In bhakti, we don’t just make an offering – we are ourselves the offering

[Sunday feast class at ISKCON, Mira Road, Mumbai, India]

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna. So, I am grateful to be here amongst all of you today after 6-7 months.
I was almost for 5 and a half, 6 months, I was in a world tour. I was in Australia, New Zealand and I went to America, Canada. Just came back and I was in the Middle East and Singapore.
So, I will speak today on the topic of how Bhakti is not just about making some offering to Krishna, how the essence of Bhakti is offering ourselves to Krishna. I will take this in 3 parts. After each part, we will have a brief question-answer or reflection session.
So, if you have any questions, we can have along the way, after each one third or we can have at the end also. So, first, the first point I will make is that when we practise Bhakti, how does it change our life? How does it, how is Bhakti practical or beneficial in today’s fast-paced world? In the second part, I will talk about how to see and seek achievements in Bhakti. There are certain targets.
All of you did amazing book distribution recently. That’s an achievement. So, how to see and seek achievements in Bhakti? And lastly, how to seek inner satisfaction in Bhakti? So, I was speaking at Stanford University just about 4 months ago, 3 months ago and there I was talking about spirituality, meditation and how it is enormously beneficial for people even in terms of managing their stress and managing their emotions.
So, after that one student asked, is spirituality just another to-do on our to-do lists? We all have so many things to do. Do this, do this, do this, do this. Some of us may literally make to-do lists.
Some of us may just have it in our minds. But either way, we have so many things to do and is spirituality one more thing to do? Our lives are already so busy. Sometimes when we are travelling, especially say if we are travelling by air, then you have a fixed baggage quota and then some people when they want to travel, they want to pack their whole home into their suitcase and then it just doesn’t work.
So, when we want to do that, so when we want to put in the whole suitcase, we just can’t. Sometimes it appears impossible because it is impossible. We just can’t put in the whole house into a suitcase.
Similarly, we feel that I have so many things to do and our fixed time, say 24 hours of a day, that appears to be like a finite suitcase. It is like a finite amount of baggage that we can carry. How do we fit all those things in? And then if we have to say chant Hare Krishna mantra, study scripture, come to a temple, this seems to be like one more thing to fit in.
So, one devotee in New Zealand was telling me that, when I came initially to practise Bhakti, I was told that if I chant Hare Krishna and practise Bhakti, my stress will go away. But now, doing so many activities in Bhakti is giving me stress. So, is my stress going away or is my stress increasing because of Bhakti? So, I explained both these questions that Bhakti at one level is another to do.
But at another level, Bhakti is another way to do. It is doing things in a different consciousness, with a different attitude. That essentially means that stress can be caused by two different things.
One is that we just have a lot of things to do. And it is true that in our fast-paced life, we have so many things to do. However, that is not the only cause of stress.
There is a survey done by a psychologist association. They found that it is not the busiest people who are the most stressed. It is often the laziest people who are the most stressed.
People who are, they say, I have to do this, I have to do this, I have to do this, I have to do this. And they actually look in their day, they don’t do much. So, now, it is possible that a lot of workload can cause stress.
But stress is caused more, not so much by what all things we have to do, but as by our attitude towards those things, by our own thought processes. That means, if we have to do one thing and we focus on that one thing, we do it and then move on to the next thing. But for people, especially who are in the modes of Rajas and Tamas, the Bhagavad Gita talks about three modes.
Which are the three modes? Does anyone know? Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. So, Sattva, Rajas and Tamas, we can explain these as in three ways. Some people make things happen, some people watch things happen and some people wonder what happened.
So, in Sattva, people plan things out. I do this, you do this and together it works. So, they make things happen.
In Rajas, it is like people start off one thing, but they start off one thing without thinking about proper planning and consequences and things like that. We start off from our home to go to office and I forgot the key. Then I come running back and I forgot the phone.
And I come running back and then we collide into someone and the whole bag that we are carrying spills over. What is going on? And we don’t reach in time. So, in Rajas, what happens is that we are so caught in doing things that what action will lead to what consequence we don’t think of.
And because of that, often we just watch things happen. We thought I will do one thing, but this, this, this, this, what is happening? So, things tend to have a ripple effect. And people in Tamas are just wonder what happened.
They are just in their own world. They are in their own world. In the European tradition, there is a story of a character named Rip Van Winkle.
Rip Van Winkle was a character who went to sleep. And he slept for several decades. And when he woke up, the whole world has changed around him.
What happened? He went to some remote place and slept. When he woke up and came, he just couldn’t make sense of anything. The way people were talking were different, the way people were dressing were different.
So, people in Tamas are like that. They live in their own illusion. So, they live inside their head, just dealing with their own thoughts and their imaginations without doing anything constructive.
If they do anything, it is usually more destructive than constructive. So, these are three modes, Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. And Rajas and Tamas are primarily the cause of stress.
It is not how many things which we have to do. If we are in Sattva, we will be able to realistically assess. I can do these many things and these I either have to outsource to someone, delegate or postpone or cancel, whatever.
That realistic assessment we can do in Sattva. But Rajas and Tamas, in Rajas, we start doing too many things and then while we are doing those things, we make a mess of things further and further. In Tamas, basically what happens, we are doing one thing, but more than doing the thing, we are burdened about doing that thing.
So, sometimes some things are difficult to do. Say, some student has to do some studies. They just don’t like a particular subject.
Or somebody has some homework, some assignment, something which you don’t like to do. And now, if there is no one else to do it, we only have to do it, then we have to do it. But in Tamas, we just keep thinking, oh, I have to do that, I have to do that, I have to do that, I have to do that.
When I was studying engineering, we had to do some submissions. And those submissions, they were very boring and burdened. Not very difficult to do, but just very boring and tiresome to do.
And students would be talking about their submission right from the beginning of the semester. Oh, we have to do this submission, we have to do this submission. And actually that, that mental burden would exhaust people even before they start the activity.
Oh, I have to do this, I have to do this, I have to do this, I have to do this. And yes, the activity is unpalatable, but it’s not impossible. But what happens when we let it burden us, then that itself drains us.
And when we are done with our activity, say our physical energy is tangible. Say that means, if we have eaten some good food and we have some energy, we can lift a heavy bag. But if we have lifted bags for a long day, and then we have to lift something, it will be difficult.
We in general are careful about how we spend our physical energy. And we understand if the physical energy is expended, then we can’t function. But with respect to our mental energy, we are often very indiscriminate.
Indiscriminate means we just let it carelessly go away. So when we are thinking about some difficult situation, that basically tyres us out. So mental energy can be used to actually plan and execute how to do things.
But mental energy can also be dissipated in just worrying, resenting, feeling sorry for oneself. And in that way, what happens is that we feel stressed. That’s why I said it’s not just the busiest people who feel stressed.
