How can we know whether our experience of Krishna is imagination or revelation?

Transcript

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someone says that when Krishna is manifest on the inner screen is it simply an imagination or is it actually a revelation, a realization because it is the mind there is no way for somebody else to know let’s take this at three different levels one is at a skeptic who just doesn’t believe even in the existence of God somebody who is a sadhaka who is doubtful whether somebody is actually sentimentally imagining some other devotee or is actually realizing so we could say there is sentimental imagination there is just fantasy and there is a realization so now with respect to fantasy that are religious mystics or spiritual seers simply in delusion fantasizing about some other reality and experiencing something well some people could be like that but for experiencing some for examining the reality of something non-material which is not verifiable by our senses what is the way ahead for us so there are three broad ways one is whether what is being spoken about or what is being meditated on it it is its explanation I have a whole class on this topic the difference between fictional characters and Krishna there are three terms you know explanation exponents and experience explanation means say if somebody is watching a Harry Potter movie or somebody is just imagining a flying spaghetti monster as God that is a typical atheist claim which they have so now is there a world view associated with that is there a rational explanation not just of what one is imagining or worshipping as the divine but does that explain the world around us does it explain the nature of reality in the case of imagination there is simply stop thinking and start imagining but in the case of redirection towards God there is actually deep thinking and then we focus on God so so we have when we talk about God there is a whole rational world view that explains of course some aspects of the world view may be rational but may not seem to be rational but in every world view has some starting point that has to be accepted as axiomatic for us to make sense so if we accept God generally it is very difficult to reason I have a class on forward reasoning and backward reasoning to establish the existence of God so backward reasoning means we look at the world here right now and try to analyze how did it come about so design argument could be we see so many world things which are designed therefore we can say that God exists but then the problem is somebody may come up with some other explanations like evolution or something so in general the backward explanation is is it is persuasive to those who are already inclined to God but skeptics it may not be the other way we could have forward reasoning forward reasoning means accept the existence of God as an axiom and then look whether that correlates with the world which we observe right now so if we accept God as a as a fulcrum of existence and then we observe we do get a world view that makes sense why are we existing what is the purpose of our life why is there so much variety in this world so these are explained by the world view so this is a whole different subject but I am not going to go into the merits of the explanation of the specifics of the explanation but explanation is one thing second is exponents exponents means we look at the caliber of the people who are say talking about God and look at the caliber of the people who are say talking about Harry Potter or some other fictional characters we will see that these are some of the greatest saints who even objectively speaking had many virtues who were selfless who often renounced the world for the pursuit of God many of the makers of fictional characters they actually make it big in the world because of their fictionalization they become wealthy they become popular they become influential so the selflessness and the overall character of the exponents is something which can also observe and there are people who just leave the world to devote themselves to God and then their caliber is something which gives us faith. Third is experience means that the path of bhakti offers us a process by which we can experience higher reality so no matter how much somebody becomes devoted to Sherlock Holmes or Harry Potter or Wonder Woman or whatever they are not going to ever rise to some higher level of reality where they experience them now again we can say that this is your claim that you are rising to higher level of reality is an imagination but the point is that we will see some objective criteria bhakti pareeshaanubhaviraktiranyatracha that when one experiences God, that experience is so fulfilling that one becomes detached from other things and there are symptoms which are described on the inner journey which say Bhakti Samudra Sundar describes so the idea that God is simply an imagination is something which can be countered by looking at these three points explanation, exponents and experience now going beyond this if somebody is a spiritual seeker and they are are they sentimentally imagining that they are seeing God or they are absorbed in God or are they actually realizing God in general, whatever happens in our inner world, it’s very difficult to know its source if I get an idea, maybe I should do this now is that coming from my mind, is it coming from my intelligence is it coming from my ego, is it coming from the super soul it’s very difficult to know where something is coming from in our inner world what is relatively easier to discern is where it is taking us so is this by accepting this idea, by acting on this idea is it going to take me closer to Krishna so if it is favorable to our Krishna bhakti we accept it, if it is unfavorable we avoid it so in general if say if you or I we get a dream of Krishna now can we get Krishna in our dreams obviously who can stop Krishna from coming if he wants to we can’t say that Krishna can’t come in our dreams Krishna can come so the important thing is that if I say I got Krishna once somebody came to Prabhupada and said that Krishna came in my dream yesterday Prabhupada looked at him alright, serve him today so our enduring relationship with Krishna is of service and if Krishna comes in the dream that’s his mercy and that’s very good our spiritual growth primarily depends on how we use our free will so if the idea that ok I went to Holi Dham and I had some experience I experienced Krishna at that time in a kirtan or in darshan or something now I cannot know whether it is Krishna or not but if that experience inspires me to become more devoted to Krishna so I just feel there is something higher some profound depth some sublime sweetness is there which I experienced I needn’t go around telling everyone that I saw Krishna or I felt Krishna whatever, but if I use that to increase my inner conviction to commit myself to the practice of Krishna Bhakti then we don’t have to reject that as sahajiyaism or sentimentality things become sentimental when we consider our subjective spiritual experiences as replacements for objective spiritual practice because I have experienced Krishna now I don’t have to chant Hare Krishna now I don’t have to do sadhana bhakti so if our subjective spiritual experiences become inspirers in our practice of objective spiritual disciplines then we will become purified by that objective practice and then what was a one time experience can gradually become an enduring experience so in that way at our stage we don’t have to worry too much whether I am experiencing Krishna or not you can say if I am experiencing something which has conducive to Krishna Bhakti which inspires me to practice Krishna Bhakti we can say that yes this is unhoopool so I will accept it if we start bragging to others I experienced Krishna, I saw Krishna then we are actually not using that spiritual experience or whatever it was to go closer to Krishna but rather we are using it to boost our ego and that’s when it will become unfavorable to our path so rather than taking that course of action we persevere in intensifying our devotion then we can consider the experience as authentic experience or as something which can authentically prompt us towards Krishna