How to get realizations

[Bhagavatam class at Bhaktivedanta Manor, London, UK]

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Today morning we are discussing about Vyasadeva’s sense of dissatisfaction which will be confirmed by the words of Narada which he will speak on coming here.
Actually, Prabhupada writes in the Parpur, the first sentence that Vyasadeva’s dissatisfaction was not due to lack of knowledge. So there is knowledge and there is realisation. Jnana-vijnana-truptatma, in the sixth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, in the eighth verse Krishna says, it is by knowledge and realisation of knowledge that one gains satisfaction.
Today I’ll speak on this theme of, broadly of how we can gain realisations. And overall it will be that how our inner understanding can harmonise with higher understanding, with scriptural understanding or with the guidance of the super soul which comes from within. Let’s consider what does the word realisation mean.
Realisation means that that which is a reality, we accept it to be a reality. Realisation means something is a reality and scripture tells us that it is a reality. But there is a stage when we ourselves accept that it is a reality.
That is realisation. We give a couple of examples to explain this. Say, if scripture tells us this world is a place of misery and this world is a place of distress and that which promises us to relieve distress does not relieve distress.
Say for example, wealth. This whole propaganda, you just earn more and more money, you get more security, more happiness. This is what we learn from scripture that wealth does not provide happiness.
We may hear it, we may analyse it. Generally whenever we hear scripture, especially when it talks about the counterfactual nature of worldly pleasures, there is a part of us which, sense enjoyment will not lead to happiness. There is a part of us which secretly disbelieves it.
Secretly, no, actually maybe it will lead to happiness. Maybe some people don’t get happiness but some people do. So we, when we hear scripture, we often, we don’t explicitly reject it.
Otherwise we would not be practising bhakti. But we don’t wholeheartedly accept it either. There is a part of us which accepts and a part of us which hesitates.
So we could say the part of us which accepts is our intelligence. If something is presented in a reasonable way, through logic, through scripture, through good reasoning, then we accept it in the sense that our intelligence says, yes, it makes sense. This makes sense.
But not everyone or not even we ourselves always act according to what makes sense. There is, we all have a rational side and we have an emotional side. So broadly we could say the rational side correlates with the intelligence.
The emotional side correlates with the mind. Although rationality and emotionality are concepts which are mostly from western psychology and man and intelligence, as we use them in our philosophy, they are from a different context. But we could make a broad correlation like that.
So for us, if we hear a persuasive philosophical presentation, our intelligence may accept. Yes, it’s true. Worldly pleasures, worldly prosperity, all this will not lead to happiness.
But the mind doesn’t accept it. The mind keeps saying, yeah, but if you get it, it will be good. And you will get some pleasure also.
So the mind keeps believing that the worldly things will give it pleasure. And even if we accept that, OK, this is what philosophy says, this is what wise people have said, OK, it’s true, but maybe I can be an exception. Maybe I will get happiness.
Now when we say that the worldly things don’t give us happiness, there are degrees also, depending on goodness, passion, ignorance, how a person is living, depending on what kind of karma a person has. So a person who is, say, having a very sickly body and is in constant pain, they will be relatively speaking in far greater distress than a person who is having a healthy body and reasonable financial security. But even these people will have a different kind of distress.
So Srila Prabhupada writes in the Purport of 9.33, kim punar brahmana punya bhakta raja vishesthuta anityam asukham lokam imam prabhya bhajasvamam In that purport, anityam asukham lokam, therefore this world is temporary and it is not a place of happiness. Therefore, imam prabhya, now that you are here, bhajasvamam, just worship me. So there he writes that there are gradations in this world.
Like say, intelligent people, less intelligent people, wealthy people, poor people, high class people, low class people, in terms of class, however it may be defined, birth or race, dynasty or race or whatever. But still, the fact is, this world is not a happy place for anyone. And nowadays there is a lot of, all over the world there is democracy.
Or at least democracy is considered to be a recommended form of government. And many western countries want to have democracy established in other countries also. So now of course, Abraham Lincoln said about democracy that democracy is a terrible form of government.
But it is the best among all terrible forms of government. So I am talking about democracy is. The day we make the discovery of the democracy of misery, it is a tremendously revolutionary day in our life.
What do I mean? The discovery of the democracy of misery, that means we discover that actually everybody is miserable. One of, all of us face problems, but one of the ways the mind aggravates our problems is by making us feel that nobody else is having problems like I have. And that makes things worse.
I was in Canada, I was with a devotee, he is a psychotherapist. And he said that he had been doing psychotherapy for many years. Now he has, individually, now he has started doing group psychotherapy.
