Is bhakti a conditioned attraction of the mind or the natural attraction of the soul?

[Congregation program at Los Angeles, USA]

Podcast

Podcast Summary

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
We hope to see all of you at the temple tomorrow. Prapasindhubhya eva ca patitānāṁ pāhu nivyau vaiṣṇavidhyau namo namah jai śrī kṛṣṇa jai tanyā prabhu nityānanda śrī advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare Hare Kṛṣṇa So, today I’ll speak on the topic of is bhakti a conditioned attraction of the mind or is it a natural attraction of the soul? What I mean by that is, some people feel that if you just keep repeatedly hearing Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa, then we are brainwashing ourselves.
So, if you hear continuously about cricket, cricket, cricket, we’ll become mad for cricket. If you hear continuously about a movie star, you’ll become mad about a movie star. If you hear continuously about some fictional superhero, you’ll become mad about a fictional superhero.
So, is it that when you continuously hear about Kṛṣṇa, you’ll become mad about Kṛṣṇa? So, to understand whether this is so or it is not so, Let’s try to look at different models to understand how the mind works. Can I have some tissue paper? So, different models to understand how the mind works. The one model could be the mind as a blotting paper.
Some ink is in the past when people would use, say, ink pens. And then the ink would spill out using the blotting paper, sucks in. So, like that, the mind takes in impressions.
So, whatever impressions come in to the mind, it takes in it, it takes them in and it functions accordingly. So, and we see this happening normally. A person who is in India may be mad after cricket.
A person comes to America and, say, is in a university where everybody is mad for baseball. That same person may not have heard of baseball also. A person may become mad for baseball.
So, just by exposure. So, basically here the mind is like a blotting paper or a paper on which certain impressions are created. So, the mind’s function gets shaped by the kind of impressions that come on it.
Now, when we try to purify ourselves by connecting ourselves with Krishna. I was just thinking of Shri Shashtakam. Shri Prabhupada would say Krishna consciousness is not an artificial imposition.
It is the original natural energy of the soul. So, suppose, say, there is a public property wall on which some people have put some random scrawls. Now, they have disfigured that, they have put some graffiti, they have disfigured the wall.
And then the wall has to be cleaned. Or the graffiti has to be removed. There are two ways to do it.
One is that we get some scratching paper, we get some blade or something and just scratch it off. It’s a laborious process. That’s one way.
Another way could be that we just overpaint. Paint on top of it and what is there will get overwritten. So, unwrite what is there or overwrite.
There are two ways we could remove the graffiti. So, now, does it work similarly with respect to our mind? Somebody is an alcoholic and they want to give up alcohol. Now, when they are alcoholics, that means the impressions of drinking alcohol are deeply impressed in their consciousness.
It’s like graffiti on the wall of their consciousness. Or you could say more precisely on the wall of their mind. When it is there, so, with respect to the mind, nothing can be erased.
We could use an eraser or a scratcher to remove some impressions on a wall. But with respect to the mind, any impression that goes there, there is no eraser for the mind. There is no delete button for the mind.
We cannot unremember anything. It’s possible to forget. But forgetfulness happens by a gradual passage of time or by direction of our consciousness elsewhere.
When Krishna says, mattah smritir jnanam apohanam jih. From me comes remembrance, knowledge and forgetfulness. So, among these three things, actually if you consider, remembrance is a mysterious thing.
Most of the times, we just remember very easily. But sometimes in basic facts, we don’t remember at all. So, remembrance is not always in our hands.
We think it is in our hands, but there are times when we forget. So, remembrance is a result of our endeavour, our ability coupled with some higher grace. And when we are good at something, we just remember it easily.
If I am good at language, I just remember the right word immediately. If I am good at music, I just remember the right tune immediately. And that’s why while remembering, it’s easy to think that we are the doers.
I am remembering. There is nothing higher involved in it. But when it comes to forgetting, it’s easier to understand that I am not the doer.
Somebody has hurt us very badly. And every time we see them, that person did this to me. How dare they do this? Our mind just goes off.
Anger, resentment, revenge fantasy. And even if we decide I want to forgive, but still, it’s not easy to forget. Sometimes we say forgive and forget the past.
Actually, both are difficult. But to some extent, forgiving is in our hands. Forgetting is not in our hands.
We can make a conscious decision. I will not hold this against this person. I let the past be a closed chapter.
I can in that sense, giving up the desire or the intention to get even. That is something I can do as a conscious choice. Forgiving we can do.
But forgetting is not in our hands. Over a period of time, if other memories come into our consciousness, then the past unfortunate memories may get crowded out. Trying to forget something is like trying to say, if there is a glass of water, I try to create a vacuum.
It’s very difficult, no matter how sophisticated an instrument I use, it’s very very difficult to create a perfect vacuum. And even if I create it, if there is a slight disturbance, air will seep in. So, the unwanted memories that we have, the unwanted impressions that we have, they cannot be erased.
Nor can they be driven out. Driven out means, I decide, I will not think of this, get out. They cannot be driven out.
But what can be done is, they can be crowded out. Crowded out means, that they can, if newer memories fill our consciousness, say, we had some very negative interaction with someone, and that is just filling our consciousness. But then, we meet other people and we have interactions with other people, and gradually the bad thing that that person had done, that just goes into the background and it’s no longer triggered.
So, it just goes into the background, we could say for all practical purposes, it disappears. Or even the same person, that person afterwards behaves nicely with us, then we’ll be able to, it will go so much into the background, that we will not recollect it. So, why I’m talking about this is, we’re talking about how does the mind function and how can we change what is there in the mind.
So, the impressions in the mind, if gravity is there, we could erase it somehow. But in the impressions of the mind, we can’t erase them. What is taken in, is taken in.
