How strengths can become weaknesses and how weaknesses can become strengths

[Talk to students and parents at Toronto, Canada]

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you very much for coming today in the evening. And I’ll speak on the topic of when strengths become weaknesses and when weaknesses become strengths.
So, I’ll broadly talk this in three parts that how our strengths can be our weaknesses, then how our weaknesses can be our strengths, and how spiritual growth can enable us to use both our strengths and our weaknesses constructively. So, recently I was at a conference on spirituality and creativity. So, where creativity refers to either it can be writing or it can be painting, or creativity can manifest in our everyday activities, how we decorate our house and a hundred other things.
Here, specifically, it was about creative artists, primary writers. And there is one alarming fact about creativity that in the last century, 20th century, the 10 writers who are considered to be top writers, every single one of them committed suicide. So, why is it that people who are very creative, they sometimes seem to have a lot of angst, a lot of agony, a lot of depression.
Obviously, they are phenomenally talented. So, they have a great strength. But somehow, it just isn’t leverage.
In their writing, they are phenomenal, but it’s almost seen as a, in creative circles, it’s seen that any kind of creativity is associated with mental instability. I know one of the most famous cartoonists in India. I met him once at a programme.
He said that I just can’t draw unless I drink. That’s what starts me. So, is it that in order to access our strengths, in this case, the creative strength, that one has to actually go through mental trauma or put in substances within oneself that abuse, that hurt our body.
So, if we look at the history of the world, we live today in what is called, what we can call broadly as the age of information. And this information age is the culmination of the scientific revolution that started around the 16th century. And now, if somebody is very talented, we may say you are a genius.
Now, before the 16th century, whether it was in India or in the West, people’s language was different. The language was not that you are a genius, but you have a genius in you. Now, what is the difference? The idea here was that you, when you say you have a genius, and this is universal language.
The idea over there was that there is something higher, bigger than you that is manifesting through you. And certainly, if somebody is able to dance brilliantly, somebody is able to do any sports activity brilliantly, somebody is able to write or sing brilliantly, that would be appreciated. They are even awed that they are able to do it so well.
But along with that, it’s also to be understood that something bigger than them is manifesting through them. And anybody who is creative, nowadays psychologists talk about flow. Get into your flow, then you will have peak performance.
Or if you consider cricket, you know, sometimes the players are in form. And sometimes the best players are out of form. Now, nobody wants to be out of form.
So, when they are in form, it’s almost as if a batsman is in form, they just know where the ball is going to come, how to hit the ball. And they can be very creative and everything seems to go right. And the next day, it might be the same batsman plays the same shot and makes a complete mess of it.
So, the point here is that we all can have particular gifts. Some of us have far more gifts than others. A few of us may have phenomenally more gifts than others.
But still, the point is that they are gifts. And when we start thinking that our abilities are our abilities, when we think of our abilities as belonging to us, not as bestowed to us, when that happens, then if we are not able to perform as we think we should, or as we have done earlier, then it becomes unbearable. What’s wrong with me? Why am I not able to do this? And when we take credit for our abilities, for our strengths, for our gifts, actually it is too big a burden for any human being to take.
You may think, my abilities are not a burden, they are an asset, they are a strength. Yes, it is. But to claim sole proprietorship of our abilities is to put an unbearable burden on ourselves.
Because those abilities are something higher working through us. And now that higher thing, whatever it is, it may work wonderfully at times and whenever it works, we can be delighted, we can be grateful, we can use to the best of our capacity. But to the extent we think that that ability is mine and when that ability seems to have deserted us, then what do we do at that time? Just lost.
We’re just lost. I had a very striking experience of this last year. I had gone to Silicon Valley in America and I spoke on the same topic at three places.
I spoke in Intel, I spoke in Google and then I spoke at Stanford. And at Intel, the audience was very receptive. At Google, people were OK, OK.
And at Stanford, it was like almost every second point I was speaking, people were laughing or clapping. And when I compared those three, it was almost 80 to 90% I had spoken the same thing. So I was trying to figure out what was the difference.
And then it struck me that when I speak, I try my best to speak as well as I can. And there are times when I speak and throughout the class or the audience is looking at me as if they are watching a foreign language movie without subtitles. So nothing seems to be connecting.
And sometimes the connection happens so well. So when we claim that my strengths are my strengths alone, the result of that is that we on one side, we may feel elated. Oh, I am so good.
But the flip side of that is we will feel devastated, will feel deflated, even devastated when we are not able to perform. Now we may say, but I have to perform. I have my studies, I have my job, I have this thing.
I have to perform. Yes, certainly we would like to do the best that we can at all times. But the nature of the world and nature of reality is that sometimes we can do well, sometimes we can’t do well.
And when we are not able to do as well as we would like to, at that time, how we look at ourselves, how we look at the situation will determine how much the ups and downs of our performance will lead to ups and downs in our moods. I was speaking at Massachusetts last year and one professor from there had come and we were discussing after that talk about how students suffer from enormous levels of stress in the Ivy League universities. So he was quoting one big survey that had been done in the Ivy Leagues and they said that students over there, now if you consider Ivy Leagues, the students over there are brilliant.
To get there is not at all easy. But this survey showed that most of the students go through two primary emotional states. One is grandiosity and the other is inferiority.
Grandiosity means I am so great, I am grand. So whenever they are interacting with someone who is lesser than them, maybe who has less CGPN than them, is less talented than them, is less smarter than them, then they feel good about themselves. So they have this vision of grandiosity.
And I am going to conquer the world. But whenever they interact with someone who is better than them and the world is such a place that even in the area that we consider ourselves the best, sooner or later somebody will come who is better than us. So what happens? Whenever they interact with somebody who is better than them, then they start feeling inferiority.
Inferiority, insecurity. So this is not just for students. This happens to all of us in life.
So to the extent we look at ourselves solely in terms of our talents and the products of those talents, we will be very insecure. We will be very very insecure. We might be very successful and we might be very elated.
But along with that we will also be subject to enormous depression, negativity. So the strength, the talents that we have, they can become our weakness if we identify too much with them. So the Bhagavad Gita explains that our abilities are not our entitlements.
They are our endowments. That means they have been given to us. In the 7th chapter, 8th verse, the Bhagavad Gita says that it is the divine who manifests through us.
It is Krishna who manifests through us as our abilities. So whatever good anyone has, it is a spark of God manifesting through them. That wherever we see anything impressive, we understand that there is a spark of the divine manifesting through this person.
And if something good comes through us, we also understand that there is a spark of the divine manifesting through us. Now because it is manifesting through us, so we can consider ourselves fortunate. We can consider ourselves blessed.
But if we know there is something higher manifesting through me, then we won’t become too proud of it. We won’t become possessive about it. And we won’t become so devastated if sometimes that creativity doesn’t manifest through us.
So for us, the strength that we have, this is a three level statement, to have ability, to have gifts, you could say, to have gifts is fortune. To know that we have gifts is a bigger fortune. Some people say that I have many hidden talents.
The problem is they are hidden even from me. So some of us may have some abilities we may not even know about it. So to have gifts is fortunate.
