How spiritual life relates to our material Life 2 – Work not for or against your nature, work with your nature for Krishna

[Seminar at Wellington, New Zealand]

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna Jai! Gaur Premananda Jai! Jai! Jai! That is significant now. So, I will do a quick recap and move forwards.
So, I talked about how in the interaction of material life and spiritual life, we can have three distinct visions that material life needs to be rejected for practising spiritual life. Or, spiritual life is something separate from material life and that is something we add to our life. So, material and spiritual life are complementary.
And third is that spiritual life includes our material life, and it leads to redirection of our material life. So rejection, complementation, or redirection. So I talked about how rejection of material life, if there are some aspects of our material life which do need to be rejected, the non-devotional, sinful activities, they need to be rejected.
But rejection is more characteristic of the Jnana Marga than Bhakti Marga. Karma Marga romanticises the world, thinking if I just adjust some things, life will become wonderful. Jnana Marga demonises the world.
This world is simply dangerous, treacherous, just get out of it. The Bhakti Marga utilises the world. So we don’t look at the world or look away from the world.
We look beyond the world to Krishna, and we progress towards Krishna through this world. So if we are too renunciation-focused, or too rejection-focused, then we can become hard-hearted, and we can become either proud if we are renounced, or feel sorry for ourselves if we are not able to renounce. So rejection is not the primary goal of the Bhagavad Gita in the approach of spiritual life, not rejection of material life.
In spiritual life, is it complementary? That there is something more that we add to our life. That we start practising direct devotional activities, worshipping the deities, chanting the holy names, by which we directly connect with Krishna. And in that sense, spiritual life is about adding something more to our life.
But along with that, spiritual life also involves redirecting our existing life. That Krishna says, By your work, worship me. That means, now we discussed that our work itself is not worship.
If work were worship, then the donkey would be the greatest worshipper. So, work has to be made into worship. And that service mood, worshipful mood, will come by the direct devotional activities, which we do, which we add to our life.
And then after that, when we have added Krishna and Krishna-centred activities to our life, then the rest of our life, it is redirected. Redirection means we do it with a higher purpose. Not for our own fame or glory, but for serving Krishna.
And I discussed about how we have to deal with difficult people, or difficult situations. So, I talked about how sometimes in our relationships, if there are some difficult people, like attendant for the difficult customer in a cloth shop. The attendant sees that I want to please my boss.
And although the sale may not happen, the boss is pleased, I will get a raise. And I get promoted. Like that.
Sometimes, when we have a better, when we are Krishna-centred, then even in our relationship with others, even if there are some people who are troubling, we don’t just, you hurt me, so I will hurt you. We think, how can I serve Krishna? And in that way, we actually become more tolerant, more mature, more sensitive in our relationships. And I talked in that connection, about how we can, how in our spiritual life, there is sadhana, our spiritual practises, siddhanta, our philosophical understanding, seva, the services that we do, and there is sadhacharya.
Sadhacharya is the practical good conduct. So, the world doesn’t care what our personal spiritual practises are, what our philosophical understanding is, how much service we are doing in the temple. The world sees how we practically behave.
Prabhupada told, how do we know your disciples, your followers? They are perfect gentlemen. Perfect ladies, perfect gentlemen. So, our sadhana, our siddhanta, our seva, all this should lead to sadhacharya.
It should lead to we getting personally transformed in our daily practises. I talked about Prabhupada. He went and spent some time with an old lady who was near a temple.
Just talking, old people talk, not trying to preach to her. Just being nice with her. And he said that old people sometimes get lonely.
So, we need to, people need to appreciate us. If you have to share Krishna, they should appreciate us at a human level before they can appreciate us at a spiritual level. So, our material life, it becomes improved by our bhakti.
Not in the sense that we may earn more, but even our material talents, material life, relationship, we become more responsible, more resilient, more tolerant. And in that sense, bhakti leads to the all-round blossoming of our life. So, today, that was the background.
Today, I’ll continue and I’ll speak on this theme that when we are practising spiritual life, how do we actually increase our sadhachara? Krishna protects what we have and provides what we lack. So, when we say that Krishna protects what we have, so we have particular situations in our life. Say, we may be in a particular job, a particular relationship, a particular social group.
We may have a particular psychophysical nature. And is it that we have to reject all this and serve Krishna or we have to work through all this and serve Krishna? There are only two words in the Bhagavad Gita that Krishna almost repeats, 70-80% he repeats. The first talks about spiritual life and the second talks about harmonious material life.
So, let’s look at these two verses. One is 9.34 and 18.65. 9.34 is man-manabhau mad-bhakto maryajimāṁ namaskuru mām evaiśyasi yuktvayivāṁ ātmānāṁ mat-parāyanaḥ So, till mām evaiśyasi, this verse means that man-manabhau, always think of me. Become my devotee.
Worship me. Offer your homage to me. By doing this, you will come to me.
Look, if you are engaged, yuktvayivāṁ ātmānāṁ mat-parāyanaḥ With your whole being, ātmā, devoted to me. You will come to me. In 18.65, Krishna almost repeats the same verse.
man-manabhau mad-bhakto maryajimāṁ namaskuru mām evaiśyasi satyam te pratijāṇi priyauśi me So, he says, so, first two lines are exactly the same. mām evaiśyasi, third line, that part is same, but he says, you will surely come to me. This is the truth.
I speak the truth. I declare that I am speaking the truth because you are very dear to me. priyauśi me So, repetition stresses.
Prabhupada says in the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, Parapura says that repetition of some point, it helps us recognise the importance of it. Repetition stresses something, but stress in the repetition also signifies something. So, in the first part, what is stressed is, if you do this, in this way, with your soul devoted to me, you will come to me.
In the second part, he says, I assure you, you will come to me. I am speaking the truth. So, to understand this difference in stress, say there is a person who wants to sell some property and there is a client, potential buyer who comes and then the seller says, if you pay this instalment, if you get this clearance, if you do this, this, this, then I will sell you this land.
But then, the seller becomes more anxious. He wants to make sure that the deal is sealed. If you do this, this, this, I guarantee you I will do this, you will get this land.
You will get this. So, in the first part, Krishna is stressing on what Arjuna needs to do. In 9.34, in 18.65, Krishna is stressing what I will do.
So, the Acharyas explain that Krishna is so anxious. Vishwanath Tagore especially explains that Krishna is so anxious that Arjuna understands and Arjuna chooses a wise course of action. Arjuna adopts the path of Bhakti that Krishna is saying, I will do this.
If you just do this, I guarantee you I will do this. Don’t worry. The next verse is aham sarva-dharma anpanitya.
Just give up everything else, surrender to me, I will protect you. So, I will come back to this series of verses later towards the end of the class. But right now, this is one verse where Krishna is talking about devotional service.
Just practise devotional service. But there are other verses which Krishna repeats. I think it is 3.35 in 18.46. 3.35 is śreyān svadharmo vighunā paradharmān sva-niṣṭhitāt svadharme nidhanaṁ śreya paradharmo bhayaḥ He says, śreyān svadharmo vighunā Working according to your own nature is far better than working according to someone else’s nature.
svadharme nidhanaṁ śreya Even if you are destroyed while doing your own work, that is better than doing somebody else’s dharma. paradharmo bhayaḥ That, following another’s religion is fearful. Doing another’s duty.
Dharma actually means duty according to one’s nature. The same verse Krishna repeats in 18.46-47 in that section. There it says, śreyān svadharmo vighunā paradharmān sva-niṣṭhitāt svabhāvanyatam karmaḥ kurman nāpnoti kilvisham It’s better to do your own duty than somebody else’s duty.
Because when you work according to your nature, then kurman nāpnoti kilvisham There will be no sinful contamination by that. So, there it is more of a negative. Even destruction is better.
But here you see, here is self-protection. You are not getting sinful reaction. The stress is, work according to your nature.
So, in the context of the Bhagavad Gita, it means Krishna is telling Arjuna, don’t try to act like a brāhmaṇa. Arjuna is thinking that, they are all my relatives. Why should I fight against them? Let me forgive them.
Let’s live peacefully. So, yes, forgiveness is a good principle to follow when the other person is remorseful or the other person is wanting to at least reform. But the Kauravas were completely unrepentant.
