How to transform our heart 1 – Vritrasura’s dramatic transformation

[Bhagavatam class at Charlotte, USA]

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
How the heart gets transformed at some dramatic moments in life.
Broadly, what I will focus on is the theme of that Vritrasura was a demon in the life in which he was fighting against the Devatas. And suddenly, he transforms into a person who is singing exalted prayers, glorifying the Lord and even welcoming death, longing for death at one level, we could say. So, we all on the spiritual path want to transform ourselves.
And how does transformation take place? So, I will talk about this in three parts. First, we will talk a little bit about the story of Vritrasura. Then there I will talk about some essence about how the transformation happened in his life.
And then I will talk about how this happens, this we can induce in our own lives. The story of Vritrasura is told in the sixth canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam. And there it is described that Vritrasura was a very powerful demon.
The name itself, Vritra, means that he was a demon who was covering all of space. He was covering the sky, in fact. Vritra, A-Vritra.
It’s the same word, Vritra. Asura means a demon. And when many of the soldiers on the demigod side saw him coming, just the sight of his massive form alarmed and scared them.
And they started fleeing. We see this, something similar in the Ramayana also. When Kumbhakarna appears for the first time, actually most of the Lanka is surrounded by walls.
And the warriors from Ravana’s side, there are various gates of Lanka which they open and come out. But when Kumbhakarna has to come out, he doesn’t come out from a gate. He just climbs over the wall.
And it’s interesting, at that time, when seeing his huge form, the Vanaras get alarmed. And their mouths drop open in horror seeing his huge form. At that time, what does he do? Vibhishan immediately goes to Ram and he tells them, this demon, he is my… So Ram, even Ram looks at him and Ram asks, who is this? What is this? And Vibhishan says, that is my brother.
So then, at that time, seeing how much panic has been caused in the ranks of the Vanaras, just by the sight of this huge demon, Vibhishan suggests something interesting. He says that, oh Ram, you can tell the Vanaras that this is simply a mechanical contraption. That this is simply a machine.
Now it’s interesting that he uses the word that this is simply a mechanical contraption or a machine. And today we may see, there may be, there was past movies like Terminator or others where there were robotic beings or Frankenstein monsters. So now generally the idea is, these robotic beings, they don’t have emotions.
And what is the point of saying that this is simply a machine? See generally, we are all we are all driven for especially aggressive actions. Say like war by our emotions. If the emotions can work for us, the emotions can work against us.
If somebody is very patriotic, then that may inspire them to be dedicated to fighting for their country. But on the other hand, it is also said that patriotism and discipline can work in opposite directions. Because when somebody is patriotic, they may feel that they have to do something heroic for the service of the nation.
And they may just go impulsively into a war in an attempt to do something heroic. And discipline requires, yes, the soldiers have to have love for their country. But they can’t just be sentimental and emotional while fighting for the country.
One has to be cold-blooded. So the point is, especially if somebody looks very dangerous, then if they look very huge and they are also very angry, then the size and the emotion both coupled together can make them an unbeatable combination. So then when he says, actually this is just a mechanical contraption, that means there are no emotions involved.
That means there is no real anger or something like that. So then they will not be so fearsome. If a computer, if we, sometimes we have a computer which gives some greetings.
Now people, now you, many of us may have, we may have Google Home or we may have something like that from Amazon, which maybe we can programme in such a way that every night when we sleep, it may say, happy dreams. Now a person telling us happy dreams is very different from a device telling us happy dreams. So basically when something doesn’t have emotions, we don’t take it that seriously.
So we will see, why I gave this backdrop is, that we will try to see what were Vitrasur’s emotions while he was fighting this war and how did those emotions change. All of us have what we can call a conscious memory, a subconscious memory and an unconscious memory. So that means, broadly these are the aspects of our mind rather than memory we can say.
So conscious memory is what we are aware of at the present moment. And then, so we can, a chetan, there is chetan, a chetan and our chetan. In Sanskrit if you want to use the words.
What this essentially means is that when we are going through our life, if we look at our computer say, on a computer on the monitor, one particular file is open. By the same time, there are many other files which are present there but they are not open. If we search for them, we will find them.
And there are also the files in a computer, some files which are hidden. If somebody is not an admin for a computer, then some files may be hidden from them. So the hidden files will require certain special circumstances to access.
The files which are not open, if we search for them appropriately, we will access them. So we could say the conscious part of our mind is like the file open in the computer. So right now, whatever we are conscious of, that is where our consciousness as energy is focused on.
So the word consciousness can refer to two different things. It can refer to the territory of our inner world and it can also refer to the observer of that territory. That means when we say my consciousness is going down now, that means the observer of the territory, inner territory, is feeling depressed, is feeling lonely, is feeling disheartened or is feeling sensual, is feeling materialistic.