Somebody who is busy in sattva, they will plan and they will do things. In rajas, they will also do a lot of things, but they will increase their work. But in tamas, the laziest people also feel very stressed.
Why? Because they are stressed by the thought that I have so much to do. They are so stressed by the thought that I have so much to do, that they don’t do it only. They do very little.
Just keep telling the world, oh I have to do this, I have to do that, I have to do that. What did you do? Oh no, I have to do this, I have to do that. But what did you do? They do nothing actually.
So this is how the mind ends up tricking us. So when we talk about stress, we feel stressed not just because the external list of things that we have to do, but our own mind is working. And when we start practising bhakti, it is this mental energy that becomes channelled constructively.
When we practise bhakti, although at one level, it is also another thing to do. Okay, we come to the temple, we do this chanting, we do this reading of scripture. It’s just one more thing to do in our life.
It’s true. But this one thing, one more thing to do changes us internally. It helps us come to sattva.
It helps us to become more thoughtful. It helps us to organise our thoughts. And then we can work more effectively.
Now some people may be more organised than others. Different people work differently. For some people, without a to-do list, they just can’t work.
I need this, this, this, this, this. For some people, making a to-do list itself becomes a big to-do. I have to make a to-do list.
And they feel after they have made a to-do list, I have done a big work now. Now I need a break. It becomes like that for some people.
So different people will be organised at different levels. That will vary from person to person. But we all, as we go through our lives, we find out what is the level of organisation that works best for us.
But either way, whether we make a to-do list or not, more important is that our mind needs to be working with us, not working against us. And that is what happens by the practise of bhakti. By the practise of bhakti, we, the forces within the mind, which drive it wild, tadarajas tamo bhava, kama lobha dayas chaye, cheta etair anavidham, sthitam sattve prasidati.
The Srimad Bhagavatam, first canto, second chapter, is called Divinity and Divine Service. There, how the process of bhakti yoga works is described. And there it is said that when we keep practising bhakti steadily, then tadarajas tamo bhava, the rajas and tamas within us goes down.
And what is the result of that? Kama lobha dayas chaye. The wild desires within us, they start decreasing. Cheta etair anavidham.
And as the consciousness becomes purified of these, then sthitam sattve prasidati. As we become situated in sattva, then our life becomes more manageable. Our life becomes more purposeful.
So, this is how bhakti is not just another to do, it is also another way to do. Another way to do means, do the inner work by which the mind becomes more amenable, more workable, and then we can do better work outside. So, this is how when we do this inner work by the practise of bhakti, we find ourselves becoming calmer, becoming more capable of managing life stresses.
So, this was the first point that bhakti is not just another to do, it is another way to do. It enables us to make our inner world, our mind and our energy capable of being used more constructively. So, any questions or comments at this point? Yes.
You can speak, I will repeat. It is about what we don’t like and we are doing it. On material level also, spiritual level also.
Like for example, I may not like some service, but I have to do it. So, I have that stress. And one is, on material level, I don’t like something, I don’t like this job, but I have to do it.
So, how to balance that and how to… Yeah, good question. Thank you. So, sometimes the stress is caused.
Stress is caused not so much by what all things we have to do, but because we don’t like certain things. Maybe in material life or in our devotional life also. Yeah, in general, we have to work with the mind that we have.
That means our mind has certain likes and dislikes. And we have to work with it. We cannot wish away the mind’s likes and dislikes.
At one level, we can say the whole principle of varnashram. Principle of varnashram is not so much of dividing people into certain… slotting people into certain categories. It is more of making people’s social engagement harmonious with their psychological disposition.
If somebody is an intellectual, okay, let them do some scriptural study and teaching. Somebody has managerial relation, let them manage. So, basically, the idea in varnashram is to engage people in a compatible way.
And we also, it is almost impossible now to recreate varnashram as it was traditionally. But essentially, engaging ourselves in a way that is harmonious with our nature. That is our individual responsibility as well as an institutional responsibility.
That means the leaders should, as a long term vision, engage devotees in a way that they can happily do the service. And individually, we have to find out how best we can do. Now, having said this, it is never possible in the world to only do the things which we like to do.
Even if it happens that our profession, even if we have a job which we like to do. But even if we are doing bad job, then our mind is so fickle that there will be things about which we will not like. There was an author.
He said that, you know, author’s job is so easy. Just sit in an air-conditioned room and type on a computer. And you get paid for that.
So comfortable. So, he says, yes, an author’s job is very comfortable. All that you have to do is sit in front of a computer and stare at it till drops of blood form on your forehead.
What that means is, when somebody is trying to write, writing at one level seems easy. But you try to write one letter, try to write maybe an interview application or an essay for application to our university, you realise writing is hard work. So, even if there is something we like to do, there will be things within which we don’t like to do.
That’s how it is. Sarvaarambhahi doshena dhumen agnirivavrata. Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, that sarvaarambha, in all endeavours, doshena, there will be some fault, some things we don’t like to do.
Dhumen agnirivavrata, just as fire is covered by smoke. So, we have to do these things. So, how do we go about doing these things? So, basically, whatever we have to do, we can divide into some broad categories.
There are some things which we love to do. We look forward to doing. We ask as volunteers, I want to do this more.
There are some things which we don’t like to do. And some things which are okay in between. We don’t mind doing it.
We don’t, neither actively like it, nor do we dislike it. If I have to do it, I’ll do it. So, in general, we will get strength from the things which we like to do.
And you can use that strength to do the things which you don’t like to do. So, that way we can balance out. If we say, I will never do the things which I don’t like to do, we can’t function in life.
Everybody has to do things which you don’t like to do. Now, as a travelling speaker, I like to speak and talk with people and answer questions. But before I go for any international tour, it’s like over a month I have to plan.
Now, this place, when to go, all the logistics of booking the tickets, making sure that the schedules of various other preachers don’t coincide. Last time I calculated, I gave about, when I went for a four and a half month tour, I gave about 125 classes in about four months. And I realised that I spent almost 100 hours planning it out.
Just logistics. OK, this flight booking, going here, going there. Now, there is no taste in planning it all out.
It’s just, OK, now this day doesn’t work over here, this day doesn’t work over here. Suddenly a storm comes over and then the programme has to be cancelled. Sometimes so many things keep coming up.
So, that is something which we don’t like. But if I want to do this, then I need to do this. So, like that, it’s only if the thing which you don’t like to do becomes so much that we don’t get any time to do the thing which we like to do, then that’s when we feel burdened.
So, we have to be realistic and recognise that we can’t always do the thing which we like to do. But we also have to recognise our own nature and realise that we can’t always do the things which we don’t like to do. So, even out.
OK, thank you. Any other questions? Example of? OK, of how to even things out? OK. So, how do we even things out, say? Say, for example, if we have some, in spiritual life I can say, say, if we like hearing classes.
But we have got services such as, say, OK, we have to do book distribution, we have to do some vessel washing, we have to do some other services. Now, those are also important. If that’s required, we do it.
