How to live at the junction of order and chaos – Learning from Dasharatha’s destiny

[Talk at Auckland, New Zealand]

Video

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you very much for coming today evening. And today I’ll discuss on the topic of what is destined in our life and what is free for us to choose.
So I’ll talk in terms of a story from the Ramayana where a curse is involved and that curse unfolds in a particular way. So what is broadly speaking the role of our free will and how much of our life is controlled? If you look at this in a broad way, we can see that in our life certain things are already fixed. Say for example, which family we are born in.
Many Indians, when they come abroad to a western country, whether it’s New Zealand or Australia or America or Canada, UK, then they come with some culture from the past, from their homes. But when the children are born in these countries, when the children grow up, then these children, they often want to mix with the mainstream culture. But they just can’t because they have a particular skin colour.
Their identity is a particular. In America this phenomenon is called as ABCD. ABCD is American Born Confused Deshis.
So maybe you could have your NBCD. New Zealand Born Confused Deshis. So basically even if somebody wants to gel, mix in the crowd, you just can’t.
The brown colour is there. So one of my friends in America was telling me that the Indian kids who are born to Indians, see they are like coconuts. The coconut is brown from outside but white from inside.
So basically the brown skin is there but internally, culturally, because they grew up there, they’ve grown there, so they become like that in terms of thinking. But still even if no matter how much they want to, they can’t become brown skin. So certain things in our life are fixed.
Right from our birth itself they are fixed. So it’s not just our skin colour, it’s also the family in which we are born. In many ways we could say how good our memory is.
We can always improve it but certain level of intellectual ability is fixed at the time of birth itself. So certain things are fixed at the time of birth and we can’t change that. So now we could say that life is a constant tension between order and chaos.
Order is the things which we have control over. Things which we try to maintain in a particular structure. And chaos is things which are out of our control.
Now as we grow up, we try to increase how much control we have. Even a small child, the child is helpless. Infant, newborn just doesn’t know what is happening and the infant cries because it’s so much fear, distress, uncertainty.
But then as the child starts growing, the child discovers that crying is my power. By crying I can move the world around me. If I cry then my mother will come running, father will come running and sometimes the children cry because they are in distress.
Sometimes they may cry just because they want attention. So basically that child, initially everything is chaos. Where am I? Who am I? What is going on? Nothing it knows.
But slowly it creates some order in its life. That is whenever I am in trouble, cry. That is the one strand of order in the child’s life.
As we grow up further, we try to create further order in our lives. For example, education is something at one level it creates some order. You go to school at this time, you attend these classes, you come back.
And this is not just creating a schedule and a routine. A schedule and a routine itself is an order in our life. But along with that what it also creates is, we create further power to create order in our future lives.
That through these studies I will earn more money. I will get a good job. And then with that financial stability there will be greater order in my life.
All of us… I think it was okay earlier. Was anyone not able to hear? Is it better now? Can I have a little tissue paper? Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare So, all of you are sitting and trying to hear this class. There is some order.
Now all of you are reasonably confident that the person next to you is not going to suddenly turn at you and slap you in the face. And now, now conceivably that anything can happen. But probably that will not happen.
And the probability is very high. And it is this order, this absence of chaos that enables us to focus. So all of us need some structure for our lives.
And it is this structure that enables us to both live peacefully and work purposefully. As I am, I can be peaceful. And what I need to do, I can do it purposefully.
If, say right now I am going to speak and at any moment the power supply will go away. Or if assume, at any moment if I am worried, everybody will walk up and go away. Then I cannot speak purposefully.
Like every moment I am worried, is the audience going to be there or not. So basically, we all need a certain amount of order in our lives. But at the same time, the world often brings chaos.
So chaos means, say, we might decide I am going to go to this programme and I am going to reach at this time. And you estimate it takes 30 minutes to go there. But then suddenly there is a traffic jam.
Suddenly there is maybe a car crash or something. And then half hour becomes one hour. And that causes annoyance.
That causes irritation. And annoyance and irritation are probably the small consequences of disorder. If suppose, you go to your office, job.
And one of my friends in America told me, he had come to India for about 15 days. And he, because he was in India, he didn’t attend to, he was on a break on holidays. So he didn’t attend to any of his mails.
And many mails had come and gone. And he thought, okay, after I come back to office, I will go and look at all those mails. And he went back to America, he went to his office.
And he saw, his office only was not there. In those 15 days, the company itself had closed down. So, losing your job is one level of chaos, but the company itself disappearing.
That’s an even bigger thing. So, chaos can come upon us from any way. Generally speaking, if we consider, what are the three kleshas? Aditya, Adibhautik and Adhyatmik.
Tomorrow I am going to talk about in the seminar on how to deal with discouraging situations. So, I will talk about how discouragement can come from all these three ways. Sometimes we might fall sick.
That’s Adhyatmik. Sometimes people around us can annoy us. People around us can disappoint us.
They can betray us. So, that’s Adibhautik. And sometimes the weather can become too cold.
The weather can become too hot. So, actually I was in, I think it was Melbourne. And from there I flew to Chicago.
So, it was such that Melbourne on that day was something like 47 degrees. And Chicago was minus 47 degrees. It was probably the coldest day.
I think there was some storm or something had come. It was the coldest day in the recorded history of the planet. So, it was quite a drastic shift.
So, now the weather can change drastically. So, basically from all these three sources, chaos can come upon us. And we try to create structure.
But in our lives also, we don’t want simply structure. We want order, but we also want some adventure. We also want to do something new.
We also want some exploration, some experience. So, we want structure, we want order. But we don’t want only that.
We want to experience something new. So, we, you can say we live, if we all wanted order. Now, we could just live, say for example, one of the safest places in the world is a jail.
If there are no gang wars and if there are no such problems, you could be completely safe in a jail. But who wants to live in a jail? You want freedom to do things. So, if you wanted to be completely safe, you could say, I just stay in my home all the time.
But you get bored. All of us, we are, most of our thoughts are about ourselves, naturally. But at the same time, we will get bored only with ourselves.
Imagine if somebody told us that, okay, today whole day you do whatever you want. And somebody will record every single one of your actions. And the next day, you sit and watch everything that you do the previous day.
