Healthy and unhealthy emotions in the renounced order

[Brahmachari Class at the Bhaktivedanta Manor, London, UK]

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. Whose birthday is it today? It’s not birthday today. It’s Manuel Prabhu.
He’s been with us for the last… Oh, he told me he’s leaving soon. So we’re getting the send-off that will make you come back. OK, wonderful.
And what about you? So Arun Prabhu, he’s not leaving, but he’s changing department, moving from like the Brahmachrya ashram outside but still continuing service here. OK. Thank you.
So I’ll speak on the topic of healthy and unhealthy emotions in the renounced order. I’ll focus on one particular emotion or one particular family of emotions, but it will be a broad talk about this. Our emotional energy is ultimately what we want to channel in bhakti.
Our emotions normally attract, make us attracted towards worldly things and we want to restrain that. I want to redirect it towards Krishna. And bhakti is in its essence is the flow of emotions.
So this redirection of the flow of emotions that we need to do, it involves, emotions are going this way. If we consider emotions to be like water, the water is flowing in a particular direction. Now we want to get it to go in another direction.
And it’s not just, OK, you have a pathway of the water, there’s a channel, split into two. One goes here, one goes here. It’s almost not just two different directions, there are two opposite directions.
There is the emotion which goes towards the world and the emotion which goes towards Krishna. Now these two are not inherently opposite because the emotion can go towards the world and even through the world go towards Krishna. That means we have, we like art.
So we make beautiful art for Krishna. So our emotion is going towards the art, but because the art is offered to Krishna, so the emotion goes through the art towards Krishna. The same can apply to music, to writing, to cooking, to decorating, to whatever we do.
So our emotions go towards the world and we want them to go towards Krishna. So our emotions can go towards Krishna in multiple ways. One is wherever they are going towards the world, from there we get them towards Krishna.
The other could be that we try to redirect the flow so that they don’t go towards the world, they go towards Krishna directly. So in the renounced order, especially with respect to intimate relationships, the emotions that go towards the world, we do not use them to go towards Krishna, rather we redirect them towards Krishna. Even as aspiring for renunciation or those in the renounced order, then we have other emotions which may go through the world towards Krishna.
Even devotees may love music, may love cooking. Devotees, brahmacharis may also love cooking, love music. And these are worldly things.
Worldly not in a sensual sense, but they are objects of the world. But with respect to this particular activity, we want our emotions to go primarily towards Krishna. And that is a formidable challenge.
If say, water is flowing in a particular direction, to stop the water’s flow in that direction and then to push the water in another direction. Even when the water is static, we can push it. But if the water is flowing, at that time we want to push the water in another direction.
It’s not that easy. So, by the practise of bhakti, by the chanting of Hare Krishna, by the whole process of doing devotional activities, we try to stimulate our devotional emotions. Initially we come to the temple, we may look at the deities.
They look nice. Good, nicely decorated statues, we may think. But as we study the philosophy, as we understand the glory of Krishna, we understand how he manifests as a deity, then our emotion flows towards Krishna much more.
This is how our emotional energy slowly gets channelled towards Krishna. Now while it is being channelled thus, on one side we want to stimulate the flow of our emotional energy towards Krishna. So this river is here.
What we are trying to do is, we are trying to create a path for it. So that the river of our emotions will start flowing towards Krishna. And there is a flow of this river of emotions towards the world.
We want to check that. So while we are checking that, with what attitude do we check that? The world has many attractive sense objects within it. And if we decide as a matter of our way of practising bhakti that I do not want to indulge in these sense objects, then there can be a healthy way of doing that, a healthy emotion involved in that or there can be unhealthy emotion in that.
Say consider if there is poison. There is a bottle of poison kept in our, maybe on our table where there is food, there is poison. The poison would cause shock.
What is the poison doing over there? I don’t want the poison. I will throw away the poison. I may even fear or hate the poison.
Of course hate is a very strong emotion. It needn’t be there. But suppose instead of poison there is some sweet over there.