But if those become so much that we don’t get time to do this, then over a period of time, we’ll start feeling drained. We start feeling resentful. So, we need to make some time for it.
Even if we are working in our, in our profession, even in the profession, there will be certain things which overall we have to do. But we can align ourselves. So, I was talking with a, with a devotee in Princeton.
He was going through what you can call a midlife crisis. He is a professor in Princeton, very respectable position. And, you know, enormously successful career chart.
He was IIT topper. And Princeton is Ivy League, the top universities in America. That’s where he did his PhD.
He did his master’s and his PhD elsewhere. And then he came back and now he’s teaching in Princeton. But he was feeling empty in his life.
He is a devotee practising bhakti, professionally also successful. Then I talked with him. And then he told me that what he loved to do was research.
He likes to do research and write papers. But over a period of time, what happened was the definition of success, the glamorised idea was, if a professor also goes into management, that means you become a head of department, you become a dean, you become like that. So, he started going into management because that’s what was seen as successful.
And then he realised that this is not what I want to do. I want to study. I want to research.
I want to teach. I want to publish. And then, so, broadly, what has happened in American universities and to some extent in India also, that this is a big problem in education.
The education infrastructure has a lot of administrative overhead. More than actually in many universities, more than number of professors and teachers are all the admin staff. And that becomes a big distraction.
Somebody has to do admin. But he realised, I don’t have to do that. I can still be a professor.
And I can focus on my research and research and publication. And that way also, he can be successful. He can be progressive.
So, basically, we have to find out what is it that inspires us and do that the most. Other things we can do. We can’t avoid them.
But they don’t have to become the primary focus of our energy. Does that answer your question? Thank you. So, let’s move on.
The first point I spoke was that bhakti is not just another to-do, but it’s another way to do, where our thought energy starts working for us instead of against us. Second point I’ll discuss is about, okay, what about to-do’s in bhakti? We also have targets. We also have goals to achieve.
So, in bhakti, the essence, let’s look at three verses in the 9th chapter, which talk about how bhakti is practised at multiple levels. So, this is 9th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, text 26, 27. 25, 26, 27.
Let’s look at them broadly. So, in the 25th verse, Krishna is telling, whichever devata you worship, that’s where you’ll go. yānti deva-pratā devān pitra nīyānti pitra-pratā bhūtā nīyānti bhūteja yānti madhyājinopi mām.
So, Krishna is clearly telling, you follow different paths, you’ll get to different destinations. Some people say, all paths lead to the same goal. Prabhupāda was once asked this question.
He said that, some person in an American university said, Swamiji, I don’t know the verse, but I’ve heard in the Gita, it is said that, whatever path you will follow, you’ll attain the same destination. Prabhupāda said, then why would Krishna have to speak the Bhagavad Gita? Isn’t it? Whatever you’re going to do, you’re going to attain God, then why does Krishna have to speak the Gita at all? It’s like saying, you go out of the temple, whichever road you go, you’ll take the same destination. It doesn’t work like that anywhere in life.
That’s why we need a map. The Bhagavad Gita is like a map. So, this is 9.25. In 9.26, Krishna says, how do you practise bhakti? He says, patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ yo me bhaktyā prayacchati tad ahaṁ bhakti-upahṛtaṁ aśnāmi prayatātmanah He says, even if you give me a fruit, a flower, a leaf or a little bit water, that will also satisfy me.
Aśnāmi, I’ll accept it. The ācāryas explain that Krishna is actually using singular over here. Not even plural.
He’s not saying patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ. He just says, you give me one leaf, one fruit, one flower, that is also enough. So, what is the point over here? Is it that Krishna can’t get a fruit for himself? He only gives all the fruits to mother nature.
But what Krishna wants is, what does he want? What does he want? Devotion. He wants our bhakti. So, what Krishna wants is our devotion.
So, the essence of the offering is not the fruit, flower. It is the devotion which is offered. Some people say that when you worship the deities, you put the food in front of the deities and then the food remains as it is.
How is it being offered? So, what is happening? Where is the offering? You just keep it in front of the deities for some time, you take it out and you eat it. Where is the offering happening? Actually, to understand this, we have to understand what is to be offered. That is, Krishna, he doesn’t really need the food.
So, suppose, when cultured families, say one family members go to another family’s house, then usually when they go to their house, they may take some tiffin in which they make some sweets, some small box they will take. And there are some sweets in that box. And then they give those sweets to the family whom they are visiting.
And that family will take the sweets, maybe they stay for a day or two, some visitors come. And when they are going, that family, when they will give the box back, they will not leave that box empty. They will fill it with some sweets.
Now, somebody who is observing from outside, they will say, this box went inside and came outside. What is this? Why carry a burden with you? The same box went inside and came outside, but what was inside is different. So, similarly, the food which we cook and offer to Krishna, that is the medium.
The food is like the box. And in that food, when it is going inside and coming outside, different things are there. So, when it is going inside, at that time, we are offering our bhakti to Krishna.
And when it is coming back to us, Krishna is offering his kripa, his mercy to us. So, the essence of the offering is not the food itself. It is what we are offering through the medium of the food.
Now, of course, when we are offering the food, we want to offer the best quality food also. So, it is like when a gift is to be given, the essence is the gift. But the packaging is also important.
We give a very expensive gift, but the package is all torn. What is this? It will look odd, isn’t it? So, we give it in a good package also. So, basically, when Krishna is saying, just offer me a fruit, flower, the essence that he is asking from us is the devotion of our heart.
But the devotion we offer through various ways. Now, some people might be able to make a big offering. Some people make a small offering.
That will vary from person to person. In the Ramayana, there is a beautiful story which illustrates how the size of the service doesn’t matter. It is the consciousness behind the service.
Which is that story? Yes, the squirrel and the vanaras. Now, some people say it was Hanuman. Somehow, I am not very comfortable with casting Hanuman in a negative light over here.
I have not read this particular story in any of the Hanuman Kathas directly, wherever it has been given. It is just one of the vanaras are there. So, the vanaras are proud and they say, we are doing so much, this squirrel is coming in the way.
But then, Lord Ram says that, yes, that squirrel, she will be carrying a small dust particle and you are carrying huge boulders. But from my perspective, what I see is that both of you are doing your best. Both of you are doing what you can.
That means, what Krishna wants to see is that whether we are doing our best. So, ultimately, if somebody can make a big offering to Krishna, it is they who are offering their resources which have been given to them by Krishna. So, it is not what we offer so much that matters.
It is the consciousness which you offer. And ultimately, the essence of who we are is our consciousness. So, when we are trying to do some service, the important thing is to keep this mood of service in place.
That I am doing this as a service to Krishna. Let me offer the best that I can. And from Krishna’s perspective, what is offered is not as important as the bhav, as the emotion which is offered.