So my consciousness is going down. Here we are talking about the inner seer. On the other hand, we can also talk about the inner terrain.
The consciousness is filled with different kinds of impressions. When we say consciousness is filled with impressions, what does that mean? That means we are referring to the inner territory as such. So another way to understand this is that we can say that if we are in a room and we have a torch with which we can look up, down or left, right, wherever.
So whatever is the focus of the torch, that is what is seen if the room is dark. So the consciousness is at one level like the torch. The torch ray of light moves forward and whatever it goes towards, that is what we become conscious of.
But in the room there may be many other things. There might be a trapdoor below and there might be things under the room also which are not at all visible at that point. Even if we direct the torch downwards, pick up the trapdoor, only then we will see it.
So the point I am making through all this, this might seem a little too philosophical and unrelated to the past life of Vitrasur, but the point I am making here is that Vitrasur, how did his transformation so suddenly and dramatically happen? To understand this, we have to look at how our consciousness works and how it has multiple layers. So at the conscious layers, for example, all of us, we are conscious of certain things right now and there are some things which we could say are in our subconsciousness. That means we may be aware, while we are hearing the Bhagavatam, trying to make sense of what is being spoken, this month is Kartik.
It just started now. It’s a very sacred month. Or we may be aware that, okay, I am in America right now.
We may be aware that, okay, I am so and so person. There is so much in the background awareness that is there which we are not even aware that we are aware. Say for example, all of us have learned language.
Now, right now, say if I use certain words, if I use the word language, I use the word aware. Now, I don’t remember when I learned this word. I know what the word means and I use the word.
But how I learned to use that word, that is not there in my memory. So there is much that we use at a conscious level which is drawn from the subconscious, but which we are not aware of. The way we behave with people, the way we look at them, the way we talk with them, the amount of distance we keep with them when we are talking with them, all these are not conscious choices.
But they are all determined by the subconscious culture, subconscious nature that we have acquired over a period of time. And beyond the subconscious, so subconscious means that which we can become aware of if we direct our consciousness that way. We take it for granted.
We don’t direct it that way. When I come to America, when I talk with people, talk with Indians also, to some extent, I can infer whether somebody is born in America or born in India by the accent that they use. Or somebody has been for a long time in America or a few years in America.
Now, they use that accent. When I tell that, when I mention that to them, oh, were you born in America? They say, oh, yes or no. Then I mention about the accent.
For them, it’s just a given fact. They don’t think about it so much. But somebody else, if their consciousness goes over there, they can become aware of it.
So the point I’m making about is what is in the subconscious requires conscious attention to detect. But beyond the subconscious is what is unconscious. And that is normally not detected at all.
It’s only when some extraordinary circumstance comes up that that will be detected. If we consider the ocean, in the ocean, often it’s said that there’s an iceberg. So a small part of it is above and a huge part of it is below.
Similarly for us, our conscious aspect or conscious mind is only a small part of our total inner world. When I’m using the word conscious mind or conscious, subconscious and unconscious levels, we are not just referring to the mind as one element of the three elements in the inner world. Mind, intelligence and ego.
Here the mind is used in a broad sense to refer to our inner world. That means the entire subtle body and the consciousness as it is streamed into the subtle body. So Vritrasura in this life was a demon.
And he was not just a demon, he was the king of demons. And his mission in life was to destroy the king of the gods. That was the specific purpose for which he had been born by the yajna that his father had performed.
So now, so when he appeared at a conscious level, his mission was clear. He attacked the devatas and his purpose was to get to Indra and kill Indra. He was motivated by this, his actions were clearly that of a demon.
Attacking the devatas and disrupting and even destroying them. At a subconscious level, so going back to, at an unconscious level however, at the deepest level, he had impressions from his previous life. And in his previous life he had been the great devotee Chitra Ketu.
So if we consider an ocean, in an ocean we see the waves moving in different directions. So on the surface, if we are in one part of the ocean, we see the waves are moving in one particular direction. And in another side of the ocean the waves may be moving in another direction.
And if we consider that the waves are basically a body of water that is moving, then we can understand that these are different currents. So at different parts the currents may be moving in different directions. Now if we consider a situation where on the surface the water is moving in one direction, deep below the surface, the ocean can be hugely deep, deep below the surface usually the water doesn’t move as fast as the water on the surface moves because it’s often the wind that causes the water to move.
But suppose there were a current below the surface and the current there were moving in an opposite direction. Then if that current below is becoming bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, then eventually when the current below it surfaces, it breaks to the surface, then the river, the ocean water which is moving in one direction till a particular point suddenly starts moving in another direction. So if the current above is very strong, then people will not even know that there is any current below.