And say I have got diabetes. So if I have diabetes, I cannot eat that sweet. But that doesn’t mean the sweet is bad.
Poison is intrinsically bad. Poison intrinsically kills. But sweet is not intrinsically bad.
Sweet doesn’t in itself kill. But for a diabetic person it may have harmful effects. It does have harmful effects.
So there can be, with respect to those two examples, there can be aversion and there can be caution. Aversion means this is bad. I want this to get out.
I don’t want this here. Caution means this is bad for me. Therefore I have to be careful.
So when we are practising spiritual life, we will encounter many tempting objects in the world. And especially when we talk about sexually alluring images, sexually alluring forms, sometimes the word sense object, when it is used to refer to a person, it can seem to objectify the person. The person is full conscious being and we reduce them simply to an object of the senses.
So which is, yeah, we may have to see it that way at that particular point because that’s the way we are already seeing it. When a person becomes lusty, they don’t see the other person as a person. Especially when Krishna says, when lust becomes insatiable, when people become sexually violent, what are they doing? They are not seeing the other person as a person with emotions.
They are seeing the other person simply as a form which is meant for my gratification. And by force or by what trick or whatever, I want to use this form to gratify myself. So in that case, we are seeing the person as a sense object.
But the person is not a sense object. The person is much more than a sense object. Just as we are not our bodies, we are souls.
Similarly that person is not their body. It is their body which could be a sense object for us. It could be our body which is a sense object for others.
But just as we are not our bodies, they are not their bodies. And so if there is aversion, aversion means it’s that we treat, there is antipathy or hatred towards that person. It’s reducing them to an object.
Then that is an unhealthy attitude. In fact, aversion is simply the flip side of attachment. In 2.64 in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna talks about He says, He says that there is attachment and there is aversion and both of them need to be eliminated.
So we need to go beyond both. So in aversion, going back to the earlier point of redirecting our emotional flow towards Krishna, when our emotions are locked in something, they may be locked in that thing with the fear of trouble or the threat of trouble or they may be locked in it with the promise of pleasure. But in both ways, our emotions are locked in it.
What we want to do is unlock our emotions from it. Say, what I mean by locking and unlocking of emotions is, let’s say suppose somebody is mad for cricket. And then when a player plays very well and wins the match, then they adore that player.
When India won the World Cup 7-8 years ago, at that time Sachin Tendulkar was considered the god of cricket. So one of the popular images that went around in social media at that time was of Sachin Tendulkar showing his wish for Rupa. And Krishna shows his universal form in which all the enemies are going into his mouth.
So they showed this picture of Sachin Tendulkar and all the captains of all the other cricket teams are going into his mouth. So what they are doing is, so the emotions are invested so much in it. This person is god.
India’s popular slogan was that cricket is our religion and Sachin is our god. But then after some time, his performance started going down. And the same people, when is he going to retire? Why is he not retiring? There are so many articles criticising him.
He just wanted to make his 100th century. He is just dampening the team’s prospects so that he can make a record. There is a lot of negative press about him.
In fact, sometimes it happens that in the previous World Cup, 2007 World Cup, India didn’t qualify for the semi-finals. So after that, what the Indian fans did was, they made effigies of the cricketers and burned those effigies. Or they made effigies and they put a garland of chappals, garland of shoes on them.
So it is to demonise them. How terrible, you played such a foolish shot, because of which you got out, you bowled such a poor over, because of which you lost the match. So in both these cases, at one level, when something gives us pleasure, we exalt it.
When something gives us trouble, we demonise it. In both the cases, the emotion is very strongly invested in it. And when we want to practise Bhakti, just as if the emotion is strongly invested in something, and say those cricketers who we thought will play very well, we will win and we will enjoy.
If they play terribly and we lose, then those emotions that are locked in cricket, they make us become very angry with those cricketers, averse to those cricketers. That’s why they want to burn their effigies. So similarly for us, we when we are trying to practise Bhakti, we want to direct our emotions towards Krishna.
