How my college days prepared me for Krishna consciousness

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Jai Yes was one of the toppers of, I think first topper of Maharashtra in GRE example. Yes.
And Brogy had, Brogy always from the beginning days of whenever I have seen Brogy, he has been very in forefront of Vighna, combining science and spirituality and clearing those doubts and giving sessions on those topics. So it was very initially very helpful to us in the initial days of Krishnamoortiness. And currently Brogy is like travelling all over the world and then preaching and giving spiritual talks in many of the mainstream universities, many big companies, MNCs.
And then we are also fortunate that he visits Pune regularly. So one more incident I would like to share Pooji with your introduction and again connected to today’s topic which Anand Baldev has given you and you have chosen that is humanising the preaching. One just incident when the initial days I was coming to Krishnamoortiness, I was already following some path, some other spiritual path.
And from the beginning days when Krishnamoortiness got introduced, I got confused. So in my Sankalpa days, we had Sankalpa camp in temple, Punjabihari temple. And then at that time I got confused that these are two different philosophies.
So I came to you, I was very inspired after hearing your sessions in Sankalpa camp. I came and asked you that Prabhu, this is very confusing, both the things. So what should I do? So at that time seeing like I will not be able to grasp everything and philosophical topics and debates.
You just gave me answer that whichever path you are following, whichever is closer to you, you can go there. Because already voice preaching was happening inside the college and even in our room only. So there could be nothing closer than that.
So for me that time it was like very logical and it clicked me and so I continued. And later on once I attended the session, the things got more clear. So at that time that kind of sensitive answer from your side saved me and that was very helpful.
So today’s topic is also related to preaching and how we should be humanising in our efforts in outreach. So thank you so much Pooji for that contribution in my life and please you can take over and share on this topic. Thank you for sharing with us.
Thank you. Jai Shri Krishna Chaitanya Prabhu Nithyananda Shri Advaita Gadadhara Shri Vasadhi Gaurahatavrinda Jai Shri Krishna Chaitanya Prabhu Nithyananda Shri Advaita Gadadhara Shri Vasadhi Gaurahatavrinda Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare May the Lord please guide us all so that we can see your hand guiding us and guiding everyone through their journeys. Hare Krishna.
So I’m grateful to be here with all of you today and I will speak on a broad topic of understanding how our spiritual journey is going on long before our spiritual journey has begun. What I mean by that is that our human journey is also a part of our spiritual journey. And when we are going to share Krishna Bhakti with others, see the soul, especially the human body is on a human journey.
In the human journey, we may start a spiritual journey. Now the human journey can go up, can go down. A spiritual journey is when we want to go towards Krishna.
So if we interact with people, if we interact with others, now we can look at Krishna consciousness in two distinct ways. One is, what is the individual, what is the person doing for Krishna or doing in relationship with Krishna? Does the person eat meat? Does the person go to a temple? Does the person read any spiritual books? So we can think of Krishna consciousness in terms of what is the individual doing in relationship with Krishna. And that’s an important way of looking at it.
The other way of looking at it is, what is Krishna doing in that individual’s life? That person? People may not think that they have a relationship with Krishna, but Krishna always has a relationship with everyone. So if we get this vision, that even when people are going on their human journey, Krishna says that, actually, everyone, he’s not saying for my devotees alone, that everyone they’re wandering and they are on their journey, which is guided by the Supersoul. So when we meet someone, rather than saying, oh, this person eats meat, or this person does this thing, this person doesn’t believe in God.
So all that may be true. But that is not all that is going on in that person’s life. Krishna is still in that person’s heart and Krishna is still acting in that person’s life.
So if we are to humanise our outreach, one way of doing it is to see that human beings are also on a spiritual journey, that Krishna is guiding them forward. So Krishna is giving them some insights, some realisations, some understandings. Now some of those understandings may be right, some of them may be wrong, but they’re getting some understandings which will help them come closer to Krishna.
So it takes some time, but it is through the patience that comes through faith, we understand that with time, what happened to us, oh, you know, this person did this to me, this person did that to me, oh, that accident happened to me over there, I lost that opportunity, I was fired over there, that what happened to us actually happened for us, not to us, but for us. This is what Shraddha enables us to do. So at that time, we may think this is terrible, why did this happen to me like this? But Shraddha in this sense, what does it mean? Utsaha Nishaya Dhairyat.
So there is patience, there is persistence, we continue doing our part. So when we have that, gradually we’ll realise it. So since this is a COP alumnus group, I talk about some of my experiences while I was in And how now that I look back at them in retrospect, I see how they helped make me ready for my spiritual journey.