And then I asked him, you know, why would people want to tell their problems in public to a whole group? He said we have confidentiality codes by which we, nobody is supposed to share anything that is spoken over there. But he said the big advantage of group psychotherapy is that when people hear others’ problems, they feel I am not alone. He said after one group psychotherapy session where everybody spoke out their heart, he said, now if you had an option, would any of you like to interchange your problems with anyone else? Nobody raised their hand.
Everybody has problems. And to the extent we understand this, doesn’t mean that we want everyone to be miserable. But it is just that the mind aggravates our problems by making us feel that we are unfairly singled out for those problems.
That, you know, you have health issues, you have financial issues, you have relational issues, this issue, that issue. Yes, but everybody has issues. Maybe they may not have the same issues as we have.
Maybe they may not have the issues at the same time as we have. But everybody has issues. So understanding this can be a profound relief.
Our mind always tends to compare. And comparison can sometimes inspire us to do better. But more often than not, comparison causes distress.
In America, I gave some seminars on destiny. And then I was talking about how some people feel destiny is unfair to us. But I was telling that many times, sometimes we may study and we may not get enough marks.
And we may work a lot, but the result may not come out. But there are times, say when we study only a little and still we get good marks. And we do a little work and we get a project, we get credit for it.
So then I said, how many of you had the second experience? So many raised hand. Then I told them that, OK, how many of you, when you consider the amount of effort you put in and the marks that you got, it is good. But as soon as you came to know that somebody else has got more marks than you, then your joy went off.
So as compared to our efforts, it is good. But oh, he’s got more marks than me. It’s miserable.
I knew one friend when I was in college. India is intensely competitive. So this boy had not really studied much.
And he, despite not studying well, he’s a good student. So he came second in the class. I was delighted.
He was now thinking I won’t even come in top ten. But he came second. But then he was at one moment, he was just jumping in joy.
And next moment, I was observing, he just turned, scowled on his face completely. He said his rival had come first. So all his joy went off over there.
So what happens, the mind, when it is comparing, it usually compares ourselves with people who are better than us. People who are wealthier than us, people who look better than us, people who are smarter than us. And therefore it feels you are not good enough.
Your life is not good enough. And even when we face problems, that mind, now I’m using the word mind generically. We could use the word ego for that also.
The mind wants a sense of specialness. So that sense of specialness it may get by saying how good I am or how good I want to be. But if I am having problems, the mind wants to get a sense of specialness by thinking that you have the problems which nobody else has.
That’s how you are special. So when we realise if I have these problems, and there are people who have less problems than me, the mind will look at how healthy they are, look at how good they look, look at how smart they are. You are good for nothing.
But then if we consciously make an effort to look at those who are in more trouble than us, not that we take joy in their trouble, but just observing that, things are not so bad. So basically when I talk about realisation, that’s the topic here. So when I said that discovering the democracy of misery, that means understanding that everybody is miserable, this is very empowering in fighting back the mind when it is saying, oh, you alone are miserable.
So what do we do for this? So how do we get this realisation? See, as I said, realisation means that which is a reality, we accept it to be a reality. So if I consider my consciousness is here and Guru Sadhu Shastra, scripture is here. The world is here.
So I look at the world, observe the world and learn from it. I look at somebody, say they are on a beach and they are swimming and they are laughing and chatting. And they are enjoying life.
Now they appear to be enjoying life. The Harvard Medical School did a study of the vintage products of what is called the sexual revolution. The sexual revolution led to people having free relationships with everyone.
And the promise was that with no inhibitions, you will have unlimited love and unlimited happiness. But the actual result was when they did a survey for all these young kids, college graduates and college students who were having free relationships with everyone, they found that most of them felt profoundly lonely and guilty. They felt lonely because they knew their bodies were coming in contact with many bodies.
But their hearts were not connecting with anybody’s hearts. And they knew that they were using others and others were using them. So even if they didn’t have any spiritual knowledge, they were very lonely.
So basically, we may look and say, oh, these people are enjoying life. But if you go deeper, actually they are not enjoying life. So basically, there is Pratyaksha Pramana and there is Shabda Pramana.
So if I am here, so I am the soul, Pratyaksha Pramana is I observe from the world outside and learn. Shabda Pramana is I hear from Guru Sadhu Shastra and learn. Now, inside us, we do thinking.
So I can hear scripture and process what I hear. I can observe the world and process what the world shows me. How we process it is very important.
