I closed the window, closed the door, pulled down the curtains. And then, he loved music.
So, he had his own violin and he would love to sing. So, he said, I picked up my violin and I started singing Hare Krishna. And he said, I sang for six hours continuously.
And he said, those six hours, I felt the presence of Krishna. I felt as if Krishna was right there with me, comforting me. I felt closer to God than ever I had felt in my life.
So, the time, which could have been the most depressing moment of my life, it actually became the most enriching moment of my life. That phase, it helped me realise the reality of Krishna. Krishna is there and if I take shelter of Him, He is there to give me shelter.
So, that experience boosted his faith in Krishna Bhakti and enabled him to become completely wholehearted. So, for us, when difficulties come in our life, the difficulties, if they make us go inwards towards Krishna, take shelter of Krishna, we feel the presence of Krishna. In this world, sometimes we may be rejected, sometimes we may be unloved, sometimes some people may even make us feel that we are unloveable.
But, no matter what happens to us in the world, there is one person who always loves us. Krishna is always there in our hearts and He always cares for us. He always loves us.
He never leaves us. No matter what happens to us, no matter what even we do. If we do something wrong, yes, that will cover our awareness of Krishna.
But that won’t drive Krishna away from us. Krishna is there within us. And, for us, the greatest strength is the strength of our faith in Krishna, in Krishna’s love for us.
We may all have different weaknesses because our mind may be very forceful, we may be very angry, we may be very greedy, we may have some problem, some other problem, some addiction, some this, some that. We all have these weaknesses. But, our greatest weakness is our unwillingness to believe that Krishna loves us.
Our greatest weakness is our unwillingness to believe that Krishna loves us. As we are right now, Krishna loves us, Krishna cares for us. If, by associating with devotees, if by studying scriptures, by hearing Krishna Katha, if we can get this faith that Krishna is never going to leave us, that Krishna loves us, Krishna cares for us and Krishna is there for us to lift us up.
Then, that will become our greatest strength in life. And, no matter what life sends our way, we will be able to face it. We will be able to overcome it.
The world’s power to hurt us is great. It can hurt us in many different ways. People may betray us, we may lose our job, our mind also has the power to hurt us.
But, if we consider the world to be everything external, body, mind, people, environment, the world’s power to hurt us is great. But, greater than the world’s power to hurt is Krishna’s power to be. Greater than the world’s power to hurt is Krishna’s power to be.
So, to the extent we turn towards Krishna and connect with Krishna, even if the world sends us hurts in its own ways, still, Krishna, by holding on to him, by taking shelter of him, we can heal ourselves. And, we can not only heal ourselves, but we can become healing angels for others. So, to the extent we realise the inner danger of the mind, and we realise the inner opportunity of Krishna’s presence, to that extent, whatever situation we are in, we can move on purposefully towards contribution, towards absorption, and towards satisfaction.
So, I’ll summarise what I spoke today. I spoke about 5.21-22 in the Gita. Happiness is found not in sensation, but in absorption, in a mode of contribution.
So, in today’s world, the whole propaganda is sensations will give us pleasure. Eat something, watch something, touch something. Good sensations lead to good pleasure.
But, this, especially, in terms of entertainment industry, it’s an obsessive need that people pay phenomenal amounts of money just to get some good sensations. But, sensations follow the law of diminishing returns. And, we want more and more and more sensations.
So, the pleasure from sensations is like the pleasure from pickling. And, technology is technology. It’s offering us sophisticated pickling.
But, it doesn’t satisfy. The more we do what we like, the more we end up disliking ourselves. So, when we think that the better sensations we get, the more pleasure we get, we will get, then we get mad personal sensations.
And, increased expectation leads to increased frustration. And, 1 out of 10 people now get terribly depressed. 1 out of 5 people become suicidal.
All that is because the mind is not able to cope with reality. The expectation is so high, the reality is so poor. Just can’t cope with it.