Boring soon, what is there to watch in this? Maybe some special moments in our day we will watch. But if somebody says, just watch the whole day what you did. So, every day, one day you act, one day you watch.
One day you act, one day you watch. You get bored with life. What do I watch so much? So, basically, all this analysis I’m giving to illustrate this point that we don’t want only order.
So, if whole day I’m going to sit and watch what I did yesterday, whole day becomes completely predictable. And then nothing new, nothing special, nothing exciting. So, that’s why, although we want order, but we live at the border of order and disorder, order and chaos.
So, that’s why there is a constant, we live at the tension. And the chaos we need to manage, the order we need to sustain. And how do we go about doing this? When we study scripture, it is not just stories which were told long ago and people heard it.
In general, if we consider nature, nature is quite efficient. Anything that is not useful gets eliminated. That’s what the theory of evolution is.
Now, it talks about survival of the fittest. And to that extent, it’s fine. But from survival of the fittest to arrival of the fittest, it’s a big leap.
How things originated. So, Darwin got many things right. And one thing is that only things that are efficient survive.
Like something simple, only things which are useful, which are effective, they survive. So, if you are going on a long mountain trek, and if you have a backpack which contains a lot of luggage, a lot of things, then we may, before starting, we may say, you know, I don’t want to carry so much burden, I’ll put some stuff away. I’ll put that away, I’ll put that away.
So, similarly, if we as human beings, if we consider the past centuries, people lived through a lot of tough times. Many of the comforts that we take for granted today, say, artificial heating, air conditioning, mobile, all these were unimaginable even for royalty a few hundred years ago. So, people had no time to load themselves with unnecessities.
Because life was tough. Life is tough even now. But without all the comforts and conveniences, it was tougher.
At least, if you go back to recent history, a few hundred years ago, a few thousand years ago. So, the point I’m making is, if some stories, like the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, have survived for centuries, then those stories must have served some purpose. In the past, writing books and printing books was not easy.
People had to do it on leaves, they couldn’t just replicate the books by giving one print command. So, if somebody was going to go through all that labour, they must have felt that this is worthwhile. There is something worth learning from this.
So, many atheists are very dismissive about the past. And they say, people in the past were superstitious, foolish, unscientific. But, those people survived through tougher times.
And if you look at history, across the world, religion, faith in some higher being, and some stories about how human beings interacted with higher reality. These are universal, whether it is a biblical story in the western world, the Vedic stories in India, they are always like that. So, these stories have some great value within them.
And what is one value? We can talk of many values. But one value we can talk about is, how to live at the tension of order and chaos. So, Ram is living a peaceful life and just a big joyful event is to happen.
He is going to be coronated as the king. And then suddenly what happens? In one night, everything changes and he has to go to the forest. What? In America now currently, the government is becoming a little, more than a little hostile to immigration.
Many Indians, they are not getting their visa extended and they have to come back to India. So, Ram suddenly being exiled. It’s like exile is just one level below execution.
Execution means you lose your life itself. Exile means you lose everything except your life. And to consider how serious that is, probably the nearest we can get is that we are living in a country and our visa is denied.
Suddenly you have to leave that country. Your social life is here, your career is here, your friends are here, suddenly you have to leave. But still we can go back to our home country.
We have a life over there. We have a social circle. We may have to revive it, but we have it.
For Ram, it is nothing. Everything was lost. So, it’s chaos.
So, suddenly from order, from a wonderful, joyous order to horrifying chaos. It’s how do you navigate such a transition? How does one deal with it? And not only was the trauma there for Ram, but the trauma was there also for Dashrath. Because Dashrath, as a father, no matter how old a child grows, for the parents, still they are children.
And they have that mood, I should take care of them, I should provide for them, I should protect them from trouble. So, somehow for Dashrath to become the cause of that, it was because of his word that he had to send his son, that his son has to go to the forest. Now Dashrath was so heartbroken that he could never speak those words also.
So, that night when Kaikeyi made the demand and Dashrath was shattered, he begged Kaikeyi, no, no, no, but Kaikeyi didn’t listen. At that time, finally, Kaikeyi only summoned Ram. And when Ram came there, sometimes if you enter into a room itself, and you can get a sense of the vibrations in the room.
Sometimes two people, if they have a tension between them, as soon as you enter you also feel the tension over there. You feel as if you are walking into a minefield. So, Ram immediately could feel, immediately felt that there is some tension between Dashrath and Kaikeyi.
And he could see Dashrath was dishevelled, distressed and Kaikeyi was looking cold, unfeeling. And Dashrath couldn’t even speak the words. It was Kaikeyi who spoke.
Based on the promise a father has given, he has told that Marath will become the king and you will go to the forest for 14 years. And Dashrath just wailed in sorrow. He just couldn’t do anything to stop it.
So, it was not just for Ram, but it was for everyone. Suddenly, chaos had come. From order, sudden chaos came about.
Now, how do we navigate it? How do we deal with life when life suddenly throws a horrible change in our lives? Everything that we have held dear, it’s just been gripped away from us. So, Dashrath protests, but somehow Ram says, I’ll honour your word, I’ll go. And when Ram departs, Dashrath just doesn’t know, what can I do? What did I do wrong? It was in good faith that he had, and Kaikeyi had helped him long ago in a war.
At that time, he had given her a boon that I will fulfil two of your desires. She said, I don’t want anything now. I don’t want anything.
In future, if you want something, you can ask. Now, he had never thought she would ask something like this. So, he was bound by the word of honour.
So, what did he do wrong? What could he have done? He was searching for explanations. How did this thing happen? How did Kaikeyi become like this? How did Ram have to go like that? He was constantly lamenting, berating himself. And, slowly, his spirit started sinking.
And then, at that time, Kaushalya was initially very upset, very hurt. But then Ram consoled her. He said that, the king is not behind this.
The king is obliged, the king is not desiring this. Kaushalya had said that, I will come with you. How can I live in a kingdom which has exiled you? If Kaikeyi has done this, now Kaikeyi will further do so many things.
If she can go to this extreme, what will she do in your absence? Please take me with you to the forest. So, Ram says no. At this point, the king has been terribly betrayed by his youngest wife.
