How to use our free will properly – QA with children

[Talk to Gita-Wise students, Atlanta, USA]

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna. Delighted to be here amongst all of you today and it’s wonderful to see.
This is Gita wise, isn’t it? Yeah. So all of you are becoming wise because of the Gita. So broadly, Better or worse? Well, the audience has to say.
Is it okay? So there are two kinds of people in the world. Some people are wise. Some people are wise, and some are otherwise.
And it’s not just that there are two kinds of people. We see that we ourselves are sometimes wise and sometimes otherwise. Sometimes we are able to do some very smart things.
And sometimes we do something so dumb. And later on people ask, why did you do that? We also don’t know why we did that. So today I’ll talk about how we can act wisely.
How we can choose our free will and act wisely. And I’ll talk about three broad principles. And then we can have some questions if any of you have.
So these three broad principles are affirmation, association, and action. So affirmation. Affirmation means that all of us know there are certain things which are good, which are right, which are true.
But we tend to get a memory blackout. We keep forgetting it. And that’s why reminding ourselves of it.
So now many of you are memorising Bhagavad Gita verses. The Gita verses are like timeless truths. And reciting them is also a way of affirming our hold on reality.
So now affirmation, some people use it in a way that is not realistic. Somebody is five foot tall and they affirm, I am seven foot tall. Well, you’re not going to become seven foot tall just by affirming that you’re seven foot tall.
But there are things which we all know, which are true, which are important. But we keep forgetting. So if we remind ourselves, inside us, the wise part is our intelligence.
And the otherwise part is our mind. So our mind is impulsive. We just catch in the moment and do whatever we feel like doing.
But the intelligence is the part which thinks. So when we make an affirmation, so for example, when Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, when Krishna says that, everything is in my control. So this, when we start getting worried about things, what if this happens? What if that happens? What if that happens? Now when worry starts overwhelming us, now worry is like a tax that we pay on loans we haven’t yet taken.
Most of the things we worry about are things that have not happened and they may never happen also. So at that time, what we do if we remember is Krishna is in control. So Krishna can bring good even out of the bad.
Yes, bad things may happen now, but Krishna can bring good out of the bad. So the Bhagavad Gita’s verses and the Bhagavad Gita’s messages can be like affirmations for us. So all of you may have heard some good things from the classes here, from other places.
So some good things which you know are important for us, make an affirmation out of them. Write them down maybe in a notepad and remind yourself of it. In fact, when we recite the Bhagavad Gita’s verses, that’s also like an affirmation.
We chant the names of God, that’s also like affirmation. Affirmation means we make that knowledge firm within us. We know it, but our remembrance of that tends to become shaky.
So whenever the mind takes control, then we will act unwisely. But whenever the intelligence takes control, we’ll act wisely. So the mind within us is like a software programme.
If we consider our body, mind and soul, all of you know about computers, isn’t it? All of you know more about computers now than what I knew when I was of your age. I didn’t even know about computers at that time. But say in a computer there’s a hardware, there’s software and there’s a user.
The body is like the hardware, the mind is the software and we are the users, we are the soul. So now if you see in a computer, if you visit a particular website, then you visit once, you visit twice, you visit three times, then that site automatically keeps coming back, isn’t it? Say suppose somebody has visited a particular website, say Bollywood.com. They repeatedly visited that and then you come to your Gita wise programmes and then you, oh I want to know what is Bhagavad Gita. Then you google it and you type B and what happens? Bollywood comes up.
So why has that happened? It’s because it’s stored as a preference in your software because you visited repeatedly. So as soon as any pointer B comes up, it immediately brings that as the autocomplete. I’ll just hold it otherwise.
I think that’s fine. Let’s go on. I can hold it.
Sure. So similarly for us, whatever we do, any action that we do, it gets stored within us and then it comes as a proposition. Just like I type B, immediately Bollywood comes up.
So similarly, if we have done a particular activity, then that comes upon us again and again and again. That’s what, say if instead of studying, say we are watching movies or playing video games or just fooling around, then every time next time when I have to study, immediately that idea comes up. Let me do that.
So when we do affirmations, what are we doing? We are changing what is there in the browser. Something else comes up, okay Bollywood comes up, but I don’t let Bollywood get completed. I type Bhagavad Gita.
So our mind will keep going on in the particular unwanted direction also. But affirmations remind us, that is not where I want to go. So if you memorise the Gita’s verses and you especially understand the meaning, then repeating those verses can create a powerful affirmation.
That’s the first point. Do you remember what was the second I said? Association. Do all of you know what is linear and triangular? What is triangular? Yeah.
Something in the shape of a triangle. That’s three sides. Thank you.
So are our desires, we all have various desires, are our desires linear or triangular? Linear. Circular. Circular.
That’s a good one. Circular in the sense that you come back to the same thing again. Infinite number of desires.
Okay, infinite number of desires. That’s true. So thank you.
That’s a good way of looking at it. What I was talking more is, say when we look at something and we get a desire for it. Say some of you like cricket.
And you see somebody playing cricket. Oh, I get the desire to play cricket. So it’s a linear desire.
We see something and get the desire for it. So we see an object and get the desire. But all our desires are not necessarily linear.
Many of our desires, especially the desires for good things, they develop in a triangular way. I’ll explain. How many of you know what is a baklava? Baklava? Okay, many of you.
Thank you. Yes, it’s Arabic sweet. About five, six years ago, when I had gone to Australia for the first time, I had no idea what is a baklava.
So then I had gone to somebody’s house, they’re invited for food. And they said, for dessert, we’ve got baklava. Ah, would you like to have? I’d never heard of a baklava.
And the name baklava doesn’t sound very sweet. So I said, maybe later. And then there’s one more friend with me, who had also come.