They were shameless and they were out on a mission to be as atrocious as possible. And they had shown no signs of remorse or reprobation. So, Krishna said that we have to, there is a principle of forgiveness and there is a principle of justice.
And in this particular phrase, Krishna tells Arjuna, don’t fight to take revenge. But you have to establish justice. And so, therefore, you have to establish dharma.
You have to establish the moral and spiritual order in society and for that you have to fight. So, Krishna is telling Arjuna, you are a kṣatriya, don’t act like a brāhmaṇa. That’s not going to work.
You will not be able to sustain. So, brāhmaṇas are people who are intellectual. They live in their own world inside.
They give spiritual knowledge, but they are not so much people who are social movers and shakers. They will give knowledge and if somebody takes that knowledge and applies it, that’s good. So, brāhmaṇas are expected to forgive.
Somebody does something wrong, just forgive and move on with your life. But kṣatriyas, if somebody is a ruler of a state, if somebody says, our house is robbed by someone and we come to know that they have robbed us and we go to the police, come to the police, just forgive them. The police, forgiveness is not supposed to be what the police are going to do.
Police are supposed to, police and the legal system, that is meant for justice. So, there is a room for forgiveness, but if Arjuna is the part of the kṣatriya order, when it is required, they have to fight. So, both from the point of view of social well-being, Arjuna is being told, you have to act according to nature.
You cannot be forgiving and peace-loving over here. Peace is very valuable. There is no need for unnecessary violence.
But, pacifism alone is not the supreme virtue. If somebody is aggressive, we have to fight against them. There was a prominent Indian leader who, when Hitler was on a rampage against the Jews, he advocated that, no, we should simply be humble and fall at the feet of Hitler.
And we should appeal to his higher sense. And then, when his higher sense is awakened, he will actually stop all violence. Prabhupāda talked about this as nonsensical non-violence.
It’s not that we recommend violence, per se. No. The point is not to recommend violence, but the point is to recognise that in certain situations, assertive action is called for.
Sometimes, when there is a lot of violence going on, the United Nations or some other international regulatory body may send some peace-keeping force. Now, see, the word itself is peace-keeping force. So, to keep peace, we need force.
And force can mean violence. So, violence is simply an undeniable fact of life. When we are infected, by some germs, we may take an antibiotic.
And what is the antibiotic? We are systematically killing the germs with Nagavatam. That’s violence. Nagavatam says, jīvo bhivasya jīvanam.
One life is the… One life lives on another life. That is the way of the material world. So, the point Krishna tells Arjuna is, both from the social perspective, as well as from your individual perspective.
You are Kshatriya. You may say, Oh, I’ll forgive. I’ll just remain like a monk.
I’ll remain like a renunciate. I’ll take some alms and live. He says, you cannot do like that.
If… There is a difference between… The Kshatriyas, they take taxes. It’s like this. The Brahmanas, they take alms.
It’s like this. You give in charity. So, if a Kshatriya goes and asks for alms, Somebody says, No, I’ll not give alms.
Kshatriya, I’m here to take out a sword. How dare you not give me? So, he says, A Brahmana, you cannot do that. He says, You will not be able to act like a Brahmana.
Krishna tells Arjuna that, we all have a particular nature. And we will act according to that nature. We cannot avoid it.
So, what we need to do is, that we need to act according to our nature for Krishna. So, the more… So, this is also a verse, which the Bhagavad Gita repeats twice. But what does it mean? That there are three ways in which we can consider our bodily nature.
The body and mind come with a particular nature. There are different ways in which, say, modern psychology may analyse. Some people are extroverts.
Some people are introverts. Some people are more project-orientated. Some people are more people-orientated.
There are different natures. There are different ways in which personality types will be analysed. But the fact is, we all have our own particular natures.
Now, we can work for our nature or we can work against our nature. But bhakti is not for our nature or against our nature. We work for Krishna with our nature.
Working for our nature means that I am an intellectual and I exist to be an intellectual. Then, even if my intellectual nature can be satisfied in reading and propagating atheism, I’ll propagate that also. But then that is not going to take me to Krishna.
I have intellectual nature. I use it to serve Krishna. So, we use… we see the body and mind as a resource that we have been given and we use it for serving Krishna.
Don’t work for the body. Don’t work against the body. We work with the body for Krishna’s sake.
In modern society, there is an enormous social insecurity that comes because of many people being in incompatible professions. There are certain, say, jobs that are glamorised and everybody starts going for those jobs. Even if they fit into that kind of job or not, everybody tries to do that.
And people can become very miserable because of that. Once there was a court case between a husband and a wife. And the court case was over and the husband wanted their son to become an engineer.
And the wife, she wanted their son to become a doctor. And when they came to the court, the judge said, Why do you need a court case for this? Solution is simple. Just ask the judge.
He says, No, we can’t do that. Why not? The child is not yet born. Sometimes, the social expectation can be so much that people get pressured to follow a particular mould.
And then we try to fit into that mould and then we try to fit in and try to fit in and it doesn’t work. We just get frustrated. And we feel as if I am good for nothing.
Or I am worthless. Einstein said that if we judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, the fish will have a lifelong inferiority complex. The fish is made by nature with some different abilities.
Now with respect to different species, this difference is very easy to understand. But with respect to human beings, we all belong to the same species. This difference is not so easy to understand.
So Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita at one level he tells us that you are not the body, you are the soul. And that we have to realise that we are the soul. But at the same time we cannot realise ourselves to be the soul overnight.
It requires a lifelong process of purification by which we can realise. We may have some intellectual understanding. We should try to get that.
But we have to live lifelong. And how we live lifelong that is that will be dependent on whether we are working in harmony with our nature. I answer questions on my website The Spiritual Scientist.
So once one one woman she asked a question. She said that since my childhood I was I used to suffer a lot of fear. I used to have fear attacks, panic attacks.
And I started practising bhakti. And I found that chanting Hare Krishna and understanding the Bhagavad Gita helped me to decrease my fear substantially. I was taking medication.
I stopped taking the medication. But then one day I heard a class that whole class was about how death can come at any moment. We may be walking along the road and a vehicle may run over us.
We may be alone in our house and we may get a heart attack. We may be sitting and the roof may cleave in on us. The whole class was about various ways in which we may die at any moment.
From that time onwards my paranoia just shot back. And then I went to a doctor and the doctor told me hearing classes like this is psychologically damaging for us. Don’t hear classes like this.
I said, I have read Bhagavad Gita as a sacred book. How can hearing the Bhagavad Gita be psychologically damaging? So what is going on? So what should I do? So I explained that actually when we hear spiritual knowledge which part of spiritual knowledge how it will affect us that depends on our individual consciousness. So yes, death can come at any time.
That is true. But what is the purpose of saying that death can come at any time? We can approach this idea that death can come at any time in the mode of ignorance, in the mode of passion, in the mode of goodness and in transcendence. In the mode of ignorance if we approach death can come at any time.
So basically, the modes, Krishna talks in the Bhagavad Gita about three modes of material nature. These modes are subtle forces that shape the interaction between matter and consciousness. The subtle forces which shape how our consciousness perceives and responds to various material things.
So for example, if you are in a movie theatre watching a movie and suddenly fire breaks out. So those who are in the mode of ignorance become paranoid, they become petrified. What do I do? Just get frozen over there.
Most people are in the mode of passion they will just run to the nearest exit. And many times when some dangerous things happen like the fire breaking out the casualties are not so much because of the fire but because of the stampede that happens when people are trying to flee from there. So people just rush towards the door.
A person who is in the mode of goodness, oh fire is here. There is a extinguisher over there. Go against the flow of the crowd, get to the extinguisher and extinguish the fire.
So basically if you consider there is external action and internal contemplation. So in the mode of ignorance there is neither action nor contemplation. There is just panic, wildness.
अप्रकाशो अप्रव्रतिष्च. In 14.13 the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says that there is neither inner thoughtfulness nor outer action. That is the mode of ignorance.
In the mode of passion there is first action then contemplation. We speak something, I should not have spoken that. So in this mode of passion many times they have said that the tongue has no bones but the tongue can break bones.
We speak something and people get so angry that they attack us. They can break our bones. Or sometimes the tongue has no bones but we speak something which can break other people’s hearts.