If we are in the mode of passion, the same stimuli which we perceive, say, somebody is young and healthy and enjoying life and suddenly they get a heart attack and they die. If I am in the mode of passion, then what will, if my mind is in the mode of passion, what will I say? You know, life can end anytime. Therefore, enjoy before you die.
I saw an advertisement once in Kolkata. It said, enjoy before you become a dirty old man. So, the idea is that you are going to become old, but therefore enjoy right away.
And now the same point is there that the fact is that only enjoyment is temporary. It will end because of death. It will end because of old age.
But in the mode of passion, what do I do? I see that, but the desire to enjoy is so dominating that I just push it aside and focus. Right now I want to enjoy. But if scriptural knowledge is what I have got from scripture and that is prominent in my consciousness, then from here this knowledge comes, then I look at the world and I process the world.
See, this world is not really a place of enjoyment. I need to look for something higher, something more elastic. And the same stimulus, somebody dying, somebody getting old and losing their capacities, that will stimulate me to become more serious about my spiritual life.
So, basically we all take in information from both sources. We take in information from Shabda, especially when we are practising spiritual life. We hear from scripture and we live in the world and we cannot live in the world with closed eyes.
We take in information from there also. So, now while we are taking information from both sources, which source do we give primary importance to? If we give primary importance to our senses, then the nature of the world is that although there is distress in the world, that distress is not really very explicitly shown all the time. It is concealed.
So, because of that, if we look at the world, we will see, oh, there is so much enjoyment available over here. And if we give primacy to that, we will think, yeah, till now I have not got pleasure. But next time I will get it.
The mode of passion makes us believe that happiness is just one relationship, one purchase, one increment away. Just one relationship, one purchase, one increment away. Either I earn more, I buy more, I relate more and I will get it.
But happiness always stays that way. Just one relationship, a next relationship. One purchase, next buy, one raise, one more, more money, then we are happy.
That’s how we think and that’s how it stays always. But if we rely on Pratyaksha Pramana, rely on looking from the world, then we think we won’t get this realisation that this is how it is always going to be. We will think, right now it is like this, but in the future it will be better.
In the future it will be better. Naishwara Prabhupada, when he went to India after he established the Krishna Consciousness Movement, at that time there was a major upheaval in the government. And till then the Congress Party had been ruling and then another party had got power for the first time in India.
So, there was a lot of hope that with the new government, new political party in power, there will be a lot of positive change in India. And Prabhupada said that this political adjustment is okay, but if you want to really bring out a change, you have to do adhyatmic adjustment, you have to do spiritual adjustment, you have to change your consciousness. So, yes, certainly political, sociological, environmental changes affect us.
But they don’t affect us in a substantial way in the long run. Ultimately the nature of the world is what it is. So, now our topic is how do we get realisations? That means, I was talking about we take in information from a texture from the world with our senses and we take in information from the scripture through our ears.
And in our mind we do processing. So, if we process what we see from the world in a way that it harmonises with scripture. If I take in information from the world and I process it in such a way that it harmonises with what I have learnt from scripture.
That kind of inner thinking. With the senses we get pratyaksha, with the mind what we do is anuman. Anuman is often translated as speculation.
But anuman is not necessarily a bad thing. Anuman can also refer to inference. Anuman can be guesswork, but it can also be inference.
Inference means I observe something and I infer from that. Vishwanath Prabhupada in his song Markine bhagavad dharma which he composed on seeing the American coastline. There he says, Aache kichu karjatebe aehi anumane, nahi keno anibena aehi ugrasthane.
My dear lord, you must have some purpose because of which you have brought me here. I guess so. Otherwise why would you bring me to a terrible place? So, anumane.
Anumane means guessing. But this guessing is not speculative. It is, in English there is a word educated guessing.
It means I have a knowledge and based on that I am making this inference. So, Krishna, you have brought me here and this is not really a godly place. So, if you have brought me here, you must have some mission over there.
That is my inference, anumane. In fact, the Uddhav Gita also says that how can we know about this world’s insubstantiality? This world will not ultimately make me happy. It says four sources.
Shruti hi prataksham aitihiyam, anumane shvacha trishtayam, pramane shvanavasthanat, vikalpatsavirajyate. It says vikalpat. Vikalpat means the material world always keeps giving us alternatives.
This didn’t work out. Try that out. Try that out.
Try that out. Now, of course, at the functional level, we have to go on in the world. But the idea that this thing will make me happy, this thing will make me happy, this thing will make me happy, that savirajyate, a person becomes detached from that.
How is that? Through four sources of knowledge. Shruti hi, that’s foremost, that’s learning from scripture. Prataksham, we can also observe and we can learn from our observations.