But if the current below becomes very strong and breaks to the surface, that’s when it becomes manifest. People only at that time they come to know there was a current. So for all of us, we could say that there are like this multiple currents going on in our consciousness.
So for example, all of us want to practise bhakti. That may be a deep rooted inspiration conviction within us. But sometimes some impulses come up within us and we tend to act in non-devotional or even anti-devotional ways.
So that’s like a current on the surface which causes the flow of our consciousness in the opposite direction. And when that current disappears, then again we again start practising bhakti. Or sometimes we could put it opposite.
We could be ritualistic. And the current at the top is our devotion. But below that, say when we are in private or when we are in tempting situations, the deep-rooted impression, the deep-rooted conditioning come up.
And then well externally we act as devotees, but at that time we start acting in opposite ways. So basically to make sense of our behaviour, we need to understand that there are multiple currents in our consciousness. So for Uttarasur, initially the current that was present was that of a demon.
Now there are certain schools of thought, certain philosophies, which say that our natures are innate to us and are unchangeable. So, for example, there are some traditions which hold that some people by their nature are hell bound and they can never escape that. There are some schools of thought in Hinduism like that also.
There are some Christian thoughts, Calvinist. They said that our destiny is already fixed. Who is going to be delivered and who is going to be doomed, all that is fixed.
And the Bhagavad Gita may also seem to say this because the Bhagavad Gita says that, if you consider the divine demonic natures in the 16th chapter, it does say that some people are born with particular natures. In 16.123 when Krishna gives the divine nature, he says, अभिजातस्य भारत, and in 16.4 also, दंभोधर्पविमानस्य क्रोधः पारुष्यमेवच अज्ञानम्च अभिजातस्य पार्थ संपदमासुरि. So, Krishna talks about these Sampada, Devi and Asuri as Abhijatasa, that which we are born with.
So, does this mean that it is unchangeable? No, we are born with means simply that we all come with some background into this life. And somebody who has demonic nature means that in the past they have acted in demonic ways. That doesn’t necessarily mean they have to act that way in this lifetime.
That’s the whole purpose of the Shastra. Krishna says, Regulate yourself according to Shastra. तस्मात् शास्त्रम् प्रमाणम् ते कार्याकार्य वेवस्तितों.
So, if you act according to Shastra, then one doesn’t have to give in to one’s demonic nature also. One can still become elevated. So, when we, when Uttarasura is born with a demonic nature, what does that mean? If you consider his life as Chitraketu, he was initially a pious king.
Then after gaining and losing Harshashoka, he became enlightened and he became a great devotee. So, if you consider the journey, there are three levels we could say. There is piety, there is impiety and there is spirituality.
Spirituality is Bhakti. So, initially he was at the level of piety. From piety he rose to the level of spirituality.
Wherein he became devoted to the, such a great devotee that he actually offers very beautiful prayers to Shankaracharya. And then from the level of spirituality, he was cursed so that he fell to the level of impiety. He became a demon.
And by that curse, he acted in demoniac ways. Now, whenever any person appears, there are, we could say, multiple causes for the appearance of that person. So, now we may ask that if a child is new born, is that child’s characteristic determined by the past karma of the child? Or all the child’s characteristics determined by the genetic characteristics that the child inherits from the parents? We may look at, whenever a new child is born, parents or relatives or friends, they look at him, they say, you look like your mother, you look like your father.
So, you look for similar features. So, then it’s not this or that, it is this and that. That means that when a child is born, multiple factors shape that child’s appearance.
So, one is that the kind of parent the child is there. The child gets a physical body from the parents. And that means the physical characteristics will be determined by the parents or the grandparents if some genetic transmission, a generation is skipped or whatever.
So, the physical characteristics will come from the parents. Now, when the soul comes from one body to another body, the soul brings with it the mind. And generally the psychological characteristics, they largely come from a previous life.
But then the psychological characteristics are also shaped by upbringing. So, when a particular person behaves in a particular way, it could be by their past swabhava, it could be by their ancestry, it could also be their upbringing. So, in this case of Uttarasur, we see there are two different causes of his appearance.
One is that he appeared in the demonic body because of the curse of Mother Parvati to Chitraketu. If we see the Bhagavatam narrative, the Bhagavatam describes Chitraketu’s story after the story of Uttarasur. The sixth canto, first the story of Vishwaroop and Tvashta and all this is described.
And then how Uttarasur appears and Uttarasur fights is described. And the Bhagavatam then describes that Uttarasur reveals himself as a great devotee and then he dies. It’s like say there is a movie going on and in the movie the hero and the villain are fighting.