To know that we have gifts is more fortunate. To know that our gifts are gifts, that is most fortunate. To know that our gifts are actually gifts, that is most fortunate.
And it is our spirituality which can take us to this third level. So spirituality is not just about maybe doing some meditation or doing some breathing exercises or maybe going to some place which makes us feel good. All that is fine.
All that can be a part of spirituality. But the essence of spirituality is to see our connection with the whole. To see that we are parts of a whole and that our connectedness with the whole is what will bring us stability.
So in the world we will all go through ups and downs. We will sometimes succeed, we will sometimes fail. And sometimes we may fail because the other person was better than us.
Sometimes we may fail because we were worse than ourselves. When something goes wrong or when we are defeated because the other person was better, it is still annoying, it is still irritating. But it’s okay.
What could I do? This person was better than me. But when we get thwarted in something because we did not do as well as we could, at that time it’s very easy to beat ourselves up. I am such a fool, I am such a fool, I am such a fool.
But there is a difference between taking responsibility for one’s actions and blaming oneself for one’s actions. Taking responsibility means I am here, this action is here, I acknowledge that I did this wrong and I do what I can to make amends for it. That’s taking responsibility.
But blaming oneself means to forever define oneself or equate oneself with that action and to just keep beating oneself up again and again and again and again. And blaming is not at all good. Blaming others is not good at all.
Blaming ourselves is also not good. We need to definitely take responsibility and see, could I have done something better? We can always learn and try to do something better. But the important thing is that sometimes we just did what we could in that situation and it was not good enough.
So our spirituality gives us a vision of ourselves as part of something bigger than ourselves and thus if some ups and downs happen, then we don’t obsess over them too much. We can just, ok, at that time things didn’t work out. But that doesn’t mean things will never work out.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that I am doomed. It just means that time things didn’t work out. See, failure is an event in our life.
Failure is not the defining event of our life. It’s one event. Sometimes we don’t do so well.
But it’s not the defining event. Even if you see, I talked about how when people thought they have genius within them or they are geniuses. When you say that person is a genius, then you are a genius and you are performing worse than a novice now.
What’s happening? So if you have genius within you, that means something higher is manifesting through you. And from whoever that higher is manifesting, we need to appreciate that. That person has talent and they need to be respected and they need to respect their talents also.
But there are two aspects to it. We need to protect our talents and nourish them so that they grow. But we also need to protect ourselves from our talents.
We need to protect ourselves from our talents. That means if somebody is phenomenally talented, then it’s very easy if they can keep performing for them to become very arrogant. I am so great.
And there are two different things. One is we perform well and we get satisfaction in that. The second is we perform well and then get a sense of ego inflation.
See, I am better than everyone else. I am so good. So that is what will lead to arrogance.
And in the world, the nature is such that whatever we get pleasure through, we become attached to that. And then through that very thing, we can get trouble. Say now the cricket World Cup is coming up.
Say now India, if we become very attached to cricket. Sometimes, I don’t know, I have not seen in American streets, but Indian streets, sometimes you see young boys, young men walking along, just walking on the road and they are swinging a bat. No, no, there is no bat, there is no ball, but they are in their mental swing.
So they are just caught in that. Now when they are caught like that, if somebody is very attached to cricket, sports as an exercise is good. Sports as entertainment in a proportionate sense is good.
But sports is an obsession. That is unhealthy. So now suppose somebody is attached to cricket.
And say if the Indian team wins. And we become elated. We become elated.
But then say the next match Indian team loses. And then I say, okay, I am detached from cricket. It’s not that easy.
If we are attached to something to the extent we delight in India’s victory, to that extent we will face agony when India gets defeated. So everything in this world, to the extent we seek pleasure through it, to that extent we can get pain through it also. So same way, if we perform well and we get satisfaction through the performance.
That’s wonderful. And if we are not able to perform well, okay, I couldn’t perform well. Next time I’ll try better.
That’s fine. But if we perform and then we get pleasure from the praise and the adulation that we get from the world. And then we are not able to perform.
And then people no longer praise us. People no longer appreciate us. That will become unbearable.
The Bhagavad Gita says, It says in 134 that for one who has been honoured, dishonour can be worse than death. So going back to the point about how many of the artists, many of the top authors end up committing suicide. What happens with them? Now, of course, each case of suicide can be very complicated.
But still we can look at some generic patterns. What happens to them is that they write some phenomenal book and they may win a Nobel Prize or they may Pulitzer Prize or they make millions of dollars. And what happens by that is they become so famous, they become so celebrated as great authors.
And then after that, they write something and it doesn’t come out that good. So when that happens, you know, I wrote, I did something like that. And now what is coming out of this? What will people say? What will the reviewers say? How will I live with this? Then it becomes unbearable.
So for all of us, many of you are parents and we have children also over here. So I’ll conclude this part of the talk with one point and then we can have questions. You know, we all need to ensure that we give ourselves and our children intrinsic self-worth, not extrinsic self-worth.
What is the difference? Extrinsic self-worth is achievement-centred. Intrinsic self-worth is commitment-centred. So if we praise our children when they achieve something special, when they get very high marks in their exam or when they do very well in their sports or in their music, they win some award, win some trophy, win some recognition, when we appreciate them, certainly we should appreciate them for that.
But when that is the only time we appreciate them, then what happens? They start thinking that only if I do this, my parents will love me. Only if I do this, then I have some worth. So their self-worth gets tied to the achievement.
Now all of us want achievement. We want those whom we love also to achieve things, definitely. But achievement-centred appreciation leads to extrinsic self-worth and that creates a lot of insecurity.
Whereas commitment-centred appreciation means that if they did their part, they did their practise, they did their studies, they did as well as they could, we appreciate that. And of course, if they achieve, then more appreciation. But the appreciation, if it’s tied only to achievement, then it eventually leads to insecurity.
But if the appreciation is centred on commitment, then even if they don’t achieve today, that commitment will carry them through and they will achieve tomorrow. So intrinsic self-worth comes based on doing what is in our control. Extrinsic self-worth comes when we get something that is not in our control.
In every situation, commitment is in our control. But achievement is not in our control. We can commit and do the best that we can in any situation.
But the world is too unpredictable. We can’t guarantee that we will achieve something. So our strengths or the strengths of our loved ones, children or others, they can become weaknesses if we start identifying those strengths as our strengths.
And if you start thinking that my self-worth comes only from this ability. But what spiritual knowledge tells us is that each one of us is a soul. Each one of us is a precious part of God.
There’s a spark of divinity within each one of us. And whether we are able to do something extraordinary or not, there is intrinsic self-worth to everyone of us. And with this understanding, we can go through life’s ups and downs with greater steadiness, with lesser emotional turbulence.
So that was the first point I was going to make. Any comments or questions at this point? Yes, please. Okay, good question.
I’ll come to that when I talk about weaknesses. But I’ll answer briefly right now. So, yeah, I’ll repeat it.
