How Halloween celebration points to our longing for Krishna

[Talk at Montreal, Canada]

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna thank you very much for coming today evening and as today the western world halloween is being celebrated so I will speak something about how points towards Krishna and how it misses the point. So, the Bhagavad Gita in the 10th chapter, 41st verse says, yad yad vibhuti mat sattvam śrīma dūrjitam eva vā tattva devāva gacchattvam mamate yo amśa sambhava So, it is said that everything opulent, beautiful and glorious points to a spark of, reflects a spark of Krishna’s splendour. That means a devotee is able to see anything that is attractive in this world as coming from Krishna.
Now, 10th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita is called Vibhuti Yoga. The word Vibhuti means that special manifestation. Vibhuti is existence.
So, everything is a part of existence. Vibhuti is special existence. In existence there are many things, but some things catch our attention.
So, the things which catch our attention naturally, Krishna says that we can see that their capacity to catch our attention comes from Him. So, if somebody is very intelligent, somebody is very good looking, somebody is very powerful. Now, all these are special abilities, attractive abilities, but they come from Krishna.
So, a devotee is able to see everything as ultimately coming from Krishna. So, when Krishna speaks this in the 10th chapter, that is in response to Arjuna’s question, how can I see you in this world? Krishna has told in Chaitanya Vishnu’s Bhagavad Gita that always think of me. And Arjuna says that most of the time we are going to interact with the world.
We are going to function in the world. So, keshu keshu cha bhaveshu, chintyonsi bhagavanmaya, katham vidyam aham yogins, tam sada parichintayan. He says, while observing bhaveshu, the various manifestations existing in this world, how can I remember you? So, one way to remember Krishna is beholding his deities, chanting his holy names.
That’s important. At the same time, for most of us at a practical level, it’s not possible to do this 24 hours a day. So, when we function in the world, how do we think of Krishna? So, to be able to see the connection of everything attractive with Krishna, that is also a vital skill in Krishna consciousness.
Now, broadly speaking, if we consider that for all of us, we all have certain things that we are attracted to. Some people are attracted to sports, some people are attracted to music, some people are attracted to art, some people towards language, some people towards physical activities. And when we are attracted to these activities, what the Gita tells us is, everything attractive comes from Krishna.
At the same time, everything attractive doesn’t take us to Krishna. So, we have to find out that whatever we are attracted to, how we can connect with Krishna. So, with this philosophical background that everything attractive comes from Krishna.
So, whatever people find attractive about a festival like Halloween, that also comes from Krishna. But at the same time, everything attractive doesn’t necessarily take us to Krishna. What does that mean? Say, if somebody is attracted to, Prabhupada gives the example, that whatever is there in this world, it is, its attractiveness comes from Krishna.
So, he says that if somebody is attracted to drinking, they cannot give up drinking. So, then they can think that the taste of wine is actually Krishna. Rasoham apsu kaunteya, Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita.
I am the taste of water, and wine is also liquid. It’s like water. Krishna says, they can think that what is attracting me about this wine? Actually, the taste of wine is Krishna.
And if they remember Krishna like this, one day they will become great devotees, Prabhupada says. He doesn’t say, by drinking wine, you will become a great devotee. No, but by thinking about Krishna, by seeing the Krishna connection.
So, for me, I was born and brought up in India. So, I used to read some investigative fiction in my childhood. And that was the first time I heard about Halloween.
And the whole idea, that time, the most attractive part of the child was the fancy dress competitions, where fancy basically dressing up in a way that people can’t discover who you are. And then all the intrigue surrounding that, preparing it and trying to detect it and having a fun while, and conceiving, while identity is conceived. So, I’ll talk about three broad human aspirations, which are seen across cultures, and which are seen even in Halloween.
So, when we want to connect with people, there may be 99% differences between us. But if you want to connect with them, then we need to begin with the 1% common. 1% commonality, and then we can look at the 99% differences.
So, similarly, when we look at the world around us, if we become social observers, we will see that there are broadly common aspirations that everyone has. Even in that person be from a remote tribe, from a very high-priced metropolitan city, or that person may be super educated or uneducated. People have some common longs, some common aspirations.
And our humanity, our common human aspirations are what bring us together. But these aspirations are expressed in different ways at different times. So, to put it in a commonality, we need to see the brother in the other.
In the other, the other means, oh, I am like this, these people are like that. They are the other. This is a common human tendency to demonise the other.
Oh, these people are bad. These people are like this. To see the brother means to see commonality.
Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita that, one who sees the spiritual essence of all living beings, that person has knowledge in the mode of goodness. So, I’ll talk about three broad human aspirations. Connection, celebration and transformation.
Connection, we all need to connect with each other. We are all social creatures. And as social creatures, we all want to connect with others.
Even people who are, some people are extroverts, some are introverts. But even introverts want to connect with each other. One of the first things I realised after coming to America is that when people say, how are you? How are you in India is a question.
In America, or not just America, in the North American world, in the Western world, in UK also, wherever it is. So, I’ve been in America for two and a half months. So, please excuse my jet lag.
But how are you in the Western world is not a question. It is a greeting. So, people are interested in the answer.
It is a question. How are you? So, basically, what happens because of this? This is simply an indication that at one level, there’s a lot of people are polite, but people are not personal. People are courteous.
If you are walking through a door, people hold the door open. But people don’t want to get close to each other. In India, as well as in general Eastern cultures, they are more community centred, more society centred.
Whereas in the Western world, it’s more individuality centred, individual centred, the rugged individual going out on their own. And the result of it there sometimes is that people become lonely. I was in UK a few months ago, the UK government has officially appointed a minister for loneliness.
Now, of course, whether a minister for loneliness can minister to loneliness, that is a question. But they’ve done that because people are isolated. Isolated means, in the past, we had joint families, then we had nuclear families.
Now we have a nuclear also split, nucleus is also split. And then we have electrons and protons and neutrons orbiting around in the vast concrete jungles. So because of this, the problem that happens is that people have very little connection with each other.