And there are objects in this world, which charm us, which draw our emotions towards them. And in the sense of objects, our emotions are already attracted and we could say captivated. So when we want to, when we don’t want to, we decide now I don’t want to engage with them, but still the temptation keeps coming, temptation keeps coming.
And the temptation can sometimes be tormenting. Do it, do it. No, I’m not going to do it.
It’s almost like somebody has got a whip and they’re whipping us at the level of the mind. Do it, do it, do it, do it. No, no, no, no.
Sometimes it just becomes unbearable. How long can I tolerate this whipping? And then we just succumb to it. So what has happened for us, the same object, when we were not following any principles of regulation or enunciation, the same objects promised a lot of pleasure.
We may have interacted or indulged with the objects also and got some pleasure also. But now when we want to distance ourselves from those objects, then still the desires keep coming, the desires torment us and the thought of the object, which earlier might have given us pleasure, thought will give us pleasure, now the thought of the object causes us trouble, causes us distress, causes us torment. And then in order to break free from that torment, in order to avoid the torment, we may project negative emotional energy on that.
This is so terrible. So where earlier this is so wonderful, I just want to do it, I want to indulge in it, I want to enjoy it, but then this is so dreadful. And the same emotional energy may still be locked in it.
So aversion is unhealthy because we want our emotions to be free and available so that they can flow towards Krishna. But when there is attachment, the emotion of, this will give me so much pleasure, that emotion is flowing towards Krishna, when there is aversion towards the sense object. But when there is aversion, even then the emotion is engaged with it, it’s just the opposite emotion.
So just as attachment can divert us from Krishna, aversion can also divert us from Krishna. Say suppose you go to the temple, to take darshan, and there is some person who is also in the community and they are also in the temple and we have some attachment to them. Then as soon as we think we are there, we may be looking at the deities, but our thoughts may be, is this person there? What are they doing? How are they looking? How are they dressed? So my thoughts can keep coming in our mind and that attachment may distract us from Krishna.
But suppose we had a quarrel with someone and there is a lot of negative feeling about that person and that person comes into the temple and as soon as we hear their voice, immediately our mind gets, what are they doing here? What are they going to do? Are they going to speak something bad about me? What am I going to do about it? I should speak something about them. So just the same way, our emotions were diverted away from Krishna because of attachment, the same way, our emotions can get diverted away from Krishna by aversion. So in that sense, aversion is the flip side of attachment.
There is a coin, coin has head and tails. So similarly, attachment and aversion are two sides of the same coin. And sometimes, when we take up the renounced order, we might go too much towards the aversion side, wherein we start thinking that, this is so terrible and we start demonising the sense objects.
Sense objects are not to be demonised. It is, there is aversion and there is caution. Caution means, I have got diabetes, this is a food which contains sugar.
It will harm me. So I am in a particular order and this order, at least as long as I am in this order, I need to follow some principles. And therefore, I have to be cautious.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu on one side was very strict with those who are in the renounced order. But on the other side, most of the Chaitanya Charita Amrit is about love of God. There are very few verses in the Chaitanya Charita Amrit which talk directly about sense control.
He has not come primarily to teach sense control. Those in the renounced order, yes, he expected them. But his primary purpose was to teach love of God.
To direct our emotional energy towards Krishna. So similarly, for us, if our emotions are too locked in worldly things, either in attachment for them or aversion for them, both will become a block in the practise of our bhakti. Both will prevent our emotional energy from moving towards Krishna.
But when we learn to, okay, there may be some pleasure there, there may be some trouble there. The important thing is, I don’t want to be involved with it. I want to direct my consciousness towards Krishna.
And I keep a distance because I understand if I contemplate too much, if I associate too much, there is a magnetic pull over there. My emotions will be drawn in that direction. Therefore, I need to keep a distance.
But that is out of caution. Caution is where the focus is on what is good for me. Aversion is that itself is bad.
Caution means this is not good for me. So this will have a bad effect on me. So let me be careful about it.
So caution is vital. But aversion is not. And the line between the two is primarily based on our purpose.
