KAILASH acronym – 7 insights from the Kailash story

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Ramas are a very important part of the culture by which the philosophy and the pastimes are depicted in a very visually and sensually appealing way. So, in fact, Bharat Muni wrote the Natya Shastra, where he describes how drama should be performed so that there is a maximum experience of spiritual emotion and illumination.
So, there are different kinds of dramas. One kind is where we have directly the pastimes of the Lord being performed, where the divine emotions are what are experienced. And then there are other kinds of dramas, the philosophical dramas, which what we perform today, the Kailash drama, by which we can experientially learn some important lessons.
So, I’ll discuss seven lessons that we can learn from this drama. Now, when you spoke, you mentioned some of them briefly. Generally, whenever we want to talk about a lesson from any drama or any story, there should be three things.
First, we state the lesson. Then we tell which part of the story illustrates that lesson. And then elaborate on that lesson as it applies to our life.
So, can we have one devotee who can write? Somebody can sit here. So, we take the acronym Kailash, K-A-I-L-A-S-H. So, let’s start with K. You can wipe this off.
So, K is kind-heartedness. So, whose kind-heartedness do we see in the drama? Narad Muni’s kind-heartedness, isn’t it? So, now actually, if we see, Narad Muni had nothing to gain by approaching Kailash. He was approaching Kailash for Kailash’s spiritual advancement alone.
And Narad Muni would not get anything. He is already such a spiritually advanced devotee that he will be spiritually satisfied. So, generally speaking, imagine, say, now you are in the first year.
Next year, you are going to second year. And the first year student is there. So, if you go to his room, to tell him, oh, you know, in the first year, engineering mathematics is a little difficult.
I will teach you some engineering mathematics. How grateful he will feel. And, oh, you are coming to teach me.
Thank you very much. Now, imagine, if you go to teach him, and he says, I don’t have time. Who needs? I need or you need? It will be so annoying.
If you don’t have time, get lost. I don’t have time either. I am also busy.
So, generally speaking, you know, we approach a person again and again, when we need something from that person. If we want to do a favour to somebody, we don’t even approach that person. We expect that that person should approach me.
So, Naradu’s compassion is so great that although he gave me nothing from Kailash, but he is going to Kailash again and again and again. Normally, in Vedic culture, the sages would not even come to the cities, because the cities are filled with materialistic vibrations. So, they will stay in the forest and in the hermitages in the forest, and those who are spiritually interested, they are expected to go to the forest.
Of course, in Kali Yuga, first of all, there are no forests, practically speaking. Secondly, there are no sages in the forest. And even if there are a few forests, even if there are some sages in the forest, practically no one wants to go to the forest to meet the sages and learn.
That’s why Vishal Prabhupada was living in Vrindavan, which is not just an ordinary forest, it’s a divine forest. From Vrindavan, he went to, not just to a city, but he went to America. Actually, Vrindavan was the capital of devotion.
And America, he went to New York, there to the Bhogadi, which was the capital of degradation. So, he went, why? He did not need anything from the hippies. Even the hippies didn’t even have any money to give him.
Even if somebody imagines that the spiritualists are after money, they had no money to give him also. He went, why? Because he wanted to help them. So, that is the kind-heartedness of the great souls, that they approach us again and again, although they don’t stand anything to gain, it is we only who gain.
And it is Narada’s great compassion that once, twice, thrice, even in ordinary dealings, even if a salesman wants something from us, he will come to a customer once, twice, thrice, the customer keeps rejecting. Then he says, forget it, I will go to some other customer. But Narada is so kind that he keeps coming again and again.
So, even when devotees come in our life, like now you have your seniors over here, who are working in different companies and they are having their own jobs, their own deadlines, their own lives, but still they came and they conducted the Discover Yourself course and they are sharing the spiritual knowledge with all of you. They don’t stand anything to gain. They have their careers, they have their futures, but they felt benefited by whatever knowledge they got.
And therefore, they felt inspired to share it. So, it is very unfortunate if somebody thinks that when devotees come in their lives, that these devotees are interfering with my life. If at all they are interfering, they are interfering in our journey to help.
And the way society is leading us, actually, if we just let ourselves be open to materialistic influences, then we are forced to do wrong activities. The way the peer pressure is, a person is not interested in illicit sex, is not interested in meat-eating, jambling, intoxication, he is considered to be old-fashioned, considered to be cranky. So, we are forced practically to do activities that will take us to hell.
So, devotees come in our life and show us an alternative, a better way of living. So, actually, it is the kind-heartedness of great saints like Narada Muni which inspires all devotees to follow in his glorious footsteps. So, K is kind-heartedness.
A is attachment. Now, whose attachment do we see? Kailash. Now, think of it from the logical point of view.