So without contemplation there is action. That is the mode of passion. In the mode of goodness, first there is contemplation and then there is action.
Think. There is a fire over there. Let me go there and extinguish the fire.
So these modes, we all have these three modes within us in different combinations at different times. We have a particular defining mode and that shapes our response. So if I am in the mode of ignorance prominently then if I hear about death then death can come anytime.
Then what will happen? There is no proper contemplation, no proper action. There is just panic, paranoia. So I just get fearful.
What should I do? Anywhere death can come. Anywhere danger can come. So this is very unhealthy.
Because I am in the mode of ignorance so hearing about death makes me just overwhelmed by fear. When I am in the mode of passion if I hear about death what happens? I think I saw an advertisement once in Kolkata and that’s called Mayapur. Enjoy before you become a dirty old man.
So the idea is that death can come at any time therefore enjoy as much as you can right now. There is a popular TV series in America about one person who is going to die and then what did he do when he was going to die? He was given 3 months to live and then he decided to go on various places in the world and enjoy. So one day he was in the Caribbean beaches, another place he was in another beach and everywhere he was enjoying with beautiful women.
And after 3 months got over by popularity’s demand he got a life extension. And he kept going through all the places in various places and he lived for almost 3 more years. So basically people think that life is for enjoying and even if there is death just deny it and try to enjoy as much as possible.
In the mode of goodness however what does the awareness of death lead to? It makes us think that is there any reality beyond death? Let me pursue that. So in ignorance death means I am just powerless I may die anytime, it is helpless. What can I do? I feel sorry for myself.
In passion I think material reality is the only reality so let me enjoy as much as I can while I am here. But in spiritual, in goodness we understand that there is another reality. In the mode of goodness In the mode of goodness we see that there is an imperishable spiritual reality that is present in non-living beings.
So when I have spiritual knowledge then the reminder of death makes me explore spirituality more forcefully. So it is like say if I have a two storey building house and if I know a flood is going to come and the flood water starts rising then I may normally just live on the ground level but then I see the flood water coming then I rise to the first level. I may think oh I have to climb up the stairs, go to the first level.
Who will do that? Just forget it. I want to be here. I am comfortable here.
But when the water level starts rising that forces me to rise to the spiritual level. So similarly in the mode of goodness when we understand that death is going to come that makes us rise to the spiritual level. So in transcendence actually we see death as Krishna coming to bring us closer to him.
Death I am the destroyer of everything. But when Krishna says come you will see it is I who come as time it is I who come as death. So for a devotee Vishwanath Chakraborty is the example it’s a his essential point is that at death we don’t leave home at death we go home.
This is not our home this is a temporary residence place and with Krishna is our eternal home so we go home. So he gives the example that if a girl who is living at her parents place she has had a courtship with a boy or a good amount of man, he knows the boy and her marriage is there then although at one level she is sad that I am going to leave my parents and my brother my siblings, brothers, sisters but she is eager and looking forward to go to her lover’s place. Similarly he says that for a devotee who has he says bhakti is like a lifelong courtship we are trying to develop a relationship with Krishna throughout our life at the time of death he compares to marriage so when we die we go to Krishna so a devotee sees death as Krishna coming to take us towards him that’s the transcendental vision it’s a very elevated vision the point which I was making there is that if we are in the mode of ignorance and if we are in the mode of goodness the same event of death we perceive differently so the purpose of the Bhagavad Gita is to help us to fix the mind on Krishna and become devoted to Krishna and for the audience who is in the mode of goodness for them the reminder of death can serve as a prod to urgently and intensely practise bhakti but for somebody in the mode of ignorance who is largely in the mode of ignorance the hearing about death can cause paranoia so it is not that the knowledge of the Bhagavad Gita is psychologically damaging it is rather that all of us in our own particular ways are psychologically damaged and sometimes some aspects of the spiritual knowledge may trigger our needs so it’s like say normally when we do security checks they ask do you have sensitive spots on your body so normally just touching the body will not cause pain but if somebody has sensitive spot it causes pain so like that by our own past upbringing, past experiences we may have some sensitive spots so if that is the case then we have to be careful when I hear about Krishna if hearing about death is causing too much gloom causing too much pessimism too much paranoia, I am not here about it let me hear about Krishna, his attractiveness his sweetness and let me inspire myself in the practise of bhakti so the point of this whole example was that we have to work with our nature so if I have a nature which is very fearful then if I work for my nature, that means I am not here about anything which will cause me fear then I just give up the Bhagavad Gita and go away and I will hear just some mundane romance books about happily ever after and I am denying myself the opportunity if I work against my nature I am afraid of, I feel fearful, so let me hear about all fearful scenarios then hopefully by that the fear will go away but it may not happen like that we have a particular nature, we work with our nature for Krishna so this point puts me off this point has a negative nature, I put it aside and move onwards towards Krishna with whatever I can do this kind of individualised application of bhakti so that we work with our nature is very important for the sustainable practise of bhakti lifelong so here I give an example of how psychologically we will be affected in particular ways similarly we all have particular talents, particular interests and we all work according to those talents and interests the principle of bhakti is that the principle of when Krishna says work according to your nature for my sake, the principle there is that we have our circle of interests and there is the circle of bhakti we find out where is an intersection and we situate ourselves in that and serve Krishna accordingly so sometimes we separate this is spiritual, this is material and now I want to be spiritual, I want to reject everything material but how do we practically differentiate between spiritual and material suppose we hear some joke in a class and then when the joke happens and I start thinking you know, am I laughing for Krishna’s pleasure or my pleasure we don’t have to get into paradoxes like that if it’s a joke in a class about Krishna, just laugh so basically material and spiritual is not just a matter of is it connected with Krishna or is it not connected with Krishna that’s one way of understanding I’m coming to temple, that’s spiritual I’m going for my job, that’s material that kind of separation is required so that we give due time for our spiritual life so if we give due time so that we chant the holy names we study scriptures, we associate with devotees we worship the deities, we do some services but once we have given due time for these direct spiritual activities after that we try to spiritualise everything that we do that means we infuse everything that we do with a service attitude the essential difference between a spiritual consciousness and material consciousness is in material consciousness we want to enjoy things our motivation is gratification whereas in spiritual consciousness our motivation is contribution now whenever we meet people our mind often passes comments about this person lazy this person show off this person talks too loudly this person like this this person like this our mind keeps passing comments about people different people different comments and now when we interact with someone if when I see that person I am thinking what can this person do for me then that is material consciousness if I think what can I do for this person that is spiritual consciousness so what can I do for this person I am gratification motivated that is material consciousness what can I do for this person this is service consciousness contribution consciousness and this is devotion so sometimes for some people we may not be able to give them Krishna directly but ok how can I help this person rise one step from where they are towards Krishna so earlier I talked about how we have to work according to work with our mind if it is too fearful about death now I am talking about how we work with the people that are there in our life so sometimes we classify things into spiritual and material that is good it is one level of classification but everything material is not homogenous in the material there is a mode of goodness mode of passion, mode of ignorance or we could say in the material there are some things which are pro-devotional some things which are non-devotional some things which are anti-devotional and they are not all the same so when we are in a particular social situation in a particular relationship with our friends with our family members, with our colleagues at that time we say all this is mundane and I don’t care for this yes that is one way of looking at it but a more inclusive way is that this is also an opportunity for service Bhaktivinod Thakur is one of our prominent Acharyas and he says that I long for the day when the high court judges will be adorned with Vaishnav tilaks he is saying basically devotees will become judges now how is that going to happen one way is that may be devotees get governmental power and they appoint devotees as judges the other way could be that devotees who are judges are so competent that they get appointed to the top posts because they are so good actually even if our even if even if devotees get government but unless we have competent people who can manage things material things require materiality also you don’t have that there will be chaos so as devotees we are meant to do the best that we can in whatever field we are so we don’t want to be workaholics who just work all the time but in the time when we are working we work wholeheartedly in the time when we are dealing with people we try to deal with them as nicely as we can that means in that this is the social situation I am in now may be my family members may not be favourable to my bhakti my friends, my colleagues may be hostile or whatever this is the situation now if I am in the mode of ignorance I just feel sorry for myself life is always this is wrong, that is wrong just feel self pity is not humility humility is Krishna centred self pity is self centred oh this is wrong with me, that is wrong with me this is not working, that