This is the time when he needs you the most. If you also abandon him, he will not be able to survive. Through thick and thin, we are meant to be together.
So, basically, Ram helped her see that Dashrath was not the victimiser, but Dashrath was the victim. This is one thing we see in the Ramayana, that people are committed to their relationships. See, relationships are tough work.
In movies, people say, one person sees another and they fall in love. Now, it’s love at first sight. Well, okay, love at first sight can happen.
But the test of love is what happens after many sights. So, any kind of relationship requires, it’s hard work, it requires commitment. And if people are fickle, anytime a problem comes up, I’m out of here.
Then, every relationship is meant to give us some structure, some stability. But anytime some disruption, disorder comes up and you say, I’m out of here. Then the very thing that is meant to create structure in our lives, we live in constant fear, this will create chaos.
Then we just can’t have any stability. So, Ram reminds Kaushalya, and Kaushalya is constantly with Dashrath thereafter. And then Dashrath says, he’s just trying to make sense of what happened.
And then he says, I remember a curse. Long ago, I was cursed. And then he says that when I had gone hunting, at that time, I was practising hunting simply by sound.
Sometimes enemies might attack from behind or from some invisible place. So, just hearing the sound and fighting, that’s also an important skill. So, he was practising that and he was waiting behind some bushes near a pond.
And he heard someone lapping water and he shot an arrow. That arrow went and thudded into someone and he just felt happy. I hit the target.
But then his happiness changed to horror because he heard a human scream in pain. He ran there and he saw a Brahmin boy over there. Who was that? Shravan.
So, he said, what wrong did I do to you? You can apologise for small things, but you are killing someone, how can you apologise? What is the meaning of an apology also at that time? So, he said, my parents are blind. No, they are no one except me. They had asked me to get some water.
So, he had come to him and said, at least please go and give them water. Now, when he went there, he gave them water. But people who are, say, not having one sense, they become sharper in other senses.
So, just by his footsteps, they could make out this was not Shravan. So, he says, who are you? And with a heavy heart, Dashrath told the whole story. And Dashrath said, it was completely a mistake.
And he said that you have killed our son. Because he was our everything. And because you made us die in separation from your son.
He cursed you that you will die in separation from your son. Now, here, this was not, they were not being vindictive. They didn’t say that your son will die.
They just said you will be separated from your son. So, they said that you have done some bad karma and you have to get some consequence for that. If they had been vindictive, they said your son will die and that’s how you will be separated.
But what happened? So, Dashrath remembered the story. And he, oh, that curse is coming true. And he told Kaushalya that now, I think the time of my death has come.
She says, no, no, you are healthy. But the hand of destiny was moving. But this understanding, oh, that curse was there, that’s why this happened.
That helped Dashrath to gain some kind of tolerance. Some kind of acceptance. Some kind of closure.
When something bad has happened, as long as we are resenting it. It just, why did this happen? Why did this happen? Why did this happen? That just dissipates our energy. And we hurt ourselves and we can’t move forward.
So, remembering that curse enabled him to gain acceptance. And then that night, when he went to sleep, the next morning, when the bards came to wake him up, he didn’t wake up. He had gone to sleep forever.
In his sleep he departed. So, now here, Dashrath, now this raises 2-3 questions. So, if somebody is cursed, does that mean that everything is preordained? That this is how things are going to happen? And, now, how does all this apply in our lives? So, there are two things.
There is intolerance. Not intolerance, but within tolerance, there are two things, which need to be carefully understood the difference. See, tolerance is accepting reality.
It is not resigning ourselves to reality. Acceptance and resignation are two different things. When we equate or conflate the two, then we feel, how can I accept this? If we think that acceptance is resignation, then we refuse to accept.
And then we hurt ourselves. Or if we equate acceptance with resignation and we do nothing. That is also not desirable.
So, that will be the theme of subsequent discussion. Any questions till now? Yes, ma’am. The destiny is the situation we face in our life and with our limited liberty and free will.
How we face the situation? To accept the situation as it is or how to overcome the situation? Yes. Okay, that is what I am going to discuss in the subsequent talk. So, I will come up to that.
So, now, let’s look at a point that Dashrath, he experienced chaos. When he experienced that chaos, his son went away and his wife turned against him. Now, to go through chaos, to live through chaos, we need some strand of order at least.
And remembering this curse helped him make some sense of things. And that’s how he accepted it. So, now, could we say that this means everything was destined? That Kaikeyi’s change of heart was also destined? That Ram’s going to the forest was also destined? Dashrath’s dying was also destined? What all was destined? No, the curse was basically Dashrath would be separated from Ram and he would die.
Now, how that separation would come about? That can happen in many different ways. This doesn’t justify what Kaikeyi did. Say, A comes and suddenly gives a slap to B. He says, why did you slap me? I just gave you your karma.
What? First of all, how do you know my karma? And who gave you the right to give me my karma? Even if it is. If A goes and slaps B, now it could be that B deserved to be slapped for something. But if A takes the law in one’s own hand and does that, it’s A who gets implicated.
It is sometimes the law of karma. Law of karma, if it is not understood carefully, then very peculiar understandings can come up. So I was in a class in Stanford and before that somebody had spoken in karma.
So after my class, one person asked a question. He said that you Indians, you love cows so much. And you say that if somebody slaughters a cow, then what will happen? What will happen? They will be born as cows and they will be slaughtered.
That means all cows now were cow slaughters in their previous life. So what’s wrong with killing them? That’s a distorted understanding. See, this is a logic, it’s called the error of the antecedent.
Error of the antecedent means A leads to B. If A then B. But that does not mean if B then A. That means if you say, if it rains, the pavement will be wet. So if A then B. So tomorrow morning I go out and I see the pavement is wet. But does that mean it has rained yesterday? Not necessarily.
Maybe there is a leakage and water has come out. Or maybe somebody was watering the grass and some water spilled over. Or maybe somebody was carrying some buckets and water spilled.
So many other causes could be there. Unless we can say that B cannot happen for any reason except A. Then we could say if B then A. So if A then B does not mean if B then A. Similarly, if somebody slaughters cows, then they will be slaughtered. They will become cows.