Now, of course, not everything that is taken in, is taken in with the same intensity. If we are going on a crowded road, and somebody pushes us, just look around, it’s a strange person, we’re annoyed that the person pushed us. But, if we are in a spacious room, and somebody deliberately comes by, somebody who knows us, and they push us.
Why do you do that? Why did she do that? There, the annoyance, the anger is much more. So, the impressions that get impressed on our consciousness, they depend a lot on the situation. Everything that we see, doesn’t get equally impressed.
Normally, impressions are shaped largely by either the importance that we give with our intelligence to that particular stimulus. Like if I’m studying something, and I’m trying to memorise a formula for my exam. Again and again, I impress it, this is important for me, I must remember it.
That’s how that may get impressed. The other is, if something has a lot of emotional significance to us. Say, if a person whom we love and trust and are friendly with, that person pushes me and doesn’t even apologise and goes away.
That will remember, that will stay in my mind much more than a stranger pushing me and walks away. So basically, the intellectual importance and the emotional significance of events, they determine how deep will be the impression of those events. So basically, events become experiences that form impressions through our investment of consciousness in them.
Say, if we go to a football match, and if we are going there to distribute books, and the football match is not an event that will make much impression on us. Why? Because we are not emotionally invested in that, who wins, who loses, what happens. We are more concerned about whether people are taking books or not.
But if somebody is going there for the football match, then their consciousness is so invested there, that naturally, every single thing that happens over there, they will remember that. The investment of consciousness can happen because of the emotional significance of something or the intellectual importance of something. And that causes impressions.
And once an impression is formed, the impression, the more it is, either we are re-exposed to that, or we recollect that repeatedly. So if I keep seeing something about, say, sports, about football again and again and again, that impression becomes more and more deep-rooted. Or, I may see it only once, but if I keep recollecting it again and again and again, then also it stays for a long time with us.
So basically, this can be called as the stickiness of the impressions. Like we have sticky notes, post-it notes. We put something on ordinary paper, put it on the wall and just slip away.
But if it’s a sticky note, we stick it, it will stay. So different memories or different events that we experience, they all have different levels of stickiness. It’s when we hear a class.
If we ask ten people after a class, what did you like or what do you remember? Unless there is something extraordinarily dramatic in the class, which everybody will remember. Otherwise, for everybody else, for each person, depending on their particular interest, their particular consciousness, their particular emotional situation, which point will be sticky will be different. Different people will take different points with them.
So all these analysis, I’m going to say this point that actually impressions when they are formed in our consciousness, they are determined by how deep those impressions are formed or which impressions are even formed. They are determined by how much our consciousness is invested in them. So we may meet in a day, especially if we are going to some festival or some big get-together, we will meet hundred people over there.
But some people, for whatever reason, we remember. And some people, they just make no impression on us. That means, okay, I met someone, and next time I met, okay, yeah, maybe I met you.
We are not able to remember much. So this is just, we are, as normal human beings, we are finite. And our capacity to register impressions also is finite.
So for all of us, it is different impressions get registered based on whatever is the emotional and the intellectual direction of our consciousness at that particular time. So with respect to the talking of the graffiti, I said that the erasing option is not there. The scratching out option is not there with respect to our mind.
When impression has already been formed, it is there. So if we consider, in the Bhagavatam, there is a story of Ajamel. Ajamel was a very cultured young man.
While going on a street, he saw a man and a woman embracing each other in a very sensuous way. And that impression got formed on his mind. And what happened was, the impression kept coming back, coming back, coming back, and that eroded his morality.
That eroded his spirituality. And that impelled him to again take, to himself become immoral. So we all are exposed to different impressions.
Now, for Ajamel, he was exposed to that impression at a vulnerable moment. We all may, in today’s world, we all get different impressions which we see. But they may not have that much impact on us.
So when an impression is formed, if we repeatedly expose ourselves to it, that impression will become very deep-rooted. Or if we repeatedly recollect it, that will become deep-rooted also. So in his case, that replay kept going on and on and on in his consciousness.
And that’s how it drew him to immorality. So for us, when the impressions are formed, if we can’t erase them, and if there are some unwanted impressions, there are some unwanted impressions which you want to get rid of, and there are some desirable impressions you want to create. So usually, knowledge progresses from the familiar to the unfamiliar.
If I come here and tell you that today I will give a talk on the population trends of polar bears in Siberia. What? What has this got to do with me? But it’s just something so unfamiliar, and you can’t put it unless you’re an ethologist who’s interested in animal study. What has this got to do with it? So we’ll just not be able to put it anywhere in our mental framework.
But if I say, today I’m going to talk about how dangerous is the situation of the ecological calamity that is coming upon us. And as an evidence of that, I’ll talk about how the population of polar bears is going down at alarming rate. Then, it fits somewhere in our conceptual framework.
Okay, I’ve heard that ecological problem is a big thing. So basically, unless there is something familiar within us, we cannot connect with something unfamiliar. So knowledge progresses from the familiar to the unfamiliar.
And especially kids, they have to learn a lot of new things. So even something unfamiliar, they have to learn it for study. But with respect to adult education, it is said that unless adults can connect something, whatever they are learning, with what they are living or what they can use.
In adult education, relevance is considered the most important thing. Something is not relevant, it doesn’t make any impression on you. It doesn’t even register, even if it is registered, it goes into the background.
So for us, we want to make devotional impressions strong whenever we are exposed to Krishna, to his holy name, to the darshan of his deities, the hearing of Krishna’s message, to the reading of scriptures. We want to make this impression strong. And there are unwanted impressions related with lust, anger, greed, envy.
We want to push them off from our consciousness. We can’t erase them, but can we overwrite them? So overwriting them would be, the graffiti is there, but so much other paint has come up, that has gone off. That is no longer visible.
So like that we put in so many impressions into our consciousness, so many positive or special impressions, and the negative impressions go remotely into the background and they are no longer there to be accessed by us or to impose themselves on us. So at one level, bhakti is like overwriting. We expose ourselves more and more to Krishna and Krishna-related stimuli, by which the negative stimuli go deep into the background.
