How our outer world and our inner world deludes – and how bhakti delivers

How our outer world and our inner world deludes – and how bhakti delivers
[Bhagavat Shravan talk at Bhakti Center, New York, USA]

Video

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
and then spoke the Bhagavatam to help people come out of the nature of the material world. There he says how we all get into illusion and how we come out of illusion. And these four verses are told by Jiva Goswami to be like the conceptual basis of the Bhagavatam.
There is a conversational basis of the Bhagavatam is the conversation between Shukadeva Goswami and Parikshit Maharaj. Then there is a conceptual basis. The conceptual basis is this.
In the chapters 4, 5 and 6, Vyasadeva is instructed by Narada Muni, his guru, that meditate on the Supreme Lord, understand the essential truths of life and present them. So those four verses present that essence. So what is that? I’ll just briefly mention that essence and then I’ll depict it through these figures.
At first he says Vyasadeva saw that samyak pranihite namale He saw everything clearly. So apashita upashitam He said that there is a Supreme Lord and under Him there is Maya. There is God here and under Him is Maya.
And under Maya is the Jiva. yajasammohita jiva atmanantrigunatmakam paropimanute nartham dattratam cha vipadyate So although if you consider that Krishna is spiritual We are souls, we are conscious beings, we are spiritual. So ideally we should be here with Krishna not exactly equal to Him.
So Krishna is here, we should be here and material nature should be below. But currently the hierarchy has become like this. We have become controlled by material nature and that is because of the desire to enjoy material nature.
And then what is the solution to that? So in Sanskrit these three are often referred to by three terms called J. J is Jagdish, Jiva and Jagat. Jagdish is the Supreme Lord. Jiva is the soul and Jagat is the universe.
So essential ingredients of existence are these three. Jagdish, Jiva and Jagat. And Jagdish and Jiva are meant to be together then both are happy.
But currently Jagdish has been put aside and the Jiva and the Jagat are together. When the Jiva and Jagat are together this universe and the world and the soul when they come together the soul becomes bound. And what is the solution? The Bhagavatam says that Vyasadeva saw this and he spoke the Bhagavatam.
anartho pashyamam sakshat bhakti-yogam adhoksha-je lokasya jananto vidvams chakre sakvata-sammitam says the anartha that which binds this Jiva to material nature that is anartha. To free the Jiva from that the soul, for that the Bhagavatam is spoken. Now how does the Bhagavatam free the Jiva, the soul? That is described in the last verse in this four verse sequence.
If we just hear about Krishna by hearing about him what will happen? By hearing about him attachment to him will develop. And so the soul is here material nature is here it is controlling the soul right now. But if the soul hears about Krishna the soul will develop attachment to Krishna.
And as the attachment develops then the effect of material nature on the soul and there are three broad effects shoka, bhoka, bhaya lamentation about the past fear about the future and illusion about the present. These three effects will cease. Out of the control of material nature.
So the topic I will be speaking on today is that how we get entangled and how we can become disentangled. And for this broadly we will understand our own nature. We will understand the nature of the world.
Then we will try to understand the nature of our own mind. And we will try to understand how bhakti can bhakti works with the nature of the world and work with the nature of the mind. So normally we say the world is a place of illusion.
Maya. It’s interesting. There is a movie movie trainer’s industry or an institution in America it’s called American Institute of Illusion.
So that may be an American Institute of Illusion but the world, the material existence itself is like a universal institute of illusion. We are all an illusion in this world. So now when we say illusion what does it mean? Sanskrit word Maya.
Does anyone know what it means? Maya. Yeah. That which is not.
That means things are not the way they appear to be. That is the essence of Maya. Now the nature of Maya we can talk in various ways but primarily I will talk in terms of this simple diagram.
This is based on Bhagavad Gita 18.37 and 38. There Krishna says that the nature of pleasure there can be spiritual pleasure and there can be material pleasure or we could say there can be enlightened enjoyment there can be ignorant enjoyment and he says that the nature of higher happiness any kind of higher happiness is yathadagre vishamiva pariname amritopamam tatsukam saatvikam roktam atmapuddhi prasadajam in 18.37 he says that which tastes like poison in the beginning will taste like nectar in the end. So this is the nature of pleasures that are evolved, that are higher pleasures.
Say if you want to learn a new language we start as novices and it is not a good feeling to feel that I don’t know anything but once we start learning there is a lot of application required but once we start learning then we get the joy of learning. So there is pain initially but eventually once you have learned it there is pleasure. Say somebody doesn’t know driving and they want to learn driving they are always fearful what if I ram into someone and once they learn driving then it is so smooth they can go wherever they want.
So there is poison in the beginning but nectar in the end. So this is P and N. So this is, those of you from electronics P and N might associate with diodes that got diodes. So P is poison and N is nectar.
So this is based on 18.37. So we are talking about when we say we are the soul which is meant to be above how does the soul become bound and how it can become unbound. That’s what we want to talk today. So conversely there is another kind of pleasure Krishna says that the pleasure that comes by the contact of the senses with the sense objects that is materialistic pleasure which is like nectar in the beginning but it becomes like poison in the end.
So we could say suppose the example of drinking now when somebody is feeling low or whatever they drink and they feel high they feel good but after that the next morning they get enlightenment. Not enlightenment about spiritual truths enlightenment about the consequences of splitting headache and hangover. So it said that first drinker takes the drink then the drink takes the drink and then the drink takes the drinker.
So it becomes like a chain effect that keeps cascading bigger and bigger. So most pleasures in the world they look like nectar in the beginning. They appear very attractive and that’s how we get captivated by them.
So the illusion of the world is that things are not the way they are. That which is troublesome appears enjoyable and that which is actually enjoyable appears troublesome and this is how we are put into illusion. This is how we are put into illusion.
So this is the I am going to talk this in three parts first is the nature of the outer world the inner world and third will be how bhakti helps us work with both. So this was the first part the nature of the outer world is that things look attractive but they are not what they seem to be. So I would like some reflections in between the class also so if any of you have any comments any points struck to you or any similar thoughts or any questions we can have a little break and you can ask them right now.
Many of you haven’t. I am not going to give you any reflections. But you are saying that basically that there is three factors in equation.
There is there would be there is a Supreme Lord and he is the controller of the the material world. Yes. And then there is a diva.