is not working I am still centred in myself so humility means not so much to think low of ourselves as to think less of ourselves think low of ourselves means you think I am so bad, I am so unworthy but to think less of ourselves means I am not that important let me think about Krishna and let me think about how I can serve Krishna so if I am in an unfavourable social situation, if I am in the mode of ignorance, then I just feel sorry for myself what can I do all people are so hostile I can’t do anything just give up my practise of bhakti in the mode of passion when we we come into a situation we think that in one interaction I am going to convert this person and by the time this discussion is over this person will have bean bag in the hand and tilak in the head we start thinking that I am the doer and I am the I am going to convert this person when I was working in a company I had that initially whenever we start practising any path there is a new convert scene which can often be quite overbearing so I was working in a company and most of the time I would just hear some lecture along the way I had one hour drive to go to the company so now I was working so then one day one colleague asked me what are you doing and then he just entered the bus he asked me and next one hour I was giving him a full lecture what I do, why I do how I do it and he was showing some signs of not being interested I thought that means I am not preaching forcefully so I became more forceful so after that for almost a week normally the buses have two doors so that colleague he would enter he would peek around and see if I was nearby he would go to the other door so then just last year when I was in America I met him and he is a professor in a college in America so then I apologised to him for being so overbearing at that time so sometimes we when we are in the mood of passion we feel I know the truth everybody else is an illusion and I am going to enlighten them and if others are not ready to get enlightened that means they are demons so we become when we are in the mood of passion we become extremely judgemental we start thinking that this is the right thing and if anybody is not accepting it that means they are bad but it is not necessary that they are bad it is that different people are at different levels in their spiritual evolution spiritual growth is a multi-lifetime process and in our own lifetime if we see it is unlikely that just one session changed us we kept meeting devotees repeatedly we had different interactions and it is not just what experiences we have when we are meeting devotees but it is also other experiences we have had in our life which make us more receptive to what we hear from devotees so there is a lot that goes on to make a person receptive for Krishna Mishra Prabhupada himself in his famous song Markini Bhagavad Dharma in his preaching the Bhagavatam there he says that Krishna Alankrita Kori Bala Khamata Tumhara I cannot speak this message I cannot make them understand Ki Bhave Bhujaalatara Bhuji Sehi Rasa Eta Kripa Kora Prabhu I cannot make them understand but you can do it so please make my word understandable so if I think that I can enlighten someone then it is I who needs to be enlightened first that it is I have to understand that I am not the source of enlightenment I am simply the agent and Krishna is present in their heart it is Krishna who will actually help them understand so in the world of passion we become judgemental and that can be very alienating for people because we have a certain set of values we say these are not my values these are scriptural values, that’s fine but people have not accepted those values so when we judge people according to values which they have not accepted it’s unfair to them so we have to understand where they are and help them rise one step upwards how can this come one step towards Krishna so in the world of passion in our social interactions we simply want to convert others and take the glory of having converted people and if that doesn’t work out we demonise them and when we become judgemental like this we alienate a lot of people because people don’t get to experience Krishna Bhakti they just get to one interaction and one interaction is so judgemental so fanatical so insensitive so we have to see that it is I who am in the mode of passion so what happens the philosophy sometimes becomes a weapon in our ego battle with others I am better than you and this is the philosophy of openness but sometimes in our relationships if we start using philosophy or philosophical standards as weapons then our relationship our spirituality is meant to make us more understanding not more judgement what do you mean by more understanding that means that we understand just as I have my mind and senses and I know how difficult it is to control my mind and senses yes for that person they are struggling against something that may be very easy for me to control but that doesn’t mean everything is easy for me to control say somebody is eating meat and say you are a meat eater your body is like a graveyard I can speak all sort of crazy things and I think I am being so I am being a strong preacher I am not being a strong preacher I am simply being a strong alienator I am alienating people but then I may have difficulty I may get attached to sweets and sweets is not sinful the point is not sinful or not the point is that everybody has to struggle with controlling their mind and senses for me the struggle may be with respect to sweets for somebody else it may be with respect to meat so rather than judging people from our standards it is so easy for me why is it so difficult for you it may not just be a matter of sense control it may be a matter of understanding God exists it is so obvious are you dumb no they are coming from a different level of consciousness so just as there may be some concepts which are very difficult for us to understand although they may be very easy for some senior devotees to understand so similarly from their level that concept may be very difficult to understand so we have to actually understand that the same mind and senses that are stopping me from appreciating some aspect of the Bhagavata the same mind and senses are stopping this person from appreciating the existence of God so if we see that we are all actually obstructed in our understanding and growth by our mind and senses how specifically they obstruct that we will but when we see this way then we see that we all are on the same sides in the battle it is not that we are on opposite sides it is not that I am enlightened and this person is illusioned and I am going to enlighten them I am also vulnerable to my mind and senses they are also vulnerable to their mind and senses and just as it requires struggle, it requires effort for me to overcome my mind and senses, it will require effort for them so our spirituality is meant to make us more understanding not more judgemental and this happens when we in our social interactions are in a mode of goodness if we are in a mode of passion, ignorance we feel victimised all these people are so unfavourable to me, what can I do? I am just helpless I give up my practise of bhakti if I am in a mode of passion, I think I have to convert everyone if I can’t convert them, they are dogs, hogs, camels and I forgot arses and donkeys so we start using scripture to label people which is completely inappropriate it is incorrect also they are at their level of consciousness in mode of goodness we see that they are essentially like us they are also souls, I am also soul I am covered by my mind and senses they are covered by their mind and senses so we see from where they are how can I help them take one step closer to Krishna so we see every relationship as an opportunity to every interaction we see as an opportunity to grow in selflessness I am always self centred I am right this is the way it is but every relationship even if it is not a spiritual relationship in any relationship you have to put the other person first I would like to do this but this person thinks like this now it is not that we go along with whatever others are telling we have our principles we don’t follow our principles but that doesn’t mean that we have to demonise others ok this is what I am doing, how can I explain this in a way that will make sense to this person so that empathy is what we bring to the spiritual table when we are in the mode of goodness and with that actually our interactions if we can become empathic not judgemental then our social relationships can improve, yes we will have our principles because of which there will be differences but we can have differences without having quarrels without having world wars we can live with our differences and move on now some relationships are very hostile and we just have to break the relationship or keep a distance in the relationship but the point is how to approach it intelligently that will come when we understand that I don’t have to work for my relationships I don’t have to work against my relationships I have to work with my relationships for Krishna these are my parents, these are my family members these are my children so how do I work with them so I will conclude with one point about parenting how do we actually if we are in some kind of parenting we have children or we are somebody who is irresponsible to them how do we help them to come closer to Krishna so basically every human being their heart is like a door with the key with a latch that can be opened only from inside we cannot change anyone it is they who have to choose to change a person convinced against his will is of the same opinion still an example we can give about how much we can push people to do something suppose somebody is trying to start the car and the car doesn’t start then does this happen here also in India the car doesn’t start, they call some other people please push the car does this happen here not so often cars are probably but that is quite common especially the cars are not so well made car doesn’t start, a few people come along and they push the car so the person from inside is trying to move the steering and try to change the gears and move the car, people from outside are pushing and then together the car starts moving now suppose the people from outside are pushing and the person inside has gone to sleep then the people outside will say why should I keep pushing or worse still the people from outside are pushing and the person inside is pressing the brake then they will say forget it, I won’t push now that’s the intelligent thing similarly when we want to help people come closer to Krishna sometimes we have to push their car please come for this programme one reminder, two reminders but then if they show no interest at all if we are pushing the car but inside they have gone to sleep or they are just pressing the brake when sometimes people say no we can also, after 2-3 times we can come to know, are they actually saying no because they have something else to do or they just don’t want to come and they are coming with some excuses so if that is the case then just stop pushing so what we have to do, we can push people to some extent but we can push only when they want to be pushed ultimately if they are actively opposed just end the interaction accordingly move on there are many other people who are interested in Krishna so as I said the car can be started primarily from within change has to be made by