If our primary purpose is to take our consciousness towards Krishna, then we will not get into the zone of our aversion. Because we will see aversion will also be a distraction in our bhakti. But when our purpose is to serve Krishna, then we will be cautious.
Because this is the energy of my emotions. And I want this to go towards here. If it goes over there, it will be, that emotion is not available for me to take towards Krishna.
So therefore, I want the emotion to go towards Krishna. So in this way, when we function, then the emotions within us will be healthy. Unhealthy emotions will mean that we will get caught in yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no.
This is so good, this is so bad, this is so good, this is so good. Prabhupada talks about bhoga and tyaga. I want it, I don’t want it.
I want it, I don’t want it. Just get caught in that. But the important thing is, I want Krishna.
And how I am going to deal with this, that is something which time will reveal. Whether I am in the renounced order, whether I change renounced order later, or whether I change it now. That is something which is secondary.
The important thing is, I should have my consciousness flowing towards Krishna. Sometimes this whole, I want to do, I want it, I don’t want it, I don’t want it, I want it, I don’t want it. This goes on so much in the head, that Krishna just becomes like a background noise in the consciousness.
And even when we are chanting, chanting becomes a background noise. We are not hearing the holy name because we are focused too much on other things. Just accepting, rejecting, accepting, rejecting.
So, how do we disinvest our emotions? We are already locked in the sense objects. And then invest those emotions in Krishna. Broadly speaking, there are three main things.
पसंगम जरंपाशिम आत्मन कवयोगिदू सेव साधुशुकुतो मुक्षि द्वारम पाव्रतम् The Bhagavatam says in the third canto, that the same force of attachment, when directed towards the world, it causes bondage. If that force of attachment is directed towards the devotees, towards the sadhus, then it will open the door to liberation. So, if we become attached to some senior devotee, and we feel, this devotee is so wonderful, I want to associate with them, I want to serve them, I want to help them in their mission, then that will, because we need relationships.
We can’t be without relationships. So, when we have some inspiring relationship in the spiritual direction, then that will trigger our emotional energy in the spiritual direction. So, the attachment may be to the spiritual master, the attachment may be to the Prabhupada, the attachment may be to some senior devotee, even senior brahmachari, whatever it is.
There has to be some way by which our emotions are channelled towards Krishna, through some devotee. Because the relationship with Krishna is our ultimate goal. But while we are here, we need relationships.
The second step would be that we have to find out something which is within the purview of bhakti, and something which is also we feel emotionally connected with. Say, this is circle of bhakti, and this is circle of what I feel emotionally connected with. Find the intersection of the two.
And then our emotional energy can be channelled through that towards Krishna. That means, if I like music, if I like reading, if I like managing, I like to do that. I do it for Krishna.
By that also my emotional energy will get channelled towards Krishna. And ultimately, we need to call out to Krishna. There are the songs of the Vaishnavacharyas, there are the prayers, there is even the calling out of the holy name.
This is something in which we consciously try to direct our emotions towards Krishna. These are, if we can find something, some prayer, some song, some quote, some devotionally potent stimuli which connects with us, then that can also help us to channel our emotional energy towards Krishna. And the more our emotional energy gets channelled towards Krishna, the more bhakti will become joyful and enlivening.
Otherwise, if our emotional energy is not channelled towards Krishna, then bhakti will seem like too much demanding renunciation. And bhakti will seem like very tiring. Because much of our emotional energy is going, no, I want it, I don’t want it, I don’t want it, I want it.
But instead, we find some way to channel our emotional energy towards Krishna, then bhakti will become joyful and it will become enlivening. So, I’ll summarise. You can have some questions if you have any.
I spoke about healthy and unhealthy emotions in spiritual life. I started by, when we are going towards Krishna, there are many temptations in the world which divert us. So, there are sense objects.
Now, when we use the word sense object, are we objectifying a living person? No, it is our desire which already objectified. We are recognising that the person is more than a sense object. If we reduce the person to sense object, either they become an object of attachment for us, when we want to enjoy, or they become an object of aversion, when we want to go away from that.
