Is it wrong to get intellectual pleasure in our academic studies?

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Transcript

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Thank you. So, let’s study individual intellectual pleasure, and in general, whenever we do any work well, we get some pleasure in that. So, how can we ever get carried away or caught in that pleasure? By practicing bhakti.
There is spiritual pleasure and material pleasure. That is one level of separation, but again, that is not necessarily always an adequate level of separation. In material, there is sattvic, there is rajasic, there is tamasic, and sattvic is relatively favorable for bhakti.
Tamasic is unfavorable for bhakti. So, within material, we can classify material, such as sattvic, tamasic, as an example, and material can also have relations. So, within material, we can separate things as pro-emotional, non-emotional, and anti-emotional.
You know, Thakur and Shambhal, he discusses a question, what kind of vestibules can a Vaishnava participate in? He says, Vaishnava’s heart is primarily a Vaishnava vestibule. Rudra directly said, in Mahashtra, we don’t call it a heart. But then he says, one may have two other kinds of vestibules also.
So, for example, there is independent sleep. If there are vestibules which are based on socially desirable occasions, or there are vestibules which are talking about aparadhan, about one’s monthly duties, those sort of things can easily be done. And we do it in the mood that this is what is required for society to be in order, so that nothing can be practiced.
So, the point I am giving this example of Chetanikshamukh is that Chetanikshamukh doesn’t reject everything material as wrong. That material which is at the level of sattva muna, which is the level of aparadhan, that can also be accepted by anybody. A devotee doesn’t let oneself be consumed by that, but a devotee can accept that.
So, in general, we cannot live without pleasure. And spiritual pleasure takes time to get that. So, when the spiritual pleasure takes time, so you want to give the lower taste, lower taste doesn’t just mean all material taste.
It means adharmic taste, the taste in activities which has anti-demotional relations, like violations of regulative principles and things like that. But for a devotee, in general, if one works according to one’s varna. By varna, I don’t mean necessarily just conversation.
I am just talking about one’s nature. The word varna originally comes from Sanskrit, which varna means colour. So, colour not of skin, colour of one’s mind, that means one’s mental disposition, one’s nature.
So, what that means is, if we work according to our nature, there are two things that happen. When we both work according to our nature, we feel internally compatible with it and we are externally competitive with it. Internal comfort is varna, external competence is karma.
So, when we do it that way, naturally we feel pleasure. The process of bhakti is not that we have to make ourselves miserable to become spiritually advanced. No, that is not the process of bhakti.
It is not that a brahmana who has no interest in money has to become a vaisya to become spiritually advanced. It is not that a vaisya who really can’t study shastra and he has to memorize thousands of verses so that he can become spiritually advanced. No, one of the most important verses in the Bhagavad Gita is Shreyan Sa Dharmo Viguna Pra Dharman Samushritah.
There are only two verses in the Bhagavad Gita that are repeated almost fully. One is Vandana Bhava Matapta Madhya, 9.34 and 18.65. And the only other one that is repeated is Shreyan Sa Dharmo Viguna Pra Dharman Samushritah. So, almost three-fourth of the words that I say is that do your work according to your nature.
And working according to nature, it is reasonably because we live in a situation where what is one’s yajna will vary. So, what it basically means? We work according to something that is natural for us and we are comfortable with it. So, this one is Shreyan Sa Dharmo Viguna.
Don’t do your own dharma. Don’t do your own dharma. So, the shoe that fits one person bites another person.
The shoe that fits one person bites another person. So, no material formula is universal. What works for me materially may not work for another person materially.
So, if we find a particular kind of work very absorbing, very fulfilling, we should see that as Krishna’s yajna. We don’t see that as non-demotional or anti-demotional. We focus on the eyes.
While we seek the higher taste, we still need to be of the lower taste. And what we could say that the taste that we get while working according to our varna, in our profession, along with according to our nature, that we call as a dharmic material higher taste. Even material is a lower taste but not a higher taste.
The taste in Sathya Viguna and Dharmo Viguna it is in a lower taste. And the taste in Sathya Viguna are material higher tastes. So, a material higher taste can help us move closer to Krishna.
I will give you a provocative example for this. Many times when somebody sings Hare Krishna Mahamantra in a very sweet tune, people get attracted to it. Now who knows whether people are getting attracted to Krishna or to the music in it.
We don’t know and we don’t get bothered too much about it. It is broadly connected to Krishna and his music. We bother especially if a person is not a practicing devotee at all.
That person has no connection to Krishna and has just come as a commercial performer that is singing a tune. And as I was saying, that person will sing any song, I sing Hare Krishna. Then there will be very little bit of devotional intention and even the devotional content is there, the consequence is going to be very less.
So, at that time we are concerned but otherwise we don’t have to go into too much of a hyper analytical mode. We focus on yes, we all need happiness in our life and if we get a material higher taste, then it protects us from a lower taste. As we keep moving towards a spiritual higher taste.
The whole principle of Varna Ashram is that everyone has to face problems in life. Varna Ashram’s expertise is that it allocates to people the problems they like to face. The Brahmana likes to do intellectual things.
If a person is a Vaishya, he will tell you, please find out where this verse in the Bhagavatam is. Why bother you know? Give me a class without the verse. Who is going to do this? If you tell a Vaishya, if a Brahmana, oh, we have to build up a temple for Krishna and we have to pay now 1 million, 1 lakh rupees or 1 crore rupees.
Why bother you? Just study Shastra. I will give you what are you going to do. So, why build a temple? So, for both of them, the problems they like to face are different.
So, now what is the problem that you like to face? We often say, don’t see it as a problem, see it as a challenge. But a Brahmana cannot see fundraising as a challenge. He will see it only as a burden.
And a Vaishya cannot see Shastric study as a challenge. He will see it as a burden. I once gave a class, I was explaining how when I take the action of the Vrittis, unless I recite some verses, I don’t feel any connection with the Vrittis.
So, I memorize verses, I recite verses and offer those verses to the prayer to do. And that’s how I feel an emotional connection. So, I recommend that they stop.
And after I want to do it, they will go and ask me. And I go and read and try to memorize verses, that causes me so much tension that I lose all sense. So, it will vary.
That person may not need verses, I need verses. So, different people may find different problems stimulating. And if you find a particular material that is stimulating, if it is not in a dynamic way, we can use it.
And we will not be competent in any field, unless we are deeply competent in any field, unless we are comfortable with it. And in fact, most of the devotees who are able to do a lot of services are also devotees who have found their niche in their professional life. They are doing well, not just because they are already good or they have a big position satisfying.
But they have got a job which they can do fast. They are good at it, so they can do it fast. And when they do it fast, then they can really use it in any type of way.
So, finding that niche, it is, I would say, our responsibility. Then we can actually be materially happy. Otherwise, we are always in a materially incompatible situation, materially satisfied.
And then, not only are we unhappy, but also we are unproductive. Or not as productive as we can be, because we are struggling to do something which is just not our nature. So, working according to our nature, if we have already found something which gives us satisfaction in the real life, we should be grateful for that.
What we shouldn’t do is that, think that this satisfaction can be a substitute for spiritual satisfaction. And this is what I do lifelong and I can do life after life after life. I have to switch into this life, so I can do this right now.
But this is so that I can be steady and I can move towards my spiritual goals.