When I started giving classes, a senior Vaishnava told me that, one of my spiritual guides told me that, there may be two speakers. One of them may be very fluent, very eloquent, very learned, very erudite. And he can speak so mesmerizingly, people become captivated.
And some people, when they speak, they speak slowly, sometimes they stammer. And then you speak a little bit. But sometimes the person who is speaking slowly, stammeringly, very shortly, that person by speaking about Krishna may make more spiritual advancement than somebody who can speak fluently and attract many people.
Because the person who is speaking very fluently might be thinking, just see how much I am impressing people. Just see what a great speaker I am. But somebody who may not be able to speak very well, that person may be thinking, I am doing this as a service to Krishna.
I am not a very good speaker, but I am doing this as a service to Krishna. And then who is more Krishna conscious? Who is more Krishna conscious? The second person. See, bhakti is so subtle that sometimes the audience who is hearing a class may make more advancement by hearing the class than the speaker may make by speaking the class.
Ultimately everybody is trying to serve Krishna. But sometimes the audience may be in a mood, this is Krishna’s wisdom, this is Krishna’s message, I want to learn about it, I want to grow in bhakti. And the speaker may be thinking that, just see, how clever I am, how brilliant I am.
It is their self-consciousness, that person will not make much spiritual advancement. So in both cases, the person who is speaking fluently and the person who is speaking stammeringly, both of them, they are using whatever ability they have in Krishna’s service. Now of course, if we can make a better offering, we should try.
There is no doubt that we can all try to improve our offerings more and more. But sometimes the inability to improve our offering creates so much resentment within us, creates so much pessimism within us, creates so much discouragement within us, that we stop trying to practise bhakti also. And that is counterproductive.
That is unwanted. But because ultimately, we are all empowered by Krishna in various degrees. Paurusham Rishu, Krishna says, whatever ability anyone has, it is he who is manifesting through those abilities in them.
So whatever abilities, just use them in Krishna’s service. And that’s how, when we have this attitude, then the achievement complex, which can be there in bhakti also, I want to do this much, I want to do this much, I want to do this much, that we won’t get so caught in that. We will focus on trying to do our best.
That means, we will be focussing more on offering our own consciousness, our own bhava to Krishna, rather than seeing the quantity of what we are offering. See the size of what we are offering. And that way we will actually be Krishna conscious.
So often when we are practising bhakti, the stress comes because our vision shifts from Krishna to others. This person is doing so much. Oh, I am not able to do this much.
Now, functionally, comparison or competition is just unavoidable because we live in a competitive society. If we have students in a class, who has come first, who has come second, who has come third, that’s just functional, it’s unavoidable. But what is functional is not necessarily foundational.
Functional means, this is how we function in the world. Foundational means who we are and what are we doing. We are here to practise bhakti.
We are here to try to go closer to Krishna and go closer to ourselves in our service to Krishna. To realise who we are and then to offer ourselves to Krishna. So therefore, it’s important that we keep realigning ourselves.
Realigning ourselves means get ourselves back on course. Why am I doing this? So in general, this is a very simple way to get ourselves back on course. That is, why am I doing this? Whenever we feel stressed, irritated, burdened, discouraged about doing something, just ask the question, why am I doing this? This question, why am I doing this, is a very good way to refocus ourselves.
It’s a simple question and we can go actually deeper and deeper. Okay, why am I doing this? I can ask myself, why am I speaking right now? Oh, because I was invited to speak here, okay. But why am I speaking here? Oh, because I have learned something and I want to share it with others.
Why am I speaking this? Oh, because I feel that this knowledge will benefit me and will benefit others. That’s what I have dedicated my life to. That’s what I’m trying to do.
Why am I speaking this? Because speaking this takes me closer to Krishna and helps others to go closer to Krishna. Why am I speaking this? Because this is what the ability I have been given and I’m using that in Krishna’s service. So the why question, if you keep asking it again and again, there can be different answers.
And we have to go deeper and deeper and deeper with the why question, till we get an answer that refocuses us. This is why I’m doing it. And then when that happens, then we won’t be so discontented.
So, okay, I’m doing book distribution, but why am I doing book distribution? Sometimes in doing book distribution, we may see that some people, they start speaking and people just take books like anything. And some people, they keep speaking and people keep going away. Nobody seems to take any books.
So the different people are gifted in different ways. So we do our service. And why am I doing this? I’m doing this to please Srila Prabhupada.
I’m doing this to please Krishna. And yes, if a lot of books go, wonderful. If not so many books go, I’ll try to learn how I can distribute more.
But that number doesn’t define the quality of my devotion. When we keep this focus, then a lot of negativity that might come within our practise of bhakti can be avoided. Otherwise, if we become too achievement driven in our practise of bhakti, then we may get a lot of negativity even within the practise of bhakti.
So this was my second point that while practising bhakti, what is essentially to be offered is our consciousness, our devotion. We want to make the best offering externally also. But more important than the external offering is the inner offering of our heart.
Any questions or comments about this? Yes, mamji, please. What’s the question? Pramodji, regarding the bhoga offering what you mentioned, sometimes while practising, because of the time, as you said, sometimes it becomes very mechanical. When we do this, though we want to offer, sometimes because of stress of time or something, it becomes, it’s there in the mantra, but we are not there.
We keep the preparations for Krishna, but still it becomes too mechanical. How to overcome this? That’s true. If something becomes very mechanical, especially when we are offering the bhoga to the deities, what do we do about it? See, it’s just at one level, unavoidable.
Krishna says in 5.11 in the Bhagavad Gita, kāyena manasa buddhya kevalair indriyair api yoginah karma kurvanti sangam tyaktvātmasuddhaye. Krishna says the yogis engage their body, kāyena manasa buddhya, the body, mind, intelligence, and kevalair indriyair api, even the senses. For what? Atmasuddhaye.
For the purpose of purification. The ācāryas explain this kevalair indriyair api in two different ways. One is that sometimes we think that our senses are our enemies and we have to give up all sensory engagement to grow spiritually.
But the path of yoga, especially bhakti yoga is so inclusive that we can engage our senses also. But another meaning ācāryas also give is that at least the senses, that means even if our mind is wandering, even if our intelligence is not functioning, at least the senses we engage. So, even that will purify us.
So, broadly speaking, we could say that there is an internal-external distance. Now, how we act and how we feel. There is a distance.
And that is not necessarily a bad thing. Broadly, this could be how we feel internally and how we act externally. This difference can be in three different ways.
One is, on a positive note, it could be just a matter of discipline. Okay, I don’t feel like waking up in the morning, but I still wake up. I don’t feel like exercising, but I’ll exercise.
I don’t feel like chanting. I don’t feel like it, but it’s a matter of discipline. And by discipline, as we keep doing it, gradually the feelings start coming.
So, not feeling like something and still doing it, it can be just a matter of our discipline. The second is, it could just become a ritual. Ritual means that in discipline, we know it is important, and we want to do it, and we want to also feel the right way.