And when they have very little connection, any kind of festival, any kind of celebration, it’s a way for people to come together. Now, when people even go for a party of any kind, the idea is to hang out together. So now, why we hang out together, that at one level is because there’s a universal human longing, if you want to connect.
But the Bhagavad Gita explains that there are three modes, sattva, rajas and tamas. And sattva refers to luminosity, clarity. Rajas refers to hyperactivity.
And tamas refers to lethargy, darkness. So now, based on the kind of mode we are in, accordingly, we will do the same activity. We want connection.
But on what basis we connect, that will vary. So at a basic level, I was told by a friend in America that many people, they actually only on the Halloween day when they have this trick or treat, kids go, that’s probably the, on the very few occasions that actually kids go to their neighbour’s houses. Others people stay disconnected.
So people, in a sense, stay closer than the past to each other. In many cities, people stay in apartments. So normally, people have big houses, then each house and other house has a lot of distance, has some distance at least.
But in apartments, people are, their houses are very close to each other. But in apartments, people are apart. They are all living in their own worlds and they don’t connect much with each other.
So they, what ultimately the human heart will find some reason to express its longing. So we want to connect with each other. Somehow the other will find a way to connect.
So if the way that is provided for connection is sattvic, people will take a way that is illuminated. If the way that is provided is tamasic, people will take up that way. Many people who drink, there are millions of people who drink and some of them become alcoholics.
Not everyone becomes alcoholic. So many people who drink, they are simply social drinkers. They want to hang out with people and for that they drink.
So anyway, the point here is that this, the specifics may vary, but there is a connection that is established. In India, in many parts of India, especially North India, there is a tradition that here, of course, when kids come on Halloween, they ask for some treat. In India, there is a tradition that if there is a, if there is a death in the family, and then after that, there is a period of mourning for 10 days or something, and then the kids go out to all the neighbouring houses and then they give food items.
So it’s the adults don’t go, it’s only the kids who go. The children go and they go to different houses and they give sweets. It’s a way of giving charity.
And the idea is that they want to have good wishes of all the neighbours for the deceased soul. If anyway, somebody has offended them, any negativity is there, just get it over with. In fact, in many villages, seen that when a person is going to die, it becomes more or less clear, they are old and they are going to die.
At that time, they may decide, now I’m going to Kashi, I’m going to Vrindavan. And before that, before they go on their final journey, the whole village comes to them. And everybody in the village seeks their blessings and offers their apologies.
And especially the person is old and that old person also gives good wishes. And thereby, basically what they’re trying to do, they’re essentially trying to have a positive closure. The relationship is going to end, but end it in a positive note.
So that’s the, there’s a similar festival, the idea of kids going out and connecting with people around. So why kids go out in that particular festival? The idea is that whatever animosity you may have towards anyone, we don’t take it out on the children. When people move together, it’s quite often that negativity comes up.
This may go wrong. That may go wrong. Harsh feelings might be there.
But as far as the children are concerned, they’re just children. So those harsh feelings are not there. So the children are sent as messengers of goodwill.
And if we consider this point of connection, the Bhakti culture offers this connection with the best centre. It is the human heart’s longing to connect. The Bhagavad Gita says that the devotees connect with Krishna at the centre.
mat-citta mat-gata prana bodhayantah parasparam kathayantah shyamam nityam tushyanti chiram anticham mat-citta mat-gata prana Devotees are devoted to talking about Krishna, to serving Krishna, to serve Krishna and be absorbed in Krishna. And this way when we direct the need for connection with Krishna at the centre, then that connection leads to elevation. That connection leads to purification.
That connection ultimately leads to liberation. So the second point I’d like to talk about is that there is some kind of celebration or veneration. Generally, we all have a tendency to worship.
Everybody has. Even people who are atheists, they have a tendency to worship. The atheists will make some person among themselves as a champion.
And they may not offer puja to that person, but they will venerate the person in such a way as if that person is almost like their God. For many atheists now, Darwin is like their God. In fact, there is a theist who has written a book called Darwin’s God.
Now idea is that did Darwin believe in God? That’s the idea. But the response to that has been that any criticism of Darwin is treated by the mainstream scientific community as aggressively as might religious fanatics treat blasphemy of their worshipping God. So the tendency to worship is there in everyone.
Now worship, how it is done, that will vary. In India especially, the worship of the embodied manifestations of the divine, the deities is common. But while there is the worship of the deities, along with that, there is also, there are gods, there are demigods and there are semi-gods.
Semi-gods means say me God. I am God. So there are people who are worshipped as if they are God.
And when they are worshipped as if they are God, I have found in many places, Indians are more interested in worship than the object of worship. That means they will go to a temple and with great reverence, with great devotion, with folded eyes, pray and come back. And they will not even ask who is there on the altar.
Somebody is there on the altar, we should worship. The idea is that urge to worship is there in everyone. If we see, that has been traditionally what all these virtues that were there, they were meant to be directed towards God.
Worship is meant to be directed towards God. But the worship has been now disconnected from God and is simply directed towards something else. So just now, India has inaugurated the world’s biggest statue.
It’s about five times bigger than the Statue of Liberty in America. It’s huge. And it’s almost like 3000 crore rupees were spent on building that statue.
And that is of a leader who played a role in the independence struggle, Vallabhbhai Patel. Now that statue is so big and so expensive. So the idea is, of course, there’s a lot of politics going on that one particular party wanted to show that we are also respecting our nation’s heroes.
And they appropriated him for themselves. And that’s what other people say. But the idea is, there is this urge to worship.
It may be directed in different directions, in different ways. So we make huge images. In fact, when India won the World Cup of cricket, India is a cricket mad country.
So at that time India had its favourite cricketer was Sachin Tendulkar. And then they made, they depicted Sachin Tendulkar with his Vishwaroop, with his universal form. And in his universal form, they depicted all the Indian players as coming out of his body.
And then the universal form has all the Kauravas going into the mouth. So this cricketer’s mouth was open and all the opposing team’s captains were going into his mouth. So the idea of worship is there everywhere and it will be directed in whatever way is considered popular at that time.