So, if we, whatever we do to seek pleasure, that itself causes us greater trouble. Because, we are seeking pleasure through sensations. So, first point was, what was it? In 3 hours? Does anyone remember? Recognise.
Recognise that sensations will never lead to pleasure. And, second was? Redirect or refocus. I talked about sensations also.
In ignorance, we may seek the sensations through imagination. In passion, we may seek sensations through comfort. In goodness, we may seek sensations through more proximity to nature and elevated things.
But, similarly, when we want to, we will get some higher satisfaction when we work for a cause bigger than ourselves. And, in the mode of ignorance, we will find some destructive cause. That we think, destroying somebody else is the goal of my life.
In the mode of passion, we will think of domination. Oh, if I can control them, then I can do good to them. Like the Britishers tried to do to the world.
So, there also, there is absorption. There is some satisfaction over there. But, it doesn’t lead to real satisfaction of oneself or even good for others.
In goodness, we may go into art, we may go into writing, we may go into deeper music. And, that is better. But, that is also not enduring.
Why? The highest way we can get redirected, the highest cause that we can work for is where we deal with our inner enemies and help others to deal with their other enemies. Even if we work for a humanitarian cause, we may help people who are poor or who are in difficulty. But, their own minds will put them back in difficulties.
So, governments give drug addicts money but then they use it for drug addiction instead of food. So, realise, that was the third part. We have to realise there is an enemy inside us.
And, that enemy is our own mind. And, even if we are put in good situations, the mind will create trouble for us. If we imagine problems, it is like those women who imagined there was a frog in her belly.
And, so, but inside us, there is also our best friend. It is Krishna. So, he is there to guide us.
The process of Bhakti Yoga is, we tune our consciousness so that it moves from the mind station to Krishna station. And, for doing this, for applying ourselves to practise the process of Bhakti, we need to have the faith that Krishna loves us. Our greatest weakness is not the specific bad habit that we have.
Our greatest weakness is our unwillingness to believe that Krishna loves us. So, I talked about this boy in America whose mind prompted him to suicide. But, the Bhagavad Gita’s knowledge helped him to identify.
This is the mind. So, he did not do that. And, next time, when the same situation came, instead of listening to the mind, what did he do? He turned towards Krishna.
And, that which could have been a very depressing experience, became an enriching experience as he experienced the proximity of Krishna. So, fear of rejection is a great fear in today’s world. We may feel unloved, that is depressing.
To feel unloveable is devastating. And, if we look at the world, we may feel both unloved and unloveable at times. But, if we turn towards Krishna and connect with him through Bhakti, we will understand that he always loves us.
And, no matter how badly the world hurts us, greater than the world’s power to hurt is Krishna’s power to heal. And, to the extent we cultivate absorption in Krishna, not only can we heal ourselves from whatever hurts the world sends, but also we can become healing agents to help others heal from their hurts. And, in this mood of absorption in Krishna, in a mood of service to him, this will bring us enduring satisfaction.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. Are there any questions or comments? Yes, to you.
Thank you very much for your clarification about this subject. You mentioned that if you do what you like, then you may start disliking yourself. What we feel in the material world is something opposite to this, that if you do what you like, for example, the work that you do, you may I understand.
From the material point of view, from spiritual I mean, if a person like to only hope for Krishna. I got your question. I said if we keep doing whatever we like, we will disliking That the nature of the world is that even if we are doing that which we like to do, still there will be problems.
And if I am simply looking for sensations, good sensations, then my mind will not even let me do what I like to do. So, suppose, one of my main services is writing. So, when I write, I can get very easily absorbed in writing.
But there are so many times when writing can be frustrating because just the right word doesn’t come, the right sentence doesn’t come, the right idea doesn’t come, and then many times writers get something called writer’s block. Just get blocked completely. And not just writers.
Even in all our lives, when we do something which we like to do, even then the nature of the world is problems are there. I give the example of a mother. A mother naturally loves a child and wants to take care of the child.