And then by the time the hero and villain come to their climactic fight, it’s only, it’s just about the interval time. And then we may wonder what is going to happen after the movie, the hero, the climax is coming. But just before their final fight between the hero and the villain, and the villain has been fighting terribly against the hero.
Just before that, the villain starts speaking like a hero. And the villain and hero actually come to a friendly understanding. The hero kills the villain, but the villain does not behave like a villain at all.
And then there is an interval at that time. And everybody wonders how is a villain like this? How is a villain like a hero? So then the second half tells the other story of how the villain actually became a villain. How the villain was actually a hero.
So like that there are two parts to the story. The first half describes the story of Uttarasur. So in this life when Uttarasur appears, Uttarasur appears for the mission of killing Indra.
And it’s interesting if we consider Tvashta or Vishwaroop. Now Tvashta is a sage. Vishwaroop was his first son who was killed by Indra.
He was a Brahmana. So overall we could say that they are pious people. So how could it be that Tvashta’s yajna gives rise to a demon? So actually the yajna is basically we could say a value neutral process.
That means just like we can produce technology and technology can be used to protect, technology can be used to kill. A machine gun in the hands of the police or the security forces will protect. A machine gun in the hands of a criminal or a terrorist will kill.
So if we consider a weapon manufacturing factory, the weapon manufacturing factory is neutral. What comes out of it depends on how it will be used. So yajna we could say is like not a weapon manufacturing factory, it’s like a warrior manufacturing factory.
From a yajna, somebody like Dhrishtadyumna comes and he is with the mission to kill Drona and he is on the side of the Pandavas, he is virtuous. But from a yajna, the Krishna book also describes that demoniac forces like Dakshinagini comes and then that goes out to kill Krishna, to destroy Dwaraka basically. But not being able to destroy Dwaraka, it goes back and kills the Kashi king itself.
So the yajna is a source of power and from there divine or demoniac forces can both come out. So the warriors who come out are of different natures. Because Tvashta has a particular purpose to kill Indra and Indra is a devata.
So normally those who are opposed to devatas are demons. So therefore when Tvashta seeks someone who will kill Indra, the form that comes out from there is a demoniac form. And Uttarasur comes out as a demon.
So just as a child’s emergence is at a physical level based on the appearance of the parents or the genes that he’s got. But there is another deeper reason also. So Uttarasur’s appearance is at one level based on the mission that his creator Tvashta has given him to kill Indra.
Of course Tvashta chants the mantra wrong and therefore instead of Uttarasur being the killer of Indra, Uttarasur becomes the one who is killed by Indra. But still his mission is that he is meant to kill Indra. So at another level this yajna becomes the means by which Parvati’s curse takes effect.
So Parvati has cursed Chitraketu that you have offended the great personality Shiva by laughing at him without understanding his position. And therefore you deserve to be punished. And because your mentality of disrespecting those who are respectable is a demonic mentality.
He says, therefore become a demon. So when one particular event happens, there can be multiple levels of causation for which that event happens. So Uttarasur’s appearance, one level causes that Tvashta’s plan.
Another level causes Parvati’s curse. Now because of these two forces, Uttarasur’s this life consciousness is demonic. Demonic means Tvashta wants him to kill Indra.
So that’s a force. Going back to the earlier example of the currents in our consciousness, the surface current is going in one direction. So the surface current in his case by both these factors, by both Tvashta’s mission given to him and Parvati’s curse, by both of these it’s demonic.
And therefore initially when he is fighting, he is ruthless, he is fearless and ruthless both. Initially just seeing him, the Devata soldiers become overwhelmed and scared. But then Indra galvanises them and they fight.
And Devata start using celestial weapons. Then Vritrasur’s soldiers become scared and they start running away. When they start running away, Vritrasur galvanises them and he says, oh cowards, where will you hide if you run away like this? Actually in this world everyone has fear.
It is just that different people have fear of different things. Most people, almost all of us have fear of death. Even soldiers who go out to fight in war, they have fear of death.
But we all have different degrees of fear of different things. That means a soldier who may lay down one’s life in a war field is also afraid. But that fear is the fear of being called a coward.
The fear of dishonour. One of the characters of Kshatriya is described as one who never flees from a war, from a fight. Now if the sense of honour has been very strongly drummed in a Kshatriya, that a Kshatriya should never behave in a dishonourable way, then the Kshatriya will think that when the enemy is very powerful and the Kshatriya cannot possibly win against that enemy.
But still the Kshatriya will not turn and flee because the fear of dishonour is greater than the fear of death. And this is important also because Kshatriyas cannot be cowardly. So for example, if we are with some relative or some friend and say they are elder to us and suppose they ask us to eat something which we don’t eat.