As far as I can remember, I talk about some incidents from each of the years, I was introduced in the third year, first semester, so I’ll focus more on the incident that brought me to Krishna and then how it led me to accept Krishna. So broadly, now I was introduced, I came to COP in 1994, I graduated in 1998, and immediately after that I joined. I worked in the company for some time, but I joined soon after.
So before that only I had moved to the temple. So when I came in 1994, COP was in Pune, I was studying at that time in Nasik. And you could say, my main emotion when I came to COP was a bit of, you have this AI now called perplexity.
So it is perplexity that how did I not get into IIT, that I had studied for IIT, and I thought that I had done a fairly decent job, my exam had also gone well, but somehow it didn’t work out. So, it was not that I was very attached to being an IIT, but I was thinking that would be a normal trajectory for me to move forward. And at that time we didn’t have internet, at that time we didn’t have social media, so we don’t really know, we didn’t really know much about the colleges that we were a part of.
So I had read something about COP, I had heard something about COP, and then I came there. So while I was not exactly disappointed or devastated by any means, but I was perplexed thinking, okay, what am I doing over here? And in many ways, now I look back, it is possible that even in IIT I might have come to Krishna, we have devotees in IIT also, I don’t know which IIT I would have gone to, but in some ways, we turn to Krishna for two main reasons. Broadly speaking, most of us are focused on trying to make it big in the world.
This is the, we are a part of the world, and there are certain things which we want to achieve in the world. And above us is Krishna, the spiritual world, and ultimately Krishna within that. So normally our eyes are caught in the world.
But when do we look upward? For two reasons mainly. One reason is that Krishna says, आर्थो जिग्यानोर अर्थार्थी ज्ञानी च भरकर्ष्यम. So one is, I am not good enough for the world.
Oh, I wanted to achieve this, and I could not achieve this, maybe I am not good enough. This causes insecurity, fear, many people have inferiority complex, now with AI coming up, this feeling is becoming more and more for many people, I am not good enough for the world. Now the other feeling is, the world is not good enough for me.
That means, this is not in an egoistic sense, although it can be in an egoistic sense, but here the idea is, that the world is not good enough for me means, that okay, what the world promises, what the world offers, it’s not all that great, maybe there has to be something more in life. So, we could say, आर्थो अर्थार्थी, they fall in this category, 7.16, and then ज्ञानी, to some extent ज्ञानोर, that falls in this category. So now, although the Gita talks about these are four categories of people, my understanding is that these are also four mindsets, four driving factors, and we ourselves may be pulled forward towards Krishna by one of these factors at one time and by another factor at another time.
Sometimes, even as practising sadhakas, when we face some distress in our life, we may pray to Krishna more intensely, we may chant more seriously, sometimes when we hear some speaker and we find their way of presenting so intriguing, say, hey, I want to learn more about this. So, our curiosity is peaked, and that’s when we hear more and we try to understand how they think, how they speak, and that also, so like that, these motivating factors can come for us. So at that time, this question was there for me, okay, am I really not good enough to be in a top college and to be an IIT, which is considered top college, didn’t have so many IITs also at that time, number of IITs have multiplied much more.
So then, when I was there, before this itself, just as soon as I finished my 10th, my mother had passed away. So my father was working in Mumbai. I was there taking care of my younger brother, managing our home, of course, he had a babysitter, but we were staying together, then I had to leave him and come to Mumbai, come to Pune.
So, there was that feeling also, am I doing the right thing, or shouldn’t I be there, should I take up college in Nasik itself, if I’m not getting into IIT, then should I take up a college in Nasik itself, so that I can be there for my brother. And somehow, I came to COIP. I decided that Nasik didn’t really have that good a college, COIP is much better.
So, those two factors were going on, but it is now that I look back, I could have been introduced to Krishna Consciousness in many places, but the logical, systematic, stepwise presentation to Krishna Bhakti that I got in Pune, probably that was the best way for me to be introduced. If I had been introduced more through pastimes and stories and that kind of presentation, I would have probably rejected Krishna Consciousness as being too sentimental, or like a too humorous presentation, too much of a more of a community, I needed a more rational presentation than a more cultural or social or that kind of presentation. So I would say that what was happening to me, at that time, I thought it was a bit of a misfortune that I could not get into IIT, but I see that, of course, Krishna can act in many different ways.