Aitihiyam is itihas, history. We can learn historical narratives. So, historical narratives may tell greed leads to distress.
There may be stories in every tradition about how being greedy is bad. So, aitihiyam. And fourth is annumana.
Annumana means inferring. Annumana means you could say inference. It can be guesswork, it can be inference.
In Vedic thought, annumana, that is directed according to shabda, is called as vichar. Annumana, annumana is just inferring or guessing. But when it is directed according to shabda, when we try to infer according to scriptural knowledge, that is called as vichar.
So, Prabhupada differentiated this as mental speculation and philosophical speculation. Philosophical speculation means we accept that what scripture says is true. But how do we understand it is true? How is it true? And Prabhupada said that, Hridayanas Maharaj asked Prabhupada, what is the difference between mental and philosophical speculations? Prabhupada said, scripture says that, Krishna says, I am the taste of water.
So, we have to understand, what does this actually mean? Like there is a famous Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, he says that, describing God is like describing the taste of water. It is indescribable. All of us know there is a taste, but how do we describe the taste of water? But Krishna says, it is a very real experience.
All of us, when we are thirsty and we drink water, we feel relief. And it is not just that the water is a liquid going into our body. At the level of the tongue also, it gives relief and pleasure.
So, the experience which we get from the outer world, that can also help us to realise, to understand how scripture is true, if we harmonise our thinking. That means, I get information from scripture that this world is a place of distress. And I see with my eyes, some people are unhappy and many people seem to be happy.
Now, I can choose to focus on the people who seem to be happy and think, I will also become happy. Or I can choose to focus on the people who are unhappy and think, this is how everyone is eventually going to be. And therefore, I need to look for something higher.
So, in the experience that we observe in the outer world, if we focus on that experience, that confirms what scripture is telling. And we hold in abeyance the experience that seems to contradict scripture. Why would some experience contradict scripture? Because some people may be going through a phase of good karma.
Say, Ravana was very sinful, but still he was fabulously prosperous. He had a kingdom of gold. It was only for a short while.
So, how do we gain realisations? We hear from scripture, keep that knowledge in our consciousness, in the forefront, and then we observe the world, we look at things in the world, which confirm what scripture is saying. Then, by this harmonisation of our empirical experience with our scriptural knowledge, when we do that, we get realisation. I’ll give an example for this.
Once I was invited to go to the house of a very fabulously wealthy person in India. We went to his house, it was almost like he had a fleet of cars outside. He had a mansion.
So, then I went to him and we were just talking with him. And then, initially, we were just talking formally and then he started opening up. Now, in general, in the material world, people always put on a facade of success and happiness.
Because that’s how everybody wants to pretend to be. Nobody… But, especially when somebody is talking with a person in the renounced order, they don’t have to put on their mask. Because they don’t think, this person is not my competitor in any way.
This person is not a threat to me in any way. So, often they take off their masks. So, then he started speaking and he said how his wife had died of cancer a few years ago.
His son had got into drugs and was admitted in a drug rehabilitation centre. His daughter had run away with some boy and she has not come and seen him once after his marriage. And he says, all my relatives are simply waiting for me to die so that they can get my inheritance.
So, now when I heard this, I realised he has this big mansion, huge fleet of cars, but his personal life is not happy. Now, somebody else might go there and that person is too materially minded. They think, oh, this person has no one.
If I can ingratiate myself to them, if I can connect with them, then maybe they will give their inheritance to me. And in that same situation, instead of get seeing, oh, even all this wealth does not give happiness, what they may say is, oh, if that wealth comes to me, it will make me happy. So, how it is, when we get evidence from the world, it is for us, or we observe things from the world, what we focus on is up to us.
So, if we learn to focus on that experience or those experiences in the world, which confirms scriptural truth, then that’s how scripture tells us that it is a reality. But when we experience it ourselves, then the conviction will become much deeper. So, till then, that wealth does not really lead to much happiness.
I had heard it. I accepted it. Since my childhood, I was not particularly infatuated by wealth.
My infatuation was knowledge. My dream was that the more knowledge you get, the more happier you will become. That, of course, also was challenged and shattered when I saw how many brilliant people also were frustrated, depressed, suicidal.
But the point is that we will get experiences which confirm what scripture tells us. But for that, we have to give primacy to scriptural knowledge. And how do we give primacy? We are getting experience from the world.
We are getting knowledge from scripture. So, how do we give primacy to scriptural knowledge? That means it has to be kept in the forefront of our consciousness. When we speak words, say when we learn a particular language or even if we consider English, we all speak in English.