Whatever way is considered prevalent or whatever is trendy at that particular time. Now we have things like, we have hero worship. Now there are movie stars, there are musicians.
Now the way they are worshipped, it’s as if somebody gets to spend a few moments with them. Oh, that’s the perfection of my life. And it’s a particular kind of karma that sometimes some people get all the worship after they die.
When they are living, they are not so famous. After they die, they become very famous. Now who gets the worship? That soul has gone somewhere else entirely.
But the urge to have someone extraordinary, someone special, someone out of the ordinary, to venerate, to celebrate, that is there everywhere. So now one of the peculiar characteristics of Halloween, actually peculiar from the perspective of somebody coming from India, is there is so much focus on skeletons. Isn’t it? So now skeletons, what do they represent? If you see, the Bhagavad Gita explains, यान्ति देवप्रता देवान् पित्रण्यान्ति पित्रवता भूतान्यान्ति भूतेच्या यान्तिमद्याजिन्नोपिमाम् Krishna says, the kind of object that we worship, accordingly we will get a destination.
So the urge to worship is there for everyone. But the object of worship will determine the direction or the destination of the worshipper. So when Krishna talks about these three things, यान्ति देवप्रता देवान्, so he’s talking about the three broad modes of material nature.
So those who have some level of goodness, they will worship the devatas. यान्ति देवप्रता पित्रण्यान्ति पित्रवता, those who are in the rajas, they will worship the ancestors. And those who are in tamas, those who are in ignorance, भूतान्यान्ति भूतेच्या.
The word भूतान्य can have two meanings. One is ghosts and spirits. The other is general living entities.
भूत, can refer to, भूत means existence. सर्वभूतानि कौन्तेय प्रक्रतेन्यान्तिमामिकाम् When Krishna says, that all living beings come from me. So, भूत can mean both of these things.
So, people can just worship somebody among themselves as someone special. And this is considered to be in tamas. So, the idea, when people are worshipping anything, or celebrating something.
Now, worship, the word worship has a particular connotation. That it is, like we use the आर्थी and we use a lamp and do this kind of worship or any kind of veneration that we do. And every tradition has something like this.
Now, of course, skeletons, people may not do the worship of the skeletons in the traditional sense. But the idea that there is something which is out of the way, of our normal way. And then, we try to put that, I had gone to a person’s house, you know, along his house, where was this? This is somewhere in America.
I have been travelling to many places now. So, along their house, on both sides, they had like made a walkway. And you had, like there is sometimes a person comes to meet you, there is a, sometimes a head of state comes to another country.
Say the Prime President of India will go, President of America will go to India. There is a guard of honour to greet that person. So, the person walks through in between these two.
So, I had gone there and there is a guard of honour made of skeletons. So, on the walkway on both sides, there are skeletons and through them you walk through. So, the idea was, I asked, what is the idea? So, he was saying that actually skeletons, and this is that person’s idea.
Some people have this, some people don’t have. Skeletons represent the ancestors. And so, all these skeletons were looking very happy.
So, all of them were happy. This idea is, all are, when you are coming to the house, all our ancestors are here to welcome you. It’s an interesting idea.
But it is, there is a whole, nowadays, because people are so disconnected, people want to go to their roots. One of the latest hobbies among people is to try to find their ancestry. You know, people go to ancestry.com or somewhere else and do some genetic testing.
Okay, where did my ancestors come from? Oh, some of my ancestors came from Asia. Some of them came from here. Some of them came from there.
Some of them came from there. So, the idea is, the more disconnected we become, the more isolated we feel, the more we want something to connect with and something to celebrate. So, the veneration of the ancestors is, skeletons, when people put it, they might just put it for whatever reason.
But if you consider the veneration of the ancestors, there is quite an interesting precedent in the Vedic tradition. The idea is that, there is a Pitra Loka. Pitra Loka means, the abode of the ancestors.
Now, when Srila Prabhupada first wrote, first published the Bhagavad Gita, at that time, he would dictate, and then the devotees would transcribe, and then they would publish. So, the devotees initially, there were so many unfamiliar things. So, there were so many unfamiliar things that when they heard the Prabhupada say Pitra Loka, they did not understand what Prabhupada was saying.
So, the devotees typed it as Tree Loka. Tree Loka. Planet of the Trees.
And that was how it was published in the books. So, now it’s like a new invention created in the cosmology. A Planet of the Trees.
For them, it seemed to be sensible. Maybe the Planet of the Apes is there, Planet of the Trees will also be there. Something like that.
But, a friend of mine in Australia, he says when he distributes books, when he distributes Bhagavad Gita, he tells people, you can start reading the Bhagavad Gita from the second chapter. In the first chapter, there are so many tongue twisting names, Duryodhana, Dhritarashtra. People just get exhausted looking at those names only.
They put that aside. So, anyway, the point here is that, so, what is this Pitra Loka? Now, is it that there is one particular abode where all ancestors will go? Now, that’s based on the Vedic understanding. See, there is Punya, there is Paap, and there is Bhakti.
Punya is pious life. Paap is sinful life. And Bhakti is pure spiritual life.
So, when people do Punya, they go upwards to the higher levels of reality. There are many planetary systems, 14 planetary systems. Those who do Punya, they go to the upper planetary systems.
Those who do Paap, they go to the lower planetary systems. Those who do raw activities, they are degraded. Those who do Bhakti, they just don’t go up, they get out.
They go out of the material existence of the spiritual world. So, traditionally, it was understood that most people will live piously. Because the broad culture encouraged piety.
Even in the ancient times, even in the time of the Bhagavatam or the Bhagavad Gita, it was not that everybody was a devotee. The Bhagavatam is talking about very ancient times and there also it says, muktana api sadhana, narayana parayana, sudarloka prasantatma, kotishvapi mahamune. That among thousands and thousands of people, thousands of gurus, one devoted to the Lord is very rare.
So, devotees were always very rare. But people in general were pious. So, it is explained that if a person lives a life of average piety, then they will go to Pitrloka.