And Krishna would have arranged for me to come to him anywhere. But now that you look back, what happened to me is what happened for me. Then, now, because I had a physical handicap, so I was never ragged in college.
Other kids were ragged, I was not ragged. And I had been warned that ragging can be quite brutal. And I had grown up in a fairly cultured family.
So I had never been, not that I was detached from sensual pleasures, but I was never very attached, interested in those that kind of things. So I had grown up in a convent school and there I had seen, we had sisters who were nuns. I hadn’t met any monks over there, but somehow at that time itself, I had a strong feeling that I was, not that I would become a monk, but I had no interest at that time also in getting married or having any relationship with girls or all those things.
So again, this was not spiritual, it was more psychological. I’m an introvert. I like to be alone.
So various reasons it could be, but somehow when I was saved from that ragging, it struck me that while my physical handicap, if I consider, it is certainly a limitation for me, you could say some way it’s a curse for me, I cannot walk normally. But then I could say, this was a limiter for me in many ways, but at that time I realised that it’s also a protector for me, that because of my physical handicap, most people would not be very mean to me and probably I did not get ragged, I did not get caught in bad association too much. I don’t know whether I would have gone into bad association, but I remember that distinct relief.
Again, it was not that I was anxious, but it was like at night, you know, we were staying in a room and then all of us were dragged out of the room, come out and the seniors were about to rag and then they saw me, they asked me a couple of questions, I answered them and all of a sudden they told this and I just went away. So, I felt okay, this chapter is closed now. So, all that, all those fears, again I’m using fear as a very strong word, but all those imaginations that were there, I realised these are all insubstantial.
So, again, this was in the first semester itself, all this thing happened. Now, as we know in the first year, more or less the subjects are very similar that we all have. So, I later on realised that I have more the brain of a scientist than an engineer.
Now, engineering is much more applicational, science is much more conceptual. So, I don’t know why I didn’t think of IISc or whatever at that particular time, some other college, I might have got there, but probably I didn’t realise it at that time. The clear difference between engineering and science.
So, I would always feel it was in the second semester and I started feeling that I have a misfit here, that this is not as a misfit. Again, everybody feels that they are a misfit and ultimately we are spiritual misfits in the material world. Everyone is a spiritual misfit, but here it was more like a psychophysical misfit.
That when I would study my engineering books, I wanted to, when any concept would come up, I would want to understand the concept this way and that way and that way and I would be very annoyed when the teacher would explain it very briefly and move forward. So, I was more interested in what the concept is and much of the teaching was how the concept is to be applied. And now I’m able to articulate it more clearly, but at that time, it was not so easy to articulate that.
So, again, now that I look back at now, now that I study scripture also, you know, it’s Hare Krishna. Is there any organiser here? Will you do others? Yes. So, what I’m, so basically that feeling that one is a misfit.
So, we all may get that we have a particular job and if you know I’m not, this job is not the right fit for me. Even in Bhakti, we do some services. This service is not the right fit for me.
So, everybody gets this feeling in life that I’m a misfit. And that feeling, while it may be true, it doesn’t have to be necessarily the defining thing for our life. So, now also when I study scripture, sometimes you read a verse and go to the next verse and next verse and I just didn’t like that kind of study of scripture.
For me, I want to understand a concept and when I’m understanding a concept, okay, I’ll read it from, okay, what are the three modes? What does the Gita say about it? What does the Uddhav Gita say about it? What do some other books say about it? What are classes there on it? What are different ways I can understand that concept? So, for me, it was at that time, generally, now when you talk about life as a journey, life is a journey of self-discovery. Now, normally we have a course called journey of self-discovery. But, you know, self-discovery is a lifelong journey.
It is both at a material level and at a spiritual level. At a spiritual level to understand that I am a soul, that it takes a lot of time at a material level also to understand what kind of body-mind-machine we have, how we can best function, what role can we play, what services can we do? All this takes time and effort. So, when we are trying to understand our own life, sometimes we think that, you know, my life is just, this is my spiritual life, this is my material life.
Okay, when I go to my company, when I go home with my family, this is my material life. When I go to a temple, when I do this and that, that’s my spiritual life. It’s a very super simplistic understanding of spiritual and material.
Actually, Krishna is acting in our so-called material life also. Like right now, we are using the phone for serving Krishna. We are having a Zoom talk over here.
So, if material things can be used in Krishna’s service, then the so-called material aspects of our life by the same principle of Yukta Vairagya, they can all be Krishna-ized. So, the same Krishna is acting. So, this Krishna can draw us much more forcefully through the direct devotional activities.