But there is what scholars of English call that there is an active vocabulary and there is a dormant vocabulary. There are some words which if somebody else speaks, I can make sense of it. If I hear and if I read in the newspaper or somewhere, I will make sense of it.
But I will not use it. Sometimes I want to say something and I just don’t get the word for it. And somebody else says, hey, that’s the word.
So, what happened? That word is there, but it is in our dormant vocabulary, not in our active vocabulary. Similarly for us, so the words that are in the dormant vocabulary are not very useful for us in our communicating things. So, similarly, scriptural knowledge can either be dormant knowledge or it can be active knowledge.
If it is dormant knowledge means, yeah, I know it. And really one of the most common things that the mind does when we are reading Prabhupada’s books or hearing classes, the mind just starts a monologue. You know this.
You know this. You know this. And as we keep saying, I know it, I know it, we just stop hearing it.
We stop hearing what is being spoken. But rather than letting it say, I know this. OK, yeah, I know this.
But when was the last time I heard it? Just turn it around. When was the last time I heard it? What context did I hear it? Oh, that was in that context. Now it is in this context.
So what happens? Instead of just saying I know it and leaving it like that, we engage with that knowledge. And the more we engage with the knowledge, the more that knowledge comes in the forefront. It becomes a part of our active, we could say, just like active vocabulary.
So like that, active knowledge. And when it becomes active knowledge, then when it stays in the forefront of our consciousness, then when we get some experience, oh, you know, this is what I heard in class. This is what I had read in scripture.
Otherwise, we may get the experience and we may have heard the point in the class, but we will not correlate the two. We will not correlate the two and that’s how we will get the experience, but the experience will not transform into realisation. So experience can become a realisation only when we invest conscious scripturally guided thought to that experience.
When we, the experience comes from here, when I invest scripturally guided consciousness and thought into the experience, then I can see that experience in the light of scripture. And that’s how we get realisation. So now, at one side we say, I’ll conclude with this point, that it may seem very discouraging.
Oh, this world is a place of distress. But scripture also gives us something else. Scripture tells us that in taking shelter of Krishna, we can get relief.
We can get joy. Distress is a fact of life, but distress is not the purpose of life. Distress is a feature of the world, but it is not the intention of the world.
Just like there is a hospital. In a hospital, people are going to be in pain, but causing pain to people is not the purpose of the hospital. The hospital’s purpose is to relieve people of pain.
If you see the same verse, which is well known, we talk about how this world is a place of misery, 8.15 in the Bhagavad Gita, maam upetya punar janma dukkhaalema shashvatam naapnuvanti mahatmana samsiddhim paramangatah. So in this verse, Krishna is actually saying that this world is a place of distress and temporariness. But this is a passing fact.
His stress is that those who become devoted to me, they go beyond this world and they attain my eternal abode. They do not come back to this place of misery. So his stress is not on the point that this world is a place of misery, so stay miserable.
No, his point is, this world is a place of distress, but it’s like a hospital. Take the treatment and you will be cured. You will get out of this hospital.
You’ll no longer be sick. You’ll no longer be in distress. And that mood of offering relief from distress is seen not only in the content of the Gita, but also in the context of the Gita.
Arjuna, at the start of the Gita, was in tears. How can I fight against my relatives? How can I kill them? And Krishna did not tell Arjuna, oh, this world is dukkhaalaya, now you’ve got to realise this is dukkhaalaya, now stay dukkhi. You’re distressed, stay distressed.
You’ve got realisation of the world. No. Krishna spoke the spiritual knowledge to give him relief from the distress.
So, sometimes when you’re practising bhakti and problems come in our life, you say, you know, I’m doing so much. Why is Krishna doing this to me? Why are these problems coming in my life? I’m trying to be a devotee. So, if we get this question and if we let this question dominate our consciousness, then we will lose our faith.
You’re thinking, you know, why is Krishna doing this to me? First of all, it is not Krishna doing it to us. It is our own karma coming upon us. But more importantly, actually, we can take the same point and turn it around.
No, actually, scripture told me that this world is a place of distress. And I am now experiencing distress. That means what scripture is saying is true.
So, the same experience which could have caused me doubt can, if interpreted properly, increase my faith. Oh, scripture told me this world is a place of misery. But now scripture has also told me the second part of it.
What is that? If you take shelter of Krishna, you can tolerate and you can transcend misery. Now, I’ve experienced one part of scripture to be true. Let me see if I can experience the other part of scripture to be true.