That means the point here is if A then B. But that does not mean if B then A. That does not mean all cows were cow slaughters. See the point also of karma is that, the point here is that we get the consequences for our actions. And even if we assume for argument’s sake that a cow was a cow slaughterer in the past.
Actually cows are so gentle, it is difficult to imagine them as being cow slaughterers in the past. But even if we assume for argument’s sake, is the cow slaughterer now given the authority by karma to slaughter the cow? No. Who gave them the right to take the law in their own hands? This is called vigilante justice.
Sometimes people take the law in their own hands. And they decide this person is a criminal, I am going to shoot him. Sometimes movies of vigilante justice may become popular.
But in real life if people become vigilantes, the law and order would collapse. So the point here is that we have to understand karma carefully. So yes, because of that mistake that happened from Dashrath, he was supposed to die in separation from Ram.
But that doesn’t mean that what Kaikeyi did was right. What Kaikeyi did was still wrong. But destiny’s plan is so expert that destiny can use even people’s misdeeds to further its own plan.
But when they do a misdeed, it is destiny which is acting through them. Prabhupada would sometimes talk about how in the communist countries there was a sustained campaign against atheism. In fact we all hear about the first world war, second world war.
But in the communist countries, more than a hundred million people were killed. The government itself killed its own citizens. So more than any religious violence and terrorism, now more than World War I and World War II, communism was official atheism.
So people say religion causes violence, but the history shows that atheism has caused far greater violence. Of course we can say that it’s neither religion nor atheism that causes violence. It’s people who cause violence.
But people can use religion to justify violence, people can use atheism to justify violence. But the historical record says that when there is atheism, people can and have caused far greater death and destruction. So what these communists would do is that they would take all the bread, all the food to themselves.
Government would snatch all the produce. So even if you have your own field and you have grains over there, you cannot eat those grains. The government will come and take all the grains and the government will decide how many grains, how many grains your family needs.
And the government will provide you that much. So then what happened is that they would go to the church, there was still some religion was there, they said, why are you going to church? We are going to pray to God. What are you going to pray? Christians have that standard prayer, O father, thou art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, give us our daily bread.
Now Prabhupada said, this prayer shows your love for bread, not your love for God. It’s okay, at least we are going, having enough faith in God that we are going to God for that. But anyway, they would go there, okay, pray.
And then they would come out and they would say that, okay, so did you get your bread? He says, no. Okay, now you pray to us. Please give us our bread.
And they would have truckloads of bread ready. And they would give it. See, so who fulfilled your need? God or me? Oh, you fulfilled.
Therefore, there is no God for us. So Prabhupada said that, and this was short-sightedness, that actually if we consider, the point I was making is destiny can act in various ways. So the same God whom they went into church and prayed to, that God fulfilled that prayer through the communists.
So sometimes something that is meant to happen can happen through people who have no intention for doing something, being a part of something higher, or being a part of something higher. So, although Kaikeyi did this, Dashrath was still responsible. Sorry, Kaikeyi was still responsible.
Although Kaikeyi was giving Dashrath’s, in a sense, karma to him. But she didn’t have to do that. It could have happened some other way.
Maybe Ram went to the forest for something and that time Dashrath died. He would have died in separation. It could have happened in many different ways.
But Dashrath was able to accept. See, generally if somebody has hurt us, then the resentment against them, the sense of betrayal, the sense of hurt, it can become a big burden on us. So, it was not that Dashrath completely forgave Kaikeyi.
She had still longed him, but he did not have that enormous negativity against her. So he was able to accept what happened and he was able to depart from the world gracefully. Generally, there are different ways to die.
When somebody dies in their sleep, we can say, at least to our vision, the death is not very violent, not very painful. He just departed. And because he was so closely related to Ram, devoted to Ram, obviously he was elevated.
So for all of us, sometimes when we get this chaos, Dashrath was able to make sense of the chaos by remembering the story. Now what do we do? I said, we will talk about the difference between accepting and resigning. So, whenever things go out of control, whenever a lot goes out of control, we have two choices.
One is keep fighting against the thing that has gone out of control, the thing that has changed terribly. And sometimes it’s just irrevocable. Can’t do anything about it.
The other is, we accept what has happened and then focus on what we can do. So, acceptance is acceptance and resignation. The main difference is, in resignation, we think, nothing is in my control and I give up.
Acceptance is where we accept this can’t be changed. So then, what can I do? What can I do? So, broadly speaking, if we consider Indian civilisation or Eastern civilisation versus Western civilisation. Western civilisation has always focused more on changing things.
Something has gone wrong, change it, fix it, fix it, fix it. Eastern civilisation has been more accepting. It’s happened, accept it now.
Now, both can be taken towards extreme. We all need to change things. We live at the tension between chaos and order and chaos.
So, if we try to manage the chaos too much, control the chaos too much, change this, change this, change this, change this, then what happens? There is no stability. We keep trying to change and then the structure gets lost. Because structure can be established only based on the things that are in our control.
Things that are out of our control, we can’t have order over there. So, too much trying to change leads to instability. That’s why we see in the Western culture, whenever people come to an uncomfortable situation, just change.
So, relationships have very less stability. In fact, nowadays, if you consider marriage, many people don’t even get married. Because they just don’t want any commitments.
So, then the family is the most fundamental structure underlying society. But we can’t accept, sometimes people are not the way I want them to be, not the way I expected them to be. But still, let’s move on with life.
But when that inability to accept change is there, then finish this off, give it up. Now, of course, you can go to the other extreme and sometimes, if we just make acceptance into a fetish, then even if somebody is being abusive, even if somebody is being excessive in their actions, we might just passively accept it. So, in a sense, one reason why invaders were able to conquer and rule India was because the Kshatriyas were quite in this mood of changing things.
But the people in general just accepted. Whoever is a ruler, we will pay taxes to them. That’s how a few thousand Britishers were able to rule millions of Indians.
Because Indians did not have that mood of revolution. Now, whether that is good or bad, some people say it’s bad, Indians are always passive. But it’s not that Indians are passive.
Indian culture is probably the only civilisation from ancient times that has been surviving. Because the Chinese is also surviving. But modern China is very, very different from ancient China.
Modern India is also very different. But still there is a lot of similarity. Otherwise, if you consider Mesopotamian civilisation or Mayan civilisation or so many other civilisations, none of them are actually there now.
