How can we transform practice into realization?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, you have embarrassed me by the question.
I will service to you. I’ll try to answer in whatever way I can. So the question is that, you know, if somebody is practicing Krishna consciousness, but they are not getting the realizations, so they’re like, as Prabhupada would say, licking the jar from outside, licking the jar from outside.
So how can they go deeper and start getting realizations? Actually, there are many different aspects that are involved in getting realizations. One aspect of it is that the capacity to explain what one is realizing or what one is trying to realize. But otherwise, if somebody is just faithfully practicing for many years, that itself indicates that one has some realization.
Otherwise, one would not be practicing. So there is a capacity to express one’s realization. There is a capacity to internalize or assimilate realizations.
So some people may have certain capacities which just come by past karma. Like some people sing very nicely. That’s a gift from past karma.
So like that, some people can speak nicely. But the test of our bhakti is our longevity. We are practicing for a long time and that itself indicates that we do have realizations, without which we would not be able to continue.
Along with that, we all need a like-minded devotee association. That means that we all come from different backgrounds. We all have different minds.
And when we hear the Krishna conscious presentations also, some ways of presenting click with us. Some ways of presenting don’t click so much with us. So if we can find even one or two devotees who are like-minded, like-minded means basically they understand, they think like us.
Now they understand how our mind works. And then they can explain things in a way which will click to us. So that like-minded devotee association, the Bhagavad Swami says in the Bhakti Samhita, sa jati ashe bhagavad bhakti sadhu.
Not just devotee association, but like-minded devotee association. In that, the realizations come much deeper. Because we are seeing Krishna from one perspective and somebody else is seeing Krishna from another perspective.
They are seeing the same Krishna, but if their perspective is very different from ours, then their perspective is informative. It is nice, we come to know about Krishna, but it doesn’t really help us to know Krishna as we are knowing Him. So if say I am seeing Krishna from here and somebody is saying Krishna from there, they are both saying the same Krishna, but their vision of Krishna doesn’t enhance my vision immediately.
It’s more of an intellectual comprehension. It’s not a practical assistance. But see if I am looking from here and somebody is looking from here, then I can extend my vision, I can see how they are seeing.
So say if somebody is from a scientific background, and then I am from a scientific background, then if they present Krishna consciousness, they will present say logically, scientifically, that will connect with me. Somebody is more from an artistic or literary background, then the background doesn’t determine one’s advancement in spiritual life, but the background does determine how one perceives Krishna, how one connects with Krishna. So often that we need Krishna consciousness to be understood and explained and shared in the language in which we think.
Language is not just the language like English, language is also the conceptual framework. In which we think. So I feel that like-minded devotee association helps a lot in deepening realizations, in stimulating realizations, in assimilating realizations.
And a third thing I would say is that actually this is a little intricate. I wish I had a diagram to explain this. Basically, what do we mean by realization? See, if this is a soul, we get knowledge from Shabda, we hear from scripture, from Guru Sanu Shastra, that is the knowledge that we get.
And then we also live in this world and for that we use praktaksha, praktaksha is our senses. So we use our senses to perceive the world. And then realization essentially means that we use our anuman, use our intelligence, our minds faculty, reasoning faculty to harmonize our praktaksha with the Shabda.
So realization means that which is a reality, I understand it to be a reality. That which is a reality, when I understand it to be a reality, that is a realization. So this world is a place of misery.
That is a reality. But if I look at the movies, if I look at advertisements, if I look at people on the streets, I know people going to party and they are enjoying life. So here what is happening, my praktaksha is dissonating with, is not resonating, it is dissonating with the Shabda.
But then I don’t just look at those people when they seem to be enjoying, I look at the consequences. They are partying now but then they get hangovers after that. You see that they do this and each of their actions has consequences.
So when I direct my praktaksha in such a way that it harmonizes with Shabda and the reasoning that I need to do for that. So that is the anuman. Now anuman, we sometimes take a dismissal, it is guesswork.
But anuman can also simply be the reasoning faculty. So anuman, that is directed according to Shabda. When we do our reasoning according to scripture, that is called as vichar, that is contemplation.
And that is scripturally guided reasoning and that is very valuable. So realizations come when we use our reasoning faculty to harmonize our praktaksha, our sensory perception with Shabda, with scriptural revelation. So reasoning that harmonizes sensory perception and scriptural revelation, that brings realization or that comprises realization.
So for example, say materialistic people and spiritual people, both of them may say youth is temporary. But so the spiritualist will say youth is temporary, therefore practice Krishna consciousness, focus on the eternal. Once I saw an advertisement in Calcutta, he says, the advertisement was, enjoy before you become a dirty old man.
So the fact was the same, youth is temporary. And what has happened? The idea is enjoy immediately. So here the same fact is taken, but that fact is subsumed in a materialistic world.
So when we all get experiences in our life, and if we can learn to train our reasoning faculty, by which we can see those experiences in the light of scripture, then that is what comprises realization. So realization, of course, at one level come by the mercy of Krishna. But at the same time, we can also strive to get realizations by evaluating our experiences, our perceptions in the light of scripture knowledge.
So by that, by training ourselves to, okay, this is what I am, this is what I went through. This is what I saw. This is what I heard.
This is what I perceived with my senses. So this is my pratyaksha. This is what I am experiencing as a reality right now.
But how do I see it in the light of scripture? So when we harmonize our sensory perception with scriptural realization, with scriptural revelation, then that is what brings realization. So this kind of reasoning also if we train ourselves to do, then also realizations can come much faster. So that’s the small thing I can say.
Thank you. Humble obeisances. Any other questions?