But while taking care of a child, it is not that the mother can feel liking for the baby all the time. If after hard days work, suddenly the baby wakes up at night, the mother may not feel joy at that time. She will still wake up.
The point I was making is, if we keep doing whatever we like, I was saying that if we are simply driven by sensations, we keep looking for whatever I like to do and we keep flickering from one to another, then we will end up not doing anything worthwhile and we will end up disliking ourselves. So, we could say there are superficial likes and some deep likes. So, for a Brahmana, being an intellectual is a deep like.
So, studying, sharing, knowledge, that’s what they like to do. But even when studying, it is not that everything is easy to understand. Even for a person who is intellectual, there may be some concepts that are difficult to understand, some memorisation that is difficult to do.
So, that is a struggle which one has to pass and that is where absorption and contribution come into play. One has to work at it. So, in spiritual life also, we can and we should find out a service that we like to do.
But after we find out what we like to do, we need to commit ourselves. Commitment, dedication, this is what I am going to do now. I have decided and even if I don’t feel like it, I will do it.
Nowadays, devotees often ask the question, we should serve according to our nature, so how do we know what is our nature? Now, if we ask our mind, what is my nature? The mind will say, whatever you are doing right now, that is not your nature. That means, the mind will simply keep us dissatisfied. Even if we went to paradise, the mind will say, yes, but… So, we need to rise above the mental platform.
So, we say internally, we can have superficial likes that come from the mind’s feelings, but there can be also deeper like which comes from our innate inclinations, which come from our psychophysical nature. If we are too driven by the mind, then we will not even be able to focus on that which is our inclination also, because even when in that difficulty comes, the mind will take us away. So, yes, we can’t keep doing that which we don’t like to do.
So, my point was not that we do that which we don’t like to do, but rather we don’t go by the mind’s like, like, like, but we focus and commit ourselves, of course, according to that which is our inclination. Thank you for the important question. He was mentioning about the sensations.
Our mind has many thoughts, and whenever our mind and body comes in contact, the mind creates certain sensations on our body. If those sensations are pleasurable, we get attached to it. In yoga literature, it is known as raga, and if it is creating unpleasant sensations on our body, we are averse, known as dvesha, and to get out of this circle of raga and dvesha, the yoga literature suggests the sakshi bhava, dushtha bhava, and by practising this sakshi bhava, we can be free from raga and dvesha and ultimately we will be liberated.
So, as a bhakti yoga practitioner, what are our practises so that we should detach ourselves from this raga and dvesha? So, the raga and dvesha, the attachment and aversion that is present in our mind, the yoga literature says become an observer, so that you can go beyond it. So, what are the bhakti practises for detaching ourselves from our raga and dvesha? Yes, in bhakti also, we are told raga dvesha, we have to become free from it. So, we have to become we have to become from it.
have to become free it. we have to from it. So, essentially, if we consider that if I am feeling angry at someone, if I am feeling attracted to someone, if I am feeling repelled by someone, so, these are emotions that are coming in our mind.
Quite often, we just identify with the emotions and then we act on the emotions. Why did I do that? I should not have done that. So, when we become observer, actually, it is not just a yoga literature.
Bhagavad Gita also talks about this point of becoming an observer of our consciousness. I am doing a yoga. In 14.22 and 23, it says that when different emotions come into our consciousness, we become observer of them.
And, we understand these are simply coming because of the mood. So, do not identify with them. Udaseenavad.
Udaseenavad means stay as if detached. Yes, I am feeling anger now. But, this anger is simply coming because of my condition.
I will not act on it. So, if we become observer of our emotions, then some emotions we can check. Sometimes, we are just passing by some road and we see some shop and we are just passing by.
So, this because of my condition. So, anger is simply coming because of my condition. So, this anger is coming in service to Krishna and by that we can transcend the modes.
So, one way of transcending the influence of Raga and Dresha is by observing. Okay, this is what I don’t want but it’s coming to me. I will neglect it.