And he said, you give, please give me. And then he was, he took it. And he was savouring it.
The closed eyes were just relishing it. I look at him, give me one also. So what happened in this case, there was no linear desire.
Just seeing the baklava did not create the desire. But seeing somebody else relishing the baklava created the desire. So that is a triangular desire.
So for all of us, our association shapes our triangular desires. The kind of friends we have. What we would like to do is shape not just by seeing, by looking at that thing.
Say for example, now this Gita Vaisakha. If somebody just showed you a Bhagavad Gita, now maybe a few special among you might fall in love with the Bhagavad Gita, and I want to know what is the Bhagavad Gita. That’s special.
But most of you, maybe some of your friends come here. I mean, you hear somebody reciting some verses. You see somebody nice.
And then you, oh, what is this? Let me find out about it. So our desires grow triangular. And both good desires and bad desires, they both grow triangular.
So it’s the kind of desires that come up in our mind, we can’t directly control them. But if we choose our association, if we choose our association, then by that, automatically, our desires get chosen. So A, we can have good friends.
And you can easily make out after you spend a little time with somebody, people’s desires that are there, they come out in their speech, they come out in their actions. So then if we choose good association, then that will ensure that your desires become good. And that will ensure that our actions become wise.
So just coming here to your spiritual friends here at the Gita, that’s you’re getting good association. And positive desires will be nourished by that. The third was what? Action.
Yeah. Action means that whatever we do, once, twice, thrice, even in small quantities, that grows to become a habit. Whenever we have a habit, say if we have some habit, we want to give up, and we try to fight against that habit, I will give this up.
So what happened recently, I was in Canada, and one person came to me. He says, I was trying to give up a habit for 10 years. Now, finally, I have given up.
Oh, really? So how did you do that? He said, I have given up trying to give up. So sometimes what happens, our habits seem to be so strong, that even if we want to, we can’t give them up. So what it is, that a habit, once we have done it repeatedly, it develops a momentum of its own.
And say, imagine if a big car is coming, charging towards you, and you are standing in front on the road. Can you stop that car? Maybe if you’re Superman or Supergirl, you might be able to stop. But otherwise, no.
So our habits are like that. Our habits, once they develop a momentum, it’s almost impossible to stop. So if we try to fight against our bad habits also, we will lose.
Instead of fighting against our bad habits, we fight to create good habits. And those good habits will fight against the bad habits. It’s like, if I am alone on the ground, and there’s a big car over there, the car won’t stop just because of me.
But if I am in a big car, and this car is charging towards me, then I will think twice, I don’t want to hit into this car, I’ll also be destroyed. So action means that choose, even if we have some things which we don’t want to do, which we keep doing, instead of trying to say, no, I won’t do this, I won’t do this, try to do something positive. What you can do.
And for action, I’ll conclude with three A’s I talked, so I’ll talk about three S’s. For action is small, simple steps. When you take action, whenever you want to do anything positive, just small, simple steps.
One of my friends is a bodybuilder, and he pumps iron at workouts at the gym, and he’s a boxer. So he got a severe injury, got a severe fracture, and he was bedridden, and his hand was broken. Then the doctor told him that you have to do some exercises.
He said, I’m on the bed, what exercise can you do? So he said, okay, can you lift your little finger? Okay, yeah. Okay, lift that little finger up five times every hour. That’s your exercise.
Exercise. Exercise means lifting big weight, this is not exercise. Now this is your exercise.
He did that for one day, and then gradually, the next day he was able to lift all his fingers. Then he was able to lift his palm, then his forearm, then he was able to lift his forearm, and he recovered. So that whole recovery began with a small, simple step, just lift one finger.
So similarly, whatever it is, you want to give up, don’t focus on that. Okay, if I give this up, what will I do? And try to do that as well as you can. Small, simple steps, something which is doable.
And once you start doing it, that will create a momentum of its own. And once that momentum becomes created, so sometimes our habits may be opposing us right now, but our habits will start supporting us. Once we are in that car, the car will have momentum and move forward.
And that’s how, if we start doing what we can, a momentum will develop. And ultimately, above us is God, is Krishna. If we do what we can, God will help us do what we can’t.
And that way, we will become empowered, we’ll become transformed. Every one of you has a bright future before, ahead of you. Now through every one of you, the light of God can shine into the world.
You can make your life brighter, and you can make the whole world brighter. So I’ll summarise. I spoke today on this theme of how can we choose wisely.
So I talked about how inside us, the mind is impulsive and makes us otherwise, the intelligence makes us wise. And three things I talked about. What are the three things? Affirmation, association, and attraction.
Affirmation means the truths that we know, but we tend to forget. We periodically remind ourselves of them. So affirmation is like a prescription given by our intelligence to our mind.
So the verses of the Bhagavad Gita, the wisdom from the Bhagavad Gita can act as affirmations. Association basically means to understand our desires are not just linear, but also triangular. So instead of just trying to do something good, look at, try to associate with those who are doing that good thing, then naturally the desire to do that will grow.
And action means, if you try to fight the bad habit, it’s very difficult. It’s like trying to stop a car on the ground. But instead, develop a good habit and let that fight against the bad habit.
And for developing a good habit, small, simple steps. Just do what you can. And then God will empower you to do what you can’t.
Hi Krishna. How can the Bhagavad Gita and Krishna Consciousness help us be successful materialistically? How can the Bhagavad Gita help us to be successful materially? The material and the spiritual are not necessarily entirely opposite. And ultimately, we are human beings who have body, mind, and soul.
Okay. That’s really loud. Okay.
So there’s a body, mind, and soul. Most of us think that if I have to be successful, then I have to work hard, which requires a lot of time. And I need to have some talents, some special abilities by which I can shine and succeed.