Yes. And then he was at the bottom but he is supposed to be in the inner world. Yes.
Right. Thank you. Actually it is Basically this inversion happens because we become controlled by the things that we become attached to.
So, when we become attached to something that thing controls us and so that is the first part. Thank you. Let us move on.
Can you go to the next slide? One more. Okay, go back. This is cruel.
I drew this for a recent class that I gave. So, now let us see how this nature of the outer world reflects the nature of the inner world. Throughout history people in different traditions have talked about how there seem to be multiple voices within us.
One of the universal psychologists disagree about almost everything among themselves. They normally say for everything there are two sides of the story. But in psychology for everything there are three sides of a story.
So, there are a lot of different opinions people have of different things. But there is one thing almost all psychologists agree about is that we are not the masters of our own house. We are not the masters of our own house.
That means inside us there are forces that don’t seem to be in our control. And those forces sometimes take over and make us do things that afterwards we ask ourselves why did I do that? Why did I say that? Has anyone got this experience? If anyone has not got the experience why did I do that? Then you are pure devotees. I don’t want to do this but somehow I end up doing it.
So, what is it? There is something inside us which seems to take control over the times. And so we are not the masters of our own house. And there are different models to explain this.
In the Native American tradition they talk about how there are two dogs inside us. A good dog and a bad dog. Sigmund Freud talked about three.
He talked about id and superego. Different people have different models. So, you could treat what the Bhagavad Gita is saying also as a model.
Although the Bhagavad Gita is also telling us ontology, the nature of reality. But let’s take this right now as a model to understand our inner world. So, the Gita says that there are broadly not two voices but there are three factors which determine the choice within us.
Now again you could analyse this further but for the sake of simplicity I am keeping it three. That there is the mind within us, there is the intelligence within us. And apart from both of these, there is we, the conscious being, the soul.
The soul is above. This hierarchy is based on 18.37 and 18.38 in the Bhagavad Gita. This is based on 3.41, 42 in the Bhagavad Gita.
So, what does Krishna say about it? So, he says, Indriyani, the senses are above matter. Indriyani Paranya, what does that mean? The senses are above matter means, say there is some delicious gulab jamun. The gulab jamun doesn’t come walking to us.
We walk to it. So, the senses go toward the sense objects. In that sense, the senses have consciousness associated with them.
The sense objects, broadly speaking, are made of matter. So, now the senses are above the sense objects. Above the senses is the mind.
So, we are putting all the senses in this category on the right. When there is a mind, above the mind is the intelligence. And above the intelligence is the soul proper.
So, these two forces, broadly speaking, the mind and the intelligence are inside us. The word mind can have many different meanings in our day to day conversation also. Are you out of your mind? Have you lost your mind? Now, there what do we mean? What is the meaning of the word mind in that context? Judgement, intelligence.
What are you thinking about? Give this your full mind. What does that mean? Attention. Give this your full mind.
So, Einstein was one of the greatest minds of the 20th century. What does mind mean over there? Thinker. Luminary, intellectual luminary.
So, the word mind can have different meanings. And that’s why we have to be careful when we use a word. What meaning are we associating with it? So, the Bhagavad Gita uses the word mind to refer to the impulsive side within us.
You could say the seat of emotions. Not exactly the seat of emotions. It is the place from which our short term emotions, impulses and desires, they are accumulated and they emerge from there.
So, basically, in this analysis, the word mind refers to that which is short term. Short term desires, impulses, urges, emotions, all of that. In contrast with that, there is an intelligence, which can think long term, which can see the consequences of actions, which is mature.
So, one way to understand this is that inside each one of us is a child, is an infant and an adult. And so the infant within us is like the mind. The adult within us is like the intelligence.
And the infant and the adult, ideally speaking, the adult should control the infant. But sometimes the infant controls the adult. Sometimes it happens that the parents should be able to discipline the child, but the children control the parents.
And then that is not a very congenial situation for either. The children control the parents. So within us, we could say that the mind is like the infant, the intelligence is like the adult.
And we are the soul. So now, the soul is the conscious observer and the soul has to choose whom they listen to. Does the soul listen to the mind or to the intelligence? So in the hierarchy, things should be like the soul is above, the intelligence is below, the mind is below that.
And the mind is what is connected with the outer world. So the mind is what perceives the outer world and gives the information to the soul. So this is the inner world in terms of the hierarchy.
That there is the mind, intelligence and the soul. This is hierarchy. Any questions about this till now? Now let’s see how this hierarchy functions.
Can you go to the next slide? So ideally, how should it function? The consciousness comes from the soul through the intelligence to the mind and then looks at the things as they are. Now if the intelligence is in control of the mind, the mind is itself not a bad thing. The mind is functionally essential for us.
The mind is what links us with the outer world. The mind is needed, but who is in control? If the intelligence is in control of the mind, then when we look at the outer world, we look to see long term things. So when the intelligence is in control and then the mind is subordinate to that, then when we look at the outer world, we see, okay, this looks like poison, but there is no problem.
When you look at something in life, say, suppose we want to do, we want to maintain good health, and you want to do a workout. Now the first thing is, it’s so tiring. It’s so exhausting.
It’s such a headache. I don’t want to do it. So now that, initially, if you look at it, if you think of the weight I have to lift, the exercises I have to do, that is my poison in the neck.
I don’t want to do it. But if I actually get up and start doing things, and I start feeling healthier, I start feeling my body becoming more smoother to function, then that is the nectar. So when the intelligence is in control, we see beyond the initial to the eventual.
We see beyond the initial to the eventual. But when, this applies to both the higher joys, where we have to go through the poison to get to the nectar. And it applies also to the lower pleasures, the tempters.
Oh, there is this nectar over here, but there is poison afterwards. There is nectar here, there is poison afterwards. So I don’t want to get involved.
So the intelligence sees the consequences, and thereby we can act maturely. Although the world is deceptive, and the world’s deceptiveness is not going to change. But if we are perceptive, that means the intelligence is in control of the mind, then we will be able to see the eventual results, and act accordingly.
We will choose the consequences. However, something else happens. Can you go to the next slide? This is the second hierarchy.