Suppose they are non-vegetarian, they ask us to eat meat. Now at one level we have the fear of displeasing them, disobeying them. They are elders.
But at another level we also have the fear of breaking our spiritual vows. So both levels, whichever fear is greater, we will act accordingly. So for the soldiers, when they are about to flee, Prithrasur doesn’t give them an assurance.
You stay and fight, you will win. He does say fight and you can win, you may lose. But he says to be a coward, what face will you show to your family members? What face will you show to other demons if you flee and die like this? So here Prithrasur, although he is demoniac, even the demons have this Kshatriya sense where they will not flee from the war field.
Sometimes we tend to paint everybody with one colour in a canvas. If somebody is demoniac, that means they must be like this. Somebody is devotee, they must be like this.
But actually we will see that even among the demons and the devotees, there are multiple colours within that broad disposition. So Prithrasur, when his soldiers are fleeing like this, he remains fearless and he continues to fight with complete absence of fear. And then as he is fighting, he exhibits extraordinary heroism.
He alone overpowers Indra and then he paralyses Indra completely. Paralyses Indra with dismay and fear and then at that time he does something dramatic. His whole mood will change at that time.
So initially Indra is shooting, shooting, shooting arrows and Prithrasur seems to get wounded. Prithrasur seems to get weakened. But Indra uses, but before that happens, Prithrasur is going on in this fight and when he sees that his soldiers are not there with him, he doesn’t chicken out.
He becomes even more determined to fight. And Indra sends his mace charging towards Vithra. And what does Prithrasur do? Prithrasur just catches the mace effortlessly and hurls it back straight at Indra itself.
And that mace goes and hits Indra’s elephant, Airavath. And Airavath is flung back a large distance. And Indra is completely disheartened, not knowing what to do.
To understand this, how extraordinary an achievement this is, let’s consider, say, something contemporary. We can consider, say, sports like cricket. In cricket, suppose there is a top bowler who is bowling to a top batsman.
Maybe a top spinner is bowling to a top batsman. Sometimes even the best bowler might bowl a loose ball. And say if it’s just a bad delivery and the batsman hits it for a boundary or a six.
Now that’s understandable. Every player sometimes is out of form. But suppose the player bowls his best delivery.
Say it’s a spin bowler and the bowler bowls an excellent googly. And googly is something which will baffle the batsman. The batsman will just get out.
But the batsman picks up the googly and hits the googly for a sixer. Then the bowler, what am I supposed to do now? I have bowled my best ball. And if this batsman can read my bowling so well, can dismiss my best ball, I don’t know what to do afterwards.
So, having the best ball hit for a boundary or a six is far more discouraging than having a bad ball hit for a six. So, Indira uses one of his best weapons, his mace, hurled with all his power. And when he finds that, being just nonchalantly not only stopped, it’s one thing sometimes some balls are unplayable.
And if a batsman just manages to get the bat down and play the ball, that itself is credible. Otherwise the batsman will just be clean bowled. So, to stop a googly itself is credible.
But to not only stop a googly, but to actually hit it for a six. So, when Indira sends a weapon, the mace, Vithrasur doesn’t stop it. But he catches it and then hurls it against Indira itself.
So, that is totally disheartening for Indira. And he just starts thinking, how can I fight such an enemy? What should I do? How can I possibly win against an enemy who is so powerful? Indira is also a great hero. In the Rig Veda, there are many many verses which glorify Indira profusely.
Because he is considered to be the greatest of the Gods. Of course, Vishnu is the supreme God. But at the level of administrative Gods, he is the greatest.
And his heroism is described in elaborate terms. And how Indira kills Vithra is also described over there. But at this particular point, Indira who is a great hero is completely overwhelmed by fear, not knowing what to do.
And it is at this time that Vithrasur’s transformation begins. Vithrasur, Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita that whatever bhakti we have performed, that is never lost. So, going back to the earlier example of how the current from below rises up and suddenly the top current might seem to be going in the entirely opposite direction.
So, something similar happens to Vithrasur. So, what exactly causes this to happen? In this particular situation, when he has Indira down, not out, but almost down and he could have crushed Indira and killed Indira at this particular point, but suddenly his mood changes. So, what exactly causes his mood to change, that I’ll discuss in tomorrow’s session.
But here, I’d like to summarise what I spoke today. And then we can have a few questions if any of you have any. So, I spoke on this theme of Vithrasur’s dramatic transformation, where at one level he was trying to kill Indira and the next moment he was exhorting Indira to kill him.
So, what changed him so dramatically? So, I discussed that when we function, we function usually based on what is in our consciousness. But we have a conscious mind, we have a subconscious mind and we have an unconscious layer to our mind. A mind I refer inclusively to our inner world.