And once they go deep into the background, then we are no longer that troubled by them. Actually bhakti is this, but it is one thing more. Suppose we had graffiti on a wall and we could apply some liquid which acts as a cleanser.
Then the cleanser is a liquid that I apply, but that liquid is not something which is overpainting, it is simply cleansing. So this cleansing is different from scratching. Scratching means a physical removal.
But when I apply a liquid and the liquid just cleans off what is there, then whatever is the colour that was originally there on the wall, that colour comes up again. So when we practise bhakti, initially bhakti may appear like I am just putting in more and more impressions, I am overpainting. But it is not just overpainting, it is also cleansing.
So we just give ourselves more and more devotional impressions and those devotional impressions may fill our consciousness from outside in. But along with that, as the past impressions get cleansed, then the soul’s spirituality also becomes awakened. And then what happens is, what is natural for the soul becomes manifest.
So it is not that by repeated hearing that I am not the body, I am the soul, we are going to become the soul. We are already the soul, but by repeatedly hearing it we will become situated in the intellectual conviction and then when we practise bhakti, we will become purified. When we become purified, we will realise that we are the souls.
So now realisation is related with this. Realisation, what does it mean? Realisation means that that which is a reality, we understand it to be a reality. Realisation means that that which is a reality, I understand it to be a reality.
So for example, scriptures may tell us that wealth does not lead to happiness. No, I don’t think so. But you know, if I have more money, I can buy this, I can get this, I get so much security, I can get happiness.
That may be our belief. But suppose we go and meet some very wealthy person, I got a big mansion, I got a fleet of cars outside their house, this must be very wealthy, I go and meet them, then especially if somebody is in the renounced order, people in the material world often put on a facade. Everybody wants to pretend that I am happy.
Everybody wants to act as if I am successful. But if they are meeting somebody who is in the renounced order, they understand this person is not my competitor. They have no need to put on a facade.
Actually, my son has gone far away, never calls me also. He is just waiting for me to die, so that he will get all my inheritance. My wife died of cancer few years ago.
My daughter, she ran away with someone, I don’t even know where she is. They understand this person is so wealthy, this person is not really happy. So, that which is a reality, we get some experience, and then we realise this is a reality.
So, when we understand that which is a reality to be a reality, that is called a realisation. So, realisation, how do we get it? When our experience reinforces what we have learned from scripture. When we experience something which vindicates what we have learned from scripture, that’s when we get a realisation.
So, going back to our earlier example of a paint that cleans off the graffiti on a wall. Similarly, not a paint, a liquid cleanser that cleans off the graffiti on the wall. So, what does bhakti do? Bhakti cleans off the contaminations in the soul.
And when those contaminations get cleaned, then at that time, the soul’s natural spiritual understanding arises. For us, we already know that we are souls. Because we are souls, we are atma.
But presently, that knowledge is dormant. Since all this seems a little abstract, let me take a couple of examples. Say a child is sitting at home, and a mother is nearby, at home doing some work, and the child is sitting in front of a TV and is watching television.
And say the child is watching a horror movie. As the horror movie is being watched, seeing one horrible scene, second horrible scene, child is trembling, crying, and then, actually the child is completely safe. Nothing has happened to that child.
But, what has happened is, the consciousness is projected into the mood. And because the consciousness is projected into the movie, that is why the child feels horrified. So, actually, in our life, our actions are not determined.
Our actions or even our emotions. Our emotions and actions are not determined by the physical situation. Our actions and emotions are determined by our mental conception of the physical situation.
So, physical situation is, the child is safe. There is no danger. But the mental conception is, it’s caught in the horror movie.
This is going to happen. This is going to happen. What is going to happen? And the child is fearful.
The child starts crying. If we are in a desert, we see a mirage. Actually, the physical situation is, there is no water.
But our mental conception is, there is water. And we run towards it. So, now, of course, when I get there, I try to drink the water, I will get, my tongue will get burned.
So, the physical situation will have its consequence, no doubt. But the point I am making here is, that the way we feel and the way we act is determined not by the situation, but by our perception of the situation. So, our perception of the situation needs to be aligned with reality.
If, say, some people have got cataract, then they see everything too-too. Or some people have long-sightedness or short-sightedness, then they can’t see properly. A vehicle, or if we sometimes use mirrors, some mirrors, distant objects appear closer, or closer objects appear far away, depending on whether the mirror is concave or convex.
So, we are not seeing things as they are. Now, similarly, for the soul, when the consciousness gets projected into material nature, then the soul can’t perceive things properly. Soul only perceives that, actually, the child perceives that, I am in danger, I am suffering, this monster may devour me.
Child is feeling that, because the consciousness is projected over it. Now, in the Mahabharata, there is a story of Duryodhana. Duryodhana was the personification of envy.
He was born at a time when the Pandavas were in the forest. And in fact, because the Pandavas’ father Pandu had taken voluntary retirement, so there was no clarity whether he would ever come back, or whether his sons would come back. So, everybody expected Duryodhana would become the next king.
And he was pampered, the heir, and he got spoiled because of the pampering. And then, when Pandu unexpectedly passed away, the sages in the forest told Kunti, that now you cannot stay alone in the forest, so please go back to your relatives. And they themselves came, many of the sages, to escort her back.
And when the Pandavas came back, Yudhishthira was such a cultured, refined, respectful person, that everybody’s attention and affection got directed towards Yudhishthira. And on top of that, Duryodhana was arrogant, he had become spoiled. So, as everyone’s affection started going towards Yudhishthira, Duryodhana started feeling insecure.
And then after that, because Yudhishthira was slightly older than Duryodhana, he started feeling that Yudhishthira is going to take away the kingdom, which is meant for him. And this made his envy so great, he was barely in his teens, when he made a whole conspiracy to poison Bhima. Then, he was a young prince, at that time he made a whole conspiracy to have all the Pandavas burnt.