the person themselves so how can we influence others basically we can only do three things we can share knowledge we can provide facilities and we can set example as parents we may want our children to become devotees so what can we do we can share knowledge why are we doing this why should we not do this what are the consequences children may say oh I want to drink I want to take drugs what are the consequences of this show them not in judgemental but objectively so we can provide knowledge along with that we need to create or provide facilities so if children come to a temple we may hear classes but you can’t expect children to hear classes which are meant for adults there have to be some special programmes for them some Sunday school, some dramas some verses, recitations, singing whatever, whatever way they can be engaged and this principle I am using it for children but this applies to everyone we can create facilities in my early days I asked one of our leaders how do I make my parents into devotees so Maharaj Ji replied that by letting anyone except you preach to them basically our parents are often seen as small children growing up who are you to give me spiritual knowledge it will be quite difficult for them to accept it so we may have to place them in people who are in their age group, some are devotees create facilities and the last is set an example set an example means if the parents want children to become devotees it’s not just the example that the parents come to the temple many times you see parents come to the temple and bore down the child looks here there they also bore down they see what the parents are doing it is not just setting an example but also the children feel actually my parents they are such nice parents they are taking care of me so nicely and they are devotees therefore I want to become a devotee so basically for getting anyone to Krishna we can only do these three things we can share knowledge provide facilities and set example and if we are doing these three things that is all in our control we have done our part and then it’s between them and Krishna so if others don’t know about Krishna that is our problem if others don’t choose Krishna that is their problem that is between them and Krishna Krishna will guide them in the new course so what we need to do is that in the mode of goodness we understand what is in my control what is not in my control and with that when we function then we don’t get overwhelmed when things are not working our way so this is the same point of not work against our nature work for our nature but work for Krishna with our nature so same way work for Krishna with our social situations sometimes some people may not become devotees some of our relationships but still they may still actually by trying to help them come closer to Krishna that may force us to actually become more pure more humble more sensitive, more tolerant, more understanding and that is also our growth in bhakti it is not directly growth in bhakti but if while dealing with others we have to control our mind, we have to control our senses somebody just behaves in a very provocative way, I control myself that control of my mind and senses that will help me in my practise of bhakti also so in that sense spiritual advancement is not just in terms of of external devotional activities sometimes some people may not become devotees but still just their presence may inspire us or force us in a positive sense to actually become more trained in controlling our mind and senses by which that helps us to become devotees so in the mode of goodness we can see positively the last point I will say is in our whatever overall situations come in our life we all will face different situations, sometimes a financial situation, sometimes it may be health situation where we face difficulties so we don’t work for the situation, we don’t work against the situation we work for Krishna in the situation what does this mean? as I said that in every situation there is something in our control and something out of our control so to the extent in the mode of ignorance what happens is we underestimate how much we can control and we feel everything is going wrong we feel powerless in the mode of passion we overestimate how much is in my control and then we get frustrated why is things not working in the mode of goodness we understand this much is in my control, this is not in my control and we see the best way to understand this is that living life is like playing a tennis match in tennis sometimes the player is serving and sometimes the player is returning now when the player is returning at that time the player doesn’t have much control wherever the server is going to hit the ball that’s where the player has to get the ball back the ball comes on the body somehow get the ball, if the ball comes on the backhand if it comes on the forehand, wherever it comes just get the ball in the play now if I am returning at that time expect I won’t play on the forehand I swing on the forehand, the ball comes on the backhand I just miss everything so no when I am returning my level of control is limited but that does not mean I am powerless I still can get the ball back, there are many players who became champions primarily based on their returning skills so sometimes in our life our degree of freedom is limited we are like in a position of returning if we just because we can’t control things the way we want them to, that doesn’t mean nothing is in our control there are some things in our control, we focus on that and work with that and after some time we are serving so then at that time we have to take initiative, this player’s backhand is weak, so I will serve on the backhand or this person can’t respond when the ball comes on the body, so let me serve on the body so that time we take initiative and we make decisions, we make choices sometimes in life we are serving and at that time we become passive then we lose the opportunity so for example say when I am giving a class, at that time I am serving I decide what topic I am going to speak on I decide how I am going to structure the talk soon after this there will be question answers so at that time I will be receiving I don’t know what question who is going to ask so I have to answer the best that I can at that time so like that in every situation that we are in, sometimes we are serving and sometimes we are returning so a lot of problems come in our life when we don’t match our expectations with reality when I expect the freedom of serving while I am returning I get frustrated nothing works according to my plan and when I have the reactiveness of returning while I am serving then again things don’t work so in life sometimes situations will allow us more freedom sometimes situations will allow us less freedom so as devotees what we do is whatever control we have we use it to our fullest capacity for serving Krishna and whatever control we don’t have we just depend on Krishna Krishna you take care of this so in bhakti there is dependence on Krishna and there is diligence for Krishna so for the things that are not in our control we depend on Krishna Krishna you take care of those things for the things that are in our control diligence for Krishna so we don’t work for our situations we don’t work against our situations ok my health is spoiled now I wanted to go for this yatra I wanted to go for this retreat but just before I went there I was supposed to go there, I got a flu and I am on the bed now so now that means I wanted to serve but now it’s my returning time, I can’t do much so at this time if I start resenting all my friends are there in this retreat they are having a good time, what is this I am just lying here miserable many times resentment of reality hurts more than reality if I have flu it’s not very painful, it’s just I am weak I may have to sleep, I may just lie down in bed but I may be lying in bed fairly comfortable in a hospital or in my home but when resentment is there then my mind is beating why did this happen, why did this happen why did this happen and I may feel miserable so resentment of reality hurts more than reality so if I understand this is the time when I am meant to be returning, not serving so just accept it, what can I do in this time maybe I can read some books maybe I can hear some classes maybe I can pray to Krishna, maybe I can do some introspection we can always find something constructive to do so working with our situation for Krishna whatever be the situation I am in we understand it may be because of my karma, it may be because of this person whatever it is, ultimately it is Krishna’s plan so let me try to serve Krishna in this situation whatever situation you have put me in Krishna please let me serve him in this situation when you work in this way even the situations that may at one time seem very frustrating but they will turn out to actually be uplifting they will turn out that a new door will open for us, some aspect of our life which we did not know oh I can do this also, this is something which I can do if we keep glaring at the door that I have closed, we will miss out on the door that is open so Krishna has a plan for us but for us to understand that plan we have to stop resenting the frustration of our plan just accept Krishna whatever you want to accept, I will serve you and in that mood when we work we work not for a particular situation not against a particular situation we work for Krishna with whatever situation we are in and that actually is our surrender and whatever situation you put me in Krishna I will serve you in that situation that was the Prabhupada’s mood when he came to America he what was his mood he says my dear lord you have brought me here to dance make me dance make me dance oh lord just like a puppeteer makes a puppet dance make me dance so you surrendered he had practically no idea, I have come to America I don’t even know whether I will get vegetarian food over there or not what kind of people live over there will they be interested in Krishna they had no idea but he was determined to do what he could in Krishna’s service and what he was going to do, it was up to Krishna and how Krishna made Prabhupada dance in the last 12 years of his life he danced in the whole world stage he inspired millions of people to practise Krishna Bhakti opened 108 temples, wrote over 70 books circumnavigated the globe 14 times and created a new chapter in the history of the world for raising people’s consciousness towards spirituality, towards Krishna that happened because he was surrendered to Krishna whatever situation was there he used, he worked with that situation, he didn’t say all these American people are so degraded what is the use of being here he worked with them and Krishna created opportunities wonderful opportunities for them, so when we face difficulties when I get discouraged I often read Prabhupada’s biography especially the last 5 chapters of the first volume and the first 5 chapters of the second volume was when Prabhupada was struggling in India and he was struggling in America when you see that when you see how much difficulties he went through to give us the opportunity to practise Krishna Bhakti whatever difficulties I am going through they are just insignificant with a child who has to take some bitter medicine this taste is so terrible I don’t want to take this medicine but when the child comes to know that actually that medicine is very expensive and