Now, consciousness can refer to our inner territory, like a room which is filled with many things and consciousness can also refer to the torch with which we can look at what is there in the territory. So, in the room, wherever the torch is directed, that is like the conscious part of our memory. Then if we consciously look at the dark parts of the room, directing the torch over there, then what is the subconscious may become aware.
And if we find a trap door, open the trap door and see what is inside, that’s like the unconscious. Or what is on a screen in a computer is conscious part, what is in the memory but is not open, that is the unconscious and what is in hidden files is the subconscious. So, our behaviour is shaped not just by what we are conscious of but also the subconscious impressions within us.
Say, when we talk with people, the accent we use, the language we use, the mannerisms that we have, all these are the results of the subconscious even though we are ourselves not conscious of it. But beyond the subconscious, there is also the unconscious. And that is not seen in our day-to-day behaviour, like an ocean on which the surface current is going in one direction, below the current is going in another direction.
So, for us, sometimes we may be living virtuously, we may be practising bhakti but suddenly at a surface level a mundane desire comes up and that makes us act wrongly. Or at a surface level we may be practising bhakti and then as soon as we are in private or a temporary situation comes up, the internal conditioning comes out. So, what is at a conscious level is sometimes sabotaged by what is there at a subconscious level.
But beyond the subconscious is what is unconscious. So, in the case of Uttarahasura, when he appeared, there were multiple factors at work. It’s like when a child is born, the child’s bodily characteristics are determined by the genes coming from the parents.
But the child’s psychological characteristics are determined by the child’s own samskaras from the previous life. So, the impressions that are there in the mind. Now, when the child grows, as growing the samskaras from the previous life, the genetic characteristics from this, the ancestry from this life and the upbringing, all of them will combine together.
And which characteristic will predominate, that will vary from person to person. So, now at the start I mentioned that Uttarahasura, he was such a huge demon and Kumbhakarna was also huge. So, when we are functioning, it is not just our actions but our motivations, our intentions which are shaped by our emotions.
So, we were discussing what were, when Kumbhakarna, when Vibhishan told Ram that tell that Kumbhakarna is machine, that means he doesn’t have emotions. So, he will not have an agenda of hate against the Vanaras. He is just acting like a programme.
So, when Uttarahasura was fighting against the demons, against the devatas, did he have an agenda of hate against them or was he just fighting because it was his duty? So, these emotions were at different levels. Because he was born through the curse of Parvati and through the yajna of Pashta, he had at a surface level a demonic mentality. A yajna is like a warrior manufacturing factory.
It’s value neutral. A demonic warrior can emerge or a devoted virtuous warrior can emerge from it. And when he started fighting, when his soldiers abandoned him, he still fought on.
Everybody has fear. Even those who embrace death have fear. They can embrace death because they are more afraid of dishonour than of death.
So, for us, what is our greatest fear will determine which fearful stimuli we are able to tolerate and which fearful stimuli makes us withdraw or retreat. And then when Uttarahasura has got Indra down, Indra is completely baffled because he uses, one of his best weapons is mace. He has completely turned around to attack him.
Like say a top bowler’s best ball being dismissed for a six. So, then Uttarahasura, when he has his enemy down and he can kill him, but suddenly Uttarahasura’s mood transforms. So, why it transforms? We will discuss in the next class.
Are there any questions or comments? Prabhu, I have a question. Hare Krishna. So, you said that the soul carries the mind with it in the next body or is it only the impression? Because mind is material.
So, mind has to, how can only the impressions go or the mind itself goes? Because it’s not spiritual. Okay. Does the soul carry the mind or the impressions? It’s the subtle level of reality is complex.
In the sense that it’s not so easy to understand what it, how it functions. Let’s take a simple example that say I have a computer and I sell that computer, I get a new computer. Then in my new computer, as soon as I log into my Google ID, then immediately all my preferences, all my saved password, whatever I have saved in Google, all that will come automatically.
So, I didn’t carry that from that computer to that computer. It’s only I who went from my old computer to the new computer. But associated with me all that came up.
Now, how that came up? That’s because it’s all stored in the cloud and my login becomes the link between what is stored in the cloud and me. But it’s at a subtle level. There’s no physical carrying from the, from this body, from the one computer to another computer.
Now, in this case, now, if you consider the cloud, instead of being stored somewhere in the cloud, as we say, if we consider the impressions are stored within us. So, the subtle layer of reality is, it’s not gross. That’s obvious.
But what that means is that, that there are some, with respect, the subtle level of reality is analysed by Sankhya scholars quite a bit. And within them, there are two opinions. That one opinion, which is what our Acharyas seem to accept, is that the mind is nothing but impressions.