I want to feel inspired about doing this, but I’m not feeling it right. So, I’ll do the externals. When it’s ritual, then there is not even the desire to feel.
We don’t even understand intellectually that it’s important. Now, do we want to do it wholeheartedly? I’ve been told to do it, so I’ll do it. So, that’s ritualistic.
Now, ritualistic is not so good. The third is hypocritical. Hypocritical means that there is no desire also to get the internal.
There is only the desire to make the show of the external. That means, sometimes, some Bollywood stars who stay near our Juhu temple, they may go to the Juhu temple on Janmashtami. Some of them may have devotion and they want to go.
But for some of them, it might just be another photo op. They go and they, in a country like India, which is quite religious, they go and they click a photo op, I went to Juhu temple, and they put a photo on Facebook and Instagram, and people say, oh, you’re such a nice person. So, they are going to the temple, not so much to take darshan as to give darshan.
Now, if that is happening, where there is no desire for the internal, then that is hypocritical. So, being hypocritical is very bad. That means, what we internally want is actually not just different from, it’s entirely opposite to.
So, that is undesirable. But most of us, we will not be at that level. So, either we are at the ritual level or the discipline level.
And what can get us from the ritual to the discipline level is hearing. So, if we, generally, we regularly hear, we will be regularly reading or hearing classes. But if there is some service which we are doing regularly, it is good to hear or read something related with that service.
So, that will help us to do that particular service in spiritual consciousness. So, for example, if offering bhoga is a regular service that we do, then maybe we can look at which are the Gita verses, the Bhagavatam verses, which talk about offering. There is Prabhupada’s instructions which have been compiled together in Shiksha Amrita, which is topic-wise instructions.
So, maybe look at what Prabhupada has said about offering to the readings. And even if you read it once, keep re-reading it regularly. Even if you spend 2-3 minutes reading it, that will also give us some intellectual impetus.
Oh, this is important, let me do it properly. So, that way we can move from the ritual towards the discipline level. Thank you.
Any other questions? Okay. So, let me move on to the last point and then we can have further questions. So, the first point I made was that bhakti is not just another to-do, it’s another way to do.
And while practising bhakti, the essence is not what we do, but in what consciousness we do it. The last point I’ll make is that while we are practising bhakti, functionally, as I said, some comparison, some competition is unavoidable. So, how to make sure that we do our best externally also, while not getting distracted, while not getting disheartened.
If we consider Parikshit Maharaj, there was a sudden and traumatic, tragic change in his life. At one moment, he was the king of the world. And everybody was bowing down to him.
And some small mistake on his part, he was cursed, and suddenly, he just lost everything, he was going to die in 7 days, and everything was over. So, actually, when something like this happens, we all need, when some bad things happen, we all need some time to process those bad, whatever has happened. If we are not able to process what has happened, then, we just stay stuck over there.
So, different, when grief happens, when something painful happens in our life, something traumatic happens in our life, then, if we can process it emotionally, process it internally, then we can move on with life. I wrote a book on reincarnation, and I talked about almost 25 cases of children who remember their past lives. And why is it that some children remember their past lives, not all children? There could be multiple reasons, but one major reason is, that most of the children who remember their past lives, had some kind of sudden, violent death.
So, normally, when a soul, when a person dies, the soul leaves that body and goes to the next body. And, that’s how it works for everyone. But, for most people, we say that some people have died untimely, Akala Murthyu.
Now, what does Akala Murthyu mean? Actually, at one level, whenever death is going to come, it is going to come. But, there is a natural order of things, people live up to a particular age, they grow old, then they get sick and they die. Somebody dies in youth, we say that’s Akala Murthyu, that’s untimely death.
So, similarly, for somebody who has an untimely death, then the soul is forcibly parted from the body, because of the event of death. But the soul didn’t get time to process it. So, when we say travel, if you travel internationally, one major problem that we often get is jet lag.
So, if you go from India to America, come back from America to India, the body still functions as if it is in America. So, if you come back from America to India, it happens every time that, that is the time when I realised 2.69 in the Bhagavad Gita. 2.69 verses, that that which is night for all living beings is day for the self-realised.
So, when you come back from America to India, in American time it is day, here it is night. And when it is day over here, it is night over there. So, everybody else is sleeping, but you still feel like fully awake.
And when everybody wakes up, you feel like sleeping. So, it takes some time for the body to get acclimatised to the biological cycles over here, the time cycles over here. So, like that, just like there can be a jet lag, because of sudden travelling from one body to another.
So, similarly, you could say there is a soul lag. The soul, it moves from one body to another body, but the soul didn’t get time to process. So, the human body is not naturally made to travel at 5000 miles per hour and suddenly move from one time zone to another time zone.
That’s not how our ancestors functioned. So, similarly, for the soul, if the soul dies suddenly, then, soul doesn’t die, the person dies and the soul moves on to the next body. But if the person dies suddenly, then they can’t process the event of death.
And when they can’t process, then they keep getting flashbacks. Oh, I was here, I was doing this, I was doing that. Some small child may tell his parents, Mummy, mummy, where is my other mummy? What? He said, the child who told his parents, don’t beat me, because in the past, I was bigger than you.
So, the child told his parents like that. So, what happens is, they are still in their previous life. So, the point I am making over here is that, we all need to process life’s events.
And similarly for us, when we face some difficulty, if we don’t learn how to process things properly, they stay within us and they keep giving us flashbacks. Flashbacks. So, to avoid that, to process things properly, we need to understand how we ourselves work the best.
So, some people process difficulties by talking with someone else. Some people process difficulties just by being alone. Let me be alone, let me think things out.
Some people, they might journal and write some things down. Some people, when they get frustrated, they might just have punching bag. Punch, punch, punch, punch, punch.
And then they work out all the energy within them. Now, some people might just say, I want to go out for a long walk. Some people going for a long walk will work.
They will look at nature, Oh, nature is so calm, so unchanging. They will become calm. Some people, they will go out, and they will go out, they are alone, but they are alone with their mind.
And going for a long walk means, they will be for a long time agitated by their mind. So, we have to find out what works best for us. But essentially, the point is that, when we are doing anything in our lives, sometimes things will not work the way we want them to work.
So, I was talking about Parikshit Maharaj. His, he had remarkable, you could say, psychological flexibility. Psychological rigidity means, this is how things have to happen.
Psychological flexibility means, ok, things have not happened this way, let me see how I can adjust things. The trees that don’t bend, they break. The trees that are ready to bend, the storms, they bend a little bit, and the storm goes, they come back again.
So, psychological flexibility, another word for that could simply be, tolerance. Tolerance means what? That we are psychologically flexible. That means, ok, this is not working out this way, rather than just, no, this has to work out this way.