his mother sold her own precious jewellery to get that medicine then the child will take that medicine and the child will not be tasting the bitterness of the medicine the child will be tasting the sweetness of the mother’s love similarly yes, we will all have difficulties when we go through our life, even when we are serving Krishna there will be difficulties but the opportunity to serve Krishna itself the opportunity to practise Bhakti itself is a precious blessing and Prabhupada sacrificed his health travelling all over the world in his old age to give us the opportunity to practise Krishna Bhakti so when we meditate on that then whatever difficulties we face it’s just no big deal just let me do it for Krishna’s sake let me do it especially for Prabhupada’s sake and we find that whatever darkness is there in our life that will actually bring a new light because we will see Krishna acting in our life transforming us in our life for a better, brighter sweeter future in his service I’ll summarise so I spoke today about how we can work how we can actually not work against our nature or for our nature but work with our nature for Krishna first how there are two verses in the Bhagavad Gita that are repeated Krishna talks about surrender become devoted to me and first he says if you do this you will come to me because if you do this I guarantee that I will do my part and get you to me Krishna is eager that we come to him and second part Krishna says that you work according to your nature so I talked elaborately about how Arjuna as a Kshatriya had to fight because for maintaining social order sometimes the Kshatriyas had to take a certain action peaceful forces are required to avoid violence and Arjuna’s own nature meant that he had to work for fighting that was his nature if it was necessary and then in that connection I talked about how working with our body mind, working with our social situations and working with the overall situations we find ourselves in life so for working with our body mind I talked elaborately about how is hearing about death psychologically damaging no, if we are psychologically damaged because of being in the mode of ignorance then hearing about death can make us paranoid if we are in the mode of passion then hearing about death will make us frenzied to want to enjoy if I am in the mode of goodness then hearing about death will make me more reflective or focussing on spirituality if I am in pure goodness in transcendence then hearing about death will make me more attracted to Krishna because when we say death is like a reunion with Krishna we don’t leave home, we go home to talk about this three modes in ignorance there is no proper contemplation, no proper action in passion there is first action then contemplation in goodness there is first contemplation then action so in certain aspects of the philosophy we find very disturbing to hear it is not that we have to reject the philosophy but we have to understand this is my body mind complex, this is my nature and I work with that and move towards Krishna in our social situations if we are in the mode of ignorance if people are unfavourable we just go into self critique I feel sorry for ourselves and give up my body if we are in the mode of passion then we think that I will convert everyone and if we can’t convert then we become judgemental and condemn others in the mode of goodness we understand that just as my mind and senses are creating trouble for me at my level of spiritual growth their mind and senses are creating troubles for them at their level so our spirituality is meant to make us more understanding not more judgemental and that way we will find that if we become more understanding more sensitive then we can help people come closer to Krishna through from where they are one step up so people can be helped only if they want to be helped the door to personal change can be opened only from inside we can push a car but only when the driver wants to move the car then the pushing is helpful so similarly we can push people if they want to be pushed towards Krishna so to help others change we can only do three things for them we can create, we can share knowledge create or provide facilities and set an example and then it’s up to them whether they change or not and lastly when we face any kind of unfavourable situation in our life we don’t we don’t work for that situation or against that situation we work for Krishna with that situation that means it’s like tennis match sometimes we are serving and sometimes we are returning so we need to moderate or adjust our expectations according to reality so if we are returning, just accept that I have limited control, with the limited control what can I do right when we have opportunity for initiating now let me do more so when we have that service attitude then we can adjust our expectations with our reality and do the best with what we have and Shri Ram Bala himself is an example of this kind of surrender devotion, when he went to America and a situation where he had no knowledge of the kind of people who were there people were very unfortunately degraded he worked with them he said to Krishna make me dance and he inaugurated a new chapter in world history where now Krishna Bhakti is available for millions of people all over the world so by remembering the difficulties he has gone through in giving us the fortunate factors Krishna Bhakti, we can become inspired even the amongst our difficulties they are not that much just like a child may feel the medicine as bitter but remember my mother has sold her jewellery to get this medicine the sweetness of the mother’s love makes the taste of that bitterness of that medicine insignificant, so like that by focussing on the sacrifice of Shri Ram Prabhupada and his followers in giving us the fortunate factors Krishna Bhakti, we can put aside our small difficulties and wholeheartedly practise and move towards Krishna Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna Are there any questions or comments? Some people say that do we have to change our nature or we just like some people are in a business of butchering some people are in the food category that he says that in any of the food category so is it that we have to change our nature say somebody is a butcher can they be a butcher for Krishna or do they have to change their profession see I would say even if somebody is a Shudra somebody is like a general assistant it’s not necessary that they have to be identified in particular professions one can work even as a Shudra in various different professions so a butcher’s profession is anti-devotional because it involves direct violence so it’s best that that person try to make some arrangements to shift to some other profession so it can be according to their nature that’s like working for our nature a Kshatriya likes to fight but that doesn’t mean the Kshatriyas meant to fight and kill innocent people there has to be a purpose they fight only when there is a dharma is in danger they fight at that time so an intellectual may like to study they should study spiritual books philosophical books not mundane books, not atheistic books and become atheistic so we don’t have to change our nature but we do have to harmonise our nature with the principles of Krishna Bhakti so if somebody is of a nature where they would like to do some activities which are of the Shudra profession that’s their nature then they can find within the Shudra vocation what are the things they can do which are not anti-demotional which are pro-demotional so yes, if something is involving breaking of the four aggregate principles then that is anti-demotional that needs to be given up but that doesn’t mean that the nature itself has to be given up within our nature we can find out something which is less anti-demotional but more pro-demotional any other questions? yes sir what you just said is that ignorance is underestimated and passion is overestimated and then we have to work with the goodness just take an example of it I think maybe Gopal if I’m not wrong, Gopal also mentioned about it one salesman, he goes the manager sells him to one place that go and sell the shoes and he comes and says oh no, nobody puts on the shoes so there’s no point of selling but he sends another salesman and he goes there and says, oh send the two trucks of shoes because nobody puts on shoes I’ll make them wear the shoes so the passion is there passion is there but his actions what he uses is in the mode of goodness and achieves that passion so it’s still an overestimate so if we are ambitious is that overestimation? so, if you see Prabhupada, who could be more ambitious than Prabhupada normally, if you see how people’s life’s ambitions work growing up child they think, you know I’m going to become the wealthiest person in the country as they keep growing up they think, okay I’m going to become a very wealthy person and as they keep growing up by the time they finish their college if I get a job, it will be good so we have big dreams but when life beats us down then our dreams start becoming smaller and smaller but Prabhupada he had so much difficulties he tried to start an organisation he was, there was a conspiracy which pushed him out of the place where he was living he tried to distribute it back to Warhead magazine people were not interested he tried to work with his godbrothers they had very parochial vision they couldn’t let him preach practically everything that he did was not successful and then at the age of almost 69, 70 Prabhupada is saying, I want to go to America so the Sumti Moraji that lady who sponsored his trip to America she told him, my Swamiji my secretaries are saying if you go there, you will die he says, you are so old America is so cold so Prabhupada told her nothing is going to happen to me, I’m going to fulfil my spiritual master’s mission so Prabhupada was extremely ambitious but that ambition was for Krishna and more importantly that ambition was coupled with tangible, practical action when we say over expectation passion leads to over expectation if that is not coupled with any action if I’m just, I’ll do this I’ll do that, I’ll do that but practically I’m not doing anything then it’s a problem it’s like, if I have capacity to lift 10 kg weight right now and I think, oh I’m going to lift 50 kg weight if I lift 50 kg I’ll get crushed but that doesn’t mean I can never lift 50 kg I may have to do workouts regularly and if I keep doing that maybe over a period of months or years I’ll come to lifting a huge weight also so Prabhupada nothing is wrong in having a big there’s a difference between ambition and expectation ambition is what I want to do expectation is what I will get from life so ambition is more focused on the mood of contribution what am I going to do expectation is what is life going to provide me so life is not going to provide us a bed of roses we’ll have to work hard and Prabhupada is ready to work extremely hard go through many obstacles and he’s always going step by step so we all need a vision for our life this is what I would like to do for Krishna this is what I want to do with my life but for that vision it shouldn’t be so divorced from our real situation that we are never doing anything to actualise that vision we can have an inspiring vision but we take steps gradually to move towards that vision so he said that when you have vision when we are developing a vision we expand our perception so that we have an