So, there is a resilience that comes by the capacity for acceptance. So, for Dashrath, he was able to accept by remembering that curse. For all of us, how do we accept? We understand that we don’t know what destiny holds in future for us.
We don’t know what the future holds. But we can know who holds the future. We can’t know what the future holds.
But we can know who holds the future. Who holds the future? Krishna, the Lord. So, beyond our order and the order that we are trying to have and the chaos that is coming in our lives, Krishna exists beyond all this.
The Bhagavad Gita says that there is cause and effect in this world. Krishna exists beyond the cause and effect. So, through the order that we maintain in our life, through the chaos that comes up in our life, through both, Krishna remains in control.
And Krishna is expert enough to bring good even out of the bad. For Dashrath, the good that came was that he, although he died, he died completely absorbed in the remembrance of Ram. And that, although the situation was painful, the disposition was completely absorbed.
And that’s why, in a sense, it was auspicious. And because Ram went away, that’s how he was able to combat the demons and he was able to rid the earth of the Rakshasas. So, although Kaikeyi’s actions were bad, by the law of the arrangement, good came out of it.
So, when we practise bhakti, it is not just about doing some ritual, coming to some satsang or chanting some japa or doing some puja. All these are, of course, important. But the purpose of all these is to help us connect with Krishna, to make our shelter in Krishna.
If our shelter is in the order that we have established in our life, if our shelter is in the job that we have, in the skills that we have, in the bank balance that we have, if these are our shelter, that order can go away at any time. That doesn’t mean this order is unimportant. Practically, it is extremely important.
But we understand that we alone are not the sustainers of this order. It is Krishna who has given us some abilities and with those abilities we are able to sustain that order. And even if that order we can’t sustain, Krishna still remains in control.
So, if we use whatever order we have to connect with Krishna, then whenever chaos comes in our life and the order that we have created is disrupted, we won’t become overwhelmed by that. Certainly, it will be a disturbance. But disturbance is one thing and devastation is another thing.
We won’t become so disheartened that we will become devastated. So, sometimes order can be a good foundation by which you can connect with Krishna. That means, when things are going on more or less well in our life, then we can go regular temple, we can do bhakti.
But sometimes, order can become an enemy of bhakti. Because what happens when there is order, we think, things are fine. When I started practising bhakti about 20-25 years ago, I was talking with one of my uncles.
He was talking about God. He said, I believe in God. He says, he is happy there, I am happy here.
So, okay, you are happy here, but for how long? So, if our order makes us complacent, then sometimes disorder will come up. Chaos will come. Hey, I am not happy here, what’s happening? So, we try to maintain order, but we shouldn’t make our devotion dependent on the order.
Devotion is what I want to practise, whether there is order or there is no order. And sometimes the disruption of the order may intensify our devotion. The presence of order may make us complacent.
Things go wrong. Oh, Krishna, I need your help. Please help me.
That’s when we pray to Krishna. Now, this doesn’t mean that disruption of order itself is desirable. Prabhupada das, in the 1970s, at that time, it seemed that the world was on the brink of a third world war.
So, Prabhupada das, if a third world war happens, will all that death and destruction make people more devoted? He said, no. Death and destruction are always there in the world. He said, they may not be as sudden as if a war happens.
Devotion grows when people consciously turn toward God. Now, destruction might temporarily impel them toward God. So, sometimes chaos can impel people toward God.
But if there is constant chaos, then that also saps the spirit of people. Say, for example, yesterday on Nirjali Kardeshi. And those of us who fasted, probably we chanted much more intensely than usual.
Now, if somebody says that, hey, you know, you chanted so nicely on Nirjali Kardeshi. Let’s do everyday Nirjali. Then we’ll stop chanting on Nirjali.
So, too much disorder is also not desirable. So, it’s neither order nor disorder, it’s neither order nor chaos that actually takes us toward Krishna. It is our intention, our decision, our choice that takes us toward Krishna.
And if we have that intention to connect with Krishna, then through order we’ll connect with him and through chaos also we’ll connect with him. And that will move steadily forward. So, connecting with Krishna is not just about transcending the world.
Connecting with Krishna also gives us calmness, it gives us clarity, it gives us confidence. And then what we can do, we will be able to do. So, connecting with Krishna helps us to accept, not to resign.
Because once we accept, okay, this I can’t change, but what can I do in this situation? How can I serve Krishna in this situation? And then we start, okay, this I can do, this I can do, this I can do. And then we’ll be able to move forward. Krishna says, I will give you the intelligence by which you can come to me.
So, by connecting with Krishna, through order and through chaos, we will be able to move forward in our life. Because through that connection will be our supreme order. And that will help us.
See, Dashrath found that strand of order by remembering that curse. Now, we may or may not find that kind of explanation when some chaos comes in our life. But if we have that connection with Krishna, this is one anchor that doesn’t shake.
This is a rock on which I can have my foundation. Then we can move forward. And we can grow through order and we can grow through chaos, both.
And ultimately, by doing like this, we become increasingly devoted to Krishna. We become absorbed in Krishna. And ultimately, we attain Krishna’s abode, which is Vaikuntha.
Vaikuntha. Vaikuntha means anxiety. The anxiety comes because the order may go away any time.
The chaos may come upon us any time. But when we attain Vaikuntha, then Krishna’s order is there. The order is there in our hearts.
And we live joyfully there. So, I’ll summarise. I spoke today on the topic of managing order and chaos.
And we looked at Dashrath’s story. So, first I started by talking about how in our life we need structure. But we also need adventure.
If it’s only structure, if somebody tells you just whole day watch what you did yesterday. Become boring, predictable and unbearable after some time. So, on the other hand, if everything is disorderly, then we won’t be able to function at all.
So, we need order. Order is the sort of thing that are in our control. And chaos is the sort of thing that are not in our control.
And we live at the junction between the two. We live at the tension. So, if our order is in our job, we might go to office and find the office itself is not there.
What do you do at that time? So, how to deal with life when chaos suddenly descends upon us? That is what scriptures teach us through their narratives. I talked about people may say, atheists may say, everything is religious stuff is old fashioned and useless. But nature is efficient.