So if you see over here, the other line you see, the line goes from the soul to the mind, and from the mind to the intelligence, and from the intelligence it goes, it sees only the initial poison. Or you can see the same line going down here, it sees only the initial nectar. So when the mind becomes in control of the intelligence, that time, it’s not that the intelligence is lost, it is controlled.
And when that happens, then we see only the initials. Oh, this is so troublesome, forget it. Anything that requires exercise, application, dedication, forget it, I can’t do it.
And we see this in so many aspects in today’s world. Now if we talk about relationships, every relationship requires commitment. But that commitment appears to be like poison.
But if there is no commitment, then the end result is that there is complete isolation, loneliness, disconnectedness. So there is poison in the beginning, there is nectar in the end. But the mind, when the mind becomes in control, it uses the intelligence, but it uses the intelligence to justify its obsession with the initials.
So you know, facts in some ways are value neutral. The same fact can be interpreted in many different ways. So we may say, life is temporary.
Don’t waste your life in temporary pleasures, seek the eternal. I was in Kolkata and I saw an advertisement. Life is temporary.
Enjoy before you become a dirty old guy. So now the fact is the same. Life is temporary.
But depending on what is in control, is it the mind or is it the intelligence? That fact will be interpreted differently. So the nature of our inner world is that the mind will always look at the initials. This is so difficult, forget it.
This is so enjoyable, why should I not enjoy it? And thus we get bound. So now with the internet available, there are so many things that are promised free. You can watch this movie free, you can read free, you can watch this novel free, you can read this novel free, you can see these images free.
See now whenever any product is promised as free, what it means is that it is we who are the product. It is we who are being targeted. What happens is it may be offered as free, but then our consciousness gets attached to it.
And as we get attached to it, we want it more and more and more and more. And then we get consumed by it. So when something seems free, it’s only nectar, there’s no poison there.
It’s only nectar, it’s just free. It is free, but it is not free. It is free, even if it appears free to enjoy right now, it won’t leave us free.
Because it will, it will captivate our mind. It will form impressions. This is very significant that for the mind, through any sensory pathway, impressions can be formed.
And say, suppose somebody takes a drink, somebody takes alcohol or drugs or whatever. Now we understand that taking drinks is habit forming. But how are habits formed? We could say the brain gets rewired in a particular way.
So somebody is an addict, then their brain neural pathways have become rewired in such a way that that behaviour becomes almost default behaviour for them. That could be the neuroscience explanation. If you want to go into psychological explanation, you can say that at the level of the mind, certain impressions are formed.
And once those impressions are formed, then that behaviour becomes almost like a default behaviour. So for the mind, for the impressions to be formed, or for the brain, for its neural pathways to get rewired, all senses are more or less equal. That means normally if you are going to say, put something into physically into our body, if you want to take some drugs or you take to some alcohol, it will be a little serious.
I don’t want this to go into my body. It will damage my body. But for the mind, what we take in through our mouth or our skin is just as consequential as what we take in through our eyes.
If we take something in through our eyes, that can also rewire our brain. That can also form impressions in the mind. And those impressions will start coming as propositions.
Do this, do this, do this, do this. So if you see this particular thing, that the mind is looking only at the initials, either the poison or the nectar, this is at one level a conscious choice. At another level, it is a default disposition.
So to the extent something becomes an impression, to the extent something becomes a habit, to that extent, one just can’t see the other side. So if somebody has become an alcoholic, or somebody has become a drug addict or whatever, now once they get habituated to that, no matter how much they try, just can’t think about the other thing. This has this consequence.
They know it, but it doesn’t register within them. Once there was an anti-alcohol campaigner, and he said that, I’m going to give a fiery talk about how alcoholism is so dangerous. I said, I’ll give a demonstration.
And then, he had a small box in which he had put a fly, and there’s a bottle of alcohol. So he took the fly out from that box, and threw it into a bottle of alcohol. The fly fluttered a little bit, and then it went down.
Dead. Then he turned around. All the people said, So what do you learn from this? And everybody started looking down.
There’s one person who was very cheerful. He said, What do you learn from this? What do you learn? When I drink alcohol, all the germs in my stomach will die. So what has happened over here, the mind has taken control of the intelligence.
So much, that even if you see the poison, you don’t see the poison. So it’s in Sanskrit, it says, We see, but we don’t see. That’s what happens, when we become conditioned to a particular way of behaving.
Although we know about all the consequences, but when we really have to act, our vision doesn’t go in that direction. Our vision goes in some other direction. So this is the nature of our inner world.
That in our inner world, there’s the mind and the intelligence. And ideally speaking, the mind should be controlled by the intelligence. And then we perceive the outer world.
But quite often, the mind controls the intelligence. And when the mind controls the intelligence, then we start perceiving the outer world in an unhealthy way. In a way, which ends up deceiving us.
So the world is deceptive. But we can be perceptive. However, if both the outer world is deceptive, and our inner world is also deceptive.
Because in our inner world also the impressions are such that we start seeing only the deception of the world. Or we start getting deceived by the world. That’s what we see.
Then we are badly trapped. So when he says that the jiva, although jiva is meant to be above maya, above the world, but jiva has gone below the world. That’s because of this hierarchy inversion.
That instead of the intelligence being in control of the mind, when the mind comes in control of the intelligence, then the soul gets subordinated, gets conquered, gets controlled by material nature. Any questions or comments till now? Yes, ma’am. Ladies.
What’s the role of false ego? Whenever I heard about mind and intelligence, so false ego is always there. Okay. Part one and part two, maybe it’s the same.
What’s the default? Mind becomes the default that mind takes over. Intelligence is the default. And how does the default end? Is it the false ego that makes the shift? Okay.
That’s a good question. So what exactly is the false ego? See, as I said, ultimately, this is all a matter of terminology. How we want to look at certain terms, that will determine what we are looking at.
In a sense, if you consider a computer system, in the computer system, there is software. Now in the software, you could have the operating system, you could have some pre-installed apps, you could have some user-installed apps. Now, in terms of content, all of them are simply codes.
In terms of content, it’s just 101010, a combination of codes. In terms of effect, in terms of function, they are different. So similarly, if you look at the characteristics of material nature that are described in the third canto in Kapila’s teachings, he describes mind, intelligence and ego in functional terms, not structural terms.
