Is living in the present without living for Krishna helpful?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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obsess over those weaknesses. And that’s how it becomes negative.
So, people strive to live in the present also, but without any Krishna consciousness. So, how do we see that? See, broadly speaking, now, generalizations are never universal, but they give us an indication of universal truths. So, broadly speaking, we could say, being obsessed with the future, scheming and dreaming out the future, and thinking it will all be wonderful, that characterizes rajas.
Worrying about the past and projecting the past onto the future. Oh, this went wrong, that went wrong, that went wrong, and all this will also go wrong in my life. That characterizes tamas.
So, a mind which is in sattva, in goodness, will focus on the present. So, many of the self-help techniques like mindfulness and others, which people do to ground themselves in the present, they are all ways primarily to get oneself to sattva, to the mode of goodness. And for somebody who’s lived in rajas and tamas, coming to goodness is hugely helpful.
It will provide big relief. I was in Silicon Valley in America, a big company called Salesforce. So, they have, they among several companies, but that is most prominent.
They have in their company itself, rooms for meditation and mindfulness. And they have done many studies, and they use that actually, if people can calm themselves down, through meditation, through mindfulness, then their performance improves. And for the company’s perspective, their health insurance, they have to pay less.
Health cost, they have to pay less. But either way, the point I’m making is that this has been reasonably well documented scientifically. Just living in the present can help us to function better in life.
And sattva is living in the present. Now, sattva is conducive to shuddha sattva. We can live in the present and live for something bigger in the present.
Live for the biggest reality, Krishna. But that is not something which most people know about. One problem is that whenever we talk about Krishna, people think of it as a sectarian God, Him as a sectarian God.
And in today’s world, somehow, the word God has got a bad name. It’s in Star Wars, they say that, may the force be with you. Now, if Star Wars director made the dialogue, may God be with you, all the theatres would have become empty.
They don’t want God. There’s some force, something bigger, something is there, people acknowledge that. But now people use the word, may the universe blessings come to you.
And what is the universe? Ultimately, it’s the personal reality. So, people have this fear of sectarianism when they bring in God. As soon as they talk about God, my God versus your God, my God is better or your God is better.
So, people want to stay away little from God. So, that’s why this idea that living for something bigger in the present is going to worship the Sattva is something that is not yet mainstream. In fact, it is quite people apprehensive about it.
But if it’s presented properly, so in my corporate and yoga talks, I don’t present Krishna as God or even certainly not as a Hindu God. I present Krishna as the object of loving yogic meditation. People are interested in love, people are interested in yoga, people are interested in meditation.
So, what do you meditate on? Well, I don’t say that he’s the ultimate truth, he’s the ultimate reality. I say that great yogic experts throughout history have considered Krishna as the object of loving meditation. And you can also try that.
And that if you present it like that, people accept it, people are quite open to it. So, it’s a matter of how we present in such a way that we don’t rub people off wrongly. We don’t increase their feelings of sectarianism.
If we can present it properly, even living in the present is good. And living in the present is much better.