That, this person, why is he behaving like this? Why is she behaving like this? That kind of attitude is psychological rigidity. This person should be like this, this person should not do like this. When we have that psychological rigidity, we just feel too stressed.
Like a tree that doesn’t, refuses to bend, then all the wind’s pressure hits on it, and it just can’t bear it. The tree that is ready to bend, it just bends along with the wind, and it straightens up again. So, for us, when we are practising bhakti, we also need psychological flexibility.
Sometimes things may not work out the way we wanted. Sometimes we feel, I could have done this service very well, but somehow I was not able to do this. I wanted to achieve this, I want to make this offering to Krishna, but I couldn’t make the offering.
So, at that time, if we accept that, ok, I felt that I have this ability, and I could have done so much, but I couldn’t do it right now. Ok, it doesn’t matter. So, the problem with, one problem with us is that, we often judge ourselves based on our potential.
And the world judges us based on our actions. The world judges us based on our actions. If some, say, some child, some young man, teenager who is playing cricket, he says, you know, I have such batting talent, I am going to become like Sachin Tendulkar.
Now, the coach will say, yes, in every gully I meet children who say like that. Isn’t it? Now, it may be that one of them may become the next Sachin Tendulkar. But the world cannot take our potential itself seriously.
The world is going to judge us based on our actions. Now, what is real? Is our potential real or our actions real? Both are real in their own way. Our potentials can become manifested one day.
We may feel that there is so much more I can do, but I have not been able to do it right. So, our potentials can become manifested. But at the same time, we have to also look at what I have really done till now.
And based on that, we have to function. So, often stress happens because we think that I should have been able to do this well, but somehow things are not working out at that time. If that happens, things are not working out, that means, okay, this time things may not work out, but let me just do the best I can in this situation.
It’s important for each one of us to accept our situation, but to not be limited by our situation. This is the concluding point I’ll make. That accepting our situation means, yes, this is my current capacity.
In this situation, this is what I can do. So, if we don’t accept our situation, it’s like fighting a battle that we can’t win. Situation is what it is right now.
If, say, I have a demanding job, I have a demanding lot of family responsibilities, I can only devote this much time for this thing right now. I can only do this much chanting, I can only do this much surveys, I can only do this much things. If we don’t accept that situation, the resentment itself will exhaust us.
But we have to accept, okay, in this situation, this is what I can do right now. It’s like if we are going on a road, we are travelling, say, if we are going from here to the airport, if the traffic is too tight, it will go slowly. Now if we keep resenting, why the traffic so much, why the traffic so much, why the traffic so much, then it’s not going to remove the traffic.
That is only going to agitate you. Once the traffic clears, then you can move faster. So, similarly for us, sometimes in our life, the traffic becomes too much.
And we seem to be not moving at all. Too many responsibilities come up, too many distractions come up, too many things come up, which we just have to do. Okay, accept that.
Accepting things means, okay, this is how the traffic is right now. Being limited by the situation means that even after the traffic clears, still we keep moving slowly. If, say, with the traffic, we are moving at maybe 15-20 km per hour.
Without the traffic, we can move at 60-70 km per hour also. Right now, I have to accept, I’ll move at 20 km per hour. But after the traffic clears, still I am moving at 20 km per hour.
Then people say, do you really want to go there? Or you don’t want to go there? So, we don’t limit ourselves to our situation. We pray to Krishna that Krishna, I would like to do so much more. But in this situation, this is what I can do.
When we just accept our situation, then we will do the best that we can in our situation. Somebody else might be on another road when the road is very clear. And that’s why they can move very fast.
And for us, we move a little, maybe 100 metres, we move, and again a traffic jam. 100 metres, we move, and a traffic jam. What is this? We are just frustrated.
Yes, we are on a different road, they are on a different road. We are all moving towards the same destination. And today, for them, it might be smooth sailing.
But tomorrow, it might be tight traffic for them. And today, it is very tight traffic for us. Tomorrow, it may be smooth sailing for us.
So, if we focus not so much on what others are doing, but on where we are going, then we will avoid becoming obsessed with negativity. And यया सोप्नं भयं शोकं विशादं मदमेवचन विमुञ्जदि दुर्मेधा दुद्धी सापार्थ तामसी In 18.35, Krishna says that when we hold on to negative emotions, resentment, fearfulness, moroseness, that is तमस. That is the characteristic of तमस.
So, instead of holding on to them, okay, this is the situation I am in, accept it and move on in life. When we move on in life in this way, we will find that we will be on the positive progressive path. And ultimately, we will find that things will become clearer.
Things will become clearer and we will be able to march forward in our life. To conclude with one story, I met a devotee who was a vigorous book distributor and somehow he got a terrible fracture. And the doctor told him that for three months, you cannot walk now.
And he said, I felt these three months are like going to that is like a sentence not to prison but to hell for me. Because he had been a hyperactive energetic person. I said, three months not moving? After one month only he started to move.
And for one month he was very resentful. I said, I can’t move. How can I sit like this? I have to move.
And the doctor told him, don’t put your weight on your leg for three months. But after one month he tried to walk around and he was a little successful initially at going out. But then, that actually worsened the situation.
And the doctor told him, you have to be in the bed for three more months. He said, oh my god! He was so miserable. But, he finally decided that, okay, I can’t move.
What can I do right now? So till that time, he is a little bit of a traditional kind of picture. So he used to say that, devotees spend so much time on WhatsApp, on Facebook, on social media. His whole internet, social media business is simply Maya.
So actually once gave a class on internet in the three modes. Internet in sattva, internet in rajas, internet in tamas. Actually internet is simply a medium through which people are expressing themselves.
So just as human society is diverse, in real life we will meet people in sattva, rajas, tamas. Similarly on internet also there are people in sattva, there are people in rajas, people in tamas. And just as in the mainstream society today, more people are in rajas and tamas than sattva.
Similarly on the internet also, whatever content is there, whatever communication happens, most of it is in rajas and tamas. But there is a significant amount of sattva there also. So many times if you have some issue, say if I have my laptop and it’s not working, I just go to some discussion forum and ask, this is not working.
People answer questions over there. That’s some indication of sattva over there. So sattva, rajas, tamas all is there.
So he had this idea that, this internet is rajas and tamas. But then Panditji told him that, you are a good speaker. He said, I know philosophy, you answer questions.
You can discuss with people. And he said, why don’t you connect with people online? I said, no. Online is all maya.
Okay. But then he said he had nothing else to do. So then he started connecting with people online.
And then one day he did it, two days he did it, and then he told me afterwards, I was talking with him that, two months, he said, in these two months actually I did more preaching than what I had done for several months before that. Because once he was a senior devotee and he knew how to answer questions quite nicely. So once people came to know that he was available online, so many people started asking questions, started connecting with so many people.
And that which could have been simply so much resentment for him, irritation for him, it just opened new doors for him. Now of course, I am not recommending internet over here to anyone. Because many different kinds of doors can also open online.