Structurally, the operating system, the pre-installed apps, the user-installed apps, all three are the same. Functionally, they work differently. Similarly, the ego, the intelligence and the mind, they are structurally the same.
They are all made of subtle matter. It’s functionally, they all have their different roles. So now with respect to the functionality, each of these at one level is essential.
The mind is essential, the intelligence is essential, the ego is also essential. As long as we are in a particular body, we need to identify with that body. We don’t need to completely identify with the body so that we forget our spiritual identity.
But if I have the body of a Brahmana, means I have a more body that is suited for intellectual work, and I think I’m a Kshatriya, and I start fighting, I’ll get beaten up. So I need to understand which body I have and how to function accordingly. So at a functional level, identification is required with the body.
So the ego is that mechanism, you could say ego is like the operating system. Without the operating system, nothing can function. So the ego is the basic operating system for the soul to function in the environment of the material world.
And the false ego is where? So ego is when the soul identifies with the body. False ego is when the soul identifies only with the body and forgets all identity. We need some level of identification.
I am a soul and I have this body. This is the body with which I am going to function right now. So the false ego we could say is the fundamental basis by which the identification happens, this identification happens.
But for the sake of simplicity, in this model I have, I have based this model in 3.41 in the Bhagavad Gita. There Krishna leaves out the ego. That’s why, because if you bring in the ego, how it would be like? Ego is like a wall, which would be between the soul, intelligence and mind.
Like that. So it would be like a layer in between and it comes through and filters. So Prabhupada gives the example that when we are in a human body, we have a certain kind of default instincts.
Say, but somebody is in a dog’s body or animal’s body. They have default instincts, you are different entirely. Now when the dog sees, when say a deer sees a predator, a lion, the deer doesn’t even think, immediately runs.
That is, that is default intelligence. So there is a certain level of intelligence which we don’t even think about. So all that comes because the soul is identifying with that body.
So the false ego will complicate the discussion, that’s why I have not got into it here. But it is true that as we become purified by the practise of bhakti, then our identification with the body decreases, our identification with the body decreases and then we can pursue things more clearly. Does that answer your question? Any other questions or comments? So let’s move on now to the third part.
The first part was the nature of the outer world. The second part of the nature of the inner world and how that deludes us. The third part will be about how bhakti helps us to function with the nature of the inner world and the outer world.
Now bhakti can be understood at different levels. Some people think of bhakti simply as emotion. Oh, I love Krishna.
Yes, it’s true, but bhakti is not just sentiment. Bhakti is a whole process, culture and way of living by which that emotion will be nourished. And thus, at one level the soul is there and we could put Krishna above there transcendentally and as a soul and Krishna, their bonding is bhakti.
And that’s what exists at the spiritual level completely. Then you don’t have a material body, you don’t have a material mind. There is no temptation.
Naturally the soul is attracted to Krishna. But presently we are in the material world. And being in the material world, we need to function in a way that protects us from the illusions of the outer world and the inner world.
So what does bhakti do? How does bhakti protect us? Now the bhakti culture is, there could be again external aspects to it, internal aspects to it. So the external aspects of it is that in the bhakti culture we create at one level such a pleasant atmosphere of devotional practise that the poison doesn’t feel that much. Just like say if you are fasting on a particular day.
Now fasting is difficult. But if you come together with devotees and then say it’s a festival and we are chanting, we are hearing, we are serving Krishna and we are absorbed in that. Then the pain of the fasting doesn’t seem to be that much.
Generally fasting is difficult. But fasting becomes even more difficult when you start thinking I am fasting. If I forget that I am fasting, then I won’t feel that much.
So the whole art of bhakti culture is that when somebody wants to do something higher, then there is going to be a poison, but we minimise that poison. So when we come to the temple, now to some extent, a temple is a place where we want to have spiritual practises, we want to experience something spiritual. That requires some amount of discipline and some amount of dedication.
But Prabhupada says that the deity should be decorated so beautifully that when people come to the temple, they see the deity, oh it’s so beautiful, just by seeing the deities, they start feeling some peace. So the poison will be there, no doubt. But we try to help each other minimise the poison.
So we help each other, have the support systems by which either we minimise the poison or we help, we highlight the nectar. Say for example, if you are studying the Bhagavad Gita, now you may feel, oh Bhagavad Gita is such a philosophical book, so complicated. I don’t feel like studying, I just want to read some stories.
That’s good to read the Lord’s pastimes also. But suppose we associate with someone who loves the Bhagavad Gita. Now they give so many fresh insights in the Gita and they are enlivened by studying the Gita.
Oh really, all this is there in this book, I also want to see. So when we see, oh there is this nectar and somebody is experiencing this nectar. Now although the poison is there, there is nectar beyond it.
So that’s why if we come in a devotee environment where the practitioners of Bhakti Yoga are joyful and practising Bhakti, then even if there is austerity, there is, we pass through that. We pass through that and go towards the nectar. First of all, we help people to decrease the poison and secondly, we help them know there is nectar beyond the poison.
Just perceive it, just be patient. So Prabhupada said, chant Hare Krishna and what? And be happy. Now, is this one instruction or two instructions? What do you think? So chant Hare Krishna and be happy.
But many people may say, I am chanting Hare Krishna, I am not becoming happy. Then what do you do? So there is a beautiful verse in the second canto of Srimad Bhagavatam 1 to 22, which says, Therefore the wise people, they practise Bhakti very joyfully. Unto whom? Vasudeve, Bhagwati, unto the Lord Vasudev.
What is the characteristic about him? That which gives joy to the soul. Now this is a little paradoxical wording. Just go back up again once again.
What it says is, Therefore the Kavya, the wise people, joyfully practise the process that gives joy to the soul. They joyfully practise the process that gives joy to the soul. So then, is it that joy is an ingredient of the practise? Or is joy the fruit of the practise? They are saying both.
So how does it work like that, both? What it means is, if somebody has been sick for a very long time, they tried many, many treatments. Now suppose you are sick, and you go to a doctor. Now the last thing you want to hear, unless you have a very big false ego, the last thing you want to hear is the doctor saying, I have never heard of anyone with symptoms like this.
False ego might feel very good, but you know, if nobody has heard about it, then how will I be treated? I was about 15-17 years ago, I was sick for many, many months. And nobody could detect what was the problem. I went to so many doctors.