That there is no such, if we can consider, say, like a wall on which something is written. So, is the mind like a wall on which the impressions are written or the mind is simply the impressions? There are two different understandings of this. If we consider, Krishna does say that, Bhumiraaponalavayu khammano buddhirvachah ahamkaraityamne.
So, he says, mind, intelligence and ego, they are also elements. And he gives them in the same list as earth, water, fire, air. So, if we consider the earth, water, fire, these are tangible elements.
And by extension, we can say the mind, intelligence, ego should also be tangible. But obviously, the mind, intelligence, ego do not have, many of the characters in the earth, water, fire, air, they have specific locations, specific shape, they have so many other characters which they don’t have. So, basically, if we say this person has no ego, if we use it in that sense, that means he is humble.
That’s what we are saying. But if we consider, that’s from a behavioural perspective. But from a structural or philosophical perspective, the ego is one of the elements that comprise the subtle body.
So, can we say that he has no ego? No, it’s a part of the structure, it has to be there. For a conversational perspective, let’s take something simpler. Sometimes we say, this person has no brains.
When we say that, that doesn’t mean that their cranial cavity is empty. It’s just that structurally the brain is there, but functionally the brain is not being used. So, similarly, structurally, when the soul goes from one body to another body, it is the gross body that is left behind.
And the subtle body goes with the soul to the next body. And in the subtle body, the impressions are stored. So, now, in that sense, we can say that the mind goes, because the mind is a part of the subtle body, the mind goes with the subtle body to the next body.
And that’s how we carry the impressions. Because the impressions, now, impressions have to be carried. The impressions are not formed on the soul.
The soul is spiritual. The impressions are around the soul. That’s why there are passages in the scripture which say that the soul is unaffected.
The soul is transcendental. Anaditva nirgunatva paramatma eva veda. The soul is param even now.
It’s nirguna, it’s transcendental even now. But because of the impressions on it, the soul is conditioned, right? Impressions on it means impressions on the subtle body around it. So, from this perspective, when we become purified, at one level it is said the subtle body is burnt away.
At another level, the subtle body is purified. So, that means that in the subtle body, for a pure devotee, the impressions that are there, they are burnt away. So, if we consider the mind to be like a collection of impressions, then all the unwanted impressions are burnt away.
In that sense, the subtle body gets removed for a pure devotee also. But in a functional sense, if we consider that subtle body is simply a tool for the soul to function in this world. Then the subtle body is still there, the mind is still there.
So, the mind and impressions from a functional perspective are non-different. So, when we say the impressions go from one body to another body, it is through the mind that they go. So, then intelligence and ego also go because they are also having impressions over the soul? So, the intelligence and ego also go, yes, the whole subtle body goes.
Now, from whatever I have read of Sankhya, the mind, intelligence and ego, they are just names for different functions. They are not structurally different. If you look at a computer system, in that you may have an operating system.
Then you may have pre-installed programmes which come with the operating system itself. Or like in a phone, we have basic OS, Android or iPhone, and then we have certain pre-installed apps. And then we have some apps which we instal ourselves.
Now, from the functional point of view, each of these is different. But if you look at the structural point of view, all of them are simply codes. So, like that, the ego-mind and ego-intelligence-mind, it is just the way they function is different.
So, the ego is like the basic operating system that just determines the whole frame of view. Then the intelligence and mind are like subsequent layers over there. So, from a functional perspective, they are different.
From a structural perspective, all of them are part of a certain level of reality itself. Thank you. Any other questions? Mute is on.
Hare Krishna. I have one question. We do Harathi, we do Japa and all that.
Without, we are at the end. So, when we do our Bhakti activities, sometimes we may not put our consciousness in them. So, how do the Bhakti activities affect us at the level of say conscious, subconscious, unconscious? Generally, there is a percolating effect of whatever we do at the conscious level.
Everything that we do, it forms impressions. Now, the level of impressions that are formed depends on the level of the investment of consciousness in a particular thing. Say, if we go to a particular meeting, where there are maybe 20 people over there.
And then, there somebody is very striking. Either they look very attractive or they speak very impressively. Or they are dressed in a very extraordinary way, positive or negative, whatever.
Then, whatever, something like this, when we see that, then that strikes us. And after, say, 6 months, 1 year, we may remember only that person from the meeting. Why is that? Because they caught our attention.
And we gave them our attention. So, that created that investment of consciousness by which we observed them carefully, we thought about them. That created an impression within us.
So, generally, it is the investment of consciousness that determines how deep an impression is created. Some people we may see once and we may never forget them for a whole lifetime. Some people we may see regularly 10-15 times and still we may not even remember them much.