Another way which is a more active way is we focus on a higher cause. We focus on serving Krishna. I am determined to serve Krishna no matter what happens.
even if while doing something I feel bad. I just don’t like to say go out and talk with people in public but if my service is to go and distribute books then I will put that Dresha aside and I will go. Why? Because I want to please Krishna.
I want to please Krishna’s representatives. So, becoming an observer requires more of an introvert, introspective, self-motivated nature. Whereas, becoming a servant can also work for everyone because we have a higher cause.
Yes, I don’t feel like doing it but I want to serve Krishna. I want to please Krishna. So, that intention to serve Krishna, if that becomes strong then whatever circumstantial emotion may come in, whether it is attachment or aversion, we will be able to push it aside by the force of our intention.
So, when we come in the association of devotees and we become attached to devotees, we want to serve devotees, we want to serve Krishna, through the association of devotees the greatest gift that we can get is a strengthened intention to serve Krishna. If you have got that strong intention to serve Krishna then what will happen is even the raag or dvesha comes in the way, the momentum of that intention will push it aside. It’s like say, if we are going in a big truck and some donkey comes along in the middle of the road, then the truck is moving very fast, even the donkey is standing in between, seeing the truck coming so the donkey will move away.
On the other hand, if we are going on a bicycle and if a big buffalo comes in the way, then if the truck hits the donkey, the donkey will fall down. If the bicycle hits the buffalo, the bicycle will fall down. So, if our intention is like the bicycle driver, it’s weak, then when our raag or dvesha will come, it will just go away.
But if with the association of devotees we cultivate a strong intention to serve Krishna, then the intention will become like a truck and what is the obstacle will go away. So, while cultivating the intention to serve Krishna, if we can use the more of being an observer, that is also good. But we don’t focus simply on being an observer, we focus on being a contributor, on being a serve Krishna, whether I like it or I don’t like it, I will stay committed to it.
And that’s how we can go beyond the minds, raag and dvesha. Okay? Thank you. Do any of the Matajis have any questions? Okay.
One question and the mic you can, we have only one mic. You can ask till then. I will repeat.
Okay. Thank you. So how do we learn to understand that say our mind is different from us? Yeah.
It is not that you have to constantly be worried. Say, you know, for example, when you ask the question, is it your mind that asked the question or you asked the question? When I am giving the answer, is it my mind speaking or am I speaking? We have to function and we cannot be so caught in analysis that it leads to paralysis. So we have to function but especially when we observe that we do things which we did not intend to do.
I planned to do this but I ended up doing that. See the mind tends to do what we do not intend to do. So that is the nature of the mind.
So especially when we decide to do something and then we are taken off track, then that is the time when we understand the mind is distracting. So if we look back at our life and find out, okay, I had planned to do this but then I ended up doing this. So what exactly happened at that time? Then we may decide, okay, I want to wake up early in the morning so that I can get a head start to my day.
I can do my spiritual life in the morning nicely. But then we wake up, we hear the alarm, put off the alarm and go to sleep. And then afterwards we just beat ourselves up.
Why did I not wake up? Why am I so lazy? But then if we think about it at that time, when we woke up, we heard the alarm and then something within us said, go to sleep. Actually, yesterday you couldn’t get a good sleep. Your health is important, you should sleep properly.
It’s so cold now. See, everybody is sleeping. Why do you need to get up? Just relax, don’t be a fanatic.
So whatever, the mind speaks something. So if we just beat ourselves up, I have poor will power, I have no will power, I am so fallen. That is not going to be so helpful.
We analyse. Then we can catch, oh, this mind spoke like this at that time. And that’s how I got distracted.
That’s how I didn’t do it. So then we will have to prepare our mental reasons for countering the mind’s lies. The mind lies by which it distracts us from our intentions.
So, we, when we are distracted like this, we understand. This was the time where the mind acted. And then next time, again the mind is going to act.