But in both ways, our emotions are locked within it. And what we want to do is, we don’t want to just change the emotions to positive, negative. We want to redirect the emotion towards Krishna.
The water is flowing this way, I want the water to flow this way. And so, rather than seeing the sense objects like poison, you see that, I am a diabetic and this is like sugar. So, it is not that the sense object is bad, but rather its effect on me is bad.
So, I don’t demonise it, but I become cautious about it. And with this caution, with aversion, our emotional energy gets engaged with sense objects, and it is not available for Krishna. Just like when we are attached to someone, and we go to the temple, not thinking about the ladies, we are thinking about that person.
When we are averse to someone, again we are thinking about the same person only. About the person whom we are averse to, not about Krishna. So, how do we ensure that our emotional energy goes towards Krishna? First is caution, that this will captivate me like a magnet, so therefore, let me keep some distance.
But more importantly, let me stimulate my emotions towards Krishna. And that we can do by becoming attached to some devotees, whom we can connect with nicely. That satisfies our need for personal relationships, while also spiritualising our consciousness.
And we find out something which we like to do, which is in the realm of bhakti, that will also help us to get our emotions to work for us. And lastly, we learn to call out to Krishna, either by our own prayers or by the prayers of the acharyas, so that we consciously offer our emotions to Krishna in a mood of prayer and seeking of mercy to Him. In this way, gradually, our emotional energy will become spiritualised and then we will find that our bhakti will become joyful and enlivening.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. So, are there any questions or comments? Yes, Ram.
Thank you very much. The point is that it seems to me that our impression of material senses, creation and pleasure we get from senses, is somewhat always higher than we get from practise, which we come to see. So we are, again and again, swayed away.
And this process is kind of, seems to me, like this can of Krishna consciousness, pleasure, is tightly closed. There is no time. In the meantime, you may lose patience and strength.
I have seen many times, and then I see the cause of their living is just they don’t get enough pleasure from practising and they are just swayed again. That’s true. It’s very hard intellectually.
Like, when you practise, full blast of pleasure will come one day. That’s true. I agree with you.
So, if you consider that when you practise bhakti, the happiness of spiritual life seems to be like a can which is tightly closed. It takes a long time to open. We don’t get the taste.
And the emotional connect with sense objects seems to be much stronger for us. So we get drawn towards it. Yeah, that’s true.
Both ways, it’s that whatever we have indulged in recently, that is fresh in our memory. Because we have indulged in sense objects, that is fresh in the memory. And that’s what keeps coming back to us.
So it’s not that the sense objects are more attractive than Krishna. Rather the impressions about the sense objects are deeper within us than the impression about Krishna. There is a difference between the two.
Krishna is far more attractive than sense objects. But how much attractive what will appear to me will depend on how much other impressions about him in my mind. So, that’s why there is the whole process of discipline.
I feel like getting attracted but I will not get attracted. Now, the discipline cannot go on for a very long time. Unless there is some taste.
So it’s like, say, I am starving right now. I need food. You tell me, we are on a journey.
It’s a 48-hour journey. At the end of it, there is a 25-course feast. Give me one food item now.
48 hours later, whatever it is, that’s fine. I want one food item now. Something I want right now.
Sometimes it can appear like that. Oh, when you become a pure devotee, there is constant ecstasy. I want some ecstasy now.
So it can feel like that. Definitely. So what we need to do is that each devotee has to take individual responsibility to find out within bhakti what gives them taste.
What gives them strength. And to do that. So, we could say this is the lower material taste.
This is the higher spiritual taste. In between, we could say there is a higher material taste. We normally talk about lower taste and higher taste.
We simply talk about lower material taste and higher spiritual taste. But there could be a higher material taste. What do I mean by higher material taste? It means that it is higher in the sense that it raises our consciousness higher.
But it is not entirely material. You could say it is a higher material spiritual taste. That means say, I like to sing.