But the important thing is that when we are locked in a particular situation, when we find that, okay, this is not working out. Psychological rigidity would have been, okay, I am a distributor, I am a preacher. What can I do if I am just locked in a bed? Psychological flexibility means, okay, I can’t get out of this room right now.
What can I do in this situation? So we have to find out, whatever be our situation, how can I serve the best in that situation? If I have that attitude, then in every aspect of our lives, we will be able to move forward positively. Krishna tells Arjun that surrender unto me and Arjun says, karishye vachanam tava I will do your will. So for us, as long as we are very attached to our plan, this is how I want to serve Krishna.
Then what happens? If that plan is not working out, we just become blinded. But Krishna might have a better plan for us. So we can have our plans.
But we don’t have to be attached to our plans. This is how I feel I can best serve Krishna. If this is not working out, please guide me how I can serve you.
karishye vachanam tava I will do your will. If we have this attitude, then there will never be any darkness in our life. Yes, darkness, dark phases will always come in our life.
Everybody’s life, bad things do happen. Dark phases will come in our life. But there won’t be darkness in our life.
Because this dark phase is there, this dark phase is there. But this is the path to light. This is the path by which I can move forward in our life.
And that way, we can move forward enthusiastically. To whatever situation life may send our way. Even if we can’t make particular offerings to Krishna, we can still offer ourselves to Krishna.
And we can still offer ourselves through a different pathway, through a different channel. So I’ll summarise what I spoke today. I spoke on this topic of in bhakti, we don’t just make offerings, we are ourselves the offering.
The first point I said is that bhakti is not just another to-do, it’s another way to do. We get stressed not so much because of the many things that we have to do, but because our mind is in rajas and tamas. In rajas, we are just not thinking properly, that’s why we complicate our situation.
In tamas, we just let ourselves get burdened by all the things that we have to do without actually doing those things. So in sattva, we’ll be able to realistically manage what all I can do and do it well. We estimate the capacity of the suitcase and put things as we just fit in the suitcase.
Then second point I talked about is that while practising bhakti, we can make our best offering to Krishna, even if it is not the best. So what Krishna wants is not the quantity of the offering, but the emotion, the bhava in the offering. Satisfied even with a single leaf or a flower.
Lord Ram was satisfied even with a squirrel. So for us, if we have this understanding that I am meant to offer myself to Krishna, then even if functionally we find that others are doing better than us, it doesn’t matter. What is the best I can do in this situation? So that way, we can always find a way ahead.
And last point I said is that we need psychological flexibility. So when our plans don’t seem to be working out, when we have certain potentials, but because of situations, those potentials are not manifesting. Like in the road of our life, the traffic is too high.
Then we accept our situation, but we don’t let ourselves be limited by our situation. In this situation, this is the speed at which I can move at. I will keep moving, and when the traffic becomes clearer, I will move faster.
So psychological flexibility means that we don’t be attached to our plans, but we stay open to Krishna’s plans. Krishna, how can I serve you in this situation? We have that. Even if there are dark phases in our life, where things seem to be falling apart, but there won’t be darkness in our life.
Because even through the dark phases, we will find a path to light, and move forward. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
So any questions or comments? Yes, please. Any questions? Raj Pariksit Prabhu, you have a question? Hare Krishna. Prabhuji, you say that Bhakti Yoga helps us to organise our thoughts.
So what does it mean to organise our thoughts, and how Bhakti Yoga helps us? Okay. Good question. What does organising our thoughts mean, and how does Bhakti Yoga help us do that? Organising can have many different meanings, but we could simply at this stage talk about it in terms of prioritising.
See, what is more important, what is less important? That for us to decide is important. So suppose we have 20 things to do in a day. Now some people might just make a linear list, 1, 2, 3, 4, and I’ll come down to 28th thing.
But sometimes the 28th thing which you put on a list may be the most important thing of the day. And even if you are not able to do other 19, it doesn’t matter. But this if you don’t do, it’s going to be a big trouble.
So then we may have a list of 20 to-dos, but we may have to classify. These are the most important things of the day. So like that, for us to organise our thoughts means various different thoughts come up in our mind.
So we may feel, I want to earn more money. I want to do this. I want to do that.
Many different kinds of thoughts, desires, emotions come within us. Now some of them we can address. All of them we can’t address.
So basically prioritising. Which thought is important enough for me to address right now? Which thought can be addressed later? Which thought doesn’t need to be addressed at all? So we could compare say our mind to a computer screen. Say if you are working on a computer or on a phone, sometimes notifications come up while we are working.
Now some notifications may require instant attention. Some notifications can be snoozed. They require attention later.
Some notifications can just be cleared. They don’t need the attention at all. So like that, for us, we could say in our mind, constantly notifications are coming up.
Say right now, this class is going very long. When is Prasad going to be there? I am hungry, I am hungry. That’s one notification that may come within us.
See this class is interesting. Let me understand this point. I have to go home and I have to do so many things.
I was expecting a message from that person. Why is that person not replying? So now that all these different things, we could compare our mind to be like a device screen with many different notifications popping up. So organising our thoughts means basically prioritising which things need immediate attention, which things can give a little attention and which things don’t need any attention at all.
So if we can do that prioritisation, that requires, that itself can help us to become more effective in our lives. And that prioritisation can happen if we understand that we are different from our thoughts. Just like if I have a to-do list outside, I know this is something I have to do, I have to do, but these are all to-dos.
I am different from them. I can choose which one to do now, which one to do later. But because our thoughts come up inside us, as soon as a thought comes, we sometimes just do it.
Hey, somebody sends us a link on WhatsApp, you might be doing some important work and that might just be some viral video which has nothing special in it, just some entertainment in it. But you might give up the important work, just watch that video. Well, no, I don’t need to do this right now.
I can watch it later. So like that, when some thought comes up, how important is this right now? So if I understand that I am different from my thoughts, प्रकाशम्च प्रवृत्तिम्च मोहमेवच पाण्डव न द्वेष्टि संप्रवृत्तानी न निरुद्धानी कांक्षति उदासीन वदासीनम् गुणय यो न विचाल्यते गुणावर्तन्तित्येव यो दिष्टति नेंगते Krishna says that whatever thoughts come in your mind, just observe them from a detached perspective. उदासीन वदासीनम् So observe them and then process them.
So that way if we learn to observe and process our thoughts, then we can organise them better. So organising simply means prioritising. And Bhakti Yoga helps us to realise that I am different from my mind.
When we practise Bhakti, we have to focus our mind on Krishna and it goes elsewhere. We bring it back. It goes elsewhere.
We bring it back. By that, even if we are not able to control the mind and focus the mind, at least we understand I am different from my mind. If I understand I am different from my mind, then that awareness, which we might get by practising or chanting, that can help us in the rest of the day also.