After he has become a dog, even if he protects the money, what is he going to do with the money? A dog cannot do anything with the money, right? But the attachment is so great that he just can’t give it up. The money that he has earned as a human being, he is thinking, oh, I have to hold on to it, I have to protect it. The attachment is so deep.
तान्तृष्णाम् दुख्णियोहां शर्मकामोदुतम्तजेत्यादुस्तजादिर्मतिभि जीर्यतो वान जीर्यते जीर्यतो means to become old. So, even when our bodies become old, our desires don’t become old. Even when our bodies become old, our desires don’t become old.
Just stay on, attach. Now, there is one very important point to understand over here, that there is a difference between attachment and affection. It’s natural to be affectionate to everyone and even to our family members.
Now, in spiritual life, sometimes people are afraid. If I become too serious about my spiritual life, then maybe I’ll leave the whole world and I’ll become a sadhu. Therefore, let me not practise spiritual life only.
No. Actually, first of all, nobody can force anyone to renounce the world. We are all in the spiritual world and from there we came here.
Krishna couldn’t force us to stay there. So, how can anyone force us? And spiritual life is not about renouncing or rejecting responsibilities. It is about embracing our full responsibility.
It’s actually about understanding the full responsibility of human life. Now, in Indian society, there is some understanding of religion. But like today morning we were discussing, there is a culture but the philosophy is not there.
Therefore, most people think that their dharma or their duty is to take care of their family members. The parents think to take care of my children. Children think, oh, I have to take care of my parents.
I have to take care of my family, my wife, my children. And if I do this, then I have done my duty. If a father thinks that if I get my sons educated and well settled in family life, I get my daughters married nicely, then I have done my duty.
Yes, this is an important duty. But this is not the most important duty of human life. Because taking care of one’s family members is actually done even in animal life.
If you see a kitten, kitten is a baby cat, then when the kitten is small and some other person comes near the kitten, the mother cat, what will she do? She will show her claws and her teeth. She will get frightened. Why? Because she wants to put into the kitten.
And more scientists have researched, they have found how much amazing is the affection even in nature among the different species. For example, they found a beaver bird. So, this beaver bird, the he bird and the she bird, when they say that the she bird is about to lay eggs, so they find a tree which has a good hollow and the she bird goes inside the hollow and stays over there.
And the he bird and the she bird, before the she bird goes into the hollow to lay eggs, they cover the whole hollow. They get some straw and some mud and excellently they cover the hollow so that any hawks or snakes won’t come and eat the eggs. So, then he goes inside and lays the eggs.
And then as the eggs near hatching time, then she also goes inside and stays there only. And they cover it externally fully and she sits on the eggs and incubates them. And the she bird, he comes and keeps dropping food from the hole.
So, there is a whole documentary which very beautifully depicts this. So, he keeps dropping food from the, some grass, some grains, some fruit pieces and the she bird eats it. Then afterwards what happens? When the eggs hatch, then even when the she bird is pregnant, she has to get a lot of food because her food is going even to the baby birds.
But when they hatch, then they all need food. Then this he bird is practically running so fast, flying so, so, so, so, flying and coming and giving food. And then finally, you know, he comes breathless and he tells his wife, it’s too much, you have to take a job now, come out.
And then they both break the covering and she comes out and then they reseal the covering. And then both of them start searching around to get food and they drop the food through the hole in the hollow covering. And now inside, there are some eggs which have hatched earlier.
Naturally, those birdlets, baby birds are bigger. The eggs which have hatched later, the birdlets are smaller. So, when the food is dropped from the hole, naturally the bigger bird catch hold of the food.
But amazingly, the bigger birdlets take the food and give it to their younger siblings. And only when the younger siblings are fed, then they eat. So, it’s very nice to see how much sharing and caring is there even in the bird species.
But think about it, is this sharing and caring spiritual? No. So, Vishal Prabhupada explains that the parent’s love for the children is natural and necessary. But it is not spiritual.
I’ll repeat this, it is natural. Natural means, it is a product of nature. In every species, when the mother gives birth to offspring, by the arrangement of nature, the mother feels affection towards the offspring.
So, a cat feels affection towards a kitten. A dog feels affection towards a puppy. A lion feels affection towards a lion cub.
And human parents feel affection for the children. How does this happen? It’s natural. And it’s not just natural, it is necessary.
Necessary, because if the eggs and the birdlets are not taken care of by the mother, then they would die. It’s necessary. It’s natural and necessary, but it is not spiritual.
When does it become spiritual? Only when the soul and God are involved, it becomes spiritual. So, what is spiritual? The relationship of soul and God is spiritual. So, if we, when we have a human body, in human form, take care of our family members, that’s certainly natural and necessary, but it is not spiritual.
When will it become spiritual? When we spiritually take care of our relationships. That means, we connect ourselves with Krishna and help our relatives to become connected with Krishna. Then it becomes spiritual.