So basically, time and talent. That’s what we need for success. But however, that’s true.
But it’s not just the amount of time that we spend on the work. Say, for example, you’re studying and you want to be successful academically. But our time is taken not just by the activities that we do, but also by the thoughts that we have.
Say, if you go to school, and you meet a friend, and that friend snubs you. Immediately anger comes up. How dare they snub me like this? Next time in public, I’ll snub this person.
And then in the next two hours, you’re having revenge fantasies. So you are in the class, but you’re not in the class. In the schedule, you were in the class, but you did not do anything.
So that time was taken away by the thoughts, the wild thoughts. So what happens is, in our schedule, we don’t see the time that is taken away by the wild thoughts. But when we study the Bhagavad Gita, and we apply the Bhagavad Gita by chanting Krishna’s name, so practising bhakti, our thoughts become less disorderly.
Thoughts will be going up and down, but not that up and down. And the time that goes on waste thoughts, that gets cut down. And then whatever we do, we’ll be able to do it more effectively.
So there is talent, and there is achievement. Now, talent alone doesn’t lead to achievement. You see, whether it is in sports, some players are very talented, but they are too temperamental.
They just get angry, or they get stressed out, they play a rash shot, and they get out. So what happens, from talent to achievement, in between, temperament is required. The right temperament, the calmness, the emotional stability.
And studying, studying the Bhagavad Gita, and understanding the Bhagavad Gita, and applying it in our lives, strengthens our temperament. The talent that we have, we can’t change it much. We can improve on it, but it’s given.
But the temperament, every one of us can improve. And by improving our temperament, we can translate whatever talent we have into achievement. So Bhagavad Gita helps us to manage our thoughts, to stabilise our temperament.
And that’s how we can increase the possibility of moving from the one side of the bridge that is talent, to the other side of the bridge that is achievement. Okay? Thank you. Good question.
Hello Krishna. How can we pray to Krishna without the idea of getting anything in return? Okay. How do we pray to Krishna without seeking anything in return? See, the primary thing is, not that we never pray to Krishna for something.
The primary thing is, to develop a relationship with Krishna. Just like say, now when children are very small, a baby just cries, and the mother or the father or somebody comes running to whatever, take care of them. And now, that’s natural.
The parents love the child and they take care. But as the child grows, maybe teenager, adult, then it is not that the child, child’s relationship with the parents is only to ask for something. Like say, in future, when the child goes to university, and they stay, they’re staying, studying there.
And the only time they call their parents is to ask for some money. Now, that will make the relations, make the parents still be happy, at least you’re calling. But that won’t be a very sweet relationship.
Now, if some help is needed, the parents are there to help. But the basis of that relationship is not just asking for help. The basis of the relationship is, is a loving connection.
Now, within that loving connection, sometimes we also ask for help. So, when it is said, don’t pray to Krishna for anything for yourself, the idea is, don’t make it a self-centred relationship. Make it a real relationship, where we want to connect with Krishna for Krishna’s sake, not for what Krishna gives us.
So, that way, if we pray to Krishna, basically, praying is meant more to connect us with Krishna than to necessarily fulfil our desire. We can have a different vision of praying. That means, say, if we are having some difficulty, maybe some stressful situation in school or with our friends, and there is some friend who just hears us out, and we unburden our heart.
Now, they may not be able to offer any solution, because sometimes the situation is so complicated, there are no easy solutions. But just hearing us out, when they hear us out, two things happen. We feel a little lighter, and we feel a little closer to that person.
So, same way, praying to Krishna is for developing the relationship with him. So, if we have something burdening our heart, we can surely pray to Krishna. Just pour out your heart.
But don’t make that prayer conditional to its fulfilment in our talks. That means, Krishna, this is what I need, and if you don’t do this, goodbye. Not like that.
So, we understand that Krishna also has a plan for us. And if we with our intelligence feel that this is how things, if they work out, it will be good, then we can pray for that. But don’t make your devotion conditional to that.
The idea is that we have our intelligence that is finite, and Krishna has his intelligence which is infinite. So, we make a prayer to connect with Krishna, at the end of which we can even say that this is how I feel if this gets resolved, it will be good. But if you have some other plan, please give me the strength to serve you.
So, we express our desire, but devotion means we can have desires, but we don’t have demands. To have desire is just natural, because all of us are individuals, and we can express our desire. But don’t make it into a demand.
So, Krishna, you are wiser than me, you can see further than me. So, if you have some other plan, please give me the strength to continue to serve you. So, that way we can express our heart, at the same time express our salvation.
Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Hi Krishna.
If school is a place of mode of passion, how do you stay in mode of goodness in school? If school is a mode of passion, the mode of passion, how do you stay in goodness? When I was in school, I never had this question, because I was already in passion. That must be 30-40 years ago. But it’s not necessary that the mode of passion is itself bad.
It is being controlled by that mode that is bad. It’s just like in the mode of ignorance, we sleep. Now, is sleeping bad? No, sleeping at the wrong time is bad.
So, at the time of sleeping, we sleep. But at the time of class, if we start sleeping, that’s bad. For some of us, the bed is a magical place.
As soon as we get on the bed, we remember all the things that we did not do throughout the day. And sleep just goes away. And then, when we are in the chair studying, that’s the time when we remember, oh, I have to sleep, I’m tired.
So, sleep in its right place is not only desirable, it’s essential for our health. So, similar, so that’s, you could say, it’s the mode of ignorance. It’s a mode of passion.
When we have to do things, a certain mode of energy, vigour, dynamism is required. But it’s when we become controlled by that, that is a problem. So, if we are going to schools where there is passion, then we need to have places where there is goodness.
So, you come for programmes like this. And then that reorients you. Come back on track.