It only lets those things which are useful survive. Other things get eliminated. So, people in the past lived much tougher lives than us.
So, they still wrote and remembered and preserved these stories because they served some purpose. And the purpose that they served was, these stories offered them guidelines about how to live in the world. How to live in the world means, how to manage, how to live at the tension of order and chaos.
And then I talked about Dashrath’s story, how suddenly things change for him. His wife Kaikeyi just turned against him. And then for Ram to suddenly go out of the kingdom was like losing everything except his life.
For Dashrath it was even more mortifying because he was seen as the cause of all this. So, how could he accept it? He just couldn’t till he remembered that he had been cursed because of his accidentally killing Shiravan. And that helped him to gain acceptance.
Now, we discussed that although this curse was coming, that doesn’t mean that Kaikeyi was not responsible. Our karma may come upon us through anyone. But that doesn’t mean that person is simply being a via medium for the karma.
That person has their own desires, agendas. And they are responsible for those. We talked about how we should not twist the logic.
Those who slaughter cows will be slaughtered. That doesn’t mean the cows are cow slaughterers. We talked about the error of the antecedent.
If A then B doesn’t mean if B then A. And so then he was able to accept this and then he departed peacefully. Remembering the Lord and in separation from him. So, in conclusion I discussed about how for all of us destiny means that the order that we have established, it might get disrupted any time.
So, by destiny our birth, our colour, our skin colour, so many things are determined which we can’t change. But still within this order there is some opportunity for us to create something new. To create a better life for ourselves.
And if we do not accept that which is unchangeable, then we dissipate our energy and resentment. Accepting is not resigning. Resigning means nothing is in my hands.
Accepting means this is not in my hands, what is in my hands, let me focus on that. And the way we can do that is by recognising that beyond order and beyond chaos there is Supreme Lord. And our shelter comes, our shelter needs to come not from the order that we have established in our world, but through our connection with Krishna.
Bhakti is not meant to be just ritualistic. Bhakti is meant to make our consciousness spiritual. Connect us with Krishna.
And then when we have that connection, basic level of order can help us to connect with Krishna. But if the order makes us complacent, then disorder, chaos can help us intensify our connection with Krishna. But too much disorder, if it is there, that can make us so insecure and life so unbearable that again we can’t connect with Krishna.
So, sometimes the disorder will be more in our lives, sometimes the order will be more in our lives. But we, in Indian civilisations, in Eastern civilisations, accept whatever disorder is there, just continue with your life. In the Western civilisation, the idea is, if there is any disorder, change that.
But then disorder keeps coming in many ways. In Indian civilisation, passivity that might come to take it to an extreme level. And say in relationships, people might accept you and abuse.
But they are going to the other extreme, anything doesn’t work, just change it. That will lead to lack of stability, lack of commitment and there will be no social foundation of a family left also. So, we need a balance.
And if we focus on connecting with Krishna, then we will get the intelligence from within of how to maintain the order and how to deal with the chaos. And through order and through chaos, both we will move towards Krishna. And ultimately we will attain His abode where we will be free forever from chaos.
In our loving harmony with Him forever. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
So, any questions or comments? Yes. Thank you very much for a nice talk. So, you were saying that when somebody does something, he is just being an instrument of fate or an instrument of destiny.
But you also said that he may have some motive. So, with a motive, how can they be a pure instrument? I said they are not a pure instrument. So, when something happens to us, somebody does something to us.
If they have their own intention, then how are they instruments of our karma? That’s why I said God can use things which even people’s bad actions they can also use. Like the communist side of the example. God used them to fulfil the need for bread for the peasants.
So, now if they are doing something wrong, then we have to decide using our intelligence how to respond. So, when Ram was exiled to the forest, at that time he accepted that as destiny. But when Sita was abducted by Ravana, Ram did not accept that as destiny.
Ram fought a war to get Sita back. So, the point is that in different situations, we may have to respond differently. And the basis for that response is what is our purpose.
Tomorrow I will be talking elaborately about this, about how to respond differently in different situations. But I can mention this briefly that broadly speaking whenever we face some unpleasant situation, difficult situation, we have three options. I call it as tolerate, mitigate or immigrate.
Just accept the situation, tolerate it. Mitigate is work to change the situation. Immigrate is too messy, I will just leave it.
Now all three are valid approaches depending on what is our purpose. Purpose means we all have certain things important in our life. Say a simple example could be if we are travelling in a local train.
Say in India we have these metro trains. In Mumbai the capacity of the bogie might be 50 and there are 300 people over there. So we are squeezed and in every group of people, there are some people who are bullies.
Suppose we are standing and there is a person next to us who starts pushing us. And suppose you think you are so strong, I will show you how strong I am. And we push them back.
And they push us back. And we get so caught in pushing each other that our station comes and goes. And we are still pushing.
So there you could say that it’s a small thing, it’s a short journey, just tolerate it. If you want to push, I will just move somewhere aside. So there it’s a small thing, just tolerate it.
But suppose that person starts pushing us out of the train itself. Then you can’t tolerate it. Because what is happening is, the small thing is where we stand in the train.
The big thing is we get to the destination. So if somebody starts interfering with the big thing that we are doing itself, then tolerance will not work. So what happens for most people, what is a small thing and what is a big thing, they are not clear.
And if we have nothing to fight, if we don’t have anything to fight for, it’s not that we will stop fighting. If we don’t have anything to fight for, we will fight for anything. So small things become big.
I was in Canada, I was staying at the house of a devotee, whose wife, Hare Krishna, chaos. Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna. So his wife is a family lawyer.
Actually this devotee, he has his own business. But he also does, he also does Vivaha Yagya, he is a priest. So he was telling that we are a complete package.
You come to Viva marriage, you go to my wife for divorce. So I was talking with that Vataji and she said that people come to me for such trivial reasons. He said that there is one lady who came to me, Canadian lady, and she said that, you know, I want to separate.
He says, why? He said, you know, I went into my restroom today and I saw that my husband had used my toothpaste without my permission. I said, are you serious? He said, yes. She said, I cannot take that case, you go to someone else.
Now, the point is that if we don’t have anything big, we don’t have a big thing, then the mind can make a small thing also very big. That’s why we all need to have something big, something important in our lives. Then we can keep small things small.