I am different from my mind. Let me process what the mind is saying. Any other questions? Yes, anyone else has any questions? Yes, please.
You can let me know what time we should stop. Thank you. That was a nice class.
Regarding the last story, which was about getting an O.P., the doctor said you can’t walk for three months. And there are many stories we hear where the doctor says that you can’t walk for your whole life and they dedicate their life to walking and they did that. Then at least they achieved something which is medically not achievable.
So how do you know, sometimes the directors, sometimes the vice directors, in a way that I can also do. So how to know when is enough is enough for me? When is enough for me? What is my limitation? Because we hear stories, we hear success stories and we are driven by that. Good question.
So what to do? So I spoke in Intel in Silicon Valley in Santa Clara on the topic of transform your mind, transform your world. So after that this was a thread in many questions that some people make the mind into God. That means that if you just set your mind to do something, you will be able to do it.
So what the human mind can conceive, it can achieve. That is the slogan. Now this idea that the mind is omnipotent is a reaction to scientific reductionism.
Scientific reductionism means, if you look at the history of science, in the 19th century especially and the early 20th century, human beings were simply treated as stimulus response machines. That means like a robo, you press this button, this response will come, this response will come, like that. So what was inside the human being in the mind, this doesn’t matter.
Just look at what stimulus, what response. So basically the mind was very much neglected and trivialised. Okay, you give this medicine, the disease will get cured.
Don’t need to worry about the mind of people. But people started recognising that actually people’s mental state matters. In medicine there is something called placebo effect.
Placebo is where a patient is told that you are being given medicines you have some headache, I am giving you medicines. But actually they are simply sugar pills. And they get cured by that.
And not only placebo pills, there is placebo surgery also. Where somebody, and it has worked. Somebody is not able to walk.
They can’t put any weight on their knee. And they feel too much pain. And doctor tells them, we will do your surgery.
And doctor actually just does some surgical cuts. But doesn’t do anything to the knee. But doctor tells, you have been operated.
And the person starts walking. So what has happened is that the power of the mind is being increasingly recognised. So in the past, the power of the mind was completely undervalued.
But now it is being increasingly recognised. Even through mainstream science. But in some self-help circles, that power of the mind is being so overestimated that it is being made into God.
So in fact, I was in Washington DC. I was talking with an economist. I was at a conference on spirituality and economics.
So this economist gave a very interesting explanation. He said, why did the 2007 big recession that happened, the great global economic crash, there are many reasons for that. But one reason for that, he said, was unrealistic optimism.
There was a wildly popular book called The Secret. And what is the secret? This book showed, say, a young woman is walking by a jewellery shop. And she sees a beautiful necklace.
Very expensive jewel necklace over there. She just dreams. Oh, I will get it.
Set your mind on it. And the next day, she is still walking by that with the necklace in her hand. Somebody saw that, went by a car showroom, and they said, I want this car.
And next day, they are riding a car. And they said, this is the power of the mind. Just desire it.
So what happened? Many people in America started taking big houses without having the capacity to pay for the mortgage. You dream about this house, you will have this house. Now one person did that, second person did that, third person did that.
And eventually, from the banks, so many people had taken loans and nobody was paying back the loans. People just didn’t have the capacity to pay. And then there was a mortgage subprime crisis, it was called.
And just the whole economy collapsed. So yes, the mind has its power. And acknowledging the mind’s power is important.
But the mind is not God. So we have to recognise that there are certain things which are unchangeable. Now specifically, what is unchangeable and what is changeable, that will vary from person to person.
It depends on broadly three factors. What is unchangeable? Depends, you could say, on our karma. For example, say somebody… Here we may differentiate between somebody’s fair complexion, dark complexion.
But if you go to America, even a fair complexion, there is not a fair complexion. It’s still like a dark complexion over there. So Indians who go to America and settle in America, especially Indians go there, they are fine.
But the children born over there, they want to become Americans. But they can’t because they are brown skinned. In fact, there is an acronym for such people.
They are called ABCD. ABCD is American Born Confused Desis. So they just can’t… If you have a particular skin complexion, okay, what can you do about it? You might do some plastic surgery to change some part.
But you can’t change the whole body’s skin by plastic surgery. So that is something which can’t be changed. There was one musician who did a surgery of his nose 33 times.
Just to reshape his nose. Not once, not twice, 33 times. And finally during a music performance, he was dancing and his nose fell off.
Not the full nose fell off, but one surgical alteration that he had done, that fell off. So basically, there are certain things which are unchangeable. So we have to accept… So basically, something might just be unchangeable like karma.
But another thing is our own desire. How strongly do we want to do something? So somebody, for somebody is an athlete. And they just, their life is athletics.
And for them, not being able to move, that might just be so overwhelming for them. They just can’t do it. I have to move some way or the other.
If that particular activity is what their life is, that’s what they have a very strong, strong desire for, then that can also be a factor. So this Krishna, the Supersoul, can see the desire of a particular person and can arrange to fulfil according to the desire. So by our past karma, we might be put in a particular situation.
Now if we have very strong desire to change that situation, then Krishna might sanction that. Because we also have some positive karma from the past. So because of some negative karma from the past, we are restricted in that situation.
But if we have very strong desire, then Krishna may use some of our positive karma, which is there with us, and change that situation for us. So we have to look also at the intensity of our desire. And third is, there has to be some structured process for it.
So even if somebody, a doctor tells them that you can’t walk, and they say, I’ll exercise and I’ll walk. Well, yes, you might be able to walk. But I was in UK, and I met one person who had become a devotee.
He was a cricketer who had actually played in the UK cricket team also. Now he has become a devotee. So he said that he had an injury.
Now he was batting, and in his first or second test match when he was batting, he fell. While running, he slipped and fell, and he sprained his ankle. And he sprained his ankle, he felt some pain.
But his coach told him, you just have to make your body tougher. Just do some high jumps, do some skipping. And actually what had happened was, that that bone had cracked over there.
And he kept doing, the more high jumps he did, actually he thought his pain will go away, but the pain worsened. And because of that, because of his skipping and neglecting that, not paying attention, not doing an X-ray, eventually he ended up that he just can’t run now. So now, surgically, he said that when he applied for playing cricket, he was very disciplined, very diligent, but he just couldn’t do anything now.
So in that case, it was just trying to apply willpower actually backfired. So now of course, he is a devotee, he is also a cricket commentator. So in his own way, he is practising, he is connected with cricket, what he loves.
But the thing is that there is, so there is our past karma, which comes as a situation, and second is how strong is our intention, and third is what is the process we are using to change the intention, to manifest our intention. So all those three broadly you can consider, while deciding whether to persevere in changing a particular thing, or just accept it and direct our energy elsewhere. Thank you.
So thank you very much. Shri Prabhupada Ki, Gaur Bhakta Vrinda Ki, Itai Gaur Premanande. See, in fact, we can speak and then we also can stay there.