You go off track, but you’ll come back on track. When a plane, when a plane flies, say, a few days ago, I came from London to North America, a few weeks ago actually. So, then when I flew from London to Toronto, one of my friends is a pilot, he told me that a plane, almost 90 to 95 percent of its flight is off course.
Then you may, how does it get to the destination? But actually, it’s continuous reorientation. It goes off track because of its speed, because of the atmospheric conditions, because of the wind. It goes off track and the pilot brings it back.
Then it goes off track, again back. So, it’s by repeatedly coming back on track that the plane gets to the destination. And the same principle applies to us.
The world around us will divert us. But then we come back to a place which will reorient us. It can be our home, our good friends, spiritual programmes like this.
And we keep coming back, keep coming back. And similarly, within the school also, if we choose our association, we may say, oh, everybody is in the mode of passion. But not everybody is equally in the mode of passion.
There are some students who are there just to have fun. There are some who are not just to have fun, who are there to get into trouble and get others into trouble. You know, when we are hungry, some friends take us to lunch.
And when we are hungry, some friends take away our lunch. So, in school also, we need to choose which association. So, if you have friends who are a little more sober, more serious, they can have fun, but not in a too wild a way.
Then you won’t get into the mode of passion. Okay. Thank you.
Yes, please. In this modern age, we’re all distracted, especially as students. What is some advice to stay focused on Krishna conscious activities and control the mind while performing different activities? Okay, so how do we stay Krishna conscious and focused amidst our distractions in the world? I think something similar to what I said, that we get distracted, but we still reorient ourselves.
The mind may stray away, but let it not stay away. It will stray away. That’s just its nature, but we get it back.
We get it back. And two, three things can help in this. First is that we need, like I said affirmations earlier, we need regular reminders of the things that are important for us.
The mind is such a thing that it will say, yeah, this is important, but that is urgent. Say you’re studying and when you’re studying, suddenly maybe on your social media, it comes up, your friend has updated a new photo on Instagram. Oh really? Let me have a look.
You look at one photo and then you see one photo, there are 10 other links over there. Then you look at those photos and then look at the time. What you thought, one minute, takes up three hours.
And I feel what a waste of time. Have any of you experienced like this? So what happens is that when we are doing something important, we also need to remind ourselves of its importance because otherwise we know it’s important later. So reminding us, like affirmation, I said, that helps a lot.
Another thing is that it’s good to have some structure in our life. That means this is the time I have to do, this is the time I have to do this. How tight the schedule can be, that’s up to us, based on situation, but some structure helps.
So even if we get distracted, say if I had to go for this class after two hours, then even I get distracted now, I won’t get distracted for the whole day. After two hours, I’ll come back. I had to go to it, I had to do that.
So keeping some order in our life, some structure, that helps. At a very basic level, if we find we are very distracted, try to regulate the time you wake up. Just begin with that regulation.
Then it brings some structure in your life. We regulate the time that you take meals, regulate the times when you do your major studies or major homework, as much as possible. So structure is a very good way to avoid distraction.
And lastly, it is good to have some anchors for us. Anchor means that, you know, in an ocean, when a boat is getting swept away, it’s held on to something very tight, that’s anchor, very heavy, very strong, that’s anchor. So for us, when distractions come like waves, when we are in the ocean and a wave comes, we can’t fight the wave.
Even if we fight, we’ll be swept away. I was in Australia and I was speaking this example. So after that, one person, Sri Lankan person came and told me that he was in 2004, were all of you born in 2004? Some of you are not, okay.
Some of you are, of course. In 2004, there was a big tsunami in South Asia. So he said that he was on the beach when he saw the tsunami coming and he turned and ran.
Initially, he saw, what is this water so high? Then he realised it. It’s like a huge wave. He ran, but the tsunami was too fast.
It came and slammed the water, water slammed into him. And he’s running, right? Ahead of him, there’s a tree. And somehow he was hurled by the wave into the tree and he got hold of a branch.
And then he just held on to the branch and he pulled himself up and he held on to the branch and everywhere around in the land became water. But because he was holding on to the branch, he survived and eventually rescue came and he was rescued. So if he had not caught that branch, he would have got swept away and he would have succumbed.
So when the waves come in our life, waves of distractions, we can’t fight against them. If we try to fight to stop them, it’s impossible. But if we have an anchor that we can hold on to, then the waves will hit us, but they won’t hurl us away.
Now, what do we mean by an anchor? There are certain things which are good for us and certain things which we like. Like both of these were identical, life would be wonderful. But they are not entirely disjoint also.
Some places they intersect. So something which we like to do and something which is good for us. So there’s an intersection among those two.
Say maybe you like music and then there is spiritual music, which is good for us. So then when we get distracted, we hold on to that, which is the intersection between the two. And that is something which we can easily hold on to.
And then we won’t be swept away by the distractions. Okay. Thank you.
My question is, isn’t serving humanity, serving God, like why can’t we donate to charities or orphanages or hospitals instead of donating to temples? Isn’t serving humanity also serving God? Why not donate to orphanages or hospitals rather than temples? Yeah. You know, 25 years ago, I was also involved in social service and I was studying my engineering. I had joined a social welfare organisation and I had a lot of faith in the power of education.
So I would go to an underprivileged area near my school and I would offer free tuition classes to the children over there, teach English, math, history, like that. And then as I was teaching, I also became friends with the students, the kids over there. And they were good kids.
And this one started telling their stories. Most of them were from wrecked homes. One of the biggest home wrecker was alcoholism among the fathers.
And when I talked with their fathers also, they were actually nice people. They were grateful that I was coming and educating them. But then these kids would say that once they drink alcohol, they become like a different person.
So then I talked with the leaders of our organisation and we decided to go into anti-alcohol campaign. We got some experts to speak and we got some training. And then one of my friends used to go to a small village and I used to go to this slum area.