inspiring enough vision that makes us work hard but when it comes to execution contract your vision or contract your focus so that what is the step I can take right now one step, one step, one step and that way we move on is it answering your question? yes passion I wouldn’t say that having a high ambition is necessarily passion it can also be goodness but the important thing is that we work in an intelligent way thank you does any of the mothers have questions? yes please sorry can you repeat the question? yeah are you asking that if we are more extrovert then is it that we are in the mode of passion? or is it that for example myself and sometimes my lover okay yeah so if we are extrovert and then we use our extrovert nature to attract people to Krishna then is it that we are actually in the mode of passion or are we serving Krishna? yes sometimes yeah okay so is it for contribution or is it for gratification ourselves? no we don’t have to necessarily be constantly separating that it is it is like say if we have a particular nature and we serve according to that nature now if I like to speak I am speaking for Krishna now is it that I have no desire at all that I be appreciated that I be praised and if I wait for that I will never be able to speak about Krishna but it is not that in order to get appreciated I will speak simply some mundane jokes speak some point related to Krishna but that will make me popular so basically like I said we have our nature and there is the service of Krishna there are two circles we find the intersection and we situate ourselves in that and while doing that so while working with our nature for Krishna there is also the natural you know the desire for appreciation can be because of the ego but it can also be because of just our human need for reciprocation so if we do some service and we want some reciprocation from others that is just a human need but the important thing is even if we are not appreciated what do we do? do we keep serving Krishna? and if we are appreciated do we think that now everybody is understanding how great I am Krishna is using me in this way so I am grateful to Krishna let me serve him more so if when we are appreciated if we see the Krishna connection pass on the credit to Krishna and then continue to serve Krishna then that is positive that is how we should work so it is not so much in the mode of passion because we all have certain amount of passion within us and we can’t wish it away we have to work with whatever we have so if I have a lot of passion within me then the sadhana that I do that is what will keep me to some level in goodness and I work with the passion and I don’t work for the passion work for the passion means if I am distributing books I want to be the number one and I will be the number one by hook or by crook so in the early days of our movement it happened sometimes that some devotees they had their bus party they wanted to distribute books and there was another bus party so one devotee woke up early in the morning and just punctured the tyre of the other bus so this is destructive competition of course when the devotee was told he learned and apologised sincerely but the thing is at that time he just didn’t see things in proper perspective so we can use our passion in Krishna’s service but when our passion starts making us do something which is against the principles of dharma then we stop Krishna says kama can refer to lust or sexual desire but kama can refer even to desire in general so it’s not that we are not meant to have desires or it’s not that we are not meant to have ambitions but ambition should not go against the dharma so when ambition makes us go against ethics then that ambition becomes greedy that ambition becomes destructive so if that ambition is according to the principles of dharma and that inspires me to serve more then that’s positive and gradually as we keep serving enthusiastically in passion whatever it is we use passion for serving Krishna and as we become purified more and more we will be that vigorous only but we will do it more and more in goodness that means initially say if we are distributing books now we just be concerned how many books are distributed but over a period of time we will start what kind of people did I meet who was very interested how will I talk with them how can I learn to talk better with them not just so that I can distribute more books but so that I can become a better representative of Krishna will become more reflective more introspective and that will happen gradually by purification so even if there is some desire there is some passion there is some desire for even glorification I am such a good preacher, I am such a good book distributor I am such a good singer even if that is there what we need to do is keep serving Krishna once one devotee was playing kirtan playing mudanga and singing kirtan very nicely and Prabhupada had come to that temple and Prabhupada came by and said, your kirtan is very nice and then he thought this is an opportunity for me to share my heart with Prabhupada so he spoke, Prabhupada, sometimes I feel proud and Prabhupada just patted him on the back, what’s wrong with that he walked away I said, what’s wrong with that so much wrong now the point was, what Prabhupada was saying is that sometimes we think that if I do a service nicely then I will become proud but to think like that means I am already proud how? because I am thinking that right now I am not proud in future I will become proud to think like that is itself at one level pride so it’s not that we don’t have pride within our hearts just like to take another example say lust it’s not that we all have some amount of lust in our hearts and when there is a particular object that provokes us, that lust may come out but it’s not that that object is making us lusty it is obviously triggering the lust what is there inside us so similarly, pride is there within us but maybe right now I do not have any reason to express my pride I am proud but I have not done anything which is worthy of praise so I am not expressing it so it’s not that I will do some wonderful service and become proud rather when I do that service I will get some reason to express my pride but the important point is here is, what can I do pride is already there in my heart if I say that I will not do any service I will not do any special service because I will become proud and all that is going to happen is when somebody else does some special service my pride will come off in an ugly way as envy oh you know this devotee does so much Buddhist devotion, it’s wonderful but have you seen how much he eats? we will find some way to cast aspersions on that person so the cure for pride is not suppression of talent the cure for pride is purification of intent suppression of talent means I don’t do my service because I feel that I will become proud pride will come off as envy but instead what I do is I keep serving Krishna and as I keep serving Krishna that service to Krishna establishes a connection with him and when that connection is established after that that connection gives me a higher taste and once we get that higher taste then we realise the joy of remembering Krishna the joy of serving him that’s so much and even if nobody praises me it doesn’t matter so much once I when I started giving classes for the first time I was very conscious how many people praise me for my classes after the class and one time I gave a very well prepared very well delivered class at least I thought it was well prepared and well delivered all the thoughts flow very nicely connected very nicely but after that class no one appreciated the class and I was feeling so irritated and then it struck me actually while I was preparing the class I was absorbed in Krishna I was happy while I was giving the class I was absorbed in Krishna I was happy because after I gave the class I was not absorbed in Krishna and I was unhappy so I realised that even if somebody comes and praises me that is only for a few minutes few moments but the absorption in Krishna is actually a far greater source of fulfilment so it’s not that I am free from that desire it was just quite a revelation for me at that time and I would not have got that revelation if I had not spoken if I had thought that oh I am so proud I cannot speak about Krishna it is when we connect with Krishna when we serve Krishna then we get the higher taste of serving Krishna and it is that higher taste which gradually freezes from the lower taste that is what will lead to the purification of intake so I am speaking about Krishna because I want to remember Krishna I want to help others to remember Krishna if others appreciate, that’s nice I will learn more about how I can serve better but that’s not the primary thing so that’s how we, even if we are in passion, we just keep serving Krishna enthusiastically we don’t transgress the boundaries of Dharma but even if we have pride even if we become a little proud actually Krishna will purify us of that pride he will give us a higher taste and through that higher taste we will realise that the taste from glorification, from pride it is not really worth the distraction from Krishna that it leads to and that way we will become purified of the pride does that answer your question? thank you any other questions? yes I heard that Prabhupada said that ISKCON is a Brahmana making factory and this class was mostly on utilising whatever nature we have in Krishna’s service so is it that over time we change our nature and become Brahmana? so Prabhupada said that ISKCON is a Brahmana making factory but today I talked about working according to our nature so is it that we all will become Brahmana eventually? but specifically I have not heard this specific code ISKCON is a Brahmana making factory Prabhupada said that I came to the West looking for Brahmanas I am looking for Brahmana that’s what Prabhupada said but then Prabhupada also talked about Varanashram and that was about engaging everyone in Krishna’s service so will our nature change? is it that a Vaishya or a Shudra will become a Brahmana? now in our movement we do give Brahman Diksha but if you see even after we give Brahman Diksha the person may still be doing a Vaishya job they may still be a businessman or they may be doing a Kshatriya job they may be managers whatever it is so for us a Brahmana is more a marker of the mode of goodness and Brahman Diksha is a qualification for deity worship because traditionally many Indians felt that many Indian, especially Indian Brahmanas they feel that only those who are Brahmanas can worship the deities so Prabhupada said then we give Brahman Diksha previous Acharyas have also done that the point is that it’s not so much that when we become Brahmanas when we get Brahman Diksha it’s not that all of us are going to be engaged in Brahmanical activities only so it is more of a a Brahmanical level of goodness even a Vaishya business can be done with greater goodness or lesser goodness some people can do business so that they just exploit others nowadays there is this whole movement called conscious capitalism many corporate companies they want to have corporate social responsibility what are we giving back to the society they have charity which they give so there is some trend towards higher consciousness even activities which are primarily Kshatriya are primarily Vaishya so what happens to us when we practise Bhakti is by the practise of Bhakti