And how do I experience that? Experience that by taking shelter of Krishna. So, if I just try to absorb myself in Krishna, just try to chant Krishna’s name, remember Krishna’s message, try to pray to Krishna, to the deity, somehow put my consciousness in Krishna, then we’ll find that we’ll rise above the distress. We’ll get some relief.
Say, outside it’s very hot and we come to air-conditioned room, immediately feel relief. So, coming to Krishna, bringing our consciousness to Krishna is like bringing it to a Krishna-conditioned place. We feel relief.
But unfortunately what we do is, we come to the air-conditioned room and we stand at the door and open the door and demand that the whole atmosphere become cool. That is not going to happen. That means what happens is, we come to Krishna, but on coming to Krishna, instead of becoming conscious of Krishna, we stay conscious of the problem and demand.
When will you solve this problem? When will you solve this problem? When will you solve this problem? So, we don’t become conscious of Krishna. And that’s why sometimes even in Krishna consciousness, we may not experience the potency of Krishna consciousness. Because we are not Krishna conscious, we are problem conscious.
So, yes, whatever the problem, Krishna is bigger than the problem. I said, don’t tell God how big your problems are. Tell your problems how big God is.
So, Krishna is bigger than this problem. Sometimes the nature of life is, we may have to be in pain. But we don’t have to be in pain.
We may have to live with pain, but we don’t have to live in pain. Live with pain means, pain is one experience that we have. Say, if I have some back problem, because I keep getting some pain.
I have to live with that pain. But live in pain means, that I think nothing except that pain only. Oh, why is this back paining like this? When is it going to pain again? Now it is paining so much.
In future it will become worse. And that pain consumes my whole consciousness. So, then my pain will become much more than what it needs to be.
So, we may have to live with pain. That means, in our consciousness, one component is pain. Yes, there is a problem over here.
I am aware of this problem. But there is much more in my life. There is Krishna in my life.
And I become conscious of Krishna. When our consciousness expands, not being stuck with the problem, but expands to focus on Krishna and service to Krishna, then we may have to live with pain, but we don’t live in pain. So, last year when I was going to America, at the airport, when I entered, suddenly, I was just going through, I wanted to catch a connecting flight.
Suddenly there was a huge alarm. And before I could understand what was happening, there were six security persons with their guns pointed at me. What happened? So, they said that we have found a high explosive alert on your crutches as you are going through.
I said, crutches? Why explosive in that? So, then they said that, we will have to take you to a special chamber, we will have to frisk you. And then, they said, we will have to break these crutches. I said, if you break the crutches, how will I walk? So, maybe that person, the security person was in a bad mood, whatever.
He said, that’s not my problem. Now, initially I was just annoyed, but now I started getting alarmed. So, as I was thinking what to do, I like to recite the Bhagavad Gita.
So, I just try to, whenever I have time, I just recite some verses from the Bhagavad Gita. So, at that time, I just happened to be reciting the 18th chapter in my mind. So, at that time, I just came to this 18th chapter, 61st verse, Ishvara Sarva Bhutanam Hriddheshe Arjuna Tishtati, Bhramayan Sarva Bhutani Hantra Rudhani Mayaya He says, all living beings are wandering as if on a machine made of material energy.
And, I am guiding their wanderings. Just as I was reciting this verse, and I was thinking about it, it just struck me. I have travelled across so many countries, so many cities.
In each flight, so many things could have gone wrong. But Krishna has guided me through all of them. If I understand I am a soul, I have gone from one body to another body.
At that time, I didn’t even know what was my destination. Krishna guided me over there also. So, Krishna will guide me now also.
And, just that thought, Krishna has surrendered to you. That just gives, I was getting alarm, but it just gives him relief. And, at that time, as I was thinking like this, I surrendered to you Krishna, please guide me.
So, suddenly another security in charge appeared, appeared over there, this person’s boss. He said, what is going on over here? He said, we found a high alert security. He looked at me, he looked at the crutches, he said, ok, I will take care, you go.
And, this person was very cordial. And, he looked at the crutches. He said, hey, these are openable, isn’t it? Yeah, I said, yeah.
And, we will open it, no need to break it. So, then they opened it. And, when they opened it, they started pulling out something.
So, some dirt came out of there. He said, what is this? He said, this is dirt. Dirt, ok.
Then, he pulled it out more. He said, there is a lot of dirt here. I said, yes.
So, and then they put the dirt. And, the dirt gave out that high alert, high metallic content. So, what had happened, before I had gone to America, I had gone to Vrindavan.