So just as strengths are manifested through us, are weaknesses also manifested through us? That means is it somebody, is it like some malevolent being who is acting through us and making us do wrong things? Well, yes and no, I would say. At one level, we could say that wherever we are weak, what is happening is, if you consider electricity, there are three broad kinds of material, broadly speaking. There are conductors, there are semiconductors, and there are insulators.
So, now the electricity might be arriving at a particular point, but if what is there afterwards is an insulator, then the electricity will not flow through. So for all of us, we are all connected with the divine. But with respect to various abilities, with respect to some abilities, we are conductors.
So somebody can sing brilliantly. It’s as if they start singing and they get transported to a different world. They transport everyone else to a different world.
So with respect to singing ability, they are conductors. But sometimes even those who are very good singers, they might have a very poor memory. Some people, you ask them their name and then they tell them, or you tell your name.
You talk with them 15 minutes and by the end, what was your name? They just forget. It’s not that they don’t care, but just they forget. So with respect to that memory, somebody might be a insulator.
So it just doesn’t work for them. So all of us have some or the other painful inadequacy. That’s just the way we are.
We are finite beings and everyone has some painful inadequacy. We can work to improve that. That’s where our weakness is coming to the picture.
But the point is, with respect to that, we may be insulators. There are some people who are tone deaf. It’s like, I happen to be one of them.
So I just don’t get it. The worst part of music is, somebody is doing some very nice music, somebody is singing and playing some instrument nicely and somebody else comes up and starts picking a kartal and playing. And it’s one thing to know that I’m not playing right.
And then they try to consciously play right. But some people, they play wrong and they don’t even know they are playing wrong. So with their closed eyes, they are meeting the kartal and they are in ecstasy.
And everyone around them is in agony. What are you doing? So what happens is, that sometimes with respect to some things, we might just be insulators. So it’s not necessary that something higher is manifesting that weakness through them.
It’s just that we have a particular body-mind. It has certain abilities, certain inabilities. So that is one category of weakness we could talk about.
Where we just are insulators for something. So that particular thing doesn’t manifest through us. The other could also be that, when we talk about weaknesses, we can have many different things within it.
One is inabilities. Say, like I can’t sing properly or can’t write properly or can’t remember certain things. But apart from that, weaknesses could also be something like moral shortcomings.
Some people might be given to a lot of anger. Some people might be given to a lot of greed or envy or something like that. Now these are not something which are going to be forever.
Some people are tone-deaf and it’s very difficult for them to change that. But even if somebody is very angry, now that doesn’t mean that they have to be angry lifelong. They may not be able to become very evil-tempered, but we all can decrease the anger.
So if we are referring to weaknesses in that sense, say somebody is very temperamental, they just get excited very quickly. Now they might not become completely stoic, but they can decrease that. So with respect to weaknesses of this kind, it’s not exactly something different from us, something higher manifesting to us, rather it is that the way we have acted repeatedly, that action becomes stored within us like a programme.
Say if somebody has, so our mind, you could say like a computer programme, and the three-level reality, there is the body, the physical reality, then there is the mind, which is inside us, and beyond that there is the soul. So if you compare to a computer system, there is the hardware, the software and the user. So the body is like the hardware, the mind is like the software, and the soul or the consciousness is like the user.
So now, suppose somebody has visited a particular site repeatedly, say they have visited Bollywood.com, and they visited many times, and now they come for a spiritual programme, and they hear about the Bhagavad Gita. It sounds interesting, let me read more about it. And after the programme they go home and they type in their browser, Bhagavad Gita, so they start typing B, and what happens? Bollywood comes up.
Now they may not want to go to Bollywood, but what has happened? What they had chosen previously, that comes up as auto-complete. Now somebody else who has not chosen Bollywood, they type B, nothing might come. Or various options might come.
So basically, now this, something coming as auto-complete. We could say that it is something different from us. At that point, I don’t want Bollywood to come there.
But it is just coming. So when we talk about weaknesses like say greed or anger or depression or whatever, some people, some small things go wrong, and they just get so depressed. I was at a conference on spirituality and mental health.
So one girl was telling about how her spirituality helped her. She said how she sank into depression. She was saying that once she was studying in a good university, but along with that to earn some money she was waiting.
She was American. This was in America. So she was waiting tables.
So once she was carrying some water in a plate, water in her hand only, to give to a client, a customer. And somehow that water slipped from her hand. And it just fell with a big crash.
And she started thinking, I can’t even carry a glass of water. What will I ever be able to do in my life? And just that one glass of water falling from her hands triggered an incident of depression. Now how many of us have had water slipping from our hands? So many times it happens.
But what happened over there is, she had a difficult childhood and she had low self-esteem. She had insecurity. And that one small incident triggered that big catastrophic reaction within her.
So now this might not happen to most people. So is it something else manifesting through us? Well you could say that, that it is the programming of our mind which brings certain thoughts as default. And with respect to this, going back to the earlier example, for the higher energy to manifest, we should be conductors.
But for the negative programming, when it starts manifesting, we need to become insulators. This thought is coming within me, but I don’t have to give in to it. I don’t have to give in to it.
So if we give in to it, sometimes we may do something and then we ourselves wonder, why did I do that? Why did I speak like that? I didn’t want to. But it just happens. So it’s not that there is no malevolent being who manifests as our weaknesses, but rather the accumulated choices, they create impressions within us.
So every action that we do, it becomes stored within us as an impression, in our mind. And every impression comes out as a proposition. So action leads to impression, impression comes as a proposition.
Proposition means do it again. So once something goes wrong and we react in a particular way to it, say we get disheartened, we get depressed, the next time we do something wrong, again that response will come stronger. But we can change that.
Does that answer your question? Thank you. Any other questions or comments? So I’ll continue this second part now, about how our weaknesses can be our strengths. So I talked about weaknesses, your question was a good link for that.
Now with respect to weaknesses, as I said, some weaknesses can be certain inabilities in terms of lacking certain talents and certain weaknesses can be emotional insecurities or anger, greed, lust, envy, these kind of things. Now either way, if we just look at the weakness, why do I feel like this? Why do I act like this? Why do I do like this? If we just keep obsessing over our weakness, then that can weaken us further, that can dishearten us. But the two things that can happen, how weaknesses can become strengths.
One is, if our weaknesses create humility within us, if our weaknesses can create humility. Now what do I mean by humility? Nowadays, the whole culture is that you put forward your best face, you promote yourself. One of my students, one of my friends studied under me, so he recently graduated from IIM and he was telling me that we learn how to inflate our CV systematically.
So he said, if there is a water tap that is on and we are passing by somewhere and we turn off the water tap, we add it in our CV as I am an activist for water conservation on the planet. So the ethos today is that people blow their own trumpet quite a bit. And to some extent, if we want to be hired for a job, we have to give our CV, so you have to tell what all we have done.
So what does humility mean in today’s context? See, humility does not mean that we deny our abilities. Humility doesn’t mean that we let others trample over us. Humility simply means that we don’t let our ego come in the way of our purpose.
I repeat, humility means that we don’t let our ego come in the way of our purpose. Our purpose means we have to do something. So for example, if you are working in a team, then we might be the senior most member of the team, we might be the most experienced or the most highly positioned and we come up with a plan to achieve something.