Till then, it is material. So, you know, if you see, there is a traditional saying, Matra devabho, Pitra devabho. Mother and father are like parents.
Sorry, mother and father are like God. Now, what does it mean? It doesn’t mean that the mother and father themselves are God. Rather, the mother and father are meant to be the representatives of God.
The mother can say that, you know, I kept you in my womb for nine months. I fed you my breast milk. How much I care I took of you.
That is certainly true, but at the same time, when the child was in the stomach, the mother did not create the mechanism by which her food goes to the embryo. Or even when the child comes out, she did not create the mechanism by which her breast becomes filled with milk and the child can drink the milk. It happens.
How does it happen? The same God who sent a child into the womb also send milk in the breast of the mother so that the child will be fed when he is born. So, the mother and the father are the representatives of God. And the mother and father, their duty is complete not when they just take care materially of their children, but they also train their children to become devotees of God.
So, in Kailash’s case, naturally, it is important for him to do his family responsibilities. He can’t neglect them. But at the same time, his mistake was that in the name of his family responsibilities, he was neglecting his spiritual responsibilities.
What is the spiritual responsibility? Now, all of us have a relationship with God. It is God who is taking care of us. Ultimately.
Yes. We can say that now for all of us, your parents are paying for your education. So, naturally, you have a duty to your parents.
But at the same time, you know, it is God who is taking care of us ultimately. Nowadays, it’s the age of technology where people try to make everything artificial. If your limb gets damaged, you get artificial limb.
If your eyes get damaged, you have cataract, put artificial limb. Something like that. So, a big problem nowadays is digestion problem.
So, scientists thought, you know, if people have digestion problem, we’ll put an artificial digestive machine inside the stomach. Then people can eat whatever they want, whenever they want and they can enjoy. They started out, but when they tried it, they found that the reactions in the body for digestion are so complicated that actually they will not need a machine, they will need a factory.
And not just a factory, they will need a chain of factories which extends over two miles. You know, in physics, we have W is equal to Fs. Work is force into displacement.
So, they found that actually the amount of work that is performed when we digest one morsel of food, that is greater than what is the amount of work that an average person performs throughout the day. People say, I have earned money through my hard work, I have earned all this. But actually, more hard work is done inside the digestive system to digest the food that we eat.
So, who is digesting the food? In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna describes in 15th chapter, 14th verse, aham vaisvanarobhutva praninam deham asrutah pranapanasamayuktah pachamyannam chaturvidam. It is I and the fire of digestion that digests the food problem. So, most of us take our digestion for granted.
We think of our digestion only when the food doesn’t get digested. That’s why it is said, God gives and forgives, we get and forget. God gives and forgives, we get and forget.
It’s unfortunate. So, yes, now I am just talking about digestion. But scientists did a rough estimate that sometimes you know when a person is critically ill, his respiration is not working, then they put him artificially in oxygen.
You may have seen this in movies also. They put a sort of device by which a person can breathe artificially. So, they experimented that if we have to make the whole body function artificially, that is not just the breathing, the blood circulation, the digestion, the heart beating, the hand moving, the speech.
First of all, we don’t have the technology to do all these things. But even if we had, they found that one day maintaining all the systems of the body alive will take several crore rupees. Several crore rupees.
So, that means God is spending several crore rupees on us every day. And people ask, what is God doing to us? So, if our parents spend some money for our education, God is spending so much for our life. Don’t we have a duty towards Him? So, actually we have to learn a balance.
Spiritual life is never meant for running away from responsibility. Never. In fact, spiritual life is meant for those who take up a higher or more complete responsibility.
Even those of us, there are few of us who become brahmacharis. We never give up our family responsibilities. What we arrange to take care of our parents’ debts, we arrange for our sister’s marriages, we create financial stability for our parents, we make a social circle where our parents will be taken care of and we also stay in touch with our parents whenever required.
There is no question of rejecting responsibility. Yes, there are some people who get frustrated with material life and then they think, I will get up, get rid of material life by taking to spiritual life. But that is not spiritual life.
Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, in the 18th chapter says, that this sort of renunciation, wherever renounces material life, because one finds it too troublesome. One thinks it’s very troublesome, that’s why I don’t want to practise. That is renunciation in the mode of ignorance.
By that one will not get any fruit of renunciation. One will only get the bad karma of being irresponsible. So, spiritual life is not at all about being irresponsible.
But it’s important to understand what is our responsibility. Just taking care of our own bodies and taking care of the bodies of our loved ones, does not complete our responsibility as human beings. Because that is an animal’s duty.
So, our responsibility as human beings becomes complete when we do our duty towards our relatives and also our duty towards God. And with guidance from devotees, we can learn a balance between them. And later on in the evening, you will get introduced to several devotees who are actually practising this balance.
We will talk about the wife concept more. But the point here is that, so affection is natural. But attachment means it checks us.