So, when we chant, when we hear classes, it is, we could say, Krishna is above us and there are devotional activities that draw us toward Him. But that same Krishna can draw us through Him, towards Him, through our so-called material activities also, because the same Krishna can give us realisations. The same Krishna can give us broader understandings of what we are going through in life, what we are learning, and what we learn through scripture.
We start seeing it as guiding us in our life and our decisions. So, and this applies when we are trying to share Krishna Bhakti with others, especially people with whom we are connected at a human level. At a human level means that they may be, if some of our family members might not be devotees, some of our siblings, our parents, our spouses, we have children.
Our children may not be so interested in Bhakti. So, we need to see them as human beings and through that, even if they’re not taking direct steps towards Krishna, even through their human journey, they’re actually coming closer to Krishna. The same Krishna is guiding us through all aspects of our life and drawing us towards Him.
So, anyway, when I was going through school, you know, enlightenment, when I went to college rather, so in my second year, or rather it was, okay, so first year, so second semester, I became a little annoyed with my, this thing, my engineering, because I just didn’t feel it was the right fit for me. Then, so enlightenment at one level is a destination. So, 7.19, that is enlightenment as a destination.
But enlightenment is also a journey. In Krishna, in 10.9, Krishna is 10.9, I said that those who are Buddha, they are also doing Bodhayantaha, that those who are enlightened, they are also still enlightening children. Because enlightenment means to understand that Krishna is the goal of my life.
That is enlightenment. But at the same time, it is also that how Krishna is the goal of my life. How am I to move towards Krishna? How lovable is Krishna? How can I love Krishna? How is Krishna acting in my life? It is something which is an ever-evolving journey in our life.
We keep learning that as we grow. That’s why Krishna Bhakti is both, so enlightenment is both a destination and a journey. So, in my first year, second semester, I joined in the college chess team, because I found that engineering was not sufficiently conceptually challenging for me, a practical experiment, do this, do that.
I hated the workshop that was there. You go in and do this drilling and do this cutting. So, hated is a strong word, but I just did not like it at all.
This is not what I want to know. And then I was in the college chess team and then we went to several inter-college tournaments. I was quite good at chess.
And somehow I found chess, for me, it was not so much a game. I started reading a lot of books on chess. It was like the conceptual connection.
At that time, there was this chess player called Bobby Fischer, his name is Bobby Fischer. So, he said that when I play chess, now the whole life is chaos, but the chess board is a place of order. So, I read that quote afterwards, and I read that, it was like a bolt of lightning.
See, for all of us, we need some kind of structure, some kind of pattern, some place where we feel, okay, there is some sense of calmness and order in my life. So, ultimately, the calmness and order comes by understanding that Krishna is in charge, mayad dekshina prakriti, and mamaivaam shur jeeva, that I am a part of Krishna. But till that time, we all try to find some pocket where we can get some control.
And if we have that control, I’m just, this is my home. So, we use some calmness, some sense of order. But then I found that while I was interested, quite deeply interested, of course, there are other players who are much better than me, but I found that it is most people who are interested in chess, seem to be more interested in winning through chess, rather than like going into chess.
So, maybe if I had really met some chess lovers at that time, it would have been different. But I got a bit disillusioned by it. So, in the second year, that’s when I studied electronics and telecommunications.
So, basically, what happens is Krishna talks about it, that to understand, why am I talking about enlightenment over here, that the ultimate object that we, in which we can get excitement, in which we can get stimulation, in which we can get satisfaction, is actually Krishna. And to come to Krishna, we may go through many things. So, we all may have had many hobbies in our life.
So, chess was my hobby. I was thinking, is it my calling? It didn’t turn out to be my calling, of course. But every hobby actually reveals the vibhuti of Krishna, that it is through whatever I’m attracted to, I’m attracted to a spark of Krishna.
So, what was I actually attracted to in chess? I was not attracted so much to winning, but the sense of order, the sense of calmness, sense of clarity. And life itself is like a jigsaw puzzle. Life is not so much like a chessboard.
But whatever metaphor you use, a chessboard, a jigsaw puzzle or whatever, you know what, in a chessboard, there are certain rules. Once you understand the rules, then you can play accordingly. You can do your best, but it’s like life is a game in which we don’t know what the rules are.
And then we don’t even know how we are going to play and which is a fair play, which is a foul play. It can be so chaotic if we take the game metaphor for life as a game. So, whatever we are attracted to, it’s actually we are attracted ultimately to Krishna.