And then some subordinate, some team member comes up with something alternative which is better. But you know, how dare, how dare this upstart, who do they think they are? This is my plan. So then what happens? There, if we consider that my purpose is to complete this project or do this service or get this thing done and this person’s suggestion can do this more effectively than what I can do.
Then I don’t let my ego come in the way of my purpose. So humility is an asset. In today’s corporate culture, people may not talk about humility.
But everybody talks about team spirit. And humility and team spirit are simply two sides of the same coin. If I have humility, then I can have team spirit.
If somebody doesn’t have humility, then what happens? They want all the credit for themselves. It is said that whenever there is success, success has many parents. And failure is always an orphan.
Not me. It is because of that person. Because of that person.
So humility can be an asset. Our weaknesses, so humility as I said, it can be an asset in building team spirit. And our weaknesses can foster humility.
So how does humility help us at individual level also? Our weakness, if we have strengths, and we are always doing good with our strengths, then we start thinking, we start thinking, I am great. And then when we start thinking I am great, it’s only a small step forward from there to become arrogant. Arrogance is where we think that everybody else is wrong.
Some people are so sure that their opinion is right. They say, I could agree with you, but then both of us would be wrong. So they are just not ready to consider anyone else’s opinion.
So what happens in such a situation is that we lose out on whatever others could bring. Whatever insights, whatever wisdom, whatever ideas others could bring in. But we also alienate others.
So if we have strengths, naturally we will use those strengths. But focussing only on our strengths and identifying with those strengths can very easily lead to arrogance. But if we have certain weaknesses, and we acknowledge those weaknesses, not necessarily that we have to parade those weaknesses over everyone else, but this is something I am not that good at.
That means I am not God. I am not perfect at everything. So that humility can become a big strength.
Because that humility can help us to take inputs from others, to do course correction whenever it is required. Even the best athletes, best sports players need coaches. Because you can’t think about everything.
It’s always better to have some other perspective to enhance our perspective, to broaden our perspective. So weaknesses can become strengths because we become open to others. And weaknesses can not only increase humility, weaknesses can also increase our spirituality.
How does that happen? That is because if we understand that I have this weakness, I have this anger issue, I have this, this, this, maybe I have a mind which is very unstable. Then that may make us seek help from some power bigger than ourselves. At one level we might seek help from a friend, we might seek help from a counsellor, from a therapist.
All that is good. But we need some higher help beyond all this. And our spirit, so when we turn towards the divine in prayer, that is not to some people say that actually there was a movie called PK.
Some of you may know about it. So it was about how people go to God. One of the dialogues over there was that people who become fearful, they go to temple.
Jo dar gaya, wo mandir gaya. Well, I wrote a book responding to that movie. It’s called GK for PK.
So GK was three levels. There is general knowledge, God knowledge and Gita knowledge. So there are many valid points and there is definitely many superstitions that have happened in religion.
There is a lot of exploitation that happens in religion. But the idea is that okay, so you could say that jo dar gaya, wo mandir gaya. We can also say jo dar gaya, wo movie gaya.
Ultimately, people when they watch movies, what is happening? So many problems, so much stress in their life, all their life is boring. They want some stimulation. So you could say that they are afraid of all the problems of their life.
They are afraid of the boredom of their life. So just because fear is a motivation, does not mean two things. That fear is the only motivation and secondly, what is being done because of fear is unhealthy.
So, the point is that when we turn towards some power higher than ourselves, that is prayer, meditation, spirituality, these are not ways to escape from reality. These are ways to equip ourselves to face reality better. There are ways to equip ourselves.
So when we connect ourselves through prayer, through bhakti yoga with the divine, what essentially happens is that connection gives us inner stability. I’ll give one example to illustrate this. All of us are probably using some kind of entertainment.
Now, if thousand years down the line, if somebody studied human society, do you know what is the most expensive artefact? You know artefact, something from ancient civilisation that is passed on. Say people had some pots, people had some architecture, people had some paintings. So what is the most expensive artefact that will go from today’s society, that people thousand years down the consider? Probably the most expensive artefact is movies.
There is hardly anything that is regularly made and so much money is spent on it. Crores and crores of rupees are sometimes spent on some movies. Recently there was the IPL, according to one study that the amount of money that is transacted in the IPL is enough to feed all the hungry people all over India for a whole year.
The point here is not to criticise entertainment. The point here is just to contemplate where is all this money coming from? It is coming from all of us only. People like us are ready to spend so much money for entertainment.
And why are we ready to spend so much money? Because entertainment is addressing some need of ours. And what is that need? Actually we may build a big house and I want to come home to a comfortable house. That’s good.
It’s good to have a comfortable house. But just as we need a shelter for our body, we need also a shelter for our mind. We need some satisfying object of thought.
And for most of our life, whatever we think about, it just agitates us. I used to write in the Times of India in the speaking tree column and Times of India was one of the first newspapers to start a spiritual column in India. So when I was submitting articles, I was talking with the editor over there and I asked her that how did Times of India get the idea of starting the spiritual column? So she gave a revealing answer.
She said that most of our news is about three things. Death, destruction and deceit. This accident killed this many people or this damage happened or this corruption, this scandal.
She said that most of the newspaper has things that will agitate people’s mind. So we wanted to have one corner in our paper which will pacify people’s minds. That’s why we started the speaking tree.
So the point is that we all need a satisfying object of thought. And our spirituality connects us. Entertainment, we watch some movie, we see some sports and that pacifies our mind.
That’s good. It doesn’t really pacify in the sense that the problem goes away. We just forget about it and we get some relief.
And that is good. That we get some relief at least at that level. But what we need really is lasting relief, lasting stability.
And that satisfying object of thought is provided by spirituality. Spirituality tells us that beyond everything in this world, beyond all that is changing, there is an unchanging reality. There is an unchanging divine.
And to the extent we connect with that divine, to that extent that a sense of peace and clarity start coming into us. Many of you may have experienced that if you go to a temple or a holy place, you just, when you go there, you feel some vibrations over there. You feel something peaceful, something special about that place.
So what exactly is happening? Our consciousness is directed toward that which is unchanging. And when it’s directed toward that which is unchanging, then that stabilises us, that calms us down. So, we all need, so our weaknesses can agitate us.
Oh, why can’t I do this? Why can’t I do this? But if that weaknesses prompt us to go towards spirituality, to pray, that can be a far more lasting gain than just simply overcoming that weakness. So, when we connect with the divine, that connection lasts forever. So, entertainment and enlightenment.
Enlightenment means connecting with not just some stimulating temporary titillating object, but moving towards that which is eternal and unchanging. So, entertainment and enlightenment, both can pacify our mind. But the difference is that entertainment can only offer a little pacification.
Entertainment is like an analgesic. Enlightenment is like the antiseptic. Entertainment is like the painkiller.
Now, what happens with the painkiller? As soon as you take the painkiller, it’s cheap. If you compare the cost of a painkiller with respect to antiseptic, it will be cheap. And you take it and you get relief.
But, something goes wrong. Inside, the disease is going further and further. And after that, that level painkiller doesn’t work.