Which was his malice, so malicious, that he wanted to kill. And then eventually, one of his conspiracies succeeded. He stole all the Pandavas’ kingdom, he dishonoured Draupadi, and the Pandavas had to go to the forest.
And yet, Duryodhana was not happy. He was thinking, just the thought of the Pandavas in poverty, and I am in prosperity. My enemies have been defeated and I have won.
This was not enough for him to be happy. He wanted that, the Pandavas should see, how I am in prosperity, and they should see how they are in poverty. And then, when I see the envy in their eyes, then I will be happy.
So, he was so emotionally dependent on the Pandavas. He was antagonistic to the Pandavas, but his whole sense of life’s purpose and success was, not how much I achieve, but how much I can demean, and demoralise and defeat the Pandavas. So, he wanted to go and, flaunt his wealth in front of the Pandavas in the forest.
His father Dhritarashtra, sometimes he would have moments of good sense. He said, don’t do this. What are you like? The Pandavas, you already insulted them.
They are like wounded tigers. Don’t go and prod them. He said, what are you lacking? You have a kingdom, you have a queen, you have elephants, you have chariots, you have ministers, you have everything that a man can dream about.
What do you want more? His reply was that, how can a person be happy as long as his enemies live? So, his happiness was not dependent on his state. His happiness was dependent on someone else’s state. So, here I am giving you an example to show that, how our emotions are determined not by our situation, but by our interpretation of the situation, by our emotional conception of the situation.
Because of the impurity of envy in his consciousness, although he was physically well situated, prosperously situated, but prosperity did not bring happiness to him, because there is an impurity within him. So, for us, we all, if we look at, we all, if we are asked, are you happy? We may say, yes, I am happy, but if we think ourselves, yeah, I am happy, but, what about this, what about that? The mind, when it is conditioned, its nature is to be dissatisfied. Even if we were to go to paradise, where everything would be wonderful, the mind would say, yes, but, this, this, this, and the example of this is Hiranyakashipu.
Everything and everyone was working according to his will. But, all he could see was, there is one person who is not acting according to my will. Who was that? Prahlad, his son.
And, even the great devatas, the great gods were offering respects to him, but that did not bring him any joy. So, when the mind is contaminated, it can never be satisfied. No matter how many things work out right, the contaminated mind will look at something which is not right, and it will make a mistake.
So, that’s why, the whole world, whereas the whole world believes that possession is the key to satisfaction. I possess a bigger house, I possess a bigger car, I possess the latest phone. Possession is the key to satisfaction.
But, actually, the key to satisfaction is not possession, it is purification. No matter how much we possess, if we are not purified, we will not be satisfied. There’s nothing wrong in possessing.
There’s nothing wrong in wanting to increase our possessions also. But, thinking that those increased possessions will make me happy, that is a misunderstanding. Now, I’m talking about all this to highlight the point that actually, as long as the mind is impure, we cannot be satisfied.
So, the mind’s conceptions shape our emotions. So, unless those conceptions are changed, we cannot perceive reality as it is. So, now, for the child who’s watching a horror movie, the child is safe, but the consciousness is projected into the horror movie.
Now, there are two ways in which the child can become happy. One is, you change the TV channel and have maybe some cartoon go on over there. Or, if there’s a young man or young woman, then have a romance movie go on there, the happy ending.
They’ll become happy. But the other way is, turn off the television and see where you are. Child says, oh, my mother is here, my mother loves me.
I’m happy. So, now, in the material level of consciousness, when people want to forget their past hurts, want to push their past negative memories into the background, what do they do? They try to create better material memories. That is something like changing the channel, changing the programme.
It can give some relief, but still the consciousness is projected in material nature itself. The consciousness is still alienated from the reality of who we are. But, if we can become distanced, and we can become distanced from material reality and understand who we are, then, we’ll actually experience real happiness.
Bhagavad Gita Krishna says that, कार्यकारण कर्तुत्वे हेतु प्रकृतृ उच्छते पुरुष्यह सुक दुखाना भोक्तुत्वे हेतु उच्छते He says that, cause and effect happens in the material world, but happiness and distress happen in the consciousness of the observer. Yes, India loses a cricket match. That is an event that has happened in the material world.
But, happiness or distress is something which happens in our consciousness. So, if you want to become happy, the world says that, just try to get happy events to happen in the world. Then we’ll become happy.
But the nature of the world is, sometimes happy events will happen, sometimes unhappy events will happen. The way to happen is to actually come out of the TV. Stop watching the TV.
Disinvest the consciousness from there. And this, just disinvesting the consciousness from matter, this is the path of renunciation. The Gyan Yoga, Rashtang Yoga.
I say, this TV if you watch, sometimes you’ll get pleasure, but much more time you’ll get pain. So, stop watching the TV. Just turn it off.
And that way, you will become peaceful. But Bhakti has some much more interesting dynamic. Say, the mother is sitting next to the child and she says, the child is suffering.
And the mother tries to shake the child, pat the child, call the child, but the child is not ready to listen. So, trembling in fear. So, what does the mother do? Imagine.
Most mothers won’t be so resourceful. They won’t need to be so resourceful. So, the mother goes to the place where the TV is being broadcasted.
And the mother enters into the television. You see me? Oh, who are you? I’m your mother. Oh, mother.
Oh. And the child gets attracted. The child gets comfort.
So, actually, Krishna exists at the spiritual level of reality. We as souls exist at the spiritual level of reality. But currently our consciousness is caught at the material level of reality.
So, Krishna enters into the material level of reality. That is the concept of avatar. Avatar means one who descends.
So, Krishna descends into the material level of reality and becomes perceivable to us at the material level. Sometimes he descends in his personal form, which we can talk with as the avatar. But even the deities are called as Archa Avatar or Archa Vikram.