So, it is expected that one’s ancestors live an ordinary pious life and they go to Pitrloka. If somebody does some extraordinary piety, then they may go not to Pitrloka, they may go to Svarga Loka. Svarga is considered higher.
So, going to heavens is considered a great, great success. Going to the Pitrloka is also success, but it’s not considered that great a success. In India, that’s why whenever if some ancestor has passed away, they write their Svarga Vasi.
Svarga Vasi is that the person has now gone and residing in Svarga. Of course, that is the hope that people have. So, nobody says Pitrloka Vasi.
Because everybody wants to believe my ancestor has got some extraordinary destination. Now, of course, the way people live today, it may not be even Svarga Vasi or Pitrloka Vasi. They might be going to somewhere else also, entirely.
But the idea is, Pitrloka is the place where one’s ancestors are on average expected to go. If they live a life of average piety. In the Mahabharata is described, when Yudhishthira wants to perform the Rajasuya Yajna.
The Bhagavatam explains everything from the devotional perspective. The Mahabharata explains everything from the, you could say, the Karmakand perspective. Karmakanda means, one does religion for material gain.
Mahabharata. So, the idea is that if people are not attracted to pure devotion, they will be attracted only at least to this. So, it is like, if you can do Bhakti, that’s wonderful.
If you can’t do Bhakti, at least do piety. At least live a life of, if you can’t be spiritual, you will be materialistic. But at least be religiously materialistic.
Don’t be religiously, atheistically, sinfully materialistic. So, the Bhagavatam offers people the path to be spiritual. And the Mahabharata shows the path to be pious.
So, the Bhagavatam describes that Yudhishthira Maharaj performed the Rajasuya Yajna so that he could glorify Krishna. Ultimately, in the Rajasuya Yajna, he would offer the Agra Puja, the worship of the most eminent personality in the assembly to Krishna. And thus everybody would know Krishna’s glory.
That was his purpose. The Mahabharata describes another purpose. He says, so the Narada Muni comes to the Pandavas and he tells that actually your father Pandu, he has gone to Pitrloka.
And if you do this Rajasuya Yajna and offer him the credits, then he will rise from Pitrloka to Svarbaloka. So, Pandu had lived a life of piety, of Kshatriya piety and virtue. But when he died, it was quite an unfortunate death.
He had been cursed that when he would try to unite with his wife, then he would die. So, he had been living a life of abstinence for a long time. But then at a particular time, he got attracted.
And then when he was about to unite with his wife, that curse acted and he died. So, because he died in the throes of sensuality, that’s why although he had lived a life of virtue, he couldn’t go directly to Svarga. He went to Pitrloka.
So, that was the reason why Yudhishthira performed that Yajna. He wanted his ancestor to get elevated. So, the idea here is that there are different kinds of roots that we have.
When we consider our roots, we may look at where is my father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, my great-great-grandfather. So, we want to discover the roots that we have. When somebody doesn’t have roots, say if a building doesn’t have roots, a storm comes, it will just break it down.
If somebody has roots, it will stay very strong. So, the connection with the family, with the ancestors, as I said, there are these three trajectories. There is the trajectory of Papa which takes one down, of Punya which takes one gradually up, the trajectory of Bhakti which takes one rapidly up.
But the Bhagavatam describes that this trajectory of Punya also, if it is competing with Bhakti, then it is bad. But Punya is definitely better than Paap. Piety is definitely better than impiety.
A life of even material virtue is better than material wrongdoing, material vice. So, many times when say people from India come abroad, I have seen many many young people, in India they may come to a temple, they may just come for some time for a programme or something and go away. But when they come abroad, then they become a little more serious about their culture.
Because they find that, you know, I want to be American or I want to be a Canadian or I want to be a British. But I can’t be. My skin colour is different, my upbringing is different.
And then, okay, if I can’t be that, then who am I? In fact, there is an acronym of Americans called ABCD. ABCD is American Born Confused Deshis. So, people are born in America, they don’t know who they are.
So, people want to discover their roots. So, our culture is like our blood. It’s only when the blood starts flowing out, we start losing blood, that we start noticing it.
Till that time the blood is flowing more naturally, we don’t even notice the blood is there in the body. The blood starts flowing out, hey, what happened? This shouldn’t happen like this. So, we often take our culture for granted.
But when we start losing it, hey, what’s happening? We get agitated at that time. So, for us, so the idea of going to the roots. Now, whether people who actually put skeletons and do things like that, whether they are thinking about their roots, that’s a different issue.
But that is the idea which some people have over there. And we can go towards our roots materially and we can go towards our roots spiritually. Going towards our roots materially means we go back to the parent culture in which we were born or we look back at our ancestors.
Okay, I came from this person, this person, this person. It’s interesting in the Bhagwat that the broad bhakti tradition does not minimise the going back to one’s roots at a material level. If you see that one of the topics that the Bhagwatam describes is Vamshavali.
Vamshavali is genealogy. Okay, this person came from this person, this person came from this person. Even in the biographies of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu written by Gaudiya Vaishnavas or the biographies of Srinivasa Acharya or anyone else.
Okay, this person came from this person, this person came from this person, this person came from this person. So the whole idea is that they are a part of a big tradition. Now today because there has been so much relocation of people that many people are not even much aware about their ancestry.
So going back to our material roots is one thing. That is a part of the tradition. But more important than going back to our roots is to go back to our spiritual roots.
Where did we come from? Ultimately we may have come from a particular family, in a particular nation, in a particular state. But ultimately we have come from Krishna. Krishna is the source of everything.
So aham sarvasya prabhavo. So going back to our roots, it can be done most effectively, most productively by going towards Krishna. So again this idea of trying to look at one’s ancestors or trying to worship, trying to put skeletons in attractive poses or just getting fascinated with skeletons.
It’s just a misdirection of the heart’s longing for something special. For someone special to connect with. For to find something special with which we are connected already.
But actually we are already connected with a supremely special person. Krishna is already there within our hearts. And Krishna always loves us.
He is always there with us. Now in discovering one of my relatives, he is now retired. He is forcibly retired because his business didn’t work very well.
