Is it practical to live in the mode of goodness in our fast-paced culture?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
so thank you very much again goodness is not just a set of activities it is actually more a culture of thinking and acting Shri Prabhupada writes in the 3.37 3.36 in the Bhagavad Gita is Arjuna’s question how can one what is it that forces one to do wrong things and implied is how can one overcome it so 37th verse is Krishna telling that it is lust only and lust gets degraded to ignorance to wrath when lust and passion becomes wrath and ignorance Shri Prabhupada writes that in the purport that sadhata should be careful that instead of letting the lust the passion go down to ignorance the sadhata can let the passion come to goodness by the regulated way of living and acting the proper way of living and acting so that means that actually if we overall start living a devotional culture that means waking up in the morning means sadhana properly doing all the devotional activities these are transcendental because they are centered on Krishna but in and of themselves the forms of those activities are largely conducive with goodness waking up in the morning taking prasadam at fixed times with devotees or studying the philosophy so if we spend a good amount of time in these activities what good amount of time will vary from person to person but if we spend a reasonable amount of time that will help us to create a reserve stock of goodness within us so that at least while doing these activities we are in goodness and some reserve energy of goodness is created because the rest of the day after our morning sadhana it is inevitable that we will go into passion to some extent but we won’t be carried away by passion just like when a person sleeps there is to some extent the effect of the mode of ignorance while sleeping but if a person is sleeping regulatedly and the rest of the time a person is used in service of Krishna then one doesn’t necessarily get affected too much by the mode of ignorance rather one regulates that and one is able to wake refreshed for serving Krishna similarly if we are rooted in goodness properly then instead of we getting used by passion we will be able to use passion in Krishna’s service so it’s not that being in goodness means that we have to live life in slow motion it’s not like that it’s just that primarily it’s not slow motion primarily it’s the right direction so by our practice of sadhana we make sure that our inner compass gets pointed in the right direction and then some devotees have a tendency to speak fast to act fast but they are able to keep a clear mind even while they are speaking and acting fast and some others to have a clear mind they need to do things slowly they need to speak very slowly gradually so now it’s not necessarily that because somebody is doing something fast that means that person is passionate and somebody is slow that is in goodness it’s not necessarily like that it will vary depending on that person’s nature and Srila Prabhupada was he did so many things in his life but he never seemed rushed or pressured but if the devotees who would go on Srila Prabhupada’s morning walks Srila Prabhupada would walk very swiftly and often they had to almost jog slightly to be in pace with him but if you look at Srila Prabhupada’s morning walks he might be physically walking very fast but his thinking was very clear and that’s how he was able to give so many Krishna conscious insights to the devotees while he was talking also so it’s not that we have to live life in slow motion to be in goodness it is just that goodness means we make sure that we keep ourselves in the right direction so the nature of the mind is that it will distract us again and again and the world will also distract us but if we are in goodness or if we have a reserve stock of goodness that is regularly replenished by our sadhana then that will ensure that we as soon as we start going off track we become aware of it and we come back before we realize things before we go too far off track so yes, it’s not that as devotees every single sentence that we speak will be flawless we will all sometimes make mistakes okay, I spoke that but at least we will become aware later on you can clarify, okay I spoke that but I didn’t mean that if this is what you felt and if it hurt you then I want to clarify this we may apologize or we may clarify so over a period of time if we are in goodness we will ourselves recognize in what situations we need to go slow in order to stay on track and in what situations we can be fast and still stay on track so that means if some subjects we are good at some issues we are good at then we may be faster than others and still be able to maintain our clear thinking and some issues where we are not so good some activities where our talents are not so so great then we may have to deliberately become slowed down so that we can keep our bearings so essentially, being in goodness has these two parts, first is there is a prescribed way of living and acting and to the extent we adopt that devotional culture which is centered on goodness our overall life will come towards goodness and even in the remaining part of the day, apart from our sadhana when we may have to go into passion at that time also we will know when we need to slow down so that we stay in the right direction and when we can keep going fast and still maintain the right direction so that way we can keep ourselves in goodness on a regular basis