And, I had gone to the banks of Yamuna. And, while I was walking over there, the rubber padding at the bottom of my crutches had come off. So, the dirt from Vrindavan had gone inside the crutches.
And, then I fixed the rubber padding, but it came above it and the dirt remained inside. And, because the Yamuna is polluted, so there is a lot of metal in the sedimentation around it. So, the high explosive alert was actually the dust of Vrindavan.
So, I thought, yes, the Vraja Vraja is actually the ultimate explosive. Isn’t it? It will explode all our worldly attachments. It will explode all our illusions, so that we can go towards Krishna.
So, I gave this experience as an illustration that somehow at that time, that verse came in my mind. And, rather than seeing this experience, why is this happening to me? Why are these people being so unfair? Why is this so rude? Why is it troubling me so much? Just that thought came, you know, Krishna is guiding. And, just calm.
So, if we keep scriptural knowledge in the forefront of our consciousness, then Krishna will help us use that scriptural knowledge to process life and then to learn through life and to grow through life. So, I’ll summarise. I spoke today about how to get realisations.
And, I started by talking that knowledge alone doesn’t satisfy just as Vyasadeva was not satisfied with knowledge. So, realisation means that which is a reality, we accept it to be a reality. We may hear scripture and our intelligence may be convinced about it, but our mind keeps refusing to believe it.
So, and when the mind refuses to believe, then we get knowledge from scripture, that Shabda Pramana, and we get also knowledge from the word Pratyaksha Pramana. So, if the mind is very forceful in entertaining some idea, that even if it gets some experiences which support what scripture is teaching, the mind will discount that and focus on the other experiences. Scripture says this world is a place of misery.
But, we will look at, even if we see people who are distressed, we will think, oh, they are exceptions. If I get wealth, if I get power, if I get this, I’ll become happy. So, same, we see old age, we see death.
People in mode of goodness will think, I have to become spiritual. People in passion will think, oh, I have to enjoy before this happens to me. So, for us, which, do we give the empirical sense perception higher priority or we give the scriptural knowledge higher priority? That will determine what will be the direction of our consciousness and life.
And what we do inside us, that is Anuman. Anuman can be in a negative sense when we just speculate and just come up with all kinds of crazy ideas. But Anuman can also be educated guessing.
So, we have scriptural knowledge and we try to, we get one experience from our empirical observation and we infer based on that experience in a way that is harmonious with scripture. So, Anuman directed by Shabda is called Vichar. It is philosophical speculation, which helps us use our experience to understand scripture in a deeper light.
And that is, so, when we harmonise our Pratyaksha with Shabda using Anuman, that is when we get realisation. When we harmonise our experience with scriptural knowledge, with our proper reasoning and inference, we get realisation. And for getting realisation, scriptural knowledge has to be moved from the dormant knowledge within us to the active knowledge within us.
Just like words need to be moved from dormant vocabulary to active vocabulary so that we can use them. And when we get distress, it may cause us doubt, why is God doing this to me? Or it may increase our faith. See, scripture told me this world is a place of distress, experiencing it.
And therefore, now, let me try to experience the other half of scriptural teaching that if we take shelter of Krishna, there is relief, there is joy. So, if we take shelter of Krishna, it’s like amidst the cold, amidst the very hot place, we come to air-conditioned room. Rather than demanding that Krishna change the nature of the world, we take shelter of Krishna and therein we will experience that although this world is a place of distress, distress is not the purpose of the world.
The world’s distress purpose is to direct our consciousness towards Krishna. And in the consciousness of Krishna, there is relief and there is joy. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. Are there any questions or comments? Yes, sir. You can speak.
I’ll repeat the question. You described that the mind is processing everything, accepting and rejecting. Okay.
So, is the mind processing or is it the mind simply accepting and rejecting and it is processing? See, when I am using right now, I mentioned this in an earlier class also, the word mind can mean different things. The mind can refer either to one particular component of the subtle body, that is mind, intelligence and ego. Or the word mind can be used generically to refer to the subtle body.
So, basically what I was saying is that inside us, some processing happens. So, I did differentiate that the intelligence is what analyses and intelligence is what understands scriptural teachings first. The mind gives too much credence to worldly experience.
So, the mind is very strongly connected with the senses. And the mind is driven by what the senses perceive. But the intelligence can be connected with super soul, connected with scripture and the intelligence will be guided by scripture.
So, basically inside us, we have to do some processing. And usually, if you want to be more technical, it is the intelligence which does the processing. So, the mind will perceive and the mind will instinctively or impulsively, I like this, I don’t like it.