Finally, I went to a doctor, and the doctor, he did some tests, and he said, P-U-O. At last, I found a disease. I said, what is P-U-O? By that time, I had got a reasonable amount of medical general knowledge, but I had never heard of a disease called P-U-O.
I thought, what is this? What is the diagnosis? The doctor said, no, there is no diagnosis. Nobody wrote P-U-O. He says, P-U-O means Pyroxia of Unknown Origin.
So Pyroxia is fever. And fever caused by unknown factors, that I also know. So anyway, finally, after a long time, after almost 8-9 months, I was suffering, and finally, the doctor diagnosed.
They found that I have got TB. And I went to the doctor, and the doctor said very gravely, he said, you have got TB. I said, thank God! And the doctor looked at me as if I was crazy.
So now, if you have been sick, being sick is painful, but at least being diagnosed, okay, this is the disease, this is the treatment, that is a relief. So, till now, we have not been relieved of the disease. But at least we have become relieved of the ignorance of what the problem is.
And the ignorance about what to do about the problems. So similarly, this verse, what it says is, that the wise people joyfully practise the process that brings joy. What that means is, that they may not be experiencing the joy of bhakti, they may not have, can you go to the other diagram? They may not be experiencing the nectar till now.
But they understand, yeah, because of a disease, presently I am going through the poison, the nectar will come. So chant Hare Krishna and be happy, it’s both a causal and a parallel instruction. Causal means, if we chant Hare Krishna, if we become conscious of Krishna, gradually, as our consciousness connects with Krishna, joy will come.
But till that time, we can be happy, that at least we are on the path to happiness. We can be happy, that we at least know what is wrong with us, and that we are following a process that will set things right. So one aspect of bhakti, bhakti culture at an external level is to minimise the poison, to help each other see beyond the poison to the nectar, so that even if it is difficult, we can perceive it.
And conversely, in the bhakti culture, we try to not highlight the nectar so much. We highlight the poison. Now that means what? The whole world tells us that, oh, there is so much enjoyment.
Buy this, eat this, touch this, watch this. You will enjoy. You will enjoy.
We come to philosophy, we come to the bhagavata class and bhagavata says, Dukhaale Mashaashvatam. This world is a place of misery. It can seem so pessimistic.
What is this? Why this world is a place of misery? Why do you have to be so gloomy? It’s not being gloomy. It’s like, say, suppose this is a bottle of, this is a bottle now. Now, suppose this bottle were empty.
And I need some water. And I request him, can you please get some water? He says, why are you so pessimistic? What do you mean? Just think that the bottle is full. You know, to think that an empty bottle is full, that is not optimism.
That is stupidism. So, now, what would be pessimism to say that empty bottle is empty, is not pessimism. What would be pessimism is, this bottle is empty, and it is never going to be filled.
You are thirsty, there is no water, and you are going to die of thirst. That would be pessimistic. But to recognise that the bottle is empty, then that we can take the step to fill it.
So, when the Bhagavad Gita tells us that this world is Dukhalaya, its purpose is not to say that this world is a place of misery, so stay miserable. That is not the idea of the Bhagavad Gita. It is just making us alert to the nature of reality.
And also giving us a process to rise beyond that reality. So, when we are told that this world is a place of distress, what it essentially means is that don’t have unrealistic expectations about life and world. More often than not, it is the search for happiness that is the cause of the greatest unhappiness.
Search for happiness is often the cause of the greatest unhappiness. And we see this, one of the most graphic examples of this could be addiction. Nobody is, say, born with a cigarette from their mother’s womb.
And if somebody starts smoking, they smoke because they want some pleasure. It is a search for happiness. But then what happens? They take in the smoke, and the smoke takes away their lungs.
And then they suffer so much afterwards. So, when the Bhagavad Gita is telling us that this world is a place of distress, it doesn’t mean to say that be pessimistic, live a distressful life. That’s not the point.
Don’t have unrealistic expectations about happiness in the world. So, what seems like happiness will become the cause of unhappiness. So, when I say the search for happiness is often the cause of the greatest unhappiness, what that means is there is nectar, and we start searching for that.
But in searching for the nectar, we end up with the poison. The search for happiness is often the cause of the greatest unhappiness. So, we need, the Bhakti culture does both these things.
At one level, it helps us minimise the poison in enlightened joys. And it makes us aware of the poison in sensual pleasures, in worldly pleasures, so that we don’t get unnecessarily entangled. And this is all vital.
So, in Bhakti culture, say, when we dress ourselves in a chaste way, in a decent way, why is that? Because we don’t want to allure each other. We want, not that we want, we don’t want to highlight the nectar and then the poison. So, the world today is such that it’s almost, the advertisement is, it shows only the nectar and no poison at all.
So, the advertisement is like, the advertisements of today’s world are like, they promise a product as they exhibit the product as if it is free. And then they extort the price after that. So, that is the culture that we live in.
And Bhakti culture is meant to help us understand and analyse, understand so that we can act properly. We don’t get carried away by the nature of the world. Just because we become devotees, the nature of the world is not going to change.
The nature of the outer pleasures is still going to be the same. But we can become equipped to see the eventuals. And we can help each other to see the eventuals.
That’s why we need to have strong association. Now, strong association, what does it mean? It doesn’t mean that when we come in association, somebody hugs us strongly. Well, that could be one aspect.
But strong association means that even if somebody speaks strongly to us, we don’t reject the association and go. Now, that doesn’t mean, that doesn’t give all of us the licence to speak strongly to each other. There has to be a proper relationship within which to do that.
But, suppose sometimes we are getting carried away by the nectar of something. And then, as we are getting carried away by the nectar, and somebody points out the poison to us, then we shouldn’t think that they are our enemies. Why are they doing this to us? They are not doing like that to us, they are doing like that for us.
So, when somebody is cautioning us about the poison, they are our friends, not our enemies. If we stay obsessed with the nectar, we think, why is this person against my enjoying? I was at an interfaith conference, and we were talking about how young people can be attracted towards religion and spirituality. So, the Christian pastor was telling that they did a survey among the youth, about what is their conception about a priest.