All of you know in the Mahabharata, Dhritarashtra was attached to Duryodhana. Whereas Vidura was affectionate to Duryodhana. Attachment means what? If the other person wants to do something wrong, just because we don’t want to displease that person, we let him do wrong.
Not only we let him do wrong, we also do wrong with him. So, Duryodhana wanted to usurp the kingdom of the Pandavas. Dhritarashtra not only allowed him, but Dhritarashtra also supported him.
That is attachment. On the other hand, Vidura allowed Duryodhana. Vidura allowed Dhritarashtra.
But his affection went that he didn’t want them to go on the wrong track. And that’s why he kept giving them good advice. So, Kailash’s mistake was that certainly he should have been affectionate to his family members, but he was attached.
And because of the attachment, he could not achieve a balance between his material and spiritual life. So, as devotees, we need to recognise that we have duties towards our parents, towards our family members, and towards God. And in fact, those duties don’t conflict.
In fact, when we do our duty towards God, actually, by chanting the names of God, by worshipping God, it helps us to become better human beings. You know, if we become devotees of God, our minds become more peaceful, we become more disciplined. And then actually, we can do all our other duties better.
We’ll become better students, we’ll become better human beings, we’ll become better sons. In fact, the whole world will become filled with better citizens, if all people learn to do their duties to God also. So, the third reason is independence.
Independence means that neither God nor his devotees ever force us, as we see in the case of Kailash. Kailash came and requested. He not only requested, he persisted.
But still, the final choice was Kailash. So, like that, ultimately the choice is with us. Sometimes people ask, you know, why did God give us freedom? Because you know, when we have freedom, we misuse freedom.
Some people become terrorists, they kill others. Like Varanasi, there was a bomb blast. Earlier Bombay, there was a bomb blast.
So, so many people become so demoniac and terrible. So, God should not have given us independence. But no, if there is no independence, then there is no question of love.
And without love, there is no happiness. You know, if a boy says to a girl, I love you, and she doesn’t show any interest, he puts a gun on her head, do you love me or not? She may say, I love you. But, is she speaking it from the heart? No.
When there is force, there cannot be any love. So, like that, God doesn’t want to force us. God gives us freedom.
Although it is in our best interest to love and serve God, that will make us the most happy. But God doesn’t force us. That’s why, you know, the Bhagavad Gita is not a book of commandments.
It is a book of choices. Krishna gives us choices and Krishna tells us consequences of the choices. In, at the end of the Bhagavad Gita, in the 18th chapter, in 18.63, Lord Krishna says that, Oh Arjuna, I have told you the full message now.
Iti te jnanam akhyatam gohyat gohyataram maya Vimrishayita dasheshena yathe icchasi tatha kuru Vimrishayita, deliberate on this. And then, yatha icchasi, as is your desire, you can do accordingly. So, as they are mentioning in the presentation, what is the purpose of our life? We should seriously think about it.
And then the decision is up to us. In spiritual life, nobody will ever force us. They will try to inspire us.
They will try to guide us. They will try to push us a little bit. But nobody can force us.
The decision is up to us. And Kailash kept taking the wrong decisions. And what happened? There are choices.
And attending to choices, there are consequences. If you make a choice, you have to fear the consequences of the choice. You can’t avoid that.
It is said that we can never break the laws of God. We can only break ourselves against the laws of God. That means, if somebody jumps from a 10-storey building, he says, I don’t believe in the law of gravity.
Well, the law of gravity does not believe in your foolishness. If you make the choice, you have to bear the consequences. Like that, people say, I don’t believe in the law of karma.
I don’t believe in my duty towards God. That’s fine. You have a right to not believe.
But that doesn’t mean that we can be exempt from the consequences. Therefore, we have choices and there are consequences of the choices. So, what happens is, the Bhagavad Gita makes us enlightened about what choices are there for us and what are their consequences.
Then we have to use our independence to make the right choice. Otherwise, we see Kailash had a human body, went down, a dog body and a snake body. That could be the consequences of misuse of his independence.
L is later. This is a normal tendency in material life. Later.
It is very much there in our material life also and all the more so it is there in spiritual life. We keep postponing things, especially in spiritual life. Nowadays, if you start becoming a little serious, you go back to the hostel and many of your friends will say, you should practise it when you become old.
Not now. But actually, when we become old, what happens? The way we have lived our life throughout our youth and middle age, those habits become so deeply ingrained, it becomes practically impossible to practise. In the Purana, there is a very instructive story.
Once there was a businessman who used to deal in wood, used to deal in clothes. He was looking after his business. Then his sons grew up and his son said, father, now we can take care of the business.
You can retire and you can focus yourself on devotion to God. You can do bhakti. No, no, no, like Kailash.
You are not yet responsible. I will guide you. I will train you.