So his full time passion is, he is trying to discover his ancestry. This grandfather came from here, this uncle came from here, this uncle came from here. Well he has made his passion which is okay.
But that same passion, even if we find out my great great ancestor was this great person. Well there is nothing much great about it. How does it make a big difference to me right now here? But if we can understand our connection with Krishna, that has an immediate transformational effect.
Krishna is a real living loving presence in our hearts. We are all looking across the world to try to find something, someone to connect with. Nowadays people use social media to try to connect with someone.
Dating apps are so common. We try to connect with here, there, there, everywhere. I wrote a book on reincarnation and one boy asked me a question after that.
He read that I had written this book. He said, I have a question which is extremely important for my life. It’s a matter of life or death.
So I thought maybe he wants to ask. Some people have contacted me after they read my book saying that we remember our past lives. And then I then, depending on how credible the story is, then I connect them with either devotees or other professionals who are doing scientific research in this field so that the cases can be scientifically documented.
So I thought maybe it’s something like this he wants. He said, I read your book. I want to talk with you.
I asked him, yes, what is it? He says, you know, I’m in love with a girl. And we wanted to very much be together and want to be married. But neither her parents, he’s Indian, neither her parents nor my parents are agreeing.
And now she’s about to marry to someone else. And he says, my only hope, my only purpose of living, he says, I wanted to end my life. But I read your book and I got a hope.
How people can get hope is amazing. I said, what hope he did? He said, I want to know what karma can I do by which I can get her as my wife in my next life. So people have this idea of soulmate.
I want to find my soulmate. Now, actually, when they want to find their soulmate, they forget the soul, they focus only on the mate. Yes, we all want a fulfilling relationship.
But the important thing is that ultimate fulfilling relationship is with Krishna. So I explained to him that actually we have two kinds of relationships. We have vertical relationship and horizontal relationship.
Horizontal relationship is with people around us in the world. And vertical relationship is with Krishna. So the nature of the world is sometimes horizontal relationships work out, sometimes they don’t work out.
And the whole philosophy of bhakti is that whatever love we get from anyone, ultimately we are getting it from Krishna. Dhruva Maharaj, when he is insulted by his stepmother and he is neglected by his father, when he runs to his mother for relief, his mother realises she is powerless, I can’t help him right now. So at that time she says that, oh Dhruva, go to Vishnu if you want help.
She says that whatever love millions of mothers like me can offer, Lord Vishnu can offer you more love than that. This means that she is not rejecting or minimising her love. Sometimes people may say that all the love in this world is false.
No, it’s not. If she is saying Vishnu’s love is millions of times more than my love for you. If her love is false, if it is zero, millions of times zero is also zero only.
Isn’t it? The love we experience in the world is not false. It can be true. Of course, sometimes it can be false also.
But sometimes there can be real love in this world. But it is temporary. So from the perspective of eternity, it is like a drop.
Now when we get a drop, if we are in a desert, we are thirsty, even a drop will be relief for us. And if the drop can inspire us to explore and go towards the ocean, then that drop is wonderful. If we understand this drop must be coming from the ocean, let me find out where the ocean is, let me go towards the ocean.
But if you become satisfied with the drop alone, I don’t need the ocean, then that is unfortunate. Or if we get the drop and then we lose the drop and we keep lamenting, why did I lose the drop? Well, it was a drop only ultimately. So, in the horizontal relationship that we have, we may get sometimes, we may feel very attracted to someone.
We may feel that this relationship will be wonderful. And if it works out, it’s great. But if it doesn’t work out, sometimes some horizontal relationships just don’t work out.
So, rather than craving in vain for some horizontal relationship that is just not working out, we can understand that whatever love I would have got in this horizontal relationship, ultimately I will get it. Get it, all of it and much more in my vertical relationship with Krishna. And therefore, let me connect with Krishna.
If I connect with Krishna, he is actually our ultimate soulmate. He is with the soul inside us. He is the Paramatma.
Sarvasya chaham yudhi sannishtho. He is the supreme object of worship. The last part, as I will talk about connection, celebration and transformation.
So, transformation is when people put on these fancy dresses and they try to be someone else. They try to conceal who they are and become someone else. And then they are very excited.
Who do I want to be? I will dress like this. I will act like this. I will do like this.
And that way they try to enjoy life. Enjoy at least some experience in life when you are someone other than you. Now, if you see this idea of wanting to escape from our life and escape even from ourselves, that is the basis of most entertainment in the world.
Most entertainment by its nature is escapist. People want to escape from the life they are experiencing to experience some other life. There is a survey done of people, people’s psychological states.
When they were in good physical state overall and they were healthy and reasonably wealthy, what were their emotional states? They found that 5% of the time people are happy, 5% of the time people are unhappy. And 90% of the time they are bored. 90% they are bored.
Of course, this is when they are healthy and wealthy. If they are sick, then they are mostly miserable. If they are very poor, then they are mostly miserable again.
But even when they are healthy and wealthy, life is generally boring. Life is not very stimulating. And that’s why we try to create some stimulation somewhere.
And one part of stimulation is that we try to become someone else. We try to become some character who doesn’t have the limitations or the faults or the obstacles that we have. And somebody who can triumph over obstacles.
So that’s why when people watch movies, the idea is, you can watch movies at your home also. You don’t have to pay quite a big amount to go to the theatre and watch. Because in the theatre, the illusion is more deeper.
So that, then what happens, people can forget their reality. When people play video games, it’s more involvement. When we are watching a movie, it’s just seeing and hearing, that’s all.
When playing a video game, it’s you are clicking your buttons, you are making things move. So it becomes more consuming. All of this is basically, we are trying to escape from the reality that we are in.
And we want to be someone else. Experience ourselves as someone else. Someone who is better than us.
Someone who is smarter than us. Someone who is more heroic than us. Someone who is far, far, who is better than us in various ways.
Now this can happen in different ways. Some people might, I play with, might, as I said, play some dangerous video games. And some video games which are quite dangerous and damaging.
And through that they might try to identify. Some people may develop an online profile. On their online profile, they may appear to be very helpful.