That is also a descent of Krishna in matter. The holy name of Krishna is Naam Avatar. The holy abode like Vrindavan and Krishna, they are Dham Avatar.
They are the dhams which are manifesting as, where Krishna is manifesting in this world. So, from one perspective, the mother in the TV and, say, some hero in the TV. Both are simply characters in the TV.
But the hero in the TV has no relationship with the boy. But the mother has a natural relationship. Similarly, for us, with the senses, we can see some movie star’s picture, we can see some sports star’s picture.
That is just something which we are perceiving with our senses. And we go and see Krishna’s picture. That is also we are perceiving with the senses.
So, both can appear the same. But the difference is, Krishna is like a mother. Krishna is like a father.
So, when we expose ourselves to Krishna, within this material level, at one level, the inputs are coming in through the senses itself. So, it’s material senses perceiving a material object. But, when we are perceiving Krishna as the deities, the deities may be made of matter, but it’s Krishna who is manifesting through that matter.
And by this, as the child perceives the mother, child talks to the mother, gets attracted to the mother, and then, slowly, the child says, oh, my mother is here also. So, like that, for us, initially, we perceive Krishna with our senses at the physical level of reality. Then, as we take in physical reality Krishna more and more, Krishna manifests in our mind also.
That means, Krishna becomes an impression in the mind. So, for example, if someday we go to the temple, the beautiful darshan of Krishna. It’s so attractive, that afterwards we go, close our eyes, and we can still see the darshan.
We can just visualise, yeah, I can see the darshan of Krishna. So, many traditional temples in India, they say that don’t click photos in the temple. Now, there is a commercial reason and there is a transcendental reason.
The commercial reason is they want to sell photos. The transcendental reason, which was traditionally there, which will not be there now is, they say that actually, going to the temple and taking darshan of the Lord should be such a special occasion that there should be such a receptive consciousness that when we take the darshan, the impression should be in our hearts. We should have a photo in our hearts, we don’t need a photo.
Because if the photo is available constantly, then we feel, okay, I can see the Lord in the middle. We will not be that eager to see the Lord. So, the idea is that when we take the Lord in through our eyes, then an impression is formed in the mind.
And then we can recollect it again. But, beyond that, when at the level of the soul, the soul becomes activated through purification, the next soul is the super soul. And then at a particular time, the soul realises, I am perceiving Krishna with my senses, but, oh, Krishna is here also.
Krishna is here also. In this way, actually, at one level, we are taking in the impression of Krishna in our consciousness, from external. But that impression is not just external stimulation.
That external stimulation also leads to an inner activation. So, there is no such inner activation if I am watching Batman or Superman or Wonder Woman or whoever else. There is just external stimulation.
That may cause a mental impression, but there is no inner spiritual activation like that. That’s why bhakti is not just another conditioned attraction that we take in by repeated exposure to Krishna. Yes, there is reported exposure to Krishna required, but by that repeated exposure, Krishna becomes activated in our hearts.
I’ll conclude with one last example. Suppose, we are going to some distant place. Say, suppose, I am going from here to New York to meet some very important person.
So, I get into my plane, get into a plane, and then, I get down and I go to the destination and I go to that person’s house and knock on the door. And then they open the door. And look, and we notice that the person who opened the door is the same person who was sitting next to us in the plane.
But because we had never seen that person, we did not know this was the person I was going to meet. So, similarly for us, Krishna is not just our destination. He is also our companion.
But till we come to the spiritual level of awareness, we don’t understand that this is Krishna. Many of you know probably the other story that there was a poor man who wanted to know what is gold. And then, he went to a king, can you please show me gold? He said, okay, yes.
Go up the stairs, go left, there is a closet, there is a treasury over there. Open it and you will see gold over there. So, when he went there, when he went there, he climbed up and he saw shining gold.
He was so happy. But when he was coming back, he saw that even the staircase was gold-plated. The railings were gold-plated.
But because he did not know what was gold, so he did not realise this was also gold. Similarly for us, when we are chanting the holy names right now, when we are taking darshan of Krishna right now, when we are studying the Bhagavad Gita right now, because we have no experience of Krishna directly, we do not understand this is Krishna himself. But, as we become purified more and more, as our consciousness connects with Krishna more and more, then we will start perceiving this is actually Krishna.
So, Krishna is our destination, but he is also our companion. Right now, we may not understand that he is right now with us. It is like a child who is watching a movie, he does not understand.
But as a child keeps watching the movie, sees the mother over there, sees the mother, the child then slowly becomes calm, calms down. Oh, that is all in the movie. I am here.
My mother is here. So, like that, one day we wake up. Jeeva jago, Jeeva jago, Gaurachandra Gauri.
Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is saying, please soul, wake up, and the holy name will wake us up. So, the holy name will wake us up means it will bring us to our natural state of awareness. And the natural state of awareness is a state of spiritual joy.
Because the soul is sat-chit-ananda. So, I will summarise. I spoke today about, is bhakti a conditioned attraction of the mind or is it a spiritual attraction of the soul? So, in that I started by speaking about how people say that if you keep hearing about Krishna, keep chanting Krishna’s name, then naturally you will feel attracted to it.
Because it is just like any other sound. You hear about a cricketer, you hear about a sports star, by that you will again, by hearing again and again, you will get attracted. So, to understand whether this is so, we discussed that if there is a wall with a graffiti on it, there are going to be two ways to remove it.
One is scratch it out, erase it by scratching, or we over-paint it. So, with respect to our memory, we cannot erase anything. What is impressed is impressed.
But what can be done is, it can be pushed in the background. Let’s say somebody hurts us, forgiving and forgetting, we often put it together. But forgiving is in our hands.
We consciously decide, I won’t hold this against this person. But forgetting, sometimes it is not so easy to do. It usually happens by the passage of time when other better memories become prominent in our consciousness.