And then you need a stronger dose. And then you take that painkiller, you get some relief, but after that you need a still stronger dose. So, you can see how people’s entertainment has always been a part of human society.
But the obsession with entertainment that is seen in today’s world is unprecedented. And that indicates that dependence on the painkillers is becoming more and more. We need more and more dosages of painkillers.
See, if you consider cricket, first there are 5-day matches. Then, 5 days is too slow. You need a heavier dose painkiller.
So, we have 1-day matches. And then our 1-day, that also is not a high enough dose. So, then we have T20 matches.
And then, Indians basically had 2 painkillers, primarily. One was cricket and the other was Bollywood. And maybe about 10 years ago, both these painkillers got married.
And they begot a child. That is IPL. So, it’s like extremely heavy dose of painkiller.
Again, there’s nothing against entertainment. But obsession with entertainment is unhealthy. So, the point I was making is just as whatever we are getting through entertainment, basically we are getting relief from the boredom and agitation of our daily life.
And yes, sometimes when there’s a disease and a lot of pain, painkiller is useful. But the painkiller should not become a substitute for the medicine, for the curative medicine, for the antibiotic. So, if we grow spiritually, then we connect with the supreme, unchanging reality.
With Krishna, with God. And by that connection, we get inner stability. And that stability will be a far greater asset than just some freedom from some weakness.
So, I’ll conclude with one example. And then you can have some questions or comments if you have. Our weaknesses and even life’s difficulties, they sometimes hit us like waves.
Suppose we are in an ocean and the wave hits us. Now, to try to fight against that wave is very difficult. A wave of anger, a wave of envy, a wave of depression, it hits us.
Now, to use our willpower and to push against that wave, we’ll soon get exhausted. The waves are too strong. But instead of trying to fight the wave, if there is some anchor that we can hold on to.
And some strong, immovable object, some anchor that we hold on to. Now, holding on to the anchor will also require strength. And when the wave is sweeping, we may get swept away and we may have to strain to hold on to that anchor also.
But comparatively speaking, the energy required to hold on to that anchor is far more effective than the energy simply to fight a wave. So, for us, God is the ultimate anchor. We can have various anchors.
Our family can be an anchor. We may have our some hobbies. They might also be like anchors for us.
Whenever I do something, I feel peaceful. But these are all also shakable anchors. The only unshakeable anchor is God.
And to the extent we connect with Him. So, when we face our weaknesses and they start overwhelming us, we don’t try primarily to fight against that weakness. We focus on connecting with the Divine.
And we hold on to the anchor. If we just hold on to the anchor, the wave will come, the wave will shake us, the wave will batter us. But the wave won’t sweep us away.
And like all waves, the waves will come, the waves will go. But we all need this unchanging anchor in our life. So, our weaknesses can become strengths if we compare the weaknesses to be like waves hitting us.
And if the weaknesses make us look for an anchor, the weaknesses make us learn to hold on to the anchor. The weaknesses help us to discover the power of holding on to an anchor. Then, that weakness can itself become our greatest strength.
So, life can hurt us in many different ways. But greater than the world’s power to hurt is God’s power to heal. Greater than the world’s power to hurt is God’s power to heal.
So, if we turn towards God and connect with Him, whatever our weaknesses, they can become, we can still have a strength to go through those. And whatever our strengths, we can use them without becoming proud. I’ll summarise.
I spoke on this topic of how weaknesses can become strengths and strengths can become weaknesses. And I spoke within that also how spirituality can help us to deal with it. So, with respect to strengths can become weaknesses, I talked about how people who are phenomenally talented are also prone to depression, emotional upheavals and even suicidal urges.
Not just urges but also suicide. So, why does this happen? Because often people who have strengths, they start thinking that these strengths are mine. Not that they are gifts given to me but that they are just mine.
To claim sole ownership of our own gifts, our own talents is too much of a burden. Because when those talents don’t manifest through us, then we start beating ourselves up and we can’t bear it. So, I talked about how when we appreciate someone, instead of achievement-centred appreciation, it can be a you remember? Commitment-centred appreciation.
Achievement-centred appreciation creates extrinsic self-worth. If I can’t do this, if I do this, I’m great. If I can’t do this, I’m useless.
So, most people go through this, even achievers, they go through these two syndromes of grandiosity and inferiority. Because their self-worth has become very extrinsic. Intrinsic self-worth means that I will focus on doing the best that I can.
It’s commitment-centred. And whenever something higher wants to manifest through me, it will manifest. I’ll be able to do extraordinary things.
And when it doesn’t, I’ll just do the best that I can in that situation. So, instead of saying that somebody is a genius, the traditional way was somebody has genius in them. That means there is the divine who is manifesting through them.
So, to have gifts is fortunate. To know that we have gifts is most fortunate. To know that our gifts are gifts is most fortunate.
So, if we become proud of our strengths, then we become arrogant. And not only do we alienate people, but also when we are not able to do what we think we should be able to do, then we beat ourselves up. We need to be responsible for our actions, but we don’t need to blame ourselves for our actions.
And our spirituality helps us to understand that our abilities come from God. And that’s why we use them to the best, but we don’t become proud. So, these strengths needn’t become weaknesses if we are spiritual.
And then our weaknesses, how can they become strengths? I talk about weaknesses in terms of certain things which we just can’t do. Certain abilities we have. So, we understand that with respect to some abilities we are conductors, with some we are semiconductors, with some we might be insulators.
So, we understand this is not what I can do. And although it can be painful inadequacy, the awareness of that inadequacy can create humility within us. Even in today’s competitive, self promotional kind of corporate world, humility is an asset because it can foster team spirit.
So, humility ensures that, humility comes when we understand that I’m not God. That I have some strengths, but I also have some weaknesses. So, if weaknesses can foster humility, then that can become a strength.
And further, if our weaknesses can foster spirituality, then it can become a bigger strength for us. So, we may feel I don’t need anything spiritual in my life, but we all need satisfying object of thought. And that’s why there is so much obsession with entertainment in today’s world.
Movies are probably the most expensive artefacts that today’s people are making. So, entertainment is useful, but it’s like a painkiller. And the painkiller is cheap, it’s easy to get.
But it’s not a lasting solution. If you just keep taking painkillers, then we need higher and higher dosages, as is happening with respect to the passion in, say, sports like cricket. So, enlightenment means, it’s not just that we while dealing with the world we get fed up and just go into some imaginary world and watch some movie or watch some sports.
But rather, we go from the changing nature of this world to an unchanging reality. And that connection with the unchanging will stabilise us. That connection with the unchanging is established through the practise of Bhakti Yoga, and that becomes like our inner anchor.
So, when the world’s problems hit us, that’s like waves coming upon us. Trying to fight against the waves is almost impossible. But holding on to an anchor amidst the waves is much easier.
So, if our weaknesses can prompt us to seek an anchor and to discover the ultimate anchor of God, then the weaknesses can help us to go towards the greatest strength. And because of our weaknesses, the world may hurt us in many ways. But greater than the world’s power to hurt is God’s power to heal.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. Any other questions or comments? Yes, please.