So, who is a priest? So, he said, one young man, he said, a priest is someone who is constantly worried that someone, somewhere, is having some fun. So, people think that anybody, don’t do this, don’t do this, you are telling us so many rules. So, it’s very, one of Shri Prabhupada, I was talking with one of Shri Prabhupada’s senior disciples, and he was telling that when he was doing college outreach, Prabhupada told him that the worst thing you can do when you are doing college outreach is present Krishna consciousness as a set of rules.
He said, first give an explanation of the philosophy, then tell the rules. So, explanation of the philosophy means we explain how this nectar will lead to the poison. See, if somebody is only seeing the nectar and you say, don’t do this, then they will say, you are just a killjoy, not allowing me to enjoy life.
But if we explain philosophically how the nectar leads to the poison, then the rules start making sense. Then you see the rules are actually protecting us from the poison. See, if our vision is caught with the nectar, then we feel the rules are depriving me of the nectar.
But, if we are seeing the poison, then we see the rules are protecting me from the poison. Most people cannot see the poison at all. And the world systematically denies the reality of the poison.
It is there, but it is just pushed away to the background. So, for us, not in a judgemental, condemning way, but in an objective, rational, educational way, we show that this action will lead to this consequence. This nectar is followed by this poison.
And then we see the rules as our protectors, as our friends. So, we need to have this kind of education. So, the devotee association can provide us support by which we can go beyond the poison to the nectar for higher joys.
And the devotee association can help us to resist the initial nectar and see the eventual poison. This is with respect to the external aspect. How the bhakti culture and the bhakti.
Bhakti culture means we come to a temple, we do bhakti and say we are hearing classes now. So, all this helps us to deconstruct the nature of the outer world. Any questions about this? What would you say to someone who questions whether nectar necessarily leads to anything.
For example, another one who drinks even a lot becomes an alcoholic. Yeah. Yeah, that’s true.
That’s true. It’s a good question. It’s a common philosophy nowadays that you drink but don’t become a drunk.
So, there is a drink within moderation. Everything within moderation is good. Now, I would say there are three broad ways of addressing this.
In principle, it’s possible. And somehow, I think there is a whole book written on this topic. The taste of wine is the proof that God loves us.
Wine is so delicious. How could something so delicious exist if God did not exist? So, people think that this is so enjoyable. And in certain cultures, that might just be a part of the culture itself.
So, you could say in principle that it could be possible that somebody can eat, can drink moderately and no effect on them. It’s possible. But it is, there is always the danger.
It’s like you are going to the edge of a cliff. Go to the edge of the cliff, you will peer down but don’t fall down. Yeah, you may not fall down.
But what if you do? The risk is always there. And when when somebody, say somebody drinks but doesn’t become a drunk. See, generally, when people go over to addiction of any kind, it is not just one cause.
Say, for example, somebody takes drugs. And now, you may say somebody takes drugs. You take drugs, once you become an addict.
But it’s not like that. Suppose, say, if you fall down, somebody falls down and breaks their thigh. No, generally, during their surgery and the treatment, you are given steroids.
They are also kind of drugs. Now, is it that everybody who goes through a thigh surgery becomes a drug addict after that? No. So, now what happens exactly is that when we take something, at that time, when somebody is taking this drug, it’s primarily to relieve the pain associated with that particular fracture and the healing of surgery over there.
So, generally, every unhealthy desire is a distorted expression of a healthy being. Every unhealthy desire is a distorted expression of a healthy being. So, if somebody is drinking, why are they drinking? Some people, they might just be social drinkers.
Everybody drinks. So, I don’t want to be an odd person out. So, let me drink.
Now, tomorrow, if their social circle changes, and in their social circle, nobody drinks, they’ll stop drinking. Because they were drinking just because they wanted a sense of belonging and acceptance. But, some people may drink as an escape way from life’s problems.
So, they are just, oh, life is so trouble, I just want to escape from it. And if that is the reason why they are drinking, then, even if they change their social circle, still they may keep drinking. Because that has become their default escape.
Unless they find a healthier way to get relief from life’s troubles. Life will always keep troubling us, intermittently. And when it troubles us, we need some relief.
So, if that has become their default way of seeking relief, then, they will gravitate towards it. And once they start seeking alcohol as a way to heal life’s wounds, then, depending on how much wounded they are, and how much they seek that relief, they may get more and more entangled. So, that just gives you two broad possibilities.
Social drinking and, say, as an escape way. Now, the same person from here may go over there by habit. Okay, I drink only in moderation.
For the last 30 years, I’ve never become a drunk, although I’m drunk. I drink regularly, but I’ve never become a drunk. That’s true.
But, till now, it might just have been a social habit. But tomorrow, it might become an escape way. And once it becomes an escape way, it can lead to a it can become a, you could say, express way to addiction.
So, that’s why there is always a danger. So, it’s definitely possible that somebody can do some unhealthy things and not get entangled. That’s largely because maybe the other aspects of their life are reasonably functional and stable.
But, if the other parts of their life also get disrupted, then they might start using this as an escape way. And the last point is that our consequences, the consequences of our actions don’t always hit us immediately. That doesn’t mean the consequences are not there.
How is it? Normally, we think of the law of karma as there is action and there is a reaction. That is true, but it’s not that simple. Because, if we have done some good karma in the past, then, even if we do some bad karma now, because of that past good karma, we go through a buffer phase of pleasure.
And we don’t experience anything negative because of that. That means that, say, somebody might drink and they might not experience anything for years. Because, by their past karma, they are meant to be healthy.
It’s like something with respect to eating also. Some people, they just eat a little bit wrong, their health gets spoiled, they overeat a little bit and their body balloons out and they get out of shape. Of course, round is also a shape.
But some other people, they treat their tongue like a conveyor belt. They eat anything and still this remains slim and fit. How is that happening? So, it’s that, that means the way they are eating may not have immediate consequences.
That doesn’t mean the consequences are not there. So, sometimes, our present karma may not lead to a present reaction if we have buffer of good karma. So, if somebody is drinking and not getting the consequences, that simply means they have buffer of good karma.
So, I’ll move on to the last point and then we can have some questions further if we have some time. So, now I talked about how bhakti helps us to deal with the nature of the outer world. And then, we’ll talk about how bhakti helps us to deal with the nature of the inner world.
In some ways, both are related, but there’s a certain difference in emphasis. So, in our inner world, there’s the mind and the intelligence. Bhakti, it is, at one level, I started, some people think of bhakti as emotion.