So if that happens, then okay, if that person is pushing us out of the train itself, then we might have to mitigate. Now, how do we mitigate? We might just call out to other people. This person is troubling me.
We might call the TC or someone. Or we find that everybody around seems to be supporting that person. So maybe there’s a gang over there.
Then we might decide, I’ll just go to some other coach and go. So immigrate. So all three can be done with a negative attitude.
Or all three can be done with a positive purpose. So if we have the purpose clear, then we will understand. What should I do? Small thing, keep it small.
It’s a big thing. I have to do something about it. Any other questions? Your question was answered, I think.
Yes, somewhat answered. Somewhat? Yeah. Okay, tomorrow we’ll talk more about that.
Dealing with discouragement. Yes, sir. We often find that people are confused with the fact that what is destiny? And an example of that, sometimes we hear people say, oh, I come to the temple.
It’s not my destiny that I should come now. When my destiny is right, I will come to the temple. Okay.
So what is destiny and what is free will? If somebody says, we invite them to the temple and they say that. It’s my destiny is not there to come to the temple. My time has not yet come.
Well, see destiny determines our situations. It doesn’t determine our actions. In every situation, there’s always something in our control.
So, can we say that I am destined not to come to the temple right now? Well, not exactly. We always have free will and by our free will we can come to the temple anytime. More often than not, this is just an excuse used to not come to a temple.
We just turn it around. Okay. Can you invite them to a temple? Can you come tomorrow evening? He says, no.
Why? Okay. Where are you going? Oh, I’m going to, maybe I’m going to this party. Maybe it’s not your destiny to go to that party.
You won’t think like that. If you want to go to the party, you won’t let the idea of destiny come in the way for that. So, now this Cricket World Cup is going on.
And then, there are people who go from all over the world to UK to watch cricket matches. So, I was talking with a devotee in London. He was telling me that his friend came from India.
And I think yesterday there was a match which was washed away or something like that. So, he said he had bought the ticket in black. And now, if the match is washed off, then whoever has bought the ticket, the cricket club will refund them.
But, you know, he had bought it. I was shocked. I was like, something like, he bought the ticket for 50,000 rupees or 75,000 rupees, something like that.
The ticket cost was more than the cost to come to America. Cost to come to UK. So, it was crazy.
And he said, I’ll probably get nothing back. So, you know, there, sometimes you might go there also, it might not be your destiny. So, you go for the cricket match, but you can’t watch the match.
But the point is that we don’t use the idea of destiny to not do the things which we want to do. Isn’t it? So, if somebody is saying it’s not my destiny to go to the temple, let’s be honest. You don’t want to come to the temple.
That doesn’t make you necessarily a bad person. But don’t use such rationalisations. You need to rationalise.
What is the spelling of rationalise? You can have a different spelling. R-A-T-I-O-N-A-L-L-I-E-S. Rationalise.
So, when we rationalise, we give rational lies. So, now having said that, it is also true that people may need to go through certain situations before they realise that, okay, this is coming to exploring life’s spiritual side is also important for me. So, if that is the case, then if somebody is like that, they don’t want to come, then we can just maintain a cordial relationship with them.
And sometimes when life is like a school of hard knocks, and sometimes when they get some serious knock, at that time they might come. So, if somebody is not ready to come, we don’t have to condemn them. Best not, they don’t use the rationalisation.
Okay, if you are not interested, it’s okay. But if they feel at the end of the interaction that they just met a nice person, they feel the devotees are nice people, then later on, when they feel the need to explore something spiritual, then they will come to a devotee, they will come to Krishna. But sometimes what we do is, just as people can abuse philosophy to not come to a temple, we can also abuse philosophy to condemn them.
So, we open the door for people to come to Krishna. And if they say they are not going to come, just bang the door in their face. You are an envious person.
You are a soul who is going to suffer in material existence. You are going to go to hell. Hopefully, we won’t say something like that.
But we just open the door, and if they don’t come in, it’s fine. Leave it open for them. Whenever they want, they can come.
But destiny doesn’t determine our actions. It determines only the situations that we face. Any other questions? So, we have a choice to choose the situation or we have a choice to face the situation? That’s what I said.
Tolerate, mitigate, immigrate is, what do you do with the situation? Either you face the situation and live with it, you face the situation and change it. So, that is our free will? That’s of course our free will. Face and change the situation or walk away from the situation.
That’s the choice we have. That’s our free will. Yes, there’s a question here somewhere.
Usually in Krishna Consciousness, we are talking about birth, death, old age and disease. These are the four most chaotic factors. Birth, death, old age and disease.
But sometimes when we put this forward, people don’t accept this chaos. They are saying, life is quite good. You people are negative.
So, can we sometimes be talking too much about chaos and so that’s why people are not attracted to Krishna Consciousness? Because they feel that we are talking too much about chaos. That’s possible. That sometimes if we tell to people about old age, disease, death, and they feel we are always being too negative and they don’t take up Krishna Consciousness.
So, we have to find out that, say, if a person is here and Krishna is here. Now, two things we need to try to, when talking with people, try to understand what will get them to come towards Krishna and what will keep them from coming to Krishna. And that will vary from person to person.
So, depending on whom we are interacting with, we need to customise the presentation. I find that talking about old age, disease, death, it just doesn’t make sense to most people. Because at least the media creates the illusion that life is comfortable.
Most people feel that life is comfortable. Somehow just my life is not comfortable. But I just adjust this, do that adjustment, my life will also become comfortable.
So, the whole culture of comfort and enjoyment that is depicted through the media, it makes people disinclined for any radical change of lifestyle. They think, I just make some material improvement, then I’ll be happy. So, what we can do is, one thing which I find very universally applicable is to talk about mind and problems related with the mind.
In fact, if you tell people you are not the body, people are just not interested. One of my friends was a teacher in Russia, he told me, he gave a class, which he told, you are not your body. Then one person asked a question, if I am not my body, then whose body am I? So, I am convinced that I am the body.
So, then am I somebody else’s body? What is going on? So, for people to, they just can’t understand it because there is so much in bodily conception or they feel it is too abstract and philosophical. So, what I find is, if you help people understand you are not your mind, that everybody wants to understand because the mind troubles everyone. So, the standard example I give in my talks with new people, companies or colleges or wherever is that, the metaphor of the computer.