So then we worked and the village itself completely became dry. Everybody gave up alcohols. So we considered it a big success.
But then one day after that, my friend, I used to go to the nearby slum and he used to go to that village and he came back and he looked shattered. He said, what happened? He said, there were local political elections over there. And one of the candidates, in order to woo the voters, he had bought three truckloads of free alcohol for everyone.
And not only the fathers, but even the kids had all got drunk. So that really jolted us. And I started thinking that we can all provide external facilities for people to create a better life.
Education, they’re opening the door. Hospital, they’re creating health. That’s good.
But there is something inside people that works against them, that sabotages them. One of my friends is a doctor in a hospital and he tells stories that how people who are alcoholic and they become sick, at least at that time they’re sober. You cure them and they get relapsed into alcoholism and they make things worse.
So we, when we want to help people, Henry David Thoreau is a famous American thinker, he said, one hacking at the root of evil is more effective than a thousand hackings at the shoots of evil. So if you break a branch, it will grow, but if you cut off the root, it will not grow. So now, yes, there are a lot of poor people, there are a lot of sick people and they all need help.
At the same time, if you look at the foundational level, it is lack of self-control that destroys more people than lack of resources. If you consider drugs or alcoholism or whatever other things might be there, it’s like, if somebody is young of your age, a little older than all of you, and that person gets into drugs, it’s dangerous. But imagine somebody just got into drugs, that is the time they get a million dollars in inheritance from their grandfather.
That will ruin them because now they have the tendency to take drugs internally and they have money externally. They wipe out that money within one, two years and they end up drug addicted. So we, if we are to help people, it is not just giving them external resources, we also need to give people internal resources.
So lust, anger, greed, all these comprise lack of self-control. And we need to equip everyone to develop that inner self-control. So it’s not necessary to compete.
Why do we give donations to the temples and the hospitals? We give to the hospitals, but the temples are also like hospitals. They are curing us internally. They are helping us decrease the lust, the anger, the greed within us.
And there are so many people I know across the world who were, who after they became devoted, they also became more charitable. And they give charity to the temple and they give charity to other causes also. So it’s, whenever something is positioned like this, why do you do this and not this? Now it’s, is it a valid comparison? Is it a necessary comparison like that? Why do we have to put a hospital and a temple in competition with respect to expenditure? Now, if at all you want to do a comparison like that, do any of you know cricket? Okay, most of you know.
Okay, now I was stupid. I was speaking in American universities. The organisers often told, tell me, don’t talk about cricket.
Because for Americans, when you use the word cricket, it reminds them of an insect, not a game, the cricket. So any of you know about IPL in India? Now, if you, the amount of money that is spent on the IPL every year is 50 days only. The 50 days, the amount of money that is spent on IPL, that if it is used instead for relieving poverty, there will not be a single starving person, not just in India, but in all of Asia.
Now, why don’t we compare that? No, you say that’s different. No, that’s entertainment. Well, okay, is entertainment more important than starving people? No, that’s unfair, don’t compare like that.
Isn’t it? So, this sort of comparison, it’s not a, it often such comparisons can be like emotional manipulation. You, if you are biassed against something, you position that as contrasted with something else. So, let’s not do that.
Everything serves a reason. Hospitals care for the body, temples care for the heart. And we need to heal the complete person, externally and internally.
Okay, thank you. There’s more questions. How do we like, manage our time, especially in like, middle school age kids to like, at least finish like, at least eight rounds of caning? Okay, how do we finish eight rounds of chanting when we are in middle school? Chanting is often difficult to do.
I’ll tell broadly why it is difficult and then I’ll tell what we can do about it. So, one thing is, we’re all busy. We all feel that we don’t have enough time.
But if you understand that our chanting will actually save our time, the time that we move on waste thoughts that I told earlier, then we can save that time. Now, chanting connects us with Krishna at the spiritual level. But what happens at that time, our mind sometimes just goes off.
So, it’s, our mind is very restless. It’s, it’s like, we, our lips are chanting, our mind is wandering and we are thinking which to go along with. Usually, we go along with the mind.
So, the mind is by nature restless. It wants to experience something new. So, what we can do to be able to chant better is, the holy name is like the point of concentration.
Around the point, we can have a circle of concentration. Circle of concentration means something related with Krishna, which, which we can more easily think about. So, for example, if you have heard some stories, some pastimes of Krishna, you like them, you keep a picture of that.
A picture of Krishna helping Arjuna in the Kurukshetra war, a picture of Krishna helping Draupadi or whatever. Now, that picture, keep it and then whenever the mind starts wandering, then instead of letting it wander all over the universe, let it wander to that picture and think about it. That picture, you think about it, you remember, oh, this is Krishna, this is the Krishna I am calling to.
So, if you tell the mind, just stay over here, it will get bored and it will not stay there. But if you tell the mind, if you don’t want to stay here, you can go over here. You give it some, you could say, room for will, then it is easier to keep the mind within that.
So, sometimes it can be a picture, sometimes it can also be some thought about how important it is to control the mind. Some words from the Bhagavad Gita, some inspiring thought, some meditation, like I talk about affirmation, about how chanting helps us. I have a book on quotes from the Bhagavad Gita.
So, don’t tell God how big your problems are. Tell your problems how big God is. So, like that, you have some quotes written on some flashcards in front of you.
And what happens? The mind wanders off. The mind just says, what is this hattering sound again and again? What is the use of it? No, but then you remember, this is, I am calling out to God, He is all-powerful. So, we use our intelligence to again re-stimulate the mind and get it back.
So, try to have various spiritual stimuli around us, something to keep the circle of concentration around us. And then, if the mind wanders too much in between, just calm down, just stop chanting, take a few deep breaths. What happens when we slow down our breath, immediately our mind is forced to slow down.