So, with respect to our consciousness, at one level, practising bhakti is like taking in more and more newer impressions by which our unwanted impressions can go away into the background. I talked about when impressions come in, what determines whether those impressions will register is the emotional significance of those impressions and the intellectual importance of those impressions. If I want to remember someone, if I meet someone and I feel this person is very important, so we may remember their name.
We may repeat it again and again, I’ll remember their name. But if some person, I’m very attracted to, emotionally, there’s a lot of emotion involved in that person, then naturally I’ll remember that person. I’ll remember their name, remember many other things about that person.
So, the impressions are formed within us in these two ways. And, when we experience something, or whatever emotions we experience and whatever actions we do, they are shaped not just by the physical situation, but they are shaped by our mental conception of that physical situation. So, somebody losing a cricket match somewhere, for somebody who has no emotional investment in that, nothing matters.
Somebody who is emotionally invested, big thing matters. So, physical proximity doesn’t matter. Somebody may win a football match, football stadium, but if they are there to distribute books, then what happens in the football sports doesn’t matter to them so much.
So, it’s more of a mental conception that determines our emotions and our response to that particular situation. And, therefore, when we talk about Bhakti, at one level we are talking about purification. Purification means that those mental impressions which are distorting our perception of the physical reality and causing us dissatisfaction, we try to remove those impressions.
I’ll give the example of Duryodhana, who, despite having prosperity, was not satisfied because his mind had the contamination of envy. So, he couldn’t see how much I have, but he could only see, oh, the Pandavas are not seeing how much I have. So, that’s why he was not satisfied.
So, the conditioned mind, the mind as long as it is impure, no matter how much it has, it will not be satisfied. The world tells us that possession is the way to satisfaction. But actually, it is not possession but purification that is the way to satisfaction.
So, purification means the contaminating impressions in the mind, we remove that. But, is Bhakti only doing purification? Yes, it is doing purification, but purification also means there is activation of the natural state of awareness of the soul. So, for that, I’ll give the example of a child who is watching a horror movie and is so captivated in watching that that the child doesn’t even understand that his mother is next to him.
And then the mother enters into the TV to comfort the child and then to help the child return to the world outside the TV. So, like that, our consciousness is so caught in physical reality right now that we can’t perceive Krishna present right next to us. So, Krishna descends as avatar into the physical reality.
So, at one level, it may appear as if we are just getting another physical impression. Some of you watch this image, I watch Krishna image. But, this impression of Krishna, what it does is, it pacifies us, it purifies us.
It removes the contaminations on us but with like a cleansing liquid that causes the natural colour of the wall to become manifested again. So, by that, the soul becomes awakened. And then, the same Krishna whom we see in the TV, we realise that Krishna is with me also.
And that’s how we get realisation. Realisation means, that which is a reality, we accept it to be a reality. So, Krishna is the reality who is right next to us.
But when we become spiritually activated, then he will become a reality for us. And, Krishna on our spiritual journey is not just our destination, he is also our companion. Like we are going to meet an important person whom we have not seen, but when we see them at their home, we say, they are sitting right next to us in our pay only.
So, like that, Krishna is there with us. Or a person who saw the gold for the first time and then understood that gold was not just in the treasury but it was also there in the staircase in the treasury. So, for us, right now, Krishna is manifesting as the holy name, as the deities, as the scriptures but we don’t perceive it.
But that doesn’t mean that our exposure to Krishna is just, we are simply conditioning our mind with something new. Rather, we are purifying the mind so that soul will become activated with its natural attraction to Krishna. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. Are there any questions or comments? Thank you for the class. I just have a question, a small question in this regard too.
So, over time, it seems that sometimes devotees, they get, I speak for myself, we get used to, we get, we take many things for granted in bhakti, like you say, VT or DT, you see, becomes something like a mode of routine. Like, what is the cause for that happening? Like, if it is natural for the soul, every day must be something like a joy or a new bliss. Okay, yeah.
So, if bhakti, it has taken many things in bhakti for granted, so if it is nature of the soul to be attracted to Krishna, why doesn’t it happen for us? Yes, because we are not at the spiritual level of consciousness right now. We are still very much at the physical and the mental level of consciousness. The mind finds the novel as attractive.
Something which is, if there is something very new, I am attracted to that. Or, if something promises me pleasure. I may have eaten gulab jamun hundred times.
But, oh, gulab jamun is tasty. So, because the mind associates gulab jamun with pleasure, so as soon as I see gulab jamun, I get excited. So, basically, either the mind has to see something novel, something new, or something which feels as pleasurable.
Then, that will register much more in it. And that’s why, because Krishna doesn’t seem to be new to us, because we are perceiving at the material level, not at the spiritual level. And because we sometimes experience pleasure in Krishna bhakti and sometimes we don’t.
That’s why we tend to become mechanical. And we just start doing it as a routine. As I say, it becomes a ritual.
So, actually, it is the investment of consciousness in the ritual that makes the ritual spiritual. So, when I invest my consciousness, why am I doing this? This is the Lord who is before me. I am chanting His name.
I am bowing down to Him. And that is why, for us, hearing is very important. Like I said, an impression becomes registered either through its intellectual importance or through its emotional significance.
So, for us, sometimes, the emotional significance of Krishna comes out. Some dress, some deity is dressing, oh, so attractive. Some kirtan, oh, so nice.
Some class, oh, this is so entertaining. But, Jiva Goswami says that in the sadhaka stage, what will keep us on the spiritual path is buddhi. Siddha, for those who are liberated, for them, what keeps them on the spiritual path is priti.
Their love for Krishna, their affection for Krishna will naturally stay at the spiritual level. But for us, it is buddhi. So, we have to keep our intelligence strong and that will keep us purposefully steady in our work.
And even when we say this, I don’t feel this attractive. I am not attracted to it. It’s not entirely true.