So Facebook, it can be there. I use a Mac computer. So there are online help communities.
The online help community is where, if you ask some question, this is not working in my computer, this is not working, people help. And there people rack up points. And this person is a gold star, this person is a platinum star, this person is like this.
So people want to be someone. And there it was found recently that one of the top persons in Apple, it’s like Apple help community, one of the top persons, in his real life, he is so unhelpful that his family members are completely fed up with him. That he doesn’t even clean his own room, he doesn’t clean his own body, he doesn’t do anything.
His family members are fed up with him. But online he is super helpful. So the idea is what? We all aspire for some better version of ourselves.
Where we, by identifying that, with that we feel good about ourselves. So this whole idea of fancy dress, of costumes, is like we try, so we are someone, and we try to create a better version of ourselves. But rather than creating a better version of ourselves, we actually have to discover a better version of ourselves.
Create means we go out to find something, to add something, to get something by which we become better. But actually we have to go inwards. We are souls and the soul is pure.
The soul is a part of the supreme soul. So if you look at the world civilisations, before the modern times, almost every civilisation, whether it was Chinese or European or Middle East or Native American, of course Indian, almost all civilisations across the world had this understanding that there is some higher world, which is our destination, which is where we are meant to go. The defining difference between the pre-modern times and the modern times is the rejection of the other world.
So modern day, this idea of some other world, that’s just some mythology. There is nothing like that. But then, through science and technology, people are trying to create, they have rejected the religious paradise and now they are trying to create a technological paradise.
I was in Silicon Valley just a month or so ago and there one of the biggest trends, most promising areas of research, they call it as transhumanism. Transhumanism means that we want humanity to transcend humanity. They say humanity suffers from terrible problems.
Problems such as old age, disease, death and birth. Now of course for them birth is, not birth in material existence, for them birth leads to overpopulation. So they say we want to remove old age, we want to remove disease, we want to remove death.
And how do we do that? Through technology. So there are multi-billionaires who have actually, who when they have died, they have used their will to have their body preserved in refrigeration, so that in future we will be revived. And then there are those who are expected to inherit from them, they are furious.
These are our money, how dare you give it like that? So anyway the point is, this aspiration for a better life, a better world, for a better me, that is not rejected in the modern times. It is only distorted. Distorted by which people try to create a technological paradise and people use technology to create a better version of myself.
Physically I may not be very good, but through technology I created, in fact the word they also use here, avatar, online avatar, digital avatar. So you have to create something better of yourself. But that longing is, if you direct it through the digital world, the online world, it’s simply another illusion.
It’s one illusion on top of another illusion. But the process of bhakti takes us to the reality, the ultimate reality of who we are. We are souls who are parts of Krishna.
And souls who are parts of Krishna are eternally meant to celebrate the life of love with Krishna. And to conclude on this note of fancy dress, if you see Krishna in the spiritual world, especially in Dwarka, there are so many people who put on some different fancy dresses. All the demons, they come in various fancy dresses.
Some demon comes as a very sweet mother, some demon comes as a bull, some demon comes as a cow, some demon comes as a horse. And what does Krishna do? Krishna unmasks all of them. Krishna unmasks all of them and it delivers all of them.
So, this, whatever, whatever the human heart longs for, it may express itself in many distorted ways. But ultimately, that longing is one. The longing is for Krishna.
It is just misdirected. It is misdirected. I met a devotee in America.
He was, he was in charge of, for almost 10-15 years, he was in charge of celebrating Halloween in a big part of a city. And in that Halloween, he decided one day, let me do something far out. He said, I want to impersonate someone.
Whom should I impersonate? He decided to impersonate a Hare Krishna devotee. So, he shaved off his hair, got a ponytail, put on the Indian robes. And he wanted, as he was walking along the streets, impersonating like that.
He met real devotees. When he met real devotees. At that time, the devotee said, oh, from where have you come? So, he just, he didn’t want to say that he is a devotee, but he did not want to say that he is not a devotee also.
Because that was his costume. So, he said, yes, I come from so and so place. Some other place he mentioned the name.
We didn’t know any devotees were there. He said, just come, we are doing a Hari now. And then, he went with them.
He didn’t want to say that I am now going with you. Because Hare Krishna should act like Hare Krishna. If you are going to be a, if you are going to play a role, you have to play the role properly.
And then the devotee started kirtan. And he did not know what was going on. But he started jumping and dancing and singing.
And the devotees were doing this for hours and hours. And then, as he was doing this, he just kept dancing, singing, slowly. Initially, he didn’t even understand the words, but then he picked up the words.
He started singing. He thought, if I am going to do this act, let me do this act well. So, initially, he was singing simply as an act.
But he kept that act and he started feeling such joy singing this Mahavantra. Then he went with the devotees. And he went with them to the temple.
And then they had a feast. And then they had various discussions. And he found it so sweet, so absorbing.
And the result of that eventually was that when that Halloween night got over, he decided, why am I impersonating this? I would like to do this really. And then, now, he has become a devotee. And now, he directs pathyatra festivals.
So, actually, from his Halloween, he has come. If you just change the pronunciation, Halloween. You know, we have the… Radharani is the Hallow Queen.
The hallow is a forest. The sacred hallows we say sometimes. So, she is the queen of Vrindavan.
And her mercy is available. And by her mercy, anyone and everyone can be attracted to Krishna. So, people, as George Harrison wrote in his introduction to Krishna, everyone is looking for Krishna.
Some people know it. Some people don’t. Most people don’t.
But if we can understand that our own heart’s longing ultimately is for Krishna, and everyone’s heart’s longing is ultimately for Krishna, then we can see where people are at and connect them with Krishna. I’ll conclude with the last point. That there are two broad ways we can share Krishna consciousness.
We tell people, this is the path to Krishna consciousness. Follow this and you will become Krishna conscious. The other path, other is, we look at what people are conscious of.
And help them to see the Krishna connection over there. Whatever is people’s deepest experience, that is their experience of Krishna. Whatever is anyone’s deepest experience.