And then there is no chanting. So, basically, the mind is restless. But even if we are not able to concentrate in chanting, see, there are three things in chanting.
There is action, there is attention and there is intention. The action is just the act of chanting. The attention is how much you are focussing.
And third is intention. Do I want to concentrate? So, even if you pray to Krishna, Krishna, I want to concentrate on your chanting your names. My mind is wandering, but please help me.
If Krishna sees our intention, He will appreciate that. Even if there is no attention, if there is intention, that will also lead to purification, that will also lead to spiritual growth. Okay? Thank you.
If something upsets me very quickly, how can I overcome that besides forgetting? Okay. If something upsets me, ask, how can we easily overcome it without forgetting? Without forgetting means you don’t want to forget or you can’t forget? What do you mean by without forgetting? Okay, yes, a different way besides forgetting. Yeah, the first thing is that, it’s like, nowadays we have many sets.
We have a TV set, we have a sofa set and we have a card set and we are upset. So, externals, we may have many which are comfortable for us, but something will go wrong externally and then you become upset. So, most people nowadays, you can say they are comfortably upset.
You are comfortable, sitting on a comfortable chair and you are upset, like that. So, we need to have something internal that stabilises us. So, when we are upset about something, basically something out there has gone wrong.
Somebody has spoken in a particular way, something has happened in a particular way, some event has transpired. So, at that time, we need to have something inside us which calms us down. So, like I earlier talked about the anchor.
So, something which is good for us and something which we like to do. If we have that and we hold on to that. Our mind goes through sine waves.
All of you know what a sine wave is? It’s up and down, up and down they go. So, our mind oscillates, sometimes happy, sometimes unhappy, sometimes happy, sometimes unhappy. So, when it goes through like that, we will also go like that, unless we hold on to something else.
So, it’s like in a cricket match, there are players and there is umpire. So, in English, there are two words, there is uninterested and there is disinterest. Does anyone know the difference between the two words, uninterested and disinterested? Most of you are not interested.
Disinterested means to not be involved, to not be biassed towards something in particular. Then uninterested just means to not have any interest towards it. Superb! Wonderful! I have asked this across the world almost 50 times.
Nobody has got it right now. So, yeah, disinterested means impartial and uninterested means just apathetic. I don’t care about it.
So, say in a cricket match, there’s a bowler who bowls and the ball goes and hits the leg of the batsman and the players appeal, how’s that? And the umpire says, I was not watching the match. What? And what are you there as an umpire for? So, in a cricket match, how should the umpire be? Uninterested or disinterested? Disinterested. If the umpire is uninterested, then there’s no job being an umpire over there.
So, disinterested means it’s not just that because the players have appealed, so you have to say out. Or because the players have appealed, and I say not out. No, evaluate each appeal based on merit.
So, similarly for us, whenever any emotion comes up within us, now we need to become like an umpire. I’m feeling upset about this, but is this worth getting upset about? Today I’m upset about this, but it’s like a player who’s appealing. So, the various emotions within us that come up, they’re like players that are appealing.
Now, if we become like an umpire, evaluate the appeal based on merit. Is this really worth getting upset about? Now, if you ask us, maybe one week later, will this matter so much? One month later, it won’t matter so much. If you consider maybe one year ago or two years ago, there’s something which you were upset about.
And today, if you think how upset I was, we laugh at it. Why did I get so upset about it? It’s a small thing. So, what happens sometimes in the heat of the moment, we get carried away.
But if you can become like an umpire, whenever any emotion comes up, think of a cricket match. Don’t think about playing the match at that time, but think that if you’re an umpire and this emotion is like something appealing, a player appealing. So, is this worth getting upset about? Now, sometimes it is worth getting upset about.
Something is important for us, it needs to be said right. But most of the times, getting upset only makes things worse. Yes, this is not a good thing that has happened, but there’s no need to get too worked up about it.
Let me see how to deal with it. So, if you can just become an observer of the emotion, rather than get carried away by emotion. And that happens if we practise spirituality, we chant Hare Krishna, you understand that you are a soul, connect with Krishna.
And what happens? The body is here, the mind is here, the soul is here. So, in the mind the emotion will come, but you as a soul can observe and you can decide. Just find some anchor and hold on to it.
Can Krishna give realisations to people even if they do wrong things? Can Krishna give realisations to people even if they do wrong things? Yes, if they want to get it. That means when we do wrong things, it can be because of weakness or it can be because of wickedness. Weakness means all of us have certain times when we are vulnerable, we have weak moments.
So, we are already upset by 10 things and then somebody nags us and we yell at them. What happened? And then we ourselves feel bad afterward. I shouldn’t have yelled like that.
So, that was just a moment of weakness. So, all of us have some lust, some anger, some greed, some negativity within us. But we also have a conscience.
Conscience tells us, conscience don’t do this, it’s not good. And if you do something bad, our conscience makes us feel bad. I should not have done it.
And then we go and apologise or we try to make amends. So, when there is weakness, that means the person doesn’t want to do something wrong, but in the moment they become overwhelmed. So, if the person has weakness, they basically want to do the right thing, but sometimes they do something wrong, occasionally.
Then Krishna gives them realisation. Hey, you shouldn’t have acted in this way. And maybe when this happened, say if I’ve had 10 things which have gone wrong for me in the day, I’ve had a very bad day.
And then we know there’s some person with whom we just explore. Some people bring the best out of us and some people bring the worst out of us. Of course, we can’t blame them for that.
But if we know that some people bring the worst out of us, maybe we prevent. Maybe I’ll deal with this person next day. Today, I’m really down.
I’ll get provoked. So, if we have weakness, that means we don’t want to do wrong. As soon as we do wrong, we feel bad and we try to correct.