the mode of goodness increases and we will work according to our nature but we will have a greater amount of goodness in whatever we are working now of course Krishna can do anything and sometimes some person’s nature can be changed but we don’t have to make the change of nature as an essential parameter for practising Bhakti it’s not that every single devotee has to live Brahmanically in terms of Brahmanical work Brahmanical Karma Brahmanical profession whatever work they are doing they do it for Krishna but we try to get a more Brahmanical level of goodness and that does come by the practise of Bhakti ok yes regarding judgemental which you have explained you have covered most of it I just have this question some of our devotees I see in ISKCON we try to check other devotees outside ISKCON even though if they are praying Vishnu or Naidu Deshara so they say sometimes they are too ritualistic or like that and I see the main reason they give is because the process they follow is wrong and that is the reason why they try to judge them but I remember a small story in the past mentioned about Ramanujacharya being to Puri then he was trying to change the process the Vedic process similarly we are trying to change them you get what you are saying he is trying to change the devotees so you are saying similarly we are trying to change other people is that what your point is not really so what is your question in that story what I found is Krishna appeared in the dreams of Ramanujacharya and says to get out of that place and the way how they are praying is fine so my question is that Krishna is looking at the conscious or the vow of the devotee not the process that is my understanding so whether can we judge them or not sometimes we devotees may judge devotees from other traditions and say that their process is too ritualistic and we may speak negatively about them but isn’t Krishna looking at their consciousness primarily in every tradition there are three kinds of statements there are exclusivist statements there are liberalist statements and there are inclusivist statements exclusivist means this is the only way liberalist means you follow your way, let them follow their way inclusivist means they are following their way but actually there is one way which will ultimately lead to the goal and we are going to the highest destination so now exclusive all these statements serve a purpose and if you don’t understand the purpose then they can be misunderstood just like in Christianity many Christians quote Jesus said that I am the way none shall go to the father except through me now if you see this statement this kind of exclusive statement this is the only way these are meant to create focus they are not absolute statements if they were absolute what about all the people who were born before Jesus came what about all the people whom Jesus message never reaches what about all the children who die before they are born either because of miscarriage or abortion or whatever are they going to hell forever without any chance for redemption I am not going to get into Christianity I am talking about the principle here that these statements are like if a patient goes to a doctor and the doctor says ok take this treatment and the patient says no but I went to this doctor and this doctor said this and I went to that doctor and that doctor said that and I went to that doctor and that doctor said that the doctor will say forget whatever any doctor told you you just take this medicine you will be cured now when the doctor says forget whatever anyone else told you that doesn’t mean that all the other doctors are false but right now you take this treatment so with the same intent every tradition will have some exclusive statement our bhakti tradition also Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition, ISKCON also has some exclusive statements this is the way just follow this we will attain Krishna now the exclusive statements if we divorce them from the purpose then they will appear fanatical this doesn’t mean that all other paths are wrong Bhaktivinoda Thakur we have his famous statement which we use for interfaith he says if we go to a place of worship of some other religious tradition what should we do we stand in the board of respectful worship here my lord is being worshipped in a form different from what I am familiar with and although I cannot understand the particularities of their worship but the fact that my lord has assumed this form to attract these people that increases my appreciation for the mercifulness of my lord how he accommodates everyone and it increases my devotion to the lord in the form which I know so he is appreciating in a very pluralistic sense they are worshipping in their way Krishna is so kind that he manifests in so many different ways when Prabhupada was in Iran at that time he was talking to some devotees in the background the recitation of the namaz prayer started and Prabhupada stopped his preaching and he closed his eyes and he just folded his hands in a reverential mode and he heard the full recitation of the namaz prayers and then when he opened his eyes his face was bright, his eyes were bright he said wasn’t that beautiful and one of the devotees Prabhupada wouldn’t it be better if there was chanting Hare Krishna instead of Allah o Akbar and Prabhupada took pain why are you making me sick today we are worshipping God in our way they are worshipping in their way so we appreciate that they are moving towards God consciousness in their way so this is pluralistic so according to time and place circumstance if we are practising bhakti and somebody says should I do this, should I do that just do this, you will advance but if somebody is already committed to some other path they will elevate by their own so that’s inclusive state there are people who worship at the level of fear, desire, duty and love so you want to worship at the level of love there are different levels of that so the important thing is that if statements which are meant for one purpose are applied to another purpose exclusive statements are meant to create focus but if they are used to judge others then we become fanatical pluralist statements are meant to encourage tolerance and respect among different religions but suppose hypothetically when this situation was going on if that devotee had said Allah o Akbar namaz prayers please you so much should I start chanting that no you chant Hare Krishna you don’t have to chant that so the point here is that every statement has a purpose so with respect to other Vaishnav traditions they are they are worshipping Lord Vishnu and quite often those traditions are very ancient and they have been worshipping the Lord for many many centuries and we respect that now if certain statements are made we have to see the context so for example Prabhupada was a little was a little critical that say in some temples in India there is a phenomenal amount of wealth which they have but they don’t use it for broadcasting Krishna’s message they just use it for maybe building more structures or for some other purposes Krishna’s money should be used to share Krishna’s message so that is a valid point so we can in an objective sense observe certain limitations in what somebody is practising but that doesn’t mean we have to condemn them so generally if somebody is a nominal follower of some other path of Prabhupada with respect to the Christians he had two broad approaches if somebody was a nominal Christian then I mean they are not just born in a Christian family but they are not practising anything then Prabhupada would encourage them to practise Krishna Bhakti but if somebody was a committed Christian then Prabhupada would encourage them to understand the Bible better and follow the principles of the Bible better the same way if somebody was born in a Sri Vaishnav family or some kind of Sri Vaishnav family but they are not really practising that much then we can encourage them to practise Krishna Bhakti but if they are committed to that we don’t have to damage their faith there we don’t have to judge the practitioners over there we can just continue to practise that more nicely I met one Sri Vaishnav scholar and he read Prabhupada’s Bhagavatam commentary he read his Bhagavata and he said that he said I have read so many Bhagavatam commentaries till now but I have never seen a commentary that correlates the Bhagavata Gita and the Bhagavatam so beautifully this is what Bhaktivedanta Swami has done so he appreciated that and he recommends his followers that if you want to understand how to apply Bhagavatam today in your life read Bhaktivedanta Swami’s commentary but he is not telling them you become Hare Krishna devotees they are following that tradition that’s fine so often when some devotees make some judgemental statement like this we have to see where those statements are coming from what is their purpose what is the consciousness from which they are coming sometimes what happens for us is that we are a little insecure about our own path and then if we see somebody else’s path we think that the rightness of my path will be confirmed when I can establish the wrongness of their path it doesn’t have to be like that sometimes some statements will just come out of insecurity so if that is happening there is no need to confirm that so that insecurity will have to be dealt with in their own way but if we find some devotees are judging then better avoid those devotees or avoid the interaction which is at a judgemental level and we can have we can have other devotees who are not so judgemental and they are more understanding, more appreciative we need to have commitment to our path and for that we need to have a healthy appreciation for what our tradition is providing us Prabhupada has given us a very vibrant process of sadhana Prabhupada has given us a lot of clear philosophical understanding Prabhupada has made the whole tradition very accessible to us where we are and Prabhupada has created a whole international movement where we can get shelter so I would say that all this is not so much available in Radha Vaishnava tradition they are very wonderful but they don’t have such a serious sadhana and they have there are many great scholars but they often are more more they are too philosophical and very less practical people don’t feel that message relevant to them so there is a prominent Madhava scholar he wrote almost like 50-60 books on Madhava Vaishnavism Madhavacharya Santora and he wrote in one of his last tracts he said if Madhava Vaishnavism is to become is to survive and spread he said that we have to actually write more books at the level where people are at and that is what ISKCON has set an example in so we present the message in a way that is applicable for people so there are various many strengths in what Prabhupada has given us we can appreciate that and we can be secure in our faith without needing to without being disparaged or criticised or judge other people’s faith does it answer your question? yes thank you thank you very much for your kind attention and this was my first visit to New Zealand so thank you for tolerating me for all this time especially today was quite a long class and I’m very inspired I’m very inspired to be here and to see how so many devotees are so vibrant in practising bhakti and I’m grateful that I was able to be of some service to you if I have committed any offences during any of the talks or any of the interactions