They were saying, no, we can take care now. We are grown up. But they are not ready to listen.
So then they decided that we will get some Pandit in our house and we will have some Bhagwat Katha and some Yajna. And our father, we are doing this for you, sit in here. So he heard for seven days and as soon as the seventh day got over, he immediately went to the office.
How are things going on? Seven days lifting over nightly? He is already detached. Then they said, okay, we will arrange for you to go Tirthya, Char Dham, Kashi and other places. They sent him.
And then he went all the places, then he came back. And he had gone with his wife. The wife came home, but the husband went to the office first.
The shop, how are things going on? Are things okay? I was away for so many months. And they realised, oh, nothing is happening. They thought, we will try one more idea, last idea.
Let us take him to the crematorium. And they took him to the crematorium. And you know, in western culture, we just bury the body.
Of course, it is based on a strange idea that actually when the soul is to be delivered, when the person is delivered by God, he will be delivered along with his body. That is why the body has to be preserved in a coffin. Of course, the coffin cannot preserve the body.
If you open the coffin after a few months, there is nothing remaining in the coffin. But still, the Vedic culture is always more graphic. Why is the body burned? Because people can see with their own eyes what is the ultimate destination of the body.
And that produces detachment. That produces an impetus for thinking about the higher values of life. What is actually eternal? So, they thought that, let us take him to the crematorium.
And we will see in the crematorium. And then, there, a body of a dead person was brought, put on the funeral fire. And then, it was lit.
And as it was being lit, immediately, another person on the body was brought. It was also lit. And another funeral was being lit.
And so many funerals being lit. And as they were watching, this elderly person’s face started becoming very grave, very sad. Alas! Alas! He started speaking.
Oh no! I have wasted my life. I have wasted my life. Yes, operation successful.
No, he is getting detached now. Can you please tell me? Please tell us, what did you realise? What is your realisation? I have wasted my life. I have wasted my life.
Why did you mean? Why do you feel you have wasted your life? See, you know, throughout my life, I was just doing this cloth business. But cloth business is seasonal. In Diwali and other times, it is good.
Other times, it is bad. But if I had been in the business of selling wood for this funeral affair, then I would have had a good business throughout my life. I wasted my life.
You know, a person who is habituated to thinking of money all the time, cannot stop thinking of money. Suddenly, he has become devoted to God. That is why the kind of habits that we develop in our formative years, they will stay with us throughout.
So, it is very important for us to not postpone our spiritual life. If we keep saying later, then it is not just a matter of time going away. It is a matter of mental tendencies and habits becoming solidified.
In the morning, we discussed about the stronger the habits become, the more difficult they become to break. In fact, you know, in this world, everything that becomes old becomes weak. You know, a new chair is strong.
As it becomes old, it becomes weak. A new house is strong. As the years pass, it will become weak.
There is only one thing in this world, the older it becomes, the stronger it becomes. And that is habits. The older they become, the stronger they become.
And that is why, if we keep practising a materialistic way of life throughout our life, the more we practise it, the older those habits become, the stronger they will become. And it is very, very difficult to give them up. So, that is why later, if we say later means never.
It will never happen. Tomorrow has no end. Therefore, the time to practise spiritual life is now.
It does not mean we neglect or reject our material life. But we achieve an intelligent balance. Then, A is afterlife.
Afterlife means the life after this life. It is a little strange how our mind distorts our thinking. All of us have a lot of anxiety about our career.
And all of your students, they are worried in the future, will I get a good job? Will I be able to go to America? Will I be able to go into IAS? Will I be able to get into IIM? And this anxiety so often worries us. What will happen to me in the future? But it is a little strange that we think about our future of the next 5 or 10 years, but we do not think about our future after 50 years. We do not think about our future after 100 years.
We, the soul, are eternal. For example, if you presented your infancy body to us, if you showed a photo when you were an infant, maybe 3 months old, none of us would be able to recognise you. Why? Because you look different.
That means even in this life, your body is changed. So, what applies to you, applies to all of us also. So, although we can see in our own life our body has changed, we remain the same person, despite the body change.
So, like that, now this change of body is gradual. Whereas at the time of death, the change of body will be abrupt. But the person will remain the same.
So, wise person thinks not only about his immediate future, but also about his long-term future. And he should learn to prepare for that also. So, all of you know from the Discover Yourself course that there are two criteria which determine our next life and the body that we will get in our next life.
What are those two criteria? Karma and desires. Correct. Very good.
Thank you. Karma and desires. It is as simple as if we are living in a particular house and we have to go to another house.
We will see what kind of house I like and secondly what kind of house I can afford. So, like that, according to our karma, like our pain capacity and our desire, we will get a next body. So, nowadays people are very attached to their dogs.
So, people take their dog out for a morning walk and they think of their dog, they feed their dog. Especially in America, Mishra Prabhupada said, you know, you don’t love God, but you end up loving dog. So, actually, there are dog psychiatrists.