Then Krishna will give that realisation. Krishna will give the realisation of how we are going wrong and how we can set things right. But weakness is one thing.
Wickedness is another thing. Wickedness means somebody does wrong and then delights in doing wrong. Their conscience is almost dying.
It’s like, say, if you’re walking on a crowded road and you step on somebody’s foot. As soon as we realise we have stepped, I’m sorry, we apologise. But some people, they see they step on somebody’s foot and then they bang once more.
So, that is evil. Evil means what? To cause suffering for the sake of causing suffering. Do any of you know people like that? If you don’t, that is pure fortunate.
But there are sometimes people like that. They hurt for no purpose except they get a sense of power in hurting others. You may have some bullies in school who are like that.
So, basically, when there is wickedness, that means a person feels bad, person does bad, but doesn’t even feel bad after doing bad. Then they won’t get realisations because they don’t want realisations. See, Krishna sees more our intentions than our actions.
Sometimes our actions are just not in our control. But if our intention was never to do that, and we regret doing that, we try to correct ourselves and Krishna will give us realisations and gradually we’ll become stronger. For those who have wickedness, then their realisation will be more in terms of consequences.
They will have to learn the school of hard knocks. By the law of karma, they will be knocked down immediately, eventually. They are setting themselves up for a very, very dark future.
But if we have weakness, surely Krishna will give us realisations. And even if somebody has wickedness, if at least they connect with Krishna in some way and they try to change, then Krishna will help. Okay? Thank you.
Hare Krishna. How can I develop gratitude towards Krishna and others? How can we develop gratitude towards Krishna and others? Yes. Basically, in every situation in our life, there are some things we have and some things we don’t have.
Now, looking at the things we don’t have causes greed. Looking at the things we have brings gratitude. So, we need to make a habit of consciously looking at what we have.
Now, some people see the glass as half empty. Some people see the glass as half full. Some people see the glass as double the necessary size.
Just change it into half glass, it will become full now. Just change it into half size glass, it will become full. So, what that means is that even if we can’t change the content of our observation, of our perception, we can change its context.
So, in any situation, if I look at somebody who has something more than me, I will feel dissatisfied. If I look at someone who has less than me, then I will feel great. So, unfortunately, in today’s world, because of the technological, digital connectedness, we are shown everything we don’t have.
I may have a very good phone, but I just Google and I will see a hundred other phones which look more attractive than mine. And in every field, we keep seeing things we don’t have which seem to be better than what we have. And that causes dissatisfaction.
And that actually prevents us from feeling gratitude. So, are we going to have prasad after this? Yes. Okay.
So, suppose you have some special kind of prasad. What is that? That every one of you will get a separate dessert. Every one of you will get a dessert, but every plate has a separate dessert.
So, now I have a dessert in my plate, but I look, what is in his plate? And then I look, what is in her plate? And I look, what is in his plate? And then even though there is something delicious in my plate, I will not be able to taste it. I don’t have that. I don’t have that.
I don’t have that. So, for us, it’s like that. Now, there are good things in our life.
Actually speaking, just if we are alive, then there is more right than wrong in our lives. And most of you may be around 10, 15, 20, some of us are 40, 50, whatever. But there are so many people who die before they attain our age.
So many kids die. It’s small. So, if we are alive, there is more right than wrong in our lives.
So, wherever we, if you want to cultivate gratitude, it is good to write down the good things in our life. This is good. We will not be able to remember at that time when we are seeing something else that someone has and that makes us feel not grateful, but resentful about what I don’t have.
So, if you write things down, okay, I’ve got this, I’ve got this, I’ve got this. This is right. And then we look at those things.
So, by consciously cultivating our focus on the things that we have, we can cultivate gratitude. Okay. Thank you.
When Krishna says that he provides what his devotees lack and preserves what they have, why do devotees of Krishna sometimes face failure and how should they respond to these failures? So, why do devotees face failure when Krishna says that he’ll protect? Yes. Krishna says surely that he’ll protect, but how, when, where, that is up to Krishna. See, sometimes protection is the thing that is most harmful for us.
What do I mean by this? How can protection be harmful? So, imagine there is a bird in a nest, so not in a nest, in a shell, baby bird inside a shell. Now, for the baby bird, it, as it grows, grows, grows, it comes out. Now, normally in humans, when a baby is born, it’s two way.
The mother is also pushing the baby and the baby is also trying to come out. And then the baby comes out with both eggs. But in the case of birds, the birds already lay their eggs and the egg is separate.
And then the baby bird inside has to push and crack the shell. And then the bird cracks the shell and then maybe a little feather comes out. And then again, the shell snaps like, ah, and its tender shell is, tender wings are caught in the shell.
Painful, but again the baby bird shakes. And then eventually, using all its effort, the baby bird comes out, breaks the shell and comes out. Now, the mother bird who sees the baby bird going through all that struggle, the mother bird would just come and peck at the shell with its beaks and break the shell.
And the baby bird would come out easily. But that would be dangerous for the baby bird. Why? Because in breaking the shell, the baby bird’s strength develops.
And if that strength is not developed, the baby bird will come out with undeveloped wings, with inadequate strength and will not be able to fly. And then it will become an easy prey for any predator. So for the baby bird, going through the pain of breaking the shell and sometimes being hurt in breaking the shell, that is necessary for growth.
So similarly, we are all caught in various shells. In the arch, we have the shells of our attachments, our misconceptions. And when we are going through difficulties, when apparently Krishna is not responding to our prayers, it is not that Krishna is not caring.
It is we who need to go through that difficulty so that we grow. And Krishna is there to help us always. But His help doesn’t always come on the terms that we expect.