Now when I sing, is it that I am singing purely for Krishna’s pleasure? And right now I am giving class. Is it that I am giving this class purely for Krishna’s pleasure? Well, I don’t think so. I hope I can one day.
But it’s not. You know, I like to speak. I like to analyse concepts.
I like to present. I like to play with words. I like to deal with concepts.
But I like to play with words and concepts. But I am not playing with words and concepts which are atheistic, which are materialistic. I am doing it in the realm of Krishna bhakti.
So, now this, when say, in the class there is a joke and we all laugh. Now if you start asking, if somebody laughs in the class, are you laughing for Krishna’s pleasure or are you laughing for your own sense enjoyment? Well, if it is a spiritual class, the context is a philosophy, we don’t have to before laughing think, am I laughing for Krishna’s pleasure? Just laugh, isn’t it? So, similarly, we need to find out within the scope of Krishna bhakti, what is it that can give us taste along the way to Krishna. For example, book distribution.
How many of us do book distribution because we see all these people in this world, they are lost, they are spiritually in distress, they are miserable and this book is going to enlighten them. We may have that thought somewhere in our mind. But quite often we think, I will distribute this book and then when I come back, I distribute so many books, devotees will glorify me for that.
That motive is there. We don’t want to nourish that motive but we can’t deny that also. It is there.
So, whatever it is, we are serving Krishna. So, we cannot become pure devotees without becoming devotees. And devotion means there is a connection with Krishna.
To the extent the connection with Krishna is established, to that extent, the connection can gradually be purified. So, basically, while we are practising bhakti, we have to find out some service which we can do, which gives us some taste. Vishwanath Chaturthi Thakur also says that nishtha, ruchi, asakti, bhaav and premer is there.
So, the sages and bhakti are there. After nishtha comes ruchi and then is asakti. So, ruchi is taste and asakti is attachment.
So, there is a small difference, but significant difference. In the stage of ruchi, the taste is for the service. Whereas, in the stage of asakti, the attachment is for the object of service.
That means, I just like to sing. And, of course, I am singing about Krishna because this is a Krishna-centred movement. But, my joy is in singing.
My joy is not in Krishna. However, if I keep singing about Krishna, gradually, my joy will shift, not just from singing, but about Krishna. This will happen only when I connect with Krishna regularly.
If I say, you should sing only for, I will sing only for Krishna’s pleasure. If I get some pleasure myself, if I am singing for my pleasure, I will not sing at all. Then I will never be able to practise bhakti.
So, therefore, along the journey, we need something which will sustain us. And that is, you could say, the higher material spiritual taste, whatever it is. So, that is the whole principle of Varanashram.
Varanashram means, when we work according to our nature, we get some happiness. When a brahmana does intellectual work, they get some pleasure. It may not necessarily be spiritual pleasure, but it is pleasure.
And that pleasure, if it is within the purview of bhakti, then that pleasure helps us to keep moving onwards as we move towards bhakti, as we move towards the taste of devotion. And, of course, along the journey also, we will get sometimes glimpses of the joy of devotion also. Sometimes there is kirtan, darshan, recitation of verses, remembrance of prayers.
You might get some really sublime taste at that time. And when we get that, we also need to cherish those memories. Treasure those memories and then, just as our mind automatically keeps replaying our sensual memories and alluring us, come on, do that, you will enjoy again.
So, we need to consciously contemplate our devotional memories and use them as an impetus for moving onwards in our spiritual life. Does that answer your question? Questioner 2 Can I ask one more? It is connected to the story of everybody. Very often, if it is not… I asked many devotees in the past, what you would like to do with your faith? And maybe on the West, we are so hopeless cases that we spend our life later, and there is no even introduction for anything.
It is very hard for them to do anything there. Or they are just confused, they don’t know what to do with themselves. Even Yasham did with you.
And I sometimes asked him, is it any subject in school, you are being attracted more to teachers than to the others? They cannot find any other support. So, in that case, to find material higher pleasure… It is difficult, yeah. That’s true.