My dog has got a depression, please give him some counselling. It will seem absurd to us, there are dog biscuits, there are dog dresses, there are dog doctors and there are dog psychiatrists. My God, like you have babysitters for taking care of babies and parents go for working, like that there are dog sitters.
I am going out, so please take care of my dog and people pay them a handsome amount for it. They spend so much time on their dog. So, what will happen that in the next life, the master and the dog, they will interchange their positions.
Why? Such an interchange will take place because of love. The dog loves the master. So, the dog is always thinking of the master.
Now, what will happen? In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna described the law of last thought. The law of last thought is, what we think of at the last moment of our life, accordingly we get a kind of body like that. So, the dog will get a human body, the human being will get a dog’s body.
So, it’s a degradation. So, therefore, we should live our life in such a way that we can get a better body, if not an eternal body. You know, if any of your parents or relatives have a rented home, always the anxiety is, how can they have our own home? Because a rented home, the owner may throw us out anytime.
So, like that, the body that we have now is a rented home. Therefore, we should always be concerned, how can I get a permanent home? That is a permanent, a spiritual, eternal body. So, Kailash was thinking very much about this life, but he was not thinking about the next life.
And he had to be at the next life, whether he thought about it or not. Then S is shock treatment. What is shock treatment? Who gave shock treatment to whom? Narad Muni through the sons gave it to Kailash.
So, imagine a millionaire’s son, who has gone to a hill station for a trip. And as he is going up the hill station in his own car, the car at a turning just skids and it falls off. And it is falling down hundreds of feet.
And he sees a big rock outcropping. So, he just opens the car window and jumps off. And the car hits the rock.
Boom! It explodes. He keeps falling down. He falls down, down, down, down.
And deep into the valley he falls. Fortunately, he falls on a sand dune. And all the tribals who are living in that valley come there.
And they see, where this person has come from here? And they sprinkle some water on him. And fortunately, because he has fallen on a sand dune, he is not very badly hurt. They bring him back to consciousness.
And they ask him, who are you? What is your name? He says, my name is, my name is, my name, I do not remember my name, my name, my name. You have seen in movies? Mera naam, mujhe mera naam yaad nahi hai. They do like this.
It is called amnesia. Especially, if your head gets hit, people get amnesia. Now, the tribals say, okay, you do not know who I am.
Who will go in search of that mountain? You stay with us. So, then they give him a name. And then they give him a role.
Your name is Balu and you take care of cutting the woods and bringing them for our fire in the house for cooking. And then every day he is going with the axe, working hard to cut the wood. Then he has to carry all the logs and bring it back.
Now, he is a prince, the son of a millionaire. But he is struggling, breaking the logs. Why? Because of his forgetfulness.
Then his millionaire father comes searching. And he comes searching, searching, searching, searching down. He comes to the valley and he says, where is my son? Where is my son? And then suddenly, oh, my dear son, my dear son, please come.
He says, son? Who is son? Who are you? Who am I? What? My dear son, please come. Please, do not waste my time. Go get out of here.
And father starts saying, what happened? And then he goes back and gets a psychiatrist, a doctor. He tells the doctor, you know, please treat my son. My son has forgotten me.
And then the psychiatrist comes along and he says, hey, my dear boy, do you remember this pen? Do not waste my time. Do you remember this watch? I want you, do not waste my time. Get out of my way.
Then the doctor realises, he is not going to learn in this way. Then he gets two assistants and they catch him and they put him on a bed and then they give him shock. And he asks them, do you remember this pen? He says, let me go, do not waste my time.
And then they give a shock. Do you remember this pen? Yeah, I remember. And then, do you remember this watch? Do you remember this shirt? Yes, yes.
Do you remember this person? Oh, my father. And then they embrace each other and then they are reunited. Actually, this is not just a story.
It is actually the reality of all our lives, the lives of all of us. Now, all of us have fallen from the spiritual world and we have fallen from the spiritual world into the material world and we have forgotten our identity. So, then society gives us a name.
Society gives us a role. Now, if you think about it, we came into existence before our names came into existence. So, we are different from our names.
So, Krishna himself comes to this world and he says, oh, my dear son, please give up everything. Please come back to me. Please forget everything.
You come to me, I will take care of everything. Why should I surrender? I am happier. Get out of my way.
Then, Krishna gets a doctor. That is Maya Devi, material nature. And through the material nature, there are the deities, there is the holy name, there are dharms.
So, all this Krishna tells him, do you remember? Do you remember? I do not have time to go to the temple. I do not have time to go to the dharm. Then, what does Maya Devi do? Shock treatment.
Boom! There is a bomb blast. There is earthquake. There is tsunami.