Somebody might be just mad with sports. Somebody might be mad with costumes. Somebody might be mad with video games.
Now, what is it about video games or costumes or sports that is attracting them? They are gaining some spark of Krishna over there. They are experiencing in a very remote and distorted way, some attractiveness of Krishna over there. So one way, another way of sharing Krishna consciousness is, that whatever is people’s deepest experience, we try to help them understand that their experience is their experience of Krishna.
So somebody who is practising say archery, when Arjuna was practising archery, through his absorption archery, he was experiencing Krishna. Krishna says, I am ability in human beings. So rather than rejecting people’s current experience, we help them see how within their current experience, what is their deepest experience, is their experience of Krishna.
When we can present bhakti in that inclusive way, then people see bhakti as based on a progression, not a rejection. What they are experiencing, rather than rejecting it as illusory, because they are experiencing Krishna through it. But they are not understanding that they are experiencing Krishna.
But we see it as progressive. So you are experiencing Krishna, but what you are experiencing is just a drop of Krishna. Krishna is the ocean.
And if you connect with Krishna directly, you can experience that ocean. In this inclusive way when you present bhakti, then people, whatever they may be experiencing right now, from there, they can come towards Krishna. And that is what Prabhupada did.
When he came to the western world, a person asked him, a hippie asked him, Swamiji, what is the bliss of Vaikuntha like? Prabhupada could have quoted, Chintamani prakarasamashu kalpavruksha. Could have quoted Brahma Samhita. But that would have been incomprehensible.
This person was a stone coming down from drugs. And Prabhupada told him, the bliss of Vaikuntha is like an ocean of LSD. An ocean of LSD.
Oh, really? I want to experience that. Now, somebody may ask, where Mishastra has ever said that Vaikuntha is like LSD? How can you compare that? But the point is not just to get it right. The point is to get it across.
The point is to get it across. To connect with Krishna. To communicate about Krishna.
When we do that, then, from where people are at, they can connect with Krishna and come towards Him. So, I’ll summarise. That’s what I spoke today.
I spoke on the theme of how we can practise Krishna, how we can see Krishna, how the hallowing celebration points towards Krishna and how it, at one level, points towards Krishna, at another level it misses the point of Krishna. I started by talking about how a devotee sees Krishna everywhere. That capacity to see Krishna everywhere is a characteristic of a person who is conscious of Krishna in this world.
Everything attractive reflects the spark of Krishna. Everything attractive comes from Krishna, but not everything attractive takes us towards Krishna. So, how to connect with Krishna, that is the art of Krishna consciousness.
I talked about three broad things. Connection, celebration and transformation. Connection means we all want to connect with people, connect with others, because we are social creatures.
And depending on whether our prevailing culture is sattvic, rajasic or tamasic, we will connect with people accordingly. So, in halloween time, people connect with their, at least kids connect with their neighbours, for the trick and treat. And in India, I talked about how when somebody passes away at that time, the family members, the kids connect with others, so that all negativity from the past can be ended.
And in the ruggedly individualistic culture, the flip side of that is alienation, isolation, loneliness. And this desire to connect, if we can use it to not just to connect with those who are connected with Krishna, then that can lead to the supreme benefit. Otherwise, depending on the people whom we are connecting with, we may get elevated or degraded.
I talked about celebration and veneration, that everybody has this urge to worship. Atheists worship prominent scientists, whom they consider to be Pyambinopithecus. Sports players make their sports star into God.
And everybody worships someone or something. But depending on whom we worship, the object of worship will determine the destination of the worshipper. And then I talked about how people are nowadays, they have this, some people who have these skeletons in their homes, they treat them as skeletons, like ancestors.
And there is some kind of veneration of the ancestors over there, as a part of the Halloween. So I talked about how people want to go back to their roots. Understanding genealogy was an important part of the traditional culture, because that kept people rooted.
There was a path of piety, which was the normal path for most people. And there was a path of, we could say, spirituality and bhakti. That was a rare path even in the past.
Today, of course, main path is not piety and bhakti. It is impiety and bhakti. Very few people are actually living a life of piety.
But going back to our roots materially is good. But with the dislocation and the disconnection that has been there for many generations, that’s quite difficult. But we can all go back to our roots spiritually.
We’re all coming from Krishna. And connecting with Krishna can give us far greater sense of connection and satisfaction than we might get by connecting with some distant ancestor and coming to know about them. And last thing I talked about was transformation.
The whole idea of wearing fancy dress and costumes is that we want to at least temporarily change who we are and become someone else. Why? Because most of the time, our normal life is boring. And nowadays, people want to have a better version of themselves through technology, the online avatar of themselves.
And there they appear to be very helpful. Or people play video games. And there they want to rack up scores and be champions.
So this idea of trying to transform oneself through technology, this is a peculiar feature of the modern times. Prior to that, people understood there is another world where we belong. And the transformation was spiritual so that we could attain that world.
But now instead of spiritual paradise, people want a technological paradise. Unfortunately, that desire will simply be frustrated. Because there is no way the problems of modern existence can be avoided.
So, whatever is people’s deepest experience, that is their experience of Krishna. If you understand this and connect them where they are at, and you connect that with Krishna, then they can come towards Krishna. I talked about how this devotee was a Halloween festival organiser.
He impersonated as Hare Krishna. And the impersonator got caught. And he was transformed.
And his impersonation, he found this was a wonderful life. And then he became a devotee. And now he is organising Ratha Yatra festivals.
The same ability, but he is using it for Krishna’s service. So for all of us, we can see where people are at and bring Krishna consciousness to them where they are. Help them to see that whatever they are experiencing, it is a drop, but Krishna is the ocean.
And get them to move from the drop towards the ocean. Then both we can move towards Krishna and we can help others also to move towards Krishna. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. Are there any questions or comments? Yes, please. Wonderful Wonderful Principle given by Rupa Goswami Your presentation today had that connotation.
I especially appreciated that. Because I have always thought Krishna consciousness is the only reality. Everything else is a waste of time.