Tomorrow when I am going to wake up, again the mind is going to say go to sleep. So, okay, what do I do at that time? At one level, of course, our body needs enough rest and we have to give that rest. But sometimes the mind makes us sleep more than what is necessary even for the body.
So then, what do we do? Okay, this is the way the mind is misleading. Then, once we become alert to it, okay, this is the situation. Say, when I wake up in this is the time when I end up doing that which I didn’t intend to do.
So that is the time when the mind is acting on us. And then we can plan using our intelligence how to counter the mind’s lies. That means when it says, you are very tired, you should sleep.
I had enough sleep from my past experience. I know that this much time is enough for me. I can get along with it.
So maybe we can write it down and keep it in the diary next to us, keep it in the phone next to us or even make our reasons for waking up like nowadays you can customise many tunes. So if we have heard some class of a senior devotee of a spiritual master about the importance of waking up, then we can make that as the alarm tune. And then we get not just the alarm sound but we get some food for the intelligence.
And basically when the mind misleads us, then the intelligence has to counter the mind’s lies. So it is difficult to observe the mind misleading us when we are being misled. But afterwards when we look back, then we can see, this is the situation when it happens.
And then when we are prepared, the next time when it happens, we will be able to notice, this is happening. And then we will be able to deal with it better. And if we can nourish our intelligence, then it becomes even stronger.
We can not only identify the mind but we can then reject the mind also. And as we become more and more purified by the practise of bhakti, the mind’s voice will become weaker and Krishna’s voice will be heard more by us. And then the distancing from the mind will become much easier.
I will come back to, so now the second question was about transformation. We practise something, we get transformed but it does not last. Yes, that is okay.
In this world, just as we eat food, the energy coming from the food does not last. But that does not mean we stop eating food. Yesterday I lost the energy now, so what to do? Eat today again, isn’t it? So, we somehow think that if I make a resolution and it leads to transformation, that transformation, because it has happened, it must last lifelong.
It is not like that. Yes, there is a transformation that has happened and that is good but there is, I would say there is transformation at three levels. Transformation which happens at the level of our intention.
I want to change myself. That means at least somebody is alcoholic and somebody who thinks drinking alcohol is cool, that person is a big fool. So, that person is thinking I am enjoying but the person is getting more and more trapped.
But somehow that person awakens, I am really trapped now, I have to give up drinking alcohol. So, that first level at the level of intention, I want to give up drinking Even if that person keeps succumbing again and again but at this first level the transformation happens and the intention has come up. Second level is not just some intention based on some circumstantial situation, somebody drank and threw up very badly, had a big hangover, headache, I don’t want to go through this again.
So, that is a circumstantially the intention has come. But the second level is where there is conviction, where I become convinced, not just because this consequence or that consequence came but because this is hurting me, I have better things to do in my life, I don’t want to be like this. So, conviction doesn’t depend on circumstance, conviction comes from internal.
So, at that level it becomes easier because we have an internal motivation to fight it. But even then the mind is still conditioned and the mind keeps saying do it, do it, do it. Now, if the mind But over a period of time, what happens? Our conviction slowly starts going down and the mind’s proposition starts coming up.
Now, when we made the conviction, at that time we were aware that this is bad for me, I don’t want to do this. But after After some time, the mind starts saying, it’s not that bad, you know, you have to live a life. Come on, enjoy a little bit, whatever it is.
So the mind starts speaking in its own way to undermine our conviction. So that is why we need to periodically reinforce our conviction. Why am I doing this? I am transformed, but transformation is not irreversible.
Because the mind is still there, just trying to reverse the transformation. So that’s why we need to have that inner conviction being periodically reinforced by here studying scripture by associating with devotees, by ourselves contemplating the benefit of the transformed way of living. And in the last stages, purification, when we become purified, then the mind itself will not propose.