Why is all this happening? It is the meaning of life. Who am I? One of our devotees, he had some relatives in Gujarat. A few years ago in Gujarat, they got heavy floods.
So, he had gone to meet his relatives and those relatives, they were not interested in Krishna consciousness because they are very materialistic. And then, when the floods came, he was there with the relatives. So, they were the third story house.
And what happened was, the dam became completely full. And the rains were still coming. So, the government decided to open the dam.
Because if the dam would break, then everything would be devastated. If the dam is opened, the devastation will be less. But they said that they will renounce to the people.
But you know how Indian communication system works. That before the person came to inform, the water already came there. So, nobody could run.
Suddenly the water is coming. If you imagine, we are sitting here and suddenly water starts coming here. Like that only it happened.
First floor, second floor, then third floor. They went from third floor to the fourth floor. Still the water was coming.
They went to the fifth floor. Still the water was rising. Then they went to terrace.
And this is what they do. Now, we just have to pray to Krishna. We take shelter of Krishna.
And he said, yes. We cannot do anything over there. It was so sudden.
Now, they had two great fears. One fear was, if the water rises till the terrace level, they will get drowned. And second is, even if the water does not rise there, because of the continuous flow of the water, if the building’s walls become weak and the walls collapse, then again they will crumble.
So, they desperately started chanting. So, almost in 21 hours they were in that condition. In 21 hours, they were continuously chanting, chanting, chanting, praying to Krishna.
And what happened? After 21 hours, when the water went down, all the leaders said, yes. We will become devotees now. We will chant Hare Krishna regularly.
So, that is shock treatment. Sometimes Krishna has to give a shock treatment, so that we learn the lesson. We start turning to him.
Now, is the father or the doctor cruel in giving the shock treatment? No, not at all. It’s essential so that the son can get back his natural happiness. So, Krishna wants to give us the topmost happiness in life.
But unfortunately, we are not ready for that. So, therefore, Krishna has to shake up things in our life, so that we become open to turn towards him. Normally, we have to do shock treatment.
You love your son so much, but your own sons will come and kill you. Then he understands, oh, I don’t have anyone except the Lord and his devotees. So, actually, in the drama, what happens is, as he is beating, oh, my son, my son, why are you beating me? I am your son.
I am your father, and he is crying like that. But he is speaking in a snake’s voice. And the son is seeing that he actually is hurting us.
So, they beat him all the more. And as he goes, Narada Muni, I am ready to come with you, he says, and then he leaves, because he remembers Narada Muni. And through the remembrance of Narada Muni, he remembers Narayan.
So, he becomes a devotee in his next life. So, now, the father doesn’t want to use the shock treatment at all. Krishna doesn’t want to give any suffering to us.
But we force him to give us that suffering. And how long will Krishna have to do the shock treatment to us? Till we don’t turn to him. Once we turn to him, there is no need for the shock treatment.
Therefore, if we don’t want sufferings in our life, if we don’t want needless problems, then let us take shelter of Krishna. The problems will become lesser and lesser. Even the problems are there, Krishna will give us the strength to deal with them.
And the last H is the human form of life. Human form. See, only in the human form of life, can we learn about the higher truths of life.
In the lower forms, basically, the animals live as per their instincts. It’s like their programme. A dog sees a bitch and immediately he runs after her.
Recently, I was at one of our farms. So, there, you know, they have a breeding bull and they have cows. The breeding bull goes mad as soon as he sees a cow.
He has to run towards her to catch her and impregnate her. So, like that, you know, if a cat sees a rat, the cat cannot think, oh, today is the Ekadashi. I have to pass today.
Why? Because the cat doesn’t have any intelligence to control its instincts. It may fulfil its instincts in an intelligent way. But beyond that, it doesn’t have any intelligence to curb its instincts.
So, the animals are programmed to live for eating, sleeping, mating and defending. They can’t think of anything higher. We human beings can think of something higher.
But unfortunately, many of us don’t. In the Srimad Bhagavatam, a human being who does not enquire about spirituality is called a Krupanaha. Krupanaha means miser.
Why a miser? A miser has a lot of money. But he does not use the money even for his own enjoyment. He keeps the money locked up in a locker or nowadays in a bank or now India, nowadays in a Swiss bank, whatever and doesn’t spend it at all.
In fact, the classic example of a miser in the Vedic tradition is a person who puts a wet cloth around his stomach all the time. Why? Because the wet cloth is there and the digestive fire will not be so great. So, then he will not eat so much.
So, then he doesn’t have to spend so much money for eating also. So, now the money that he has, he keeps it locked in a safe, in a vault and he doesn’t use it for anything, even for himself. So, like that, you know, in the human form of life, we keep our desires locked up in the closet of eating, sleeping, mating and defending.
We don’t desire anything apart from that. Now, people tell, oh, you should get ahead in life, you should have a career, you should be successful. But what is people’s idea of being successful? People’s idea of being successful is you should have a good house.