But it is hard to deliver that hard message to take people from where they are at and gradually make them see there is a better purpose to their lives. Rather than just tell them, look, your whole life is a waste of time. It is not a good approach.
So you made it a nice way to give that one percent that is connected to Krishna. You start from there. Whatever gives them a feeling of fulfilment.
It can be in tamas and rajas or whatever. You can get a lot more if you connect with the source. That was a nice point.
Thank you. Suppose people, if you tell them that their life is an illusion and Krishna consciousness is the only reality, they find it difficult to accept it. There are three ways in which we can present spirituality.
Rejection, complementation and improvement. Rejection means the life you are living is false, give it up and come towards Krishna. And it works for some people.
Especially in Prabhupada’s time, there was a counterculture. People already had that sense that this is not the life you want to live. So for them it worked.
But the same way Prabhupada, when he went to India, most Indians were not interested in rejection. And so we see that during Prabhupada’s time not many people, hardly anyone actually moved in the temple and became a devotee the way people became devotees in the West. So there Prabhupada presented mainly the life membership programme.
What you are doing is yes, you have your material life but you need to have Krishna also in your life. That’s complementation. And the idea was, through that people will grow.
Material life is good, it’s okay, but it will not fulfil you. It will not give you anything lasting. And so that is the understanding which most people can connect with.
But a third, which is how spirituality has become mainstream in today’s world is through improvement. Improvement means your spirituality will improve your material life. If you see most people who do yoga, mindfulness, meditation, I was in a big company, I gave a talk in a company in Silicon Valley, Salesforce.
And they have they have actually mindfulness meditation rooms on every floor. And they have Zen Buddhist monks who come and do sessions for their employees. Now why are they doing it? It’s not because they are interested in Buddhism or spirituality.
It’s simply because they have found that if they have these kind of mindfulness exercises, their health insurance bills of the company are lesser. Because people are less stressed, people are less agitated, they perform better. So, for people, when people do become spiritual nowadays, it’s because they are at the material level of reality.
If spirituality can help them to improve their material life, that’s what they are interested in. So, in a few cases especially, you want to reach to people who are out in the world and their only goal is to make it big in the world. For them to think of anything beyond the world is almost impossible at that time.
People in their 20s, 30s, either they will reject the world and they may become full-time. But if they don’t do that, they want to make their mark in the world. So, at that time, that is the way spirituality needs to be presented.
By your spirituality, you can improve your material life also. Prabhupada would also do that sometimes. When he would say that to Indian businessmen, he said, I went with 40 rupees and now I have 40 crore to work temples.
It’s working for Krishna, it’s great business. So, Prabhupada would do that also sometimes. So, if you just adopt one approach, then some people will be able to connect but many will not be able to.
So, if you are multifaceted depending on the person, then you can help people to come forwards from where they are. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Yes.
Very nice presentation. But I have one question if you like. When a person practises Krishna Consciousness and get special mercy from Krishna and make it, like go to the spiritual world, what happens to the subtle body? Okay.
When a person goes to the spiritual world, what happens to the subtle body? It’s described in the universe, has multiple layers. Just like the body is made of 8 elements, the universal egg is surrounded by those 8 elements. And the idea is that when the soul departs from the world, at that time, naturally, at every death, the soul will give up its physical body.
So, giving up the physical body is something which the soul has done many times. But when the soul gives up the subtle body, that becomes liberated. So, when the soul is departing the spiritual world, the soul along with the subtle body reaches the universal layers and is going to pass through them.
So, at that time, the mind element merges with the mind element of the universal covering. The intelligence element merges with the intelligence covering. And the ego element merges with the ego covering.
That’s how the soul departs the spiritual world. So, now, in the Bhagavatam, they also describe that the Sri Yudhishthira Maharaj or others, when they meditate, they may do it as a conceptual exercise also. He withdrew the earth into the water, the water into the air.
That withdrawal is conceptual. What does it mean, withdraw the earth into the water or water into the air? It basically means that withdrawing the consciousness from all those things. That, okay, this whole body has manifested from the Pradhan, from the unmanifested matter and I am none of these.
So, all this body which we have various bodily parts, some of them we find very attractive, some of them are not so attractive. But our consciousness is invested in the body in various ways. So, when we contemplate, actually this body is nothing but earth, water, fire, air either.
Nothing so much to be attracted to in this. And then, even this earth, water, fire are also coming from unmanifested matter, Pradhan. So, it’s like we see a beautiful, say we see some beautiful image on TV and we get captivated by it.
But then if we go backwards, we understand that this beautiful image is nothing but a combination of pixels. Just maybe R, Y, Z or three colour dots are there and those pixels they come together and create this image. And if you go further, so this is basically the process of deconstruction.
This image, what is it? It’s just pixels. And what are pixels? Even three colour pixels are simply like one electromagnetic signal. One electrical signal.
That’s all. There’s nothing more to it. So, what is there to be attracted to in this? So, like that, by this process of deconstruction, then one disidentifies oneself with the body and one disinvests one’s consciousness from the body and if one does it voluntarily or consciously before, then it is that the person becomes Jeevan Mukta.
There are two kinds of broad Mukti. Videha Mukti. Videha means when one gives up the body and becomes liberated from the world.
That happens at the time of death for the soul who is pure and attached to Krishna. But Jeevan Mukti is when a soul is still in the body but the soul has no attachment to the body. So, then the subtle body does not influence or control the person at that time at all.
The person simply uses the subtle body but the subtle body is for all practical purposes and the person already disidentified themselves from that. So, basically, we disidentify with the subtle body that’s when we become liberated and that separation of the subtle body and the elements that comprise the subtle body, that happens when we become, when we depart from the universe. So, that’s all on the Krishna’s direction.
So, Krishna gives us the Bodhi and the detachment to see beyond the matter covering. Of course, yes. It’s Krishna’s mercy.
In Bhakti, we don’t bother about these things. We simply focus on trying to connect with Krishna and the connection with Krishna will bring the disconnection from everything else by His grace. So, thank you very much.
Prabhupada ki Gaur Bhakta Vindati Dai Gaur Premanande