They must be like one other face in the crowd. So, it depends on how much consciousness is invested that how much of an impression is created. When we practise Bhakti, the Bhakti activities do create an impression.
But how much of an impression will depend on how much consciousness we invest. So, if we are just doing Japa ritualistically, then the amount of consciousness invested is less. Then the impressions formed are also lesser.
But still, there is benefit even in that. Because at least at the surface level, the impressions are being formed. But the more consciousness we invest, the deeper impressions will be formed.
And the deeper the impressions are formed, the greater the transformation is likely. It’s like say, if we visit a particular site using our browser. If somebody visits, say, a site like nytimes.com. Now, when we visit it again, second time, the browser will offer that as auto-complete.
But if there are 10 sites starting with N, which we have visited in the recent past, as soon as we start typing N, which one will come up first will depend on multiple factors. One is how many times we have visited. Second is how much time we have visited.
Third is that within that site, you know, how many further links we have clicked. So, there are Google has its own algorithm. But this could be, say, broad things of the frequency and the duration.
So, similarly for us, how often we do a particular activity and how long we do a particular activity and how intensely we do that particular activity. So, that will determine how strongly the impression is created. So, if we have visited a particular site frequently for a long period and a lot of links within that, then as soon as we type N, that particular site will, if it’s starting from N, nytimes will come up immediately.
So, similarly for us, if we do bhakti repeatedly, that repetition itself will create an impression. But if we do it repeatedly and we do it for a long time, say, we may do japa every day. We may go to a temple once a week.
But say for a festival day, we stay whole day in the temple. Then the impressions form much longer. If we go for a yatra, where we are in devotional consciousness almost throughout the day for several days, that creates an even deeper impression.
And if we are also trying to absorb ourselves. So, if we go to a temple, that will create an impression. But if a temple, we look at taking all the devotional stimuli over there, we associate with the devotees.
It’s like we go on a site, but on the site also we visit various links. Then that will also create deeper impressions. And then that will come up as a prompt much faster.
So, basically, while practising bhakti, any kind of practise is beneficial. But practise that is done for a long time, that is done frequently and that is done with intensity, that will create impression much stronger and bring about a faster transformation. Does it answer your question? Yes, Prabhu.
Yes. It was wonderful, Prabhu. So, shall we stop here? Hare Krishna.
If there are no questions, then can we stop here right now? Yes, Prabhu. We can stop. Thank you very much.
Jai Shri Lakshmi. Jai Shri Lakshmi. Hare Krishna, Prabhu.
Hare Krishna. Can you hear me? Yes, Mataji. Please continue.
I’m sorry. I had trouble unmuting my phone. I just wanted to get better clarification about the distinction between the subconscious and the unconscious.
And so, you were giving an analogy of, let’s say you are in a room and there is a trap door and there are things hidden underneath that trap door. Was that the analogy for the unconscious or the subconscious? As I said, what is the difference between subconscious and unconscious? What is there in the room but what is not seen because the flashlight is not showing, that is subconscious. But even if we take the flashlight and look at the ground, if something is covered by a trap door, we will not see it at that time.
We not only need a trap door, we not only need a torch, but we also need something to unlock the trap door, open it and then what is below the trap door will be seen. So, unconscious means that which is very difficult to become conscious of. So, subconscious requires effort to become, but if we are just more alert, we can become aware of the subconscious.
But unconscious may require much more, some dramatic circumstance or something like that to become aware. That’s the difference. Okay, so now when it comes to the composition of the conditioned soul, right? What would be an example of things that we are unconscious of? Would it be like for example, past life activities or I don’t know? Yes, so past life activities that we have, that may not be seem to shape us in any way right now.
At whose effect say, whose effect we can’t see right now. Say like Pratharasur, initially his devotion was not seen at all. His devotional disposition was not seen at all.
So, initially we could say it was at unconscious level. So, for example, right now, all of us, even if we are spiritual or non-spiritual, we are a product of our conscious and our subconscious. As I said, we speak a particular language.
When we see a person, if we know 3-4 languages, we immediately choose which language to speak in based on what we know about the other person. So, all this is shaped by not just the conscious but also subconscious. But we are all souls but very few of us are actually aware that we are souls.
And we know, some of us after practising bhakti or studying the Bhagavad Gita, we philosophically understand that we are souls. But many people may not have even that philosophical awareness. What to speak of having conscious awareness.
So then, that means for them, the idea that they are the soul, that has gone deep into the unconscious. It is there but it is not at all anywhere in their conscious awareness. And even by introspection also, some people may not realise that there is anything spiritual about me.
So, that’s how the unconscious is very deep and it requires some special circumstance to bring that up. Thank you very much. Thank you so much Prabhu.
Thank you very much. Wonderful class. Thank you.