So, now, while I was here, probably most of you know about the, do you still use the word boat club? Right next to the boat, right next to the river, we would sit and then we would canteen and other things. So, astrologically later I came to know that I have a difficult relationship with water. Water is what makes me very peaceful.
But water is where I slip and fall and I have a lot of falls and injuries and fractures and stuff like that many times in my life. So, when I was drawn towards that other place, when I did not, when something would go wrong in my college, I would go there and just look at the flowing water and just feel calm nearby. And now when I look back at it, one of my favourite places to go in Yamuna is Keshighat, in Rishikesh is the Ganga.
Just the flow of water. Life is always flowing. Just as the way the Ganga is flowing towards the ocean, through whatever is happening in our life, our consciousness is meant to be flowing towards Krishna.
Sometimes our consciousness may flow straight towards Krishna. Sometimes our consciousness may take a zigzag, zigzag, zigzag, zigzag road. And we may move forward, backward and ultimately we come to Krishna, whichever way it is.
Ultimately, we will all come to Krishna. But it may take a lot of lifetimes. So, the point I’m making over here is that if you look back at your life, rather than simply dismissing it all, I know it is all mundane in my life.
Now, did I learn something over there? Is that something which I can now use in Krishna’s service that can help us look at others also, especially people who we are close to, and okay, what is going on in this person’s life? This person does not believe in God, but why don’t they believe in God? And what exactly are they experiencing? What have they learned from this experience? So then, I think it was like second year, second semester, when I was studying one book, it was now we are going into electronics a little bit. And it said the main application, remember this 1960s, smartphones were not there. Internet had just come up, but not very well known.
So, computers themselves were slowly becoming widespread. But there, it came that one of the biggest applications of electronics and telecommunications engineering is making televisions. That is one of the most transformative applications of ENTC.
When I read that, my disillusionment with engineering was complete. I felt, what is this? Am I using the best years of my life, the best brain that I have for making idiot boxes that will make people into idiots? Surely, my intelligence is meant for something more. So, that, it is like, you know, we use our intelligence.
Now, of course, any engineering can be used for many different purposes. So, without a criticism of ENTC at all, but the idea is I’m using my intelligence to, I don’t know if the word idiot boxes is common now. But at that time, idiot box is basically a TV.
Now, we could say our phone is itself the idiot box. But I think, is this what I want to do with my life? Is there something else I can do? So, from that time, I started thinking that I have to explore something else. So, as I said that I had more interest in science.
So, I thought maybe I had a lot of interest in space. So, I’ll talk about three more experiences and then I will end and we can ask some questions. So, that’s when I started thinking that maybe I should shift to some other field.
Now, of course, I was two years, I had done engineering, I cannot change that. So, I just complete that and then my master’s or PhD, I’ll do something else. So, I had a lot of interest in space.
Some of you know Stephen Hawking, the brilliant scientist, and he was actually far more physically handicapped than what I am. And he was in a far more worse place because he was, I from a living memory from one itself, I have polio. So, I don’t have a memory of being physically fit.
But in this case, he had a degenerative disease. From normal life, he went down terribly. But he was so brilliant.
So, I thought that maybe I’ll get into space research. I want to get into. So, in Pune, there is IUCAA, Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics.
So, I used to visit there. And I was thinking I’d study over there. So, there I met one boy, husband and wife.
So, both of them were PhD scientists. But they had both met in America. And as co-students, they’re both interested in space research.
And they had got married. And I was quite intrigued to meet them because obviously, for somebody who’s in a PhD in America, he must be brilliant, I thought. But then, when I was talking with him, he’s telling me about his work in black holes that he was doing.
It was quite fascinating for me. And I noticed that he just couldn’t stop smoking. Continuously smoking.
And then, I was looking at him and I was looking at his wife. And his wife had almost like a mischievous or teasing look on her face. And she said, I tell him to stop smoking.
But he never listens to me. And then, to my shock, maybe I was very naive at that time. You know, she picked up a cigarette and she started smoking.
This is the first time I had seen a girl smoking in public in real life. Of course, in movies, we knew about it. But then, while it was not so much the cigarette smoking that shocked me, what shocked me at that time was, I had this idealistic notion that scientists are exploring the mysteries of the universe.
And it’s such a thrilling journey, how scientists make discoveries, how they change the world through their discoveries, how they get epiphanies, they get great insights and so much joy. So, I was thinking that this person is in cutting-edge research in space science. It’s supposed to be so exciting.