It is emotion, but it is not just any emotion that we’re experiencing any time. Bhakti is pure emotion. It is the pure attraction of the soul towards Krishna.
So, most often, on the spiritual path, emotion is thought of as an enemy. Because emotion deludes us. Say, we get attracted to someone and then we attract to someone and we just lose all intelligence.
Or we get captivated by something. Say, somebody takes some drugs or some alcohol, they feel high. They feel so good about it.
So, often, emotion is seen as the enemy of enlightenment. Emotion is seen as the enemy of higher knowledge and higher perception. And to some extent, it is true.
But what the path of bhakti does is that it doesn’t reduce emotion to just one thing. There are some emotions which are good and some emotions which are bad. What does it mean, some emotions are good and some are bad? Some of our emotions, they drag us down.
And some emotions lift us up. In the Ramayana, there’s a beautiful incident that when Ram is in the forest, at that time, Bharat comes over there. Most of you know the broad story of the Ramayana? Okay, I’ll mention it.
So, basically, in the Ramayana, Ram is sent to the forest and he has his younger brother Bharat, who wants his brother to come back and not be in exile, but become the king. Now, with Ram is his younger brother Lakshman. And Lakshman is like the quintessence of the modern angry young man.
He’s angry with everyone. He’s angry with his father, he’s angry with his stepmother, he’s angry with the citizens. How dare Ram be exiled like this? So, when Bharat, because he’s the younger brother, he wants to beg Ram to come back.
So, he thinks, I’m the younger brother, my older brother may not listen to me. So, he brings all the citizens, he brings a major contingent of the army, many of the courtiers, and many of the citizens. So, it’s like an army of thousands that comes over there.
Now, when Lakshman sees this, Lakshman immediately gets angry. He says, you know, the most dangerous jumping is jumping to conclusions. So, he immediately jumps to the conclusion that this Bharat is so wicked.
He’s not satisfied having sent you to the forest. Now, he has come with his whole army to kill you. He says, but he doesn’t know.
I am here with my arrows. He says, today the earth will drink his blood. And drink the blood of anyone who dares to kill you, dares to attack you.
So, Ram says, cool down. He says, what happened? He said, Bharat’s love for me is as much as your love for me. Has Bharat offended you in any way that you are so angry with him? Or is it that in a burst of sentiment, you came to the forest with me? But now, the life in the forest is so austere that you have become irritable.
If that is the case, I’ll ask Bharat to stay here and you can go back and do whatever you want. Lakshman becomes completely silenced by it. And then, after that, when Bharat actually comes, and Bharat begs Ram, please take the kingdom.
Normally, if a patriarch passes away, then there is the successors, the sons, the daughters, often they have a succession conflict, succession struggle. Who will get it? Here, there was a succession struggle. But the succession struggle was not I want the kingdom.
It was you take the kingdom. You take the kingdom. That was the struggle.
And both are saying, no, no, no. And finally, Bharat says, Ram, you will be the king even if you don’t want to be physically there. So, please give me your footwear.
Please give me your sandals. I will put your shoes on the throne and I will sit below that. He says, I want the position in the court to reflect the disposition of my heart.
Now, then Ram gives his shoes, his footwear to Bharat. Today, I say, if one brother gave his footwear, the other brother would take it and beat his brother. Like that.
So, when Bharat goes back with taking those footwear on his head, Lakshman is very touched. And Lakshman and Ram are sitting together. And at that time, Lakshman asks Ram, like a younger brother, says, Ram, why do you get angry so quickly? Because he is regretting all that he thought and spoke about Bharat.
So, Ram just pats him on the back and Ram says, you are sentimental. He says, are sentiments bad? He says, no. Sentiments are the ornaments of life.
But we need to choose those sentiments that lift us up. And avoid those that drag us down. We need to choose those sentiments that take us towards Dharma.
And we need to move away from the sentiments that take us away from Dharma. So, sentiments, emotions, they are broadly the same thing. So, it’s not that all of them are bad.
Not that all of them are good. We have to see which emotion is taking me where. So, if we come in the teatis and we feel an emotion, that is good.
That emotion will lift us up. But if we see something sensual, our emotion pulls us in that direction. That emotion is bad.
So, rather than seeing all emotion as uncritically good or as indiscriminately bad, bhakti gives us a vision. Where is this emotion taking you? So, the mind is not to be considered entirely bad. The impressions within the mind, some of them may be bad and we have to guard against them.
But some of them are good and we can use them. So, what bhakti does is, it makes emotion our ally, our friend, not our adversary. Certainly, there are certain emotions which we need to control.
But wherever the power of emotion can be channelled for our devotional growth. So, anything in bhakti that feels good to us. Say, if we like kirtans, if we feel peaceful, joyful when we hear kirtans or if we have some favourite DT scriptures, we keep them in front of us.
And whenever we feel agitated, look at that. Or if we like a particular scripture, we like a particular passage from scripture, we like a particular speaker, we like a particular class. Keep all those spiritual stimuli which evoke higher emotion within us, keep them ready with us.
Rupa Goswami calls this as uddipan. Uddipan is spiritual stimulus. Just as all of us have our particular sensual stimuli.
Say, each of us may get agitated by certain things. Similarly, we may all get attracted by certain things. So, bhakti internally spiritualises our emotions.
By giving us stimuli which can use our emotion, trigger our emotion to take us towards Krishna. All our emotions won’t take us towards Krishna, but whichever emotions are taking us towards Krishna, we activate them more and more. We do our normal process of sadhana bhakti, but we specially do those things which help us connect with Krishna.
And that way, the mind rather than taking us away towards illusion, the mind will take us towards Krishna. And as far as the intelligence is concerned, we want the intelligence to be in control of the mind. But we don’t want the mind to be constantly opposing and rebelling.
The mind will oppose and rebel, but if there is something that we like also, not that we have to rationally think this is good for me, so I’ll do it. But if there is something which we naturally like, then the mind’s struggle will be lesser. Just like a parent cannot constantly control and discipline the child.
The parent also has to engage the child in a way where the child starts cooperating gradually. So, now with respect to the intelligence, the intelligence has to be nourished. And nourishing the intelligence, this is related with the earlier point I talked about, how we see not just the initial nectar, but we see the eventual poison.