If we live for a few years in our life, maybe few decades, we all can look back at situations when something terrible happened. Why did this have to happen? But then maybe a few years down the line, you see actually something very good came out of that. Something bad happens, but then that bad leads to something good.
So there is a higher plan. And when Krishna is not protecting us, it may be that He is not protecting us from the outer danger, but He will be providing us for our inner growth. The mother doesn’t necessarily break the shell from outside, but the bird gradually gets the strength from inside to break the shell.
Similarly, if when we are praying to Krishna, if we make our prayer conditional to a particular result, a particular form of protection, then we may feel, why is Krishna not protecting? But yes, we can seek a particular form of protection, but don’t demand that. Like I said, desire, but don’t demand. And then instead we say, Krishna, whatever situation comes, please give me the strength to go through that situation, to grow through that situation.
Then we will find that we will get that strength. So the protection doesn’t always come in the removal of the danger. The protection also comes in the strength to face the danger.
Hare Krishna. What really happens to the soul in spiritual planets? Is there a possibility for a soul to commit any sinful actions in spiritual planets? If possible, then what would be the result of that sinful action? Okay. What happens to the soul in spiritual planets? Can they do something wrong, something sinful? Well, not exactly sinful.
Basically, all of us have free will. And free will is necessary for any kind of love. Imagine, say, a boy loves a girl and he proposes to the girl.
The girl says no, immediately takes out a gun. If you don’t accept my proposition, I’ll shoot you. That is not love.
So that is a simple threat. So love requires free will. Free will means that the person can choose to reciprocate or they can choose not to reciprocate.
So all of us have been given free will. And whether it is the spiritual world or the material world, the free will is always there. Now what is not there in the spiritual world is temptation.
And there are so many temptations in the world which often drag us away. So in the spiritual world, it may be that we might choose to serve Krishna in a way that is not possible there. Say, somebody says, I want to choose by creating a planet, creating a world.
Then it’s not possible to do that in the spiritual world. Then we come to the material world. And once we come to the material world, it’s a place of temptation.
And here we might get deluded. So now why are there temptations in the world? That’s because, again, free will requires choices. Most of the souls here are here because they want to explore other things.
So I was in Australia and somebody asked a question that, you know, if God wants us to do good things, why are the good choices so few and the bad choices so many? So I answered, that’s how it always is in any multiple choice paper. Isn’t it? A multiple choice paper. If there are five options, four are wrong and one is right.
Some student could sue the teacher. You get four wrong options. That means the probability of my choosing wrong is 80%.
And if my probability of choosing wrong is 80%, how do you expect me to get 40% marks? You know, you are rigging this against me. But it’s not meant to be chosen by probability. There are four wrong options, one right option.
The teacher has given the options. Teacher has given the knowledge by which the child can choose the right options. So even the wrong options come from the teacher only.
But the wrong options don’t take you to the teacher. Or they take you to a teacher who is unhappy with you. So the teacher tells, so if we study, then we will choose the right options.
So similarly, if we stay connected with Krishna, then even if some wrong options come before us, then we will get the strength, get the wisdom and the strength to choose rightly. Okay. We’ll take one more question from around.
If anyone, any of the mothers and dads have questions, we’ll take one question. You have a question, Pranay? Anybody wants to ask? So all your questions are answered. That’s nice.
It is a question. Okay. There is a, I mean, we are interacting spiritual way of learning.
I am going and there are certainly, sports is also necessary for kids. So what should be a good balance or how should, because sometimes sports activity may require kids to go outside the home or stay. So how should one balance and what should be a proper management? Okay.
So if some children are involved in sports and they travel outside the home or such a state, what can be a proper balance between that and say spiritual practises? It all depends on, see purpose depends, determines perspective. Purpose, that means if, say if I want to get to a particular destination in the next six hours and I can drive there in four hours, then maybe there are some good places to see, I can see them in the two hours. But if I can get there in four hours and I have to reach there in four hours, then there is no time for sightseeing.
So we have to be clear about our purpose and then we get perspective of other things. So purpose provides perspective. Similarly, with respect to children, sports can be played for various reasons.
One can be just for health, another can be for entertainment, another can be that somebody has a special talent and they want to pursue that talent and they want to become a sports player. Maybe in their team, maybe the local team, somebody wants to pursue sports as a profession. So we have to see the purpose.
So for somebody, for whom it’s just like entertainment or just like exercise, then there is no need to go way too much out of the way. That we can try to accommodate in our exact situation with some adjustments and it’s possible to accommodate. But if somebody is pursuing, somebody has some special talents and some special interest and then they are pursuing that, then the required adjustments will have to be made.
So it means that, yes, in our spiritual practises, our spiritual association, all this is important, but you may not always get it wherever we go. So we have to see how best that support can be provided. That support can be in the form of maybe some parents or some adults, some coaches or whoever who are somewhat more spiritually minded than otherwise.
I know kids, I know in Canada, there’s one boy who is just a nine-year-old boy and he is playing in an international like under-10 team of Canada. So he’s brilliant. And then his parents are also supporting him.
But then one of his parents or his managers, they travel with him and then they take care of all the arrangements. And all that talent, some of the biggest challenges with having the talent is that the talent can go to the head. And then others can also, if somebody says there is a talent, it exports also a business now.
And a talented child can become like a puppet for all those who want to make money out of their child. So then it becomes very complicated. So they need a very adequate protection.
So the specifics will have to work out, but it’s not that sports and spirituality are necessarily inimical to each other. If we see all abilities come from God. So if somebody has a special talent in sports, they’re also coming from God.
But whether one has that much talent, that much interest, that much facility to pursue that as a main vocation, that has to be carefully thought about. And we use whatever we have been given in the best possible way. Does it answer your question or you had something more specific in mind? Yeah, a lot.
Okay. So thank you very much for your attention and participation.