…and you see the other person started exploiting you. How to identify that now the humility, the exploitation has started? Yeah, so how do we identify if because of our humility, some exploitation has started? So, like I said, humility means to not let our ego come in the way of our purpose. So, we have to be purpose centred.
So, if somebody doesn’t let us pursue our purpose itself, then tolerating that is not humility. That would be stupidity, I would say. So, I’ll give a simple example.
Say, if we are travelling in a metro train, maybe in Mumbai if you consider locals, the capacity is 50 and there are 300 people in it. So, people are squeezed together. And say, we are standing and there is some person who is a bully.
And we stand and they start pushing us. And we think, you think you are so strong? I am also strong. We push them back.
And they push us. And we push them back. And we get so caught in pushing and counter-pushing that our destination comes and goes and we are still pushing.
Because that would be foolish. So, in that case, humility means okay, what’s the big deal? It’s just a short journey, half an hour, 45 minutes. You want to show your power? I’ll just move aside.
So, humility, what it does for us in this context is it’s a small thing, keep it small. I don’t have to necessarily prove my strength or my superiority in every situation. But suppose, that person doesn’t just push us, that person starts pushing us out of the train itself.
And if we let us be pushed out of the train, that would be stupid. Because that’s interfering with our purpose. So, we have to have that perspective of what are small things and what are big things.
And humility means in one sense, like if somebody is insulting us or disrespecting us or something like that, okay, it’s not a big thing. Now, everybody sometimes go through bad phases. Then the best of people, sometimes they have bad mood, they have bad days and they speak something which hurts us.
Now, if it’s… I’ve written a book on the Ramayana. So, there one of the essays I talk about is don’t ascribe intention to what is spoken in tension. When somebody speaks or does something in tension, don’t ascribe intention to it.
Keep it small. Let it be. Get over it.
But, if somebody is intentionally malevolently hurting us again and again, and that’s just tormenting us so much, then we need to create some distance from them. So, if we are purpose centred, what have I come here for? Or why am I doing this? If our purpose is clear, then humility will become an aid in that. But if our purpose is not clear, then there can be either we can either become too passive or too aggressive.
Too aggressive means every small wrong we make a big issue of it. Every small thing we make it big. And passive means, even big things we don’t take it seriously.
Oh, people just trample over me. What can I do? It’s not like that. So, if our purpose is clear, then we can keep small things small and take a strong stand with respect to big things.
Does this answer your question? Any other questions? Sometimes, especially in the corporate world, humility is seen as a weakness. So, how can we be humble but not seen as weak? Well, how can we be humble without being seen as weak? To some extent, I explained that. Humility means at one level in corporate world, we just open to other people’s suggestions.
But sometimes we have certain stereotype conceptions of humility. Humility doesn’t mean that we have to constantly be confessing our inability. I remember once in my early days, when I was just learning to speak in public, there were a couple of my other friends also.
So, one of my friends was also giving a spiritual talk, just learning to give a talk. So, he started his talk by saying actually, I am a fool. I don’t know anything.
And all of you have come here to hear me, you are wasting your time. Now, he was saying it humility but that is going to alienate your audience. Why are you wasting your time? No, no, don’t come here.
Isn’t it? So, that’s kind of humility where we just keep speaking about our inabilities in a way that alienates other people. That’s not humility at all. That is actually just, you know, you could say almost like a self-pity or negative self-obsession.
See, some people are self-obsessed in a way, how great I am. And some people are self-obsessed in how greatly poor I am. So, when people say, see the difference between humility and say inferiority complex is that humility is false ego rejected.
Whereas inferiority complex is false ego frustrated. False ego frustrated, I want the whole world to think I am great. But what to do? I can’t do anything great.
So, I want to be great. But I can’t. That’s false ego frustrated.
But false ego rejected means I want to do something worthwhile. If people appreciate it, that’s good. If they don’t, but still I’ll keep doing something worthwhile.
So, I would say that in the corporate world, if a particular role requires us to speak about our abilities, our accomplishments, we can always do that. That’s what is required for that particular service. We see even in the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, when warriors are about to fight, the warriors often speak about their abilities.
I have achieved this and I have defeated this. What can you do against me? That might seem almost like bragging. But at one level, when there is fighting, fighting is not just a physical confrontation, it’s also a mental confrontation.
And whoever gets the upper hand in the mental game, they are much more likely to win. So then, at that time, when somebody speaks about their own accomplishments, I have defeated you 10 times, what do you think you can do now? So, intimidation is also one strategy in confrontation. Say, somebody is intimidating the other person, is that ego? It could be.
We can’t guaranteedly say it’s not ego. But it doesn’t have to be ego. So, for specific purposes, if we need to speak about our accomplishments, our glories, our achievements, it’s perfectly fine.
Most of the time, what are we doing? When we are interacting with people, if we are just cutting people short, if we are disrespecting them, it’s very easy to understand people who are full of themselves. Anything that you speak, some people, they practise what is called autobiographical hearing. Autobiographical hearing is if, say, you had Oh, you know, I fell sick.
Oh, you know, what sickness you had? I had a sickness 10 years ago. And they started themselves. This happened and that happened.
They just don’t hear anyone else. So, I would say that humility, if we understand it as a tool of not being essentially not being ego-centred, but purpose-centred, then it won’t come off as weakness, because where we need to take a strong stand, where we need to speak about our own accomplishments, we can do that. It’s more of an overall disposition rather than a specific action.
Does that address your question? Yes, Ram. You took the analogy of having a painkiller versus an antiseptic or anti-cardiac. The thing is that painkillers are easily available on all the and description required for any That’s true.
So, what happens is that it’s easy to get based on so many things. You know, you feel a little stressed and you pick up your phone or your computer and you start. It’s there, right? And it immediately relieves your pain or your stress that you have versus, you know, having an antiseptic would require a doctor to identify you know, like a sickness, what is your problem, and then you prescribe and get the medicine.
So, it feels difficult and it’s so easy to take this. Ok, good question. So, painkillers can be very easily taken.
Entertainment is always available to us. But for the antiseptic, we need a prescription from a doctor. For enlightenment, we need someone to give us.
Well, every metaphor has its intent and it also has its limitations. It is definitely true that entertainment is far more easily accessible to us than enlightenment. But the fact is that entertainment sooner or later becomes unfulfilling.
And that’s why if we start relying on it as a default, then eventually we’ll want more and more and more. So, as I said, painkillers are not bad in themselves. In some cases, I was just giving this example in a talk and after that talk there was one doctor who was there in the talk mentioned that in some cases, actually painkillers can help in healing also.
Because if somebody has got a very painful injury, and then the body is so caught in responding to that pain that all of its energy is in trying to deal with that. The whole body, muscles become tensed and whatever. And then you just give a painkiller, although the pain is not cured, but the body relaxes.
And then the body’s energy can shift towards healing. Antiseptic can work faster. So, in some cases, the painkiller can help in the healing also.
But the real challenge is, the real danger is when the painkiller becomes a substitute for the main medicine, for the curative medicine. So, Krishna also says, be regulated in your eating and in your creation. He is not saying reject recreation, but be regulated in it.