So when we come in the association of devotees, what does nourishing the intelligence mean? It doesn’t mean necessarily that we have to memorise a lot of verses. If we can, that’s good. But sometimes we are more concerned about how much the world knows that we know.
How much the world knows that we know. So, our spiritual knowledge is meant to make us devotionally fit, not intellectually fat. Intellectually fat means that we become proud of our knowledge.
I know so much, I know so much, I know so much. And yes, it’s good if you can know a lot, but the important thing is that we become devotionally fit. Devotionally fit means our intelligence makes us inclined, inspired to serve Krishna.
At the end of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna when he completes, Arjuna doesn’t come to Krishna and say, great class. What does Arjuna say? I will do your will. That means what has happened? That intelligence has been nourished, but through the nourishment of the intelligence, the desire to serve Krishna has been stimulated within him.
That desire to serve Krishna, that is what we desire. So whether we have the intellectual capacity to memorise a lot of verses, to analyse a lot of philosophy, that we can try to do according to our capacity. But if our intelligence we can direct in such a way that we hear and read and remember so that we feel inspired to serve Krishna, then the intelligence will also become capable of directing the mind along.
And bhakti, when it connects, when our bhakti nourishes our intelligence, then our intelligence starts giving us the inner strength to push on. Suppose we are chanting and if we just before chanting read something about the importance of the holy name, we have heard something about the importance of chanting, then we get more impetus, I want to concentrate. Otherwise, what is happening? We are chanting and our mind is wandering and the two are different channels.
The mind is wandering, the tongue is chanting and the soul is wondering which to do. The soul is wondering should I go along with the muttering of the tongue or go along with the wandering of the mind. And the wandering of the mind seems much more interesting.
So if we have nourished our intelligence, then we will feel inspired. So this way when we nourish the intelligence, the purpose of bhagavad shravan, this programme is called bhagavad shravan and the whole section, the last verse was that shruya manayam, when we hear about Krishna, shruya manayam krishne param purushe bhaktir utpate pumsam, the attraction to Krishna is awakened. That attraction to Krishna is the fruit of our spiritual practise, that is life’s greatest treasure.
That will fulfil perfectly our longing for pleasure in the eternal spiritual realm. So I’ll summarise. I spoke today on this topic of understanding our outer and inner worlds and how bhakti helps us work with both.
So I talked about the nature of the outer world. I talked about these four verses from the Bhagavatam which say that how, what is the Vyasadeva saw in the mystical vision based on the conceptual origin of the Bhagavatam, that the Jagat, Jiva and Jagdish, sorry, Jagat, Jiva and Jagdish, there are three units and this should be bottom of hierarchy, but it has become upside down for the lower two. The Lord is of course at the top, but the soul has gone below matter because of the desire to enjoy matter.
So how can the soul come above matter? By hearing about the Lord and getting attached to the Lord. So how does the soul below matter? That we discussed through some diagrams. Can you go back to the first diagram? So I talked about 18.37-38, how the initial plane, the world is deceptive.
Maya means that which is not. The things which are, which appear pleasurable are actually troublesome. And things which appear troublesome eventually end up being pleasurable.
So that is the nature of the world and that’s how we get deceived. And not only we get deceived by the external, but also by the internal. Go ahead.
So there are all over the world, people have tried to understand the self by creating different models. Psychologists tell us that we are not the masters of our own house. So what are the voices that are going on inside it? We categorise them based on 3.41 in the Bhagavad Gita.
40-41 that there is the mind and the intelligence. The mind is like the infant inside us and the mental intelligence is like the adult. So the infant will always see the short term, the impulse, whereas the adult is meant to see the long term and act wisely.
So then can you go ahead? So the normal way of functioning is that the intelligence controls the mind and then when we see the outer world, we see not just the initial nectar of worldly pleasures, but we see their eventual poison. And we don’t see just the initial poison of the higher joys, but we see their eventual nectar. But unfortunately, the hierarchy gets inverted where the mind comes in control of the intelligence and then we get carried away by the initials.
And thus we end up staying away from spiritual things and getting attached and addicted to worldly things. So how does bhakti help us deal with this? Bhakti, first of all, in the association of devotees, we make the initial poison more endurable and we make the eventual nectar more visible. If we see somebody absorbed in studying scripture, absorbed in chanting and relishing that, oh, there is nectar exists.
If I go through this poison, I’ll come to that. And then in the bhakti culture, we try to minimise the initial poison, sorry, initial nectar of sensual pleasures and we highlight the poison. So when we talk that this world is a place of distress, that is not pessimistic, that is simply being realistic, that is educational.
Not saying that this world is distressful and you stay distressful, but rather knowing that the world is distressful, don’t have unrealistic expectations of happiness. The search for happiness can often become the cause of the greatest unhappiness. We chase after the nectar and end up with a lot of poison.
So this education and this encouragement that can help us navigate the nature of the outer world. And with respect to the inner world, bhakti makes our emotion our ally, our partner, in the devotional journey. Rather than thinking of all emotion as bad or all emotion as good, we select the emotions that lift us up and we stay away from the emotions that drag us down.
And we look for what is our uddipan, our particular spiritual stimulus, what connects us, what we like about in Krishna bhakti and try to do that more and more. And bhakti nourishes our intelligence by providing us a whole world view within which the ultimate purpose of life starts making sense. That means bhakti provides us our intelligence, the nourishment.
The nourishment is not in terms of information, but in terms of determination. Our spiritual knowledge is not meant to make us intellectually fat, but to make us devotional. So how much we know is not as important as how much what we know changes our desires.
So instead of wanting to read a lot of books, we just focus on hearing something and getting inspired to serve Krishna. And if we do this, we practise bhakti with this holistic understanding of how it works, then it can take us toward the ultimate joy. I talked about a chant Hare Krishna and be happy.
It’s not just a causal instruction. It’s also a parallel instruction. Because we have been sick and finally we have known, we have come to know about the process of cure.
So although we are not yet cured, we are happy that we are taking the cure. In this way, by practising bhakti, we can be happy right now and we can proceed toward the ultimate happiness. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. Thank you so much. Now Bhavani will focus her attention on the Aarti and I believe we have Janani here to chant.
So I insist you back there somewhere. So today I’ll speak on the