It is that if we persevere in connecting with Krishna, that attraction will start manifesting. That which tastes like poison in the beginning will taste like nectar in the end. So, even if we don’t feel it’s attractive, just try to persevere using the intelligence and when we penetrate through the layer of poison, then the long layer of nectar is awakened.
Okay? Thank you. Is the purification of intelligence same as purification of the mind? Okay. Good question.
Is purification of the intelligence the same as the purification of the mind? Not exactly. The mind is filled with desires. Whereas, you could say the intelligence is filled with reasoning.
Reasoning means that, okay, this is like this, we analyse and reason. Now, we may be able to reason also in an impure way. That means I may reason to arrive at a particular conclusion which simply fulfils my desires.
Sometimes we say there is a battle between the mind and the intelligence. Which is true. But, say, if the mind wins, that doesn’t mean that the intelligence is lost.
The mind uses the intelligence to fulfil its desire. To rationalise the fulfilment of its desire. So, for example, atheists may come up with various rationalisations to justify their disbelief in God.
So, the purification of the intelligence means that the intelligence is freed from false reasoning. So, for example, nowadays, abortion is very common. So, at one level, people know that they are killing life over it.
But they want to deny it. So, nowadays, those who are aggressive propagators of abortion, one argument they use is that actually pregnancy is nature’s slavery for women. And abortion is technology’s liberation for women.
It’s a terribly distorted perception of things. Actually, pregnancy is a privilege which nature has given. And that’s how the human race continues.
That’s how we can get a new soul into this world. But, in order to justify that, what is it? Prabhupada would say, you know, a man and a woman unite in an illicit way. A woman becomes pregnant and she has to say, yeah, why is nature being so unfair to us? So, we will go against nature.
So, this is what, okay, in today’s world we can say that, you know, families are fragmented and a woman has to alone take care of child sometimes. It’s difficult. But that doesn’t mean nature has gone wrong.
There’s a natural plan, but we have disrupted our society so much that things have gone terribly wrong. So, where the mind has a particular desire and then the intelligence comes up with reasons to justify that desire. And that is the impure intelligence.
The impure intelligence justifies the mind’s impure desires. So, in a sense, purification of the intelligence and purification of the mind are two separate things. Sometimes, if we just hear somebody who is very logical or more logical than us, I can understand, okay, my reasoning was false.
And then, if we reject the false reasoning at that time, then our intelligence has become impure. But still, the mind may remain impure. The mind may still keep proposing.
I want to do this, I want to do this, I want to do this. I read one book and I saw one book actually at an airport bookstore. The title of that book was The Taste of Wine is the Proof that God Loves Us.
So, in the western world, drinking wine is very common. So, I say, oh, God is so good. He has given us such nice tasting wine.
Now, okay, there are so many other proofs that God loves you. Why do you need the taste of wine for that? So, sometimes, if we understand and we accept, this was false reasoning, then the intelligence has become pure. The mind’s purification may still be there.
Even if I understand, okay, drinking alcohol is bad, but still the mind may keep proposing. So, then we will have to combat that, we will have to resist that with our intelligence. So, purification of the mind and purification of intelligence are two distinct things.
But, generally speaking, the purification of the intelligence, in terms of at least becoming intellectually convinced of what is right and what is wrong, that can come faster. The purification of the mind will take much longer time. So, when the intelligence is purified, we call that conviction.
When the mind is purified, we call that purification. Both are actually purification, but generally we use purification as a word when we say, I no longer have that desire. Like, say, if somebody was drinking alcohol earlier and now they see somebody else drinking alcohol, they don’t feel like drinking anymore.
Then the mind is no longer proposing it. That means they have become purified. So, but at least initially, okay, alcohol drinking is bad, so I don’t want to drink it.
Now, these are the reasons why I don’t want to drink it. That is purification of the intelligence. Okay.
Yes, ma’am. You mentioned about us having layers and layers of intelligence, and also, it really depends on our perception of the reality, not the reality itself. But then, sometimes it appears as if we are talking to help us in pursuing these things because we are consistently being governed by the modes of nature.
So, what’s in my power is my free will. I can decide what I want to do, but I didn’t create those modes of nature and they’re consistently around me. So, I feel like I’m trapped in those modes of nature.
So, my perception is really not depending on my free will, but all these modes playing out. And if I say I’m not the doer, then if I’m not the doer, then I’m not responsible for my actions. Okay, yeah.
So, we may have our free will, but the modes influence our mind and they shape our perception. And sometimes, the distortion of perception they cause can be so overwhelming that we just can’t act freely. So, if we are not the doers, as the Gita says, then how are we responsible? Yeah.
First of all, the Gita doesn’t exactly say we are not the doers. Actually, this is a… I have a whole class on this, but just quickly I’ll put this. Krishna does say that one who thinks I’m the doer is a real doer.
It’s 3.27. But at the end of the Bhagavad Gita, 18.63, it’s telling Arjuna, Now, deliberate deeply and do as you desire. Kuru. Kuru is related to do.
So, do. Do as you desire. So, be a doer.
And then, 10 verses later, when Arjuna responds, then also he says, I will do your will. So, at one level, the Gita is telling Arjuna, you are not the doer, but then, Krishna is telling also that now you do as you desire. So, and Arjuna says, I will do as you desire.
So, this is resolved in the 16th verse of the 18th chapter where Krishna says that the illusion is to think that we are the only doers. आत्मानं केवलं That one who thinks आत्मानं केवलं, who thinks the soul alone is the doer. That person is an illusion.
So, right now, I am speaking. So, I am the doer. If I didn’t want to speak, nothing would come out.
But right now, I want to speak, but I get a sore throat. I will not be able to speak, although I want to speak. So, I am the doer, but I am not the sole doer.
So, we do have the capacity at least to desire. And at one level, having the right desire is itself doing at one level. And that much we can do.