And if that is so exciting, then why does he need to smoke? So, it was not the smoking that disturbed me. It was more that we all have a definition of success in our life. And we assume that success will lead to happiness.
So, we may have a definition that, okay, if I get a house this big, then I’ll be successful and then I’ll be happy. Or if I had this much bank balance, or if I marry a person who’s like this, or if I get this particular award. So, we all have this notion that success will bring happiness.
And when we see somebody who has achieved that success, but they don’t have happiness. Now, that can be a very life-changing experience for us. So, at that time, we can change our whole life trajectory.
So, that was actually what in many ways prepared me at that time. Okay, I thought intellectual satisfaction would be so thrilling. But is it something wrong? Does the intellectual satisfaction not come so much? Or is it, it comes, but it is not satisfying? That’s when I started thinking.
So, then after that, I started, that’s when I started thinking that I have to look for something else. So, that idiot box kind of thing. So, it was not just engineering, but even science also does not really seem to give satisfaction to people.
I’m not saying this applies to everyone, but this is my journey. And then, when I was in studying in COP, this was the third year, second semester. The third year, first semester.
That’s the time I gave my GRE exam. Now, in GRE, I remember at that time when I was studying words, I was so absorbed in the words. At that time, the structure was such that we have the hostel on one side of the bridge, then we cross the bridge, and then we have the college over there.
So, when we go from hostel to college, at that time, we used to, I had a cycle, which I would cycle sometimes, or I would walk and go. So, I remember I was so, so fascinated by words. So, I would write words on a sheet, and I like flashcard.
And I had to cross from one side of the road to another side of the road. I would memorise meaning of one word. And we’re crossing them on this side to the other side.
I realised that, okay, I would think of sentences to use that word. And that was the time of the immense absorption for me. It was like I completely forgot everything else.
And in my entire COP period, that time when I was preparing for GRE, and especially was studying words, that’s, that’s, that’s the happiest time I have of my COP. And in many ways, while I was always interested in words, and one of my hobbies had been to memorise the words, just picking up a dictionary and memorising words. But later on, it was when I was introduced to bhakti, that actually, I realised that words are the tools by which I serve Krishna.
That just like a pujari may offer, a pujari, they want to worship the deity, they may offer particular, they will look for the most beautiful flowers. And they will look for the most beautiful combination of flowers by which they can serve Krishna, by which they can decorate the Krishna deity. So words are my flowers.
So I’m looking constantly for the words. And I’m constantly looking for which word will fit with which word, so that meaning can be conveyed in the most striking way, most memorable way, most insightful way. So I would say that apart from the discovery of Krishna, the discovery of my love for words, which I could use in Krishna’s service, that is also both of these things happened for me during my time in CUIP.
And my discovery of my love for words came before my discovery of whatever little love I have for Krishna, or at least discovery that Krishna is the ultimate object of love. So the human journey is actually preparing us for the spiritual journey. And we can see that many, many years later.
But if we are fortunate, if we are mature, when we are guiding others, then rather than expecting them to reject their human journey to take the spiritual journey, we can show, see and show them how their human journey is actually preparing them for their spiritual journey, how their human journey is helping them come closer to Krishna. So I’ll summarise what I discussed today. Broadly, I discussed three main points.
I talked about how the broad, I talked about the topic of spiritualising our outreach, but not so much from a conceptual perspective as a experiential perspective, spiritualising our outreach. So the first thing I talked about was about the concept itself, that our Krishna consciousness is not just what we do for Krishna, but also what Krishna is doing for us. Even if we have no relationship with Krishna, Krishna has a relationship with us.
And faith is what will enable us to see that the things that at one time we felt happened to us. Oh, this happened, this disaster happened to me, that happened to me. It actually happened for us.
That’s what we realise in due course of time. So not to us, but for us. So this means that even our Krishna draws us.
So Krishna draws us towards him, not just through our Bhakti activities or spiritual activities. Yes, Krishna draws us to them. But even through our material activities, if we are able to see them properly, Krishna can draw us towards him.
So I talked about a few points that what can my missing IIT, that at that time seemed confusing more than disappointing or frustrating for me. But through that, it is what seems to be a loss at one particular time. It was paving the way for a gain, not just that I came to Krishna, I came to, devoted to Krishna, but I came to Krishna and devotees in a way that was intellectually compatible for me.
I got a rational presentation of Krishna Bhakti. Then I talked about how we all feel misfits in whatever area we are in. Actually, I talked about one more thing is that how for us, what can seem to be like a burden or what can be a limiter can be a protector for us.