It will accept it, it will reject it. But that impulsive acceptance and rejection, we can go beyond it when we learn to process things with the intelligence. So, yeah.
Okay. Can the intelligence get contaminated? Yes, of course. Krishna does say that, Indriyani, Mano buddhir, asya dhishthanam uchyate.
In 3.41, he says that senses, mind and intelligence, all three are the sitting places of selfish desire, karma. So, when the intelligence gets contaminated, at that time, we not only do the wrong things, but we plan to either rationalise the wrong or to cover up the wrong. So, I may come up with justification.
No, no, this is not wrong. Actually, it is right. Or I may come up with some way to conceal it.
A plan in such a way. I will do this and I will do this in such a way that nobody will catch me doing it. So, when the intelligence starts scheming ways to continue the short-sighted indulgence, to justify it or to cover it up, then that intelligence has become contaminated.
So, we would say that rather than saying that intelligence has become contaminated, it’s like, say, if we have a particular part of the country where there are insurgents. Say, in India, there is Kashmir. Now, here, there may be Ireland, UK, whatever, where there are some people who are against.
And there are some people who are for. Some people may neutral also. So, like that, within our intelligence, there is some part of the intelligence that is contaminated.
But it’s not that the whole intelligence is contaminated. Because some part of the intelligence is good also. Because it is with our intelligence only that we can understand scripture.
It is with our intelligence only that we can understand, okay, what I am doing is wrong. It’s the same Bhagavad Gita, 3.40 where it says that buddhi is contaminated with intelligence. But then two verses later in 3.43 it says, evam buddhe param buddha samsthabhyatmanam atmana jahe shatrum mahabaho khamarupam durasadam With your intelligence, understand yourself to be transcendental and thus go beyond the control of the selfish desires.
So, we can say that the corruption of the intelligence requires correction by the intelligence. Just corruption of the intelligence requires correction by the intelligence. Just like at the level of software.
There might be antivirus in my computer. There might be a virus which has corrupted my computer software. But then I might have an antivirus programme.
Now, both the virus and the antivirus are basically software codes only. But they function differently, oppositely in fact. The virus will ruin my computer, the antivirus programme will protect my computer.
So, we could say there is a part of our intelligence also which may be corrupted by the virus of selfish desire. But there is a part of our intelligence which can act as an antivirus programme. And the more we study and hear scripture and contemplate scripture, the easier it will become to protect us, to detect when the virus comes in and then to eliminate it.
What about getting God-given intelligence? Yes, Krishna says that if you keep practising bhakti diligently, दामी बुद्धी योगा हूंतम् येने माम पयांति थे Krishna uses the word buddhi yoga thrice in the Bhagavad Gita. In 2.39, in 10.10 and 18.57. And each of these he is talking at different levels. First एशा ते अभिता सांके बुद्धिर्योगे तो इमाम शुनु बुद्धियोग तो यया पार्थ कर्म बंधन रहास्यसी Here he uses buddhi yoga as the intelligence used to analyse between matter and spirit and to focus on spirit.
So it is buddhi by which we do the yoga of going beyond matter to spirit. But in 10.10, so that means he is talking about we use our intelligence over here by which we can focus on spirituality. But in 10.10 he says if you are practising bhakti, then तेशां भतत्युक्तानां भजदां पृति पूर्वकम् ददामि बुद्धियोगम् तमि एनमाम प्यां दितेनी There he says I will give you the intelligence by which you can come to me.
That means the intelligence which we get, do this, don’t do this. That is Krishna giving us the intelligence. But then in 18.57 also he says चेतसा सर्वकर्माणि मैं सन्यस्य मत्परा बुद्धियोगम् पाशुत्य मचित्ता सत तम्भव In this way, with buddhi yoga, using your intelligence, practise yoga and take shelter of me.
That means he is talking about intelligence as that which discriminates between matter and spirit. Intelligence, that which enables us to take shelter of God. And intelligence as that with which we take shelter of God.
So, there are various ways in which the intelligence can work. So, rather than worrying too much whether the intelligence I am getting right now is coming from God, or when it comes to our inner world, it’s very very difficult to understand where something is coming from. What is much more useful is where it is taking me.
So, where a thought is coming from, where idea is coming from, it’s difficult to know. How do I know? There is no boxes inside my head. This is the mind, this is the intelligence.
What you can see is where is it taking me. If it is encouraging me to move in a spiritual direction, if it is making me more spiritual, then I can say that this is favourable to my bhakti and I will use it to move towards God. Thank you very much.
Jai.