Sometimes people are so confused and so disoriented that they don’t even know what they like, at a material level also. Yeah, that is how it is. The three modes, goodness, passion and ignorance.
So, in ignorance, we are not… See, sometimes nowadays there is a lot of aversion. Lot of, what do you say, people live together, they don’t even want to get married. Just want to stay single, and they have relationship with many people.
So, that is because they feel there are so many options for enjoyment, and if I choose one option for enjoyment, other doors will close for me. So, therefore, let me keep all doors open. So, that means people are not able to decide even which material object to enjoy.
So, that is… In ignorance, we are not able to decide there are so many objects, what to enjoy, I can’t decide that also. Sometimes people in passion may appear to be very self-controlled. Sometimes an athlete, I want to win this gold medal, and they just work so hard, they will regulate their diet, they will work, have a very strict regimen, and work very hard.
So, now, are they self-controlled? Not exactly self-controlled, because there is no spiritual inclination, and after they win their… after they win their tournament or whatever, they may just drink like crazy to celebrate. So, but at least in passion, the advantage is the self is controlled by one desire. The self controlled by one desire is not a self-controlled desire.
It’s not self-controlled. Self-controlled means one is having the self directed towards the supreme controller, Krishna. But in passion, at least the self is controlled by one desire.
What do I want to do with my life? I want to go to Cambridge. I want to become a software engineer. So, that is the mode of passion.
In some ways, the mode of passion is better than the mode of ignorance. There is at least clarity about what I want to do. Now, whether what I want to do is good for me or not, that’s a separate question.
But there is… the indecision is the characteristic of the mode of ignorance. And just absolute conviction about one decision is the characteristic of the mode of passion. Sometimes there may be harmful effects.
Like some people, when they want to form a relationship, they say, I want to marry this person. And they say, I’ll reject the whole world. They say, romantic movies, you know.
They say, the parents, I reject your inheritance, but I’ll not reject this person. So, that is typical of the mode of passion. And the same person, after a few months or a few years, they live with that person.
They say, why did I want to marry this person? So, that means what has happened? The passion created attachment and passion created aversion. After some time. But, in ignorance, one is not able to even decide what to do.
So, if people are in that situation, where they can’t even understand what material like and material dislike, then at that time, they should be encouraged to do some service. And they tell them, if you are not able to decide, just we observe them and we give them whatever is the engagement. And by that, gradually they will become purified.
The lower modes influence will go down. As they come to goodness, then they will be able to perceive better what we should be doing. And of course, even the same person is not always there in the mode of passion ignorance.
Even alcoholics also sometimes have their reflective moments. What am I doing with my life? How did I end up in this mess? So, this could be some moments of goodness for them. So, even people in the mode of passion ignorance, they have moments of goodness.
And at that time, they reflect. And that is the time when they take their decisions. Then they can also take a wiser decision.
So, if people are not able to decide, then we just encourage them to practise bhakti and do some service. When they come to goodness, then they will be able to decide what will give them the material, spiritual higher taste. Okay? Thank you.
Yes. You wanted to add something? You raised your hand in between. I think, well, I was going to say that, you know, in terms of like, you know, whatever activities we are doing, we do it for Krishna.
And that way, we sublimate our pleasures, the material pleasures for the pursuit of Krishna. Would that also apply, I am going for the juggler here in one sense, but would it apply to, let’s say, the most intense pleasure, which is the essential pleasure. Because a lot of the activities we do, like we like music, we do music for Krishna.
We like to read, read for Krishna, sing for Krishna. Even like, you know, something like if you like to eat meat before, you can have like even prasadam, that is of that, you know, like Prabhupada said, paneer is a meat-lover’s delight. All these things can be meat-lover’s delight, paneer.
So all these things can be sublimated in Krishna consciousness. But in terms of the sensual pleasure, yes, sex life basically, that one, can that be sublimated, or just one has to wait until one gets the full spiritual ecstasy before one can be fully of that pleasure. Okay.