The car body metaphor also doesn’t seem so relevant to people now. The computer metaphor is that, the computer is the hardware, software and user. So, like that there is the body, there is the mind and there is the soul.
The mind is like the software, the body is like the hardware, the soul is the user. And just as if the software gets corrupted, you can’t use the hardware. Similarly, if our mind becomes filled with negativity, with stress, with depression, with worry, then we can’t function properly.
Everybody can feel their mind is often sometimes filled with negativities. So, now what is happening over here, that people, if they understand, at least consider this model. I don’t even say this is what the reality is.
In corporate seminars I say, the yoga texts offer us a model of the self, which can help us make sense of our own experience life, the way we experience life. So, then we present it that way. If people accept that they are not the mind, then they have already accepted they are not the body.
So, that has come automatically. So, in fact, there was an article in the New York Times about how in the churches in America have rebranded themselves. That the whole idea was that God is a cosmic provider.
It was told that God in heaven, give us our daily bread. Now, in the Western world, people are not worried about bread. If they are worried, they are worried about butter.
So, depicting God as the cosmic provider, I don’t need anything. I have my own ways to provide or my government will provide me. Many of the Western countries are welfare states.
So, then the churches have rebranded God not as the cosmic provider, but as the cosmic therapist. That when you have trouble with the mind, then you go to God and the wisdom from God, the devotion to God will help you to heal yourself internally. And many people are attracted by that.
So, the point I am making is, if we appear too negative to people, then better change that approach. And so understand what will get them toward Krishna and what will keep them from Krishna. And then present the appropriate aspect of Krishna consciousness to them.
Thank you. Any other questions? Could Duryodhana have surprised Krishna? Could he have accepted Krishna’s peace proposal and prevented the war? Yes, definitely. He had that free will.
And that’s why everybody gave that counsel to him. This concept of destiny is also very interesting. Actually, this is, I have a whole three-part seminar on this, but it’s a good point you brought up.
Before the Kurukshetra war begins, in fact, even before Krishna comes as the Shantidut, at that time Vyasadeva has come to meet Dhritarashtra. And Vyasadeva is also trying to persuade him, stop your son, otherwise the whole Kuru dynasty will be destroyed. And at that time, Dhritarashtra says, if it’s destiny that our dynasty will be destroyed, what can I do? So Vyasadeva becomes very grim.
Actually, he makes the same argument to Vyasadeva as well as Vidura. So Vidura is more cutting. So Vidura says, OK, destiny determines the consequences of our actions, not our actions themselves.
It’s something if you want, anybody asks you what is destiny and what is free will, you can tell this. Destiny determines the consequences of our actions, not our actions themselves. If a student studies for the exam and studies nicely and still somehow, because the competition is too high over there and doesn’t get into a particular university, doesn’t get a very good rank, that is destiny.
The student doesn’t study for the exam itself. That is not destiny. That is irresponsibility.
So the point is that, now Vyasadeva also says, he asks, is this war destiny? And Vyasadeva becomes very grim. He realises the ways of destiny are very difficult to understand. OK, we can only do our duty.
Ponder what is your duty in this situation and do that. After the Kurukshetra war, Dhritarashtra is immensely distressed. He is sinking in an ocean of lamentation.
And at that time Vyasadeva again comes back. And Vyasadeva says at that time that, OK, do not lament. This war was destined.
Now what does it mean? Now was the war destined or was the war not destined? The point is that philosophy has to be understood in the light of the purpose of the philosophy. Philosophy doesn’t just exist in the air in isolation. Philosophy has a purpose.
And that purpose ultimately is to inspire us to practise dharma. Inspire us to live virtuously. So how philosophy can be distorted? Say we could say that when we suffer, it’s because of our past life karma.
OK, that’s OK. Say if there is a newborn baby and the baby is crying. And if the baby is crying, the mother will immediately rush to pacify the baby.
If the baby is crying because of past karma, let her cry. That would be ridiculous, isn’t it? So when we can do something to avoid something painful, we should do it. So the mother should be thinking at that time, what is my dharma? So my dharma is to take care of my baby.
But sometimes it may happen that despite the best efforts of the mother, of the parents, of the doctors, the baby might have some painful disease. And the baby might cry because of that. Now even if we try, we can’t do anything to stop that crying.
So then, when something is unacceptable, this is destiny. So before the Kurukshetra war, the Dhrashtra was told like this, that what is your duty? Contemplate that. And at that time his duty, he was the acting king.
So he should have put his foot down and stopped Duryodhana. But unfortunately he didn’t. Now after the war is over, now there is no use beating oneself up.
Why did this war happen? Why did I lose all my sons? Just accept that it was destiny. Now focus on my duty. Now his duty is that chapter of his life is over where he was so attached, irrationally to his sons, especially Duryodhana.
Now close that chapter and move forward in your life. So philosophy has to be understood in light of the purpose of the philosophy. That’s why I said earlier also, when Ram was exiled to the forest, he accepted that as destiny.
But when Sita was abducted, he didn’t accept it as destiny. Because his focus was on his duty, on dharma. He says, my dharma in the first case was to obey my father.
So to obey my father, if he wants me, I will ascend the throne. But to obey my father, if he wants me to go to the forest, I will go to the forest. So his focus was not on destiny.
His focus was that in doing his duty, the knowledge of destiny can help him. So now why should I go to the forest? That’s destiny. But his focus was not because of destiny I am accepting it.
This is the duty that I should do. I could have done that duty but why am I told to do this duty of going to the forest? That’s destiny. But when Sita was abducted, at that time, he couldn’t say, what is my duty? She is my wife, I have to protect her.
So he focused on the duty at that time. So similarly, with respect to Duryodhana, certainly he had the capacity to choose wisely. And he could have chosen.
Now even if he is destined to die, he might have died in some other way. The horrifying war which killed so many people wouldn’t have happened. So he definitely had the freedom.
Thank you. So we’ll stop here. Thank you very much.
Prabhupada Ki Jai. Gaur Bhakta Vrindaki Jai. Gaur Premanandai Jai.