So, broadly what I find is that, this is what you said about this being easily available, that’s universal. But it is good if we could find out some entertainment that also points towards enlightenment. That means if you like music, try to see if you can find some spiritual music.
If you like to read about something, then try to find out something which is, if not spiritual directly, at least something wisdom centred. So, we don’t necessarily have to see that these two are non-intersecting. They are definitely not identical circles, entertainment and enlightenment.
But there is an overlap also in them. So, we could situate ourselves in the overlap. And then gradually move towards enlightenment.
So, in keeping that regulated and also trying to have it in a way that is pointing towards enlightenment, that can help. So, another thing which we could do is that, try to keep that which is uplifting, easily accessible. Say for example, if you are feeling bored, now there might be some spiritual apps which also contain some new stimuli.
We have, for example, say a darshan app, which has beautiful pictures of Krishna. And now keep that on your phone home page. And then, sometimes, we have to sometimes trick the mind.
See, the mind wants something new. So, what we do is, like this one, we wrote it, I’m working to make an app. It’s basically, we have so much spiritual wisdom to read.
The Bhagavad Gita is there, the Bhagavatam is there. So, what happens is, it is there, but it is so big that we hardly ever read it. So, what we are working on is that, you create apps which will be like random extract generators.
So, you open that app, and some random words from the Bhagavad Gita will come up. Some random text from the Bhagavatam will come up. So, then what happens? The mind wants something new? Oh, this is new.
Let me read it. So, we have to find out, with our mind, how we can, in a sense, trick it. So, we have to learn how the mind can learn the best.
So, the, we could say that the mind, our own mind, which is habituated to certain things, it is, you could compare it to a child with dyslexia. Now, such children are not untalented. They may also be brilliant in their own ways.
But, you know, the parents and the caregivers have to learn how to help that child to learn. Sometimes they can’t see letters, so then you have to have something else. So, it requires time.
So, similarly, we observe ourselves, don’t just condemn ourselves, oh, I just waste so much time on this. We can’t be too hard with ourselves on this. But at the same time, we can’t be too lax with ourselves.
So, learn how we can help ourselves to learn. Okay? Thank you. So, you know, applause can be for appreciation or it can be for conclusion.
Okay. Okay. You have time? Yeah, please.
Yeah, you can. Yeah. Yeah.
Why should he not compete? Why should he not compete? If somebody has abilities, what’s wrong with using those abilities? Okay. Okay. So, if we have abilities, should we just use those abilities to just dominate others and win over others? Should we also give others chances? These are very individual decisions.
Generally, the key point is that each of us should want to make a contribution. If we have some abilities, with that we make a contribution. So, there can be competition which is constructive and competition that is destructive.
Competition that is destructive means, say, different people are trying to climb up a climb up, say, a hill. And destructive competition is whoever is behind, they pull the other person down. Constructive competition is the presence of others inspires us to become better.
So, it’s always good to have constructive competition, but destructive competition is definitely undesirable. So, if we have certain abilities, then if we want to achieve something with that ability, that’s good. But after sometime, even the joy of achievement starts diminishing.
Everything in the world has a law of diminishing returns. And that same person may start feeling that, okay, how can I contribute better? So, maybe I have these abilities, with these abilities I can train others, I can assist others, I can help them grow. So, we can see what gives us, we all need some satisfaction ourselves.
But after sometime, just our own satisfaction will not give us enough satisfaction. So, in a sense, you can say there is something which gives me satisfaction, and there is something by which I do a contribution. And when I help others, that also gives me a different kind of satisfaction.
So, in the early phases of our life, we will be very self-centred. This gives me pleasure, this is what I want to do. But after sometime, we all evolve.
And then, we get satisfaction in doing something for others also. There are great leaders who can do phenomenal things, but the greatest leaders are those who make other great leaders. So, that’s also a much more valuable way in which you can contribute.
So, for doing that also, sometimes we may have to talk about our abilities and accomplishments. But that is very different from talking about our abilities and accomplishments for our own personal gratification. Okay? Thank you.
Yeah, please. Can you just complete? Thank you. Okay, both of you are in that direction only.
Thank you. I have a comment on parenting. Because I think often as parents, it’s easy to kind of promote that extrinsic self-worth in children because we want them to do well.
So, when they bring in those good marks, we praise them, right? Would you say in terms of with parenting, to try to focus on instilling that intrinsic self-worth to focus on the process and the efforts that they’re putting towards whether it’s school or even towards bhakti, like that process of coming here. They may not be able to comprehend everything, right? But at least they’re sitting here and listening. Right? So, is that Yes, definitely.
related to parenting? Yes, definitely. So, we encourage our children to just participate, to focus on the process, not so much on the product. Yes, definitely.
Definitely. Because it’s not just with respect to intrinsic self-worth or extrinsic self-worth, definitely that’s there, but also it’s also important that say if children are playing all children play, whenever they’re playing any game, they want to win. But for the children, for to be able to play, they need to be basically likeable.
If children start trying to win at all costs and they become obnoxious and after sometime, then other kids say, I don’t want to play with you. Then that’s a much bigger loss. So, it’s not just one game that they’re playing, it’s iteration of games they’re going to play.
So, it’s not just, we often tell our children also sometimes, it’s how you play that matters, it’s not whether you win. What does it mean? It just means that life is bigger than any one match. And, if somebody is basically likeable, people want to play with them, then that is going to help them much more than just somebody, just winning one particular game.
So, same way, if you focus on the process, it does help them to do that which will help them to grow. See, the product you could say, is the result of growth. But the process is the means to growth.
So, we need to, everybody also needs a sense of success in their lives. And it is also our responsibility to try as much as possible to help them get that sense of success. We can’t just tell that, oh, you’re just doing the process, everything is fine.
No. So, we have to make sure that they also get some success and we appreciate them for the success. It’s not that achievement is inconsequential.
It’s definitely important. But the commitment is much more important. Thank you.
Yes. Thank you. Yes, please.
… … … … … … What regard you need to take to the spiritual path? I could give many different answers for that in the sense that from different perspectives. But connected with today’s talk, I would say that I, since my childhood, had a dream that I wanted to be, in India I was a topper. The number one.
And I was always a very good student. And I was always getting among the top ranks. Second, third, joint first.
But never the first. So, that was my childhood dream. And after my 10th and then 12th, I did well.
I did quite well both my 10th and 12th. I had to do engineering because that’s what everybody was doing. I had an uncle in America who wanted me to come and inherit his company.
So it was my life trajectory was already planned out in some ways. But then while I was studying engineering, I gave GRE. In the 4th year, I gave my 3rd year first semester itself.
And since my childhood, I loved English very much. One of my hobbies was just to pick up a dictionary and memorise meanings of words. So generally Indians have a little difficulty.
That time we had out of 2400 GRE, we had English language, mathematical ability and analytical ability. So those three were there. So when I gave GRE, because my English was very good, at that time I came first not just in my college but also in the history of my college.
And not just in my college, it was like… So I was first in the whole state of Maharashtra at that time, among the toppers. So now I was delighted. I was in the 7th heaven for some time.