Many devotees in the past, some of us may have been eating meat, but after we start practising bhakti, it’s not only that we give up eating meat, but suppose we are going by a train or a plane and somebody else is drinking, eating meat, don’t even feel tempted by that. Here what has happened, the mind has stopped proposing. So that is the time when we can say the transformation has become irreversible.
But we should never think that transformation has become irreversible. We should assume that it’s always possible that it may reverse and that’s why we have to keep reinforcing our conviction. So even if our conviction goes down, even if some relapse happens, then again we start and then it’s not that because we relapse, it was a failure.
That’s a very important thing. See the success of the resolution is not just in sticking to the resolution. The success of the resolution is what we do with that resolution.
Okay, I decided to give this up. After giving it up, what do I do? Okay, I was able to serve Krishna, I was able to contribute in some nice ways. That is what is important.
We shouldn’t think that after six months of resolution, there’s a relapse and everything is failed. No, that six months of good living is very good. And yes, there was a slip, but I can rise again and I can move on.
So just like a child who may walk very nicely and it falls again. Just because the child has fallen doesn’t mean that all the time the child has walked right to the waste. All the time that the child has walked, that is practise and when the child rises again, he’ll be able to walk much better.
So the mind is not only it makes us fall, it makes us fall and then it makes us think you are fallen and therefore stay fallen. But we shouldn’t do like that. We shouldn’t be misled by the mind and we need to periodically reinforce our conviction.
That way we can persevere. Okay. Thank you.
Yes, Madhavi? My question is that since our mind is ever misleading and conflicting, ever interfering with our good thoughts, so the question is why our mind is there in us? Is there any specific reason why we have this factor called mind in us? And whatever could be the reason we have our mind, why it is always conflicting with our good thoughts because I believe without mind we can function really well in terms of our intentions and we can always do good. Yeah. So that’s the question.
Yeah. It’s a good question. So why do we have this mind which always keeps troubling us? Wouldn’t we be able to function better without the mind? Not exactly.
We have to understand that the mind is an essential functional link between the soul and the body. The mind is like the software in a computer. If we got a brand new computer, the hardware, but there is not a single software installed in it, what would we do with it? Nothing.
But if we got a computer with some software which is highly corrupted, then we put in our data and it deletes the data. That’s a big problem also. So the mind is like the software.
The soul is the user and the body is the hardware. So the mind is the essential functional link for the soul to function with the body. Whatever inputs coming from the senses, they are integrated by the mind and they are presented to the soul.
And then the soul responds to it. So the soul cannot function without the mind. In functional terms.
And it is not that our mind is always our enemy. The mind many times comes up with good ideas also. As I talked about our inclinations.
Some people are just good at music. They just pick up a kartal and a few beats and they get it. How do you get it? It’s that the mind functions without conscious exercise of intelligence.
Intelligence means I calmly think, analyse and then act. The mind functions without conscious exercise of intelligence. And most of the time it uses impulses which are unintelligent, anti-intelligent also.
Impulses. We overeat, we oversleep, we become too angry, whatever. But we also within the mind have instincts.
Instincts are things that we just get right without thinking. Some people are just very good at aesthetics. They come into a room, just look at a room for a few moments.
You move the sofa here, you put this photo here, you move this here and it looks so good. Somebody else, so far along I didn’t get this. So where do you get that? That is also coming from the mind.
So our mind is the source of impulses which are destructive and instincts which are constructive. The mind itself is not bad. The mind is essential and it can be good as well as it can be bad.
But in today’s culture, the mind’s impulsiveness is fed enormously by the materialism around us. So watch this, eat this, be like this, do that. And because of this impulsiveness being fed, the mind tends to act as our enemy.
So it’s like the software is essential for us to use the computer. But if the software is filled with a lot of viruses, then the software can become a big headache for us. Similarly, presently the mind has become a headache for us because its impulses have become very strong.
However, our mind is the only mind we have. The mind is not like a replaceable part. We can’t get somebody else’s mind for us.