So, other pleasures like desire for eating can be sublimated by taking prasadam. But can the sexual pleasure be sublimated? Well, sexual pleasure has multiple components to it. One is the physical component, the other is the emotional component.
The third could be, I would say emotional and relational are similar, but they are not exactly the same. The relational component. Emotional component means, I want someone who understands me.
Relational component means, I have someone with me, whom I can go to. They are two slightly different things, but they are related. So, when people enter into a marital relationship, it’s not just for the physical pleasure.
Physical is of course very defining for most people. But it’s not just that. If that is all that they wanted, then they could just go to a prostitute and get that.
But people want relationships. So, now, the physical aspect of the pleasure, that is something which, in the renounced order, we cannot get that. But the emotional and the relational, we can get that.
If we have, as I said, some senior devotee who understands us, or some friend who understands us, then we can share our hearts with them. And, if we have some friends, one is about understanding, and the other is about enduring connection. So, if you have some friend, we may not even meet them regularly, but whenever we meet them, we have a heart-to-heart talk with them.
And then that need for emotional connection, other than that for relationship, that can be fulfilled. And in fact, if that is not fulfilled, then staying in the renounced order is almost impossible. So, we need good relationships, at least with some devotees.
And we can’t just artificially, artificially create good relationships. Yes, we want to make sure that we have cordial relationship with everyone. We don’t want to be averse to anyone.
But still, we have to, for us to have deep relationships, we need to have like-minded people. So, for us, in our ashram, to find out a like-minded person with whom we can connect, connect very nicely, that is vital. And to the extent that emotional need for, emotional relational need is taken care of, then the physical need can be subordinated.
And, of course, in today’s culture, the physical need is, the physical aspect of the relationship is aggravated because there is so much sensual propaganda all around. But even in many, many traditional marriages, after a particular age, people would, the physical aspect would, would go beyond, they would go beyond it. And then, say, when people go 40, 50, 60, the husband and wife are together, they are more than life partners, than as objects of sense gratification for each other.
Even if people are not spiritual, that aspect goes down gradually. Today, there might be artificial stimulation in society because of which people, say, take aphrodisiacs, and take this and that to try to stay sexually active even afterwards. But this phase, say, when you age from 20 to 50 or something like that, when the body’s sexual activity is there, the hormones are very strong, during that period, to, to be without the need for physical, without, without physical indulgence.
That is a challenge. But the other aspects can be fulfilled. That particular has to be transcended, tolerated and then transcended.
Yes, who had a question? My question was, as you said that we have to find a service which fulfils us this higher material pleasure, but in the initial years of our staying in the ashram, we might be doing some other things, we might be in the environment, putting things together. So, coming to the stage… Were you there in today morning’s class? Were you there? I was coming on the… I addressed this question there itself. So, yeah, basically, in the initial stage, it’s difficult to find out.
So, we just do whatever we are told to do. But while doing, we observe ourselves. And by observing ourselves, we gradually say, okay, this is what I am comfortable at, this is what I am competent at.
So, guna and karma, refers to, guna karma bhagavad gita, Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, so guna refers to inner comfort, karma refers to outer competence. What is it that I feel comfortable doing? What is it that I am competent doing? We keep observing ourselves and gradually we learn. It will take some time.
Until then, we just, we have to also learn the principle of subordination. That is, ultimately we want to connect with Krishna. So, we just do what we are told to do, but we observe ourselves.
And over a period of time, we understand, this is what I am best suited for. Till that time, in a few years, there is also the newness of bhakti, which also helps. Oh, going out on streets and doing kirtan, going out and distributing books, dancing in kirtan, this, that.
The newness also creates a sense of adventure in bhakti. And we also… So, for a few years, just based on the newness of the bhakti lifestyle, we can move on. And by the time the newness fades off, at that time, by that time, we have to be able to find out, how is it that we can serve Krishna best.
Okay? Thank you. Thank you very much. Prabhupada Ki Jai Gaur Bhakta Vrinda Ki Jai Jai Gaur Premanand Jai Jai Prabhupada Ki Jai