How can bhakti increase our ability to think which is a material ability?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, when I said that Krishna consciousness increases our ability to think, isn’t the ability to think also a material ability and how is increasing that going to release us from material entanglement. See, I qualified my statement, ability to think means ability to direct our thoughts, ability to choose what we think about.
So, when we say Krishna consciousness, that means I want to become conscious of Krishna, I want to direct my thoughts towards Krishna. So, now the ability to think, is it a material ability? Consciousness itself is non-material. Consciousness is transcendental.
It comes from the soul and when the soul’s consciousness is channeled through the subtle body, then from the subtle body it comes to the outer world. We express our thoughts. now specific capacities or specific ways of thinking, say some people are more analytical, some people are more mathematical, some people are more logical, some people are more verbal, some people are more visual.
So, all these specific abilities to think or specific ways of thinking, they are material skills. Some people have very high verbal intelligence. Some people they see one thing, they have very high visual intelligence.
They see something, they remember it. So, these specific ways in which we think, they are material abilities. But the original capacity to think, that comes from the soul.
Because thinking is ultimately an act of consciousness. So, all abilities actually are possible because the soul is present. So, when I said Krishna consciousness increases our ability to think, I am not talking in terms of that devotees verbal ability will increase or linguistic ability will increase or visual ability will increase.
I am talking about ability to think means ability to direct our thoughts. if you come to that. So, Krishna consciousness increases our