So what we need to do is, at one level we have to understand the mind can act like an enemy. But we can’t have a relationship of hating the mind. We have to have the relationship of training the mind.
Suppose somebody is working on a ranch. Ranch is like a big field where they have a horse. Suppose that horse is a little wild.
Now, the owner needs the horse, if it’s a little pre-technological age where they don’t have tractors and other things. Then the owner needs the horse to cover the territory of the ranch. But at the same time, the horse can sometimes knock over the owner, injure the owner, stamp on the owner, kill the owner.
That also is there. So the owner has to be alert. And over a period of time, the owner has to develop a friendly relationship with the horse.
Not a friendly relationship means wherever the horse wants to go, the owner will go. But rather, not become the friend of the horse, but make the horse a friend. So that the horse will willingly do what the owner wants it to do.
So for us, we have to recognise the dangerousness of the mind. But at the same time, we have to learn to channel its energy. And for that, if we can look at the destructive things which the mind does and become more alert of it.
So that we don’t let it happen. And then we look at the constructive side of the mind and we use it more and more. And gradually, by using the constructive side, we are able to do positive things, we are able to do things well.
And then, especially if we use the constructive side of the mind to connect with Krishna. If I have a good sense of music, I play music for Krishna. If I have a good sense of language, I write for Krishna, I edit for Krishna, whatever.
If I have a good sense of aesthetics, I decorate for Krishna. So that way, by that connecting with Krishna, and that connection will be easy for us. Because the mind also likes it.
So by that, we will gradually become purified. And then the mind’s impulsiveness will go down. So then, as Krishna says, the mind will become our friend.
When the mind starts becoming attracted to Krishna, then much of our struggle will go away. So that will take time, that will take purification. But we shouldn’t, during the intermediate time, hate the mind.
We can treat the mind like a difficult or a dangerous child. A difficult child means the child keeps crying, throwing tantrums, doing all sorts of terrible things. And dangerous, not only difficult, can throw this, damage this, put the hand in the fire, set the house on fire.
Can do all kinds of dangerous things. But after all, it’s a child. So what we need to do is help the child to grow up.
So, of course, the mind is not just like a child, because it’s very powerful also. So it can be like an adult who will beat us up. So we have to be very cautious.
But the point is, we cannot have a relationship of being averse to the mind. We have to recognise its dangerousness, but we have to work with it. So by recognising its dangerousness, we become alert.
And by recognising where it can be a channel positively, we focus on that. And that’s how we work with the mind and gradually we convert the mind. Thank you very much.
So, okay, shall we stop? Who’s in charge? Okay, the last questioner is saying last question. Okay, yes. Yeah, you can, the mic is coming to you.
Last question. Okay, Krishna. I came to say about Krishna consciousness five years ago.
I work with my family. And I would say about, especially when we work, say about six days a week. And when we come for Mahabharata classes on Sundays, we attend, let’s say, about one hour and two hours of lecture.
And we have bazaar, that is vegetarian bazaar. Okay, I’m born and brought up in a Maharashtrian family. That is a Maharashtrian family.
In the morning time, I cook fish. I make fish curry, I make fish curry. But I come out here because I like vegetarian food.
Vegetarian food, yes, sir. It’s a little late. Excuse me, it’s a little late.
Can you condense your question? The question is that, as we practise about Hare Krishna, Hare Rama, Hare Krishna, Hare Rama, I have a mantra, Hare Krishna, Hare Rama, that will bring us towards Krishna-Nakshatman. That will bring us towards Analyzation. That will make us realise what are grandfather’s daughters.
Is this a comment or is this a question? Please come with a question. If it is a comment, we can talk privately after the class. When we listen and when we practise about, when we practise chanting, such as Hare Krishna, Hare Rama, Hare Krishna, Hare Rama, it will bring us towards Krishna-Nakshatman.
So, wish you a very happy birthday in advance today. And you are good. Thank you very much.
Thank you.