But along with that, we can do action at a small level. My friend was like a bodybuilder and he got a fracture. Completely, he was motionless.
And then his doctor told him, now we have to start exercising. For him, exercise meant lifting big weights. He said, what exercise? I can’t even lift my hand.
He said, can you lift your finger? He said, yes. He said, lift this small finger five times in the morning, five times in the afternoon, five times in the evening. That is your exercise.
This is exercise. This is nonsense. This is not exercise.
No, this is the exercise you have to do. He started doing that. Then he said, after that, lift your four fingers.
Then lift your hand. Lift your forearm. And then lift your hand.
Lift your full arm. So, basically, at that time, for him, exercise started simply by lifting his finger. So, for us, by our conditionings, our free will is never taken away.
The scope over which we can execute our free will can get limited. Just if you can see of the sky, like upside down ball, and the air, wind is moving within it. The sky doesn’t limit the movement, doesn’t prevent the wind from moving.
But it limits the area over which the wind moves. So, similarly, for us, we don’t have absolute free will. But, even within our limited scope, we do have free will.
For example, somebody is alcoholic. That person just can’t give up alcohol. When the urge hits, they have to drink.
But, in between two urges, what do they do? In between those two urges, they are doing something, taking some counselling, maybe getting themselves purified by spiritual impressions, and they are becoming stronger. So, when the urge hits, they have no purification, they have no free will, you could say, for the time being. But, in between, they have free will.
So, if I am very conditioned, I need 8 hours sleep, or 10 hours sleep, whatever. Now, I cannot suddenly come down to 6 hours. But, I can decide, instead of 10 hours, maybe I’ll sleep 5 minutes less, 10 minutes less, or whatever.
I would say, in our situation, we can use our free will, even if it is at a microscopic level. Even if it is baby steps. And those baby steps will help us to grow eventually.
So, that’s how, by using whatever free will we have right now, properly, we show Krishna that we want to use our free will properly. And then, we expand the scope of our life. Is the answer to your question? Is there something else on your mind? Any other questions? Okay, yes.
Last question. How do we strengthen our intelligence? Okay. How do we strengthen the intelligence? In general, the intelligence is a function of memory.
Basically, if we see, the mind takes in inputs from the sensory world. Yesterday, I gave the example of a monitor on which inputs come in from the different cameras. So, like that, from all the senses, the inputs are coming in to the mind.
So, those inputs are more or less going to keep coming. With our intelligence, we are meant to perceive, we are meant to actually properly interpret those intentions. Every time I go to a desert, I will see a mirage.
I can’t avoid that. I will see a mirage. And to me, the mirage will appear like water.
But it is my intelligence. Oh, this is not water. Now, how, what has to happen? My intelligence has to remember.
The last time I chased after that, my tongue got burnt. Or, you know, my guide had told me, you will see mirages. Don’t chase after them.
So, recollection can be based on what we hear or it can be based on what we have experienced also. Either way. So, if we say in the Bhagavad Gita when Krishna talks about dhyayato vishayan pumsah, how from contemplation it leads to self-destruction.
So, there the sequence is described in 2.62 and 2.63. There he says, dhyayato vishayan pumsah saṅgas teṣhuta jāyate, saṅgāt saṅgāt jāyate kāmāt, kāmāt krodhobhi jāyate, krodhād bhavati sammoha, sammohāt smṛti vibhrama, smṛti brahmaśād buddhi nāśo, buddhi nāśād manuṣyata. So, Krishna says, when is the buddhi destroyed? When smṛti brahmaśād. When the memory is lost, then the intelligence is destroyed.
So, intelligence at our level is primarily based on remembrance. Now, this remembrance is not just remembrance of facts. It’s not just a recollection.
Some people may have very good memory of facts. They may be able to remember mathematics tables, they may be able to recognise countries’ capitals. That’s all fine.
But we want to have recollection which enables us to make healthy moral choices. So, that is significantly different. It is different from the, you could say, the intelligence quotients that are measured by various parameters.
We have emotional intelligence, we have analytical intelligence, social intelligence. All those are good. They are also based on recollection only.
Somebody who has emotional intelligence, they can remember, this person has gone through this, and that’s why this person is like this. Let me be fancy to you. Other person, just forget.
This person, what they have gone through, I don’t know. Why do I care? It will be like that. So, in general, intelligence is based on recollection.
And, to the extent we increase our recollection, to the extent we will be able to act intelligently. Now, with respect to desires, our recollection is also based on our contemplation. That means, I may remember that, say, sense enjoyment leads to misery.
But then, if I keep contemplating on sense objects, what will happen? That will start, so enjoyable, so enjoyable. And that memory of whatever pleasure we have got through that in the past, even if it is a little pleasure, that memory will over time predominate our consciousness. And the memory of the scriptural statement, which also we have experienced, we will forget that.
So, basically, when Krishna says, I give remembrance, knowledge, and forgetfulness, on what basis does he give it? He gives it based on our desire. So, if we have a desire, strong desire to connect with Krishna, then he will give us remembrance of his message, his beauty, and over a period of time, he will give us forgetfulness of worldly impressions. And that’s how we will compute it.
But if we have a strong desire to enjoy the material world, then Krishna will give us remembrance of how enjoyable this world is. And he will make us forgetful of the consequences of that enjoyment. And he will make us also forgetful of the scriptural teachings that we have heard.
So, that’s why what we can do is, at least during the time when we are aware, in good consciousness, that time we can try to cultivate a good desire. Cultivate a pure desire, as much as possible. And then, by seeing that pure desire, Krishna will give us the remembrance at the right time.
And that remembrance will be the basis of our intentions. Does that answer your question? Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
Shri Prabhupada ki Gaur Bhakta Vrindaki Dai Gaur Premanandai Thank you. Thank you. So, actually, like as most of us know, Guruji writes extensively.
He has written on the spiritualsciences.com