But after some time, it struck me that just looking at that score doesn’t give much pleasure. Then, of course, many of my friends congratulated me. And it is very happy.
But somehow it happened that three of my friends, one after another, forgot to congratulate me. Now, they thought everybody knows about it, everybody is talking about it. What is the point in congratulating? No malafide intention on their part.
But when the first person didn’t congratulate me, I was annoyed. The second person didn’t congratulate me, I was irritated. The third person didn’t congratulate me, I was infuriated.
And still, you can’t be so pathetic to ask somebody, why are you not congratulating me? So at that time, as I was getting this infuriated, there are times in my life when somehow it happens that I sort of look at myself from an out-of-body perspective. Not literally, but conceptually. I am sitting here and looking at myself.
So at that time, it just happened to me and I said, I look at myself and wait a minute, I thought that becoming a topper will make me happy. But here it has simply made me more dependent for my happiness on others. So, I could achieve something, I may crack another exam in future, but the same thing is going to happen again.
So that’s the time I started thinking that what is real happiness? What is it that if I achieve, it will give me happiness that is not dependent on externals. So that was the time when one of my friends gave me a Bhagavad Gita. I had recited Bhagavad Gita in my childhood in shloka recitation competitions, but I had never read it.
So then I started reading it and then I came to 6.22 in the Bhagavad Gita. It says, It’s talking about a state of consciousness, of spiritual absorption. The result of that is, once you achieve this, there is nothing more to be achieved.
One doesn’t crave for anything more. And once we have achieved that, we will not lament the loss of anything. Difficulties may come, but we won’t lose that.
We won’t be devastated by that. So, I started thinking at that time, is there anything that I can achieve in my life, which will free me from craving and lamenting? There is nothing else. This is a state of spiritual absorption.
So that was what inspired me. And then I started practising the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita in my life. And I started sharing with other students also, other friends in my college.
And I could see myself changing. I started becoming, I was infamous for my short temper at that time. I still sometimes get angry, but if you consider a graph, it was like touching the sky, now it is like this.
It’s much, much lesser. So, I found it changing and one of my friends was sliding into addiction, into alcoholism at that time. And then I introduced him, and initially he was not at all interested, but he somehow became interested and just gave up all his unhealthy habits.
So, I was quite enlivened to see the changes were happening in me and in others. Then I joined a multinational software company, worked for some time, and then I had also started giving talks. So, once I was supposed to go to university, it was a small talk, I was supposed to give a small group of students.
But at that time, I was, my boss told me that I was working, we have to do some work. Some urgent work had come up, he said you have to do this. So, I started thinking, I of course couldn’t go because the boss told me, but we couldn’t arrange anyone else for that programme.
Then the students came, but there was nobody to speak. So, after that I started thinking that if I don’t work as a software engineer, there are 100 other people who will do this job. But if I don’t share spiritual knowledge, how many other people are there to do that? So, I felt at that time that I could contribute much better to society by sharing spiritual wisdom than by writing software programmes.
So, that’s what I’m trying to do now. Thank you. So, I think that was for conclusion.
Okay, one last question. Whenever we succeed, we feel happy about it. So, how can we be happy without being proud? I’ll say three broad things for this.
First is that whenever we succeed, we recognise that actually for my success, my effort was there. But so many other factors also have to fall in place. Only then that success will come.
I write on the Bhagavad Gita every day at a website, gitadaily.com. So, I wrote an article on this famous verse, So, that article, performance matters, but performance is not all that matters. Even in a field like sports, which is very performance driven, sports players have their quirky superstitions. There was an Australian batsman, Australia was known to be, they were known to be very tough in it to win it, that was their mood.
So, this Australian batsman, whenever he would go to bat, before that he would go to the pavilion commode and make sure all the lids would be closed. And then he would go to bat. And if he would get out early, he wouldn’t go to the pavilion, he would go to the commode.
And if any lid would be open, he would go and snap at his team members. Why did you keep that open? I got out because of that. Now you may say, what else has the commode lid being open got to do with his getting out? But the point is, every sports player recognises that there is something beyond me, which affects me.
And in their own quirky way, they are trying to appease that unknown. Somebody might put an earring only in one ear, somebody might put a handkerchief which is half in, half out. So, basically whenever we are able to succeed, we look also at the things that are not in our control, which worked out right.
So, that will ensure that we don’t become proud. We were happy that what we did, we were able to do our part well. happiness, see, we, Bhagavad Gita says, Do not think that you are the cause of the result.
What does it mean? Of course we are the cause, but we are not the sole cause. So, to the extent we think we are the sole cause, we will become proud. But to the extent, my part was there and I did my part well.
So, for that, I am happy. And the other things fell in place. So, therefore, the result came out and I am happy for that.
So, by seeing that which is not in our control, that also worked out right. That can avoid, that can prevent pride. Another thing which we could do is that we can thank God for whatever works out right.
Instead of taking credit for our success, we can give thanks for the success. So, by that what happens? Our focus shifts from ourselves. See, pride basically comes when we think, I am great.
But if we are shifting our attention to someone who is bigger than us, then that pride doesn’t have to come. At least it will not come so much. So, thanking and acknowledging.
There is this famous prayer, Narayanayati Samarupayami. The whole mood over there is what? That whatever I am doing, I am offering to you. So, by your grace, I was able to do this well and I offer it to you.
Thank you for enabling me to offer this and please accept it. So, if we can do this, then again the pride will not come in. Basically, if we see something, not just something that is out of our control working out right, but someone personal, some personal being who is helping us, that can also prevent pride.
And thirdly, with respect to the happiness that we get, we all need happiness. As I said, we all need a sense of success in our life. Otherwise, just one after another after another reversals will dishearten us.
But what we could do with respect to that happiness is that we focus more on learning than on parading or exhibiting. Yes, I am happy that this worked out, this happened, but what did I do right? At that time, the happiness might be there, but if we shift up, what did I do right? And how can I learn from it? So, if we have that mood of learning, see, learning itself brings, mood of learning brings humility. So, that way also we can avoid pride.
Because, as I said, even when we do something right, it’s not just we doing it right. Whenever, say, I speak of something spiritual, there are many times when certain thoughts, certain examples, certain ideas, certain point just come through which even I may have not thought of them before. They are broadly in consonance with the wisdom of the spiritual texts, but sometimes when we do something right, we do it more than what we have practised also or what we have learnt.
So, then, if we have that learning mood, that also helps us to prevent pride. I was a few months ago attending a talk by one of my friends and he spoke a brilliant point. After that, I appreciated him.
That was such a brilliant point. He gave me a strange look. I said, what happened? He said, I heard this point in your class only.
So, I had spoken that four years ago and I had completely forgotten it. It struck me that I can’t claim that this is knowledge which I am giving. If I don’t even remember what I spoke, so much that even if somebody else is speaking, it’s not reminding me.
So, we can just recognise that even what we do, it’s not we alone doing it. So, if we have that mood of learning, then also we can be happy but not become proud. So, thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. Do we have books? Books we have? Books we have? Can I just speak? So, as was mentioned