What is the purpose of the house? Oh, you sleep nicely, you should eat nicely and you need to have a lot of money. Why? So that you can attract the opposite sex and you can mate nicely. And then you should have a lot of money.
Why? Because in future some problem is there, you can protect yourself. So, it is defending. So, if you see, people’s idea of a successful life is a comfortable arrangement for eating, sleeping, mating and defending.
So, this is animalistic life. We should desire something higher. We should not keep our desires locked up.
Let’s free our desires. Let’s desire something greater. Let’s desire something nobler, something more lasting.
If we desire to love Krishna, we will get so much more happiness by that. Not only will we get happiness, but we will be able to share that happiness with others. So, this human form is a rare treasure.
And we have got that. If we neglect it, then we don’t know when we will get it again. Very rare.
That is a very rare body. We have got it now. Somebody will say, what is rare about the human body? Population is exploding.
There is so much problem. But we just think about humans. If you look at the population of mosquitoes, or population of germs, population of HIV virus.
Now, every HIV, every germ is a soul like us. We might also have a germ over there sometime. So, if you count the number of souls who are in all these germ bodies, grass bodies, mosquito bodies, human population is small.
So, human body is rare. Bahu sambhava means after many births, we have got this human body. Manushyam anityam.
This is also temperate like all other bodies. But artha dam, it can give us eternal fruit. Apeev dheera.
Therefore, become sober, become intelligent. Turnam. Turnam means immediately.
Yathe, endeavour. Napate, anumrutyavan. Before the body falls.
And it can fall anytime. Therefore, immediately endeavour. For what? Ishreyasaya.
For the eternal game. Vishayakhal sarvatahasya. Material sense objects, material enjoyment, that is available in all the species of life.
Now, in one of my books, I wrote an article called the spiritual IIT chance. What is spiritual IIT? Imagine, a student works very hard and gets into IIT. And he is studying in IIT.
And while he is living in IIT, he starts thinking, oh, where can I get good food? The mess food is not good. So, he goes to one hotel. He goes to another hotel.
He goes to third hotel. And he spends all his time in IIT trying to get good food. Now, what happens? He does not study at all.
He fails. And he is expelled from IIT. So, now, what a tragic underuse of the IIT chance.
If you got into IIT, the real speciality of IIT is not food. The speciality of IIT is education. Now, food is necessary.
But one should not spend all of one’s time in IIT to search for good food. Bad one can search for elsewhere also. So, what is the speciality of IIT? One should do that.
Now, of course, we need some reasonable amount of food. So, get that. But focus on the education that is available in IIT.
That is the speciality. Once one gets that education, when one has a career, then one can get the best food. So, like that, the human body is like a spiritual IIT chance.
So, in the human body, when we spend our time in eating, sleeping, mating, defending, it’s like spending the time of IIT in searching for food. Now, we also need eating, sleeping, mating, defending. But that’s not the purpose.
That’s not the speciality of the human form. So, whatever arrangement we get, we use that and move forward. Focus on the special opportunity that we have.
That is to practise spiritual life and make rapid advancement. And once we return back to Krishna, then there is unlimited happiness over there. Much better than what the best eating, sleeping, mating, defending can offer us.
We have that much happiness. So, I conclude with a real life story. There is a student.
We just said we are having programmes here. We have programmes all over the country. In fact, all over the world, practically speaking.
So, in Mumbai, there is a prominent medical college, LJJ Medical College. So, there was one student there who was coming regularly for our programmes. Very intelligent, academically also intelligent and spiritually also very intelligent and understanding the philosophy.
And he was very good academically. And the last semester came for him. And then he told the devotee, this is my last semester.
My whole career depends on my results over here. So, I won’t be able to come for any programmes. I will not be able to chant any rounds because I have to focus on my studies.
And the devotee told him, Krishna has given you 168 hours per week. And how much does the programme take? Look at, 2-3 hours per week. And if you have to chant a few rounds, yeah, if you chant Hare Krishna a few times, that will take how much? 15 minutes per day.
That means per week is 2 hours. So, he said, Krishna has given you 168 hours. Can you not give 5 hours to Krishna out of that? And he stopped the spiritual activities and started focussing on studies.
And generally, we also arrange our programmes in such a way that we don’t interfere with the student’s studies. Generally, our programmes will be at the start of the semester or immediately after mid-sem exam or immediately after the end-sem exam, so that during the preparatory leave, we don’t have to do much programmes or any programme practically, so that students can focus on their studies. So, as soon as the exam got over, the devotee arranged a programme.
They invited him. He said, you will come after the exams. You know, I worked so hard in this semester.
Harder than ever in my life. I mean, completely exhausted. I need a break.
I will come. I am going home now. After the results, I will come surely.
Then he went home. He got the results. And when he got the results, he was the