How can we focus on Krishna without imagining or speculating?

Answer Podcast:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, what does focusing on Krishna mean? What does the Tattvataha mean about Krishna and truth? Without speculating, how does it go about? First of all, Krishna does say many times, Offer your mind and your intelligence to it. One of the faculties of the mind is imagination.
It’s a very important faculty. So, Prabhupada says in one lecture, that using the imagination in terms of Krishna is what a devotee should do. So, for example, a devotee envisions, there is a throne in my heart and Krishna is sitting on the throne.
Now, Prabhupada, this is not imagination, this is reality. How is it reality? Is there actually a throne in my heart and Krishna is sitting? No. It is imagination used in the pursuit of reality.
Just like there is Manas Puja. Manas Puja, if somebody is not able to do it in service, because again, the mind envisions, Oh, I will serve Krishna. I will offer this.
I will offer this to Prabhupada Krishna. I will offer this to Arjuna Krishna. And Krishna is Bhavantra.
He accepts. So, using our imagination in Krishna’s service is not necessarily speculation. It is actually using one of our central faculties in the service.
So, when it becomes speculation, there are two things. First is when it is contrary to scripture. Secondly, when it results in our doing actions which militate against the spirit of devotion.
So, for example, somebody is in Manas Puja and says, because I am doing Manas Puja, I don’t need to do any ritual puja at all. Even if a person has capacity, but doesn’t do practical activities of worship, that is undesirable. So, we can focus in various ways on Krishna.
Using our imagination is one way, as I explained. But another is that we can do vichara. There is anuman, that is shastra moolak.
Anuman means anuman is not related to speculation. But anuman basically means influence. So, anuman does not have negative connotation.
This is the thing. अच्छे किच्चु काजे तब एली अनुमाने नहीं के ना आनी बेना एली उगरसाने Krishna Prabhupada, the Nikhil Guru, America, at that time, he says, Krishna, you must have brought me for some purpose. Otherwise, I would not be in this terrible place.
एली अनुमाने This is my anuman. So, Prabhupada, he is doing anuman. So, he doesn’t know clearly what exactly is Krishna’s plan.
What is going to happen now? What is he going to do after? This, this, this. It’s not like everything was pre-programmed. No, Prabhupada, the answer is, you guys should try this, you guys should try that, you guys should try that.
So, he tries various things. Whatever worked, it worked. And he did that.
So, when the anuman is done according to shastra, शास्त्रमूदः अनुमान, that means, when we try to arrive at conclusions that are according to shastra, then that is considered चात, that is considered auspicious. So, we can use, to become focused on Krishna, usually one of the best ways we can do it is by connection. We get a particular verse, we think, okay, there is some other verse there, there is some other philosophical point like that.
We connect this point with that point, that point with that point, that point with that point. Like that, as connections become more and more, we become more and more absorbed on Krishna. Knowledge, knowledge essentially flows from the known to the unknown.
Knowledge essentially flows from the known to the unknown. So, for example, if I come and say, today I will give a class on demographic trends of polar bears in Alaska. You say, what is, how is it correlated with me? It will not click, it will not click to us at all, because there is no correlation.
So, if I say, actually, we are studying the effects of global warming or climate change and that climate change is affecting us also. You see the temperature is becoming hotter and hotter. And I will talk about how this is affected in a much more serious way in another part of the world.
And that connection I will talk about demographic trends of polar bears in Alaska. Then it makes some sense. So, essentially, when we say that we are not able to absorb on Krishna, what it means is that we are not able to make connections.
So, we are chanting the holy names, but we are not connecting the holy name with Krishna, with the person Krishna. We are not connecting the holy name with the all-attractive, all-loving person Krishna with his pastimes, with his form, with his personality. And so, whenever we are chanting his mechanical, that means the connection is not there.
So, if we try to strive for connection, connecting what we are doing or what we know with what we are coming to know more, then that absorption will take place. So, focusing essentially means developing more and more connections. And to the extent we contemplate the philosophy more and more, to the extent we will discover more and more connections also.
And that way we will become increasingly absorbed in Krishna.