That for a physical handicap protected me from ragging. And that’s how actually whatever unhealthy, associated unhealthy habits I might have gone into, I was protected by that. So what is limiter that can actually be a protector for us.
So we may all feel misfits in life, but through the misfits, we can move towards the understanding of where we are a better fit. And ultimately, where we are the best fit. The best fit is in our relationship with Krishna.
So engineering was much more like a, I was more not so much interested in engineering as so much in science. So that conceptual focus, concept focus understanding rather than the, the application focus understanding. Then I talked about the chess and how we all look for some order and some pattern, some kind of sense of calmness in our life.
So wherever we get it, that is a vibhuti of Krishna. And that can also draw us towards Krishna. Then I talked about how our intelligence, what is, if we have intelligence, it is for us to consider what is a worthy use of our intelligence.
So for me, using my intelligence to make TVs, I felt this is never what I want to do. Then I talked about how, what do you, then I discovered that even, that intellectual happiness is not really, is it really happiness? The whole going to this Ayukar and finding these people who did not seem to be at all satisfied, although they were in such a exciting field of research. That’s what was so transformative.
And then finally, the love for words, words are like flowers used for deities. So what absorbed us in the past, what attracted us in the past, rather than dismissing it as Maya, we can see it as Krishna revealing to us that the life itself is a journey of self-discovery for us, journey for understanding our spiritual self and understanding our material, physical and mental self also, so that we can be of the best service to Krishna in this life and in this world. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. Is there any quick question that anyone has to ask? Hare Krishna. Thank you so much Pooji.
It was very inspiring to hear personal anecdotes from your life and the love for words that you have and the contribution you have given through your books and some of the things I still have in front of me or Bhagavad Gita calendar quote and me and my wife love very much to every day what kind of quote is there for today and then during the day sometimes we talk and think about that. So thank you so much for that contribution Pooji. Thank you so much.
Happy to be of service. Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna.
So if any devotees have any question related to the topic, they can quickly raise their hand or they can type here. Otherwise, I could take the questions which had come in the beginning of the session. So will you tell the time? Yeah, I think Dipesh Patel who has raised the hand.
So Dipesh Patel, would you like to ask directly? Yes, Pooji. Please go ahead. Hare Krishna.
Pooji, I just wanted to say thanks to you Pooji. Like every day I read your quotes from Gita daily and now like from start initially it like one one articles but now the way you have changed it now that every day you are in a prayerful mood to Lord and that is helping a lot to like how to pray to Lord that is also and what can say learning for all of us and secondly what I feel today like you mentioned like whatever words you are learning during your GRE and that you had used for Lord service as a pujari offers that flowers to Krishna and what I feel is that after during our Mangal Aarti also after that flowers are offered to Krishna they are being given to devotees. So that’s it is like Mahaprasad.
That Mahaprasad we are receiving through every day. As Pooji also mentioned about this calendar, we also have your calendar and I can honestly say every day when I read the code it is just like it is made for me. So it is helping a lot in each and every day Pooj.
So I just wanted to say thank you for this. So much happy to give service in my I have a WhatsApp channel WhatsApp community also. So every day I’m sharing a quote there also and other quotes apart from those 365 quotes every day I take some words of the Gita and I try to reflect on it.
Thank you. Hare Krishna. So Pooji if nobody has such question I wanted to ask one question.
Like what you shared the topic with you today is how different things are happening to us even in Matreli is how taking us closer to Krishna. So sometimes I have heard this that there is a Gita saying Gita saar not is gone but outside people they use it that jo ho raha hai ache ke liye ho raha hai right. But then we had also heard it from devotees that it is not always true.
In devotees life what is happening is Krishna is taking charge and then doing things to bring him closer to him. But then for everyone it is not the case. But then what we discussed today is to see how every it is then what we discuss is generally applicable for everyone’s life.
So how to see it. There is a certainly a very much of a in the Bhakti tradition if you do not have a proper understanding then there is a very very distastefully self-congratulatory kind of understanding. Self-congratulatory means because I am a devotee because I am following Bhakti so I am great.
I won’t say I am great but Bhakti is great. Okay but because I am following Bhakti I am great. It’s like does Krishna ever say that only my devotees are special and everybody else is like trash.
Krishna says suratam sarva-bhutaanam. Paralat says that when we pray to Narasimha Devi we say that you are Krupana Vatsala. Now Mahaprabhu said to be Dina Vatsala.
So Krishna is acting in everyone’s life. Like this. Now yes of course there is a difference between the cause why something happens and the purpose why it happens.
These are not two same things. The cause is in one sense the source. The cause is from where it came.
The purpose is the destination where it is meant to take us. Now whether we will go in that direction or not that depends on us. So everything that happens is not good.
Bad things happen in life. But even when those bad things happen if we stay positively orientated then we will see how even when the bad some good came up. So is it that bad things never happen in life? No I’m not saying that at all.
Bad things do happen in life. Krishna doesn’t tell Nadraupati when she is disrobed or attempted to be disrobed that you know. Jo hua woh accha hua.
Nahi. Jo hua woh acche ke liye hua. Par woh accha jo hai woh that also depends on our choices.
So it’s not an automatic thing. It’s a personal relationship with Krishna. So that’s why I give that example.
Let’s say if we want to go towards Krishna and let’s say we can go like this toward Krishna or we can go round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and finally we get to Krishna. Now which is better? Ultimately through every choice that we are making Krishna is giving us the opportunity to come closer to him. So Krishna is like the ultimate GPS.
GPS is God’s positioning system. So in God’s positioning system suppose we take a wrong turn. GPS doesn’t get angry with us and say you disobeyed me.
Stay get lost and stay lost. GPS will immediately reroute and help us find a way to come closer. But just because GPS is capable of rerouting from anywhere and getting us on the path destination does not mean that wrong turns don’t have consequences.
No, every wrong turn means things will be delayed. Every wrong turn means that things will be we’ll have to spend more time, more energy, more fuel. So our choices do have consequences and we do need to learn.
So in general when we look at our life, there are two different things. Our life and our choices. So our life is always within Krishna’s plan.
What does that mean? That whatever happens, whatever we do, like somebody might mislead us to take a wrong turn while driving or we may ourselves take a wrong turn for some reason. But no matter how many wrong turns we have taken, we are still within the mapped out territory and there is a path back to the right destination to the destination. So like that our life is always within God’s plan.
This is what this can make us always hopeful. But at the same time, our choices matter. Now with respect to our choices, there are two extremes of looking at it.
One is to take consider a particular choice to be especially when talking about our negative choices. We consider it fatal. Oh, I made this mistake.
Therefore, I’m ruined forever. That’s not true. And the other extreme to think of our choices is inconsequential.
No problem, whatever happens, Krishna will take care of things. Yeah, Krishna will take care of things. But as a service to Krishna, we also need to take care of choices.
We also need to take care of things. That’s why what we need to see that our choices, they matter. They are consequential, but they are not fatal.
No choice is so bad that it is going to ruin us. But every choice is consequential and therefore we need to be careful. So as devotees, we want to be both hopeful that no matter what somebody did to me or what I did, I’m never thrown out of Krishna’s plan.
But also to be careful that let me play my part properly. Let me make good choices to the best of my capacity. And that way I will stay on the right track.
So thank you very much for your thoughtful participation. I’m grateful to be here with all of you today. And my best wishes to all of you on your spiritual journeys.
Hare Krishna. Thank you, Pooja. Thank you.
Thank you, Pooja. Pooja, there were a couple of questions. I think Pooja has left.
Hare Krishna. Okay, okay. So Anandagu, you want to announce something or you want a quick photograph or anything? I would like to thank all the devotees for taking out their valuable time and joining this session.
We would have had many more devotees, I suppose. But since it’s a working day, we missed out on many. We’ll be sharing the recording of today’s talk by Pooja on the WhatsApp group.
And we’ll be able to access it later. But we haven’t aligned any talk in the coming days. But we are planning to schedule one in the next 15 days, most probably on the eve of Balram Jayanthi or Janmashtami.
Mostly, we’ll be checking with Kanhai Dhaba group for the next talk that we’ll be having. So mostly after two weeks. I haven’t decided the date, but based on Pooja’s availability, and we’ll communicate it on the group.
Yes. So thank you very much Pooja for arranging this. It was also very inspiring to hear from Prabhuji and so many personal experiences he shared.
And it was very inspiring to hear from him. And it was also one of the biggest get-together we had till now. It was biggest, Poo? Yeah.
So we are also very grateful to devotees for joining in such good numbers. So should we end, Poo? Yeah, we can end. Okay.
Thank you so much, everyone. Manisha from Muktavesh Chowdhury, Vasanthi Devi, and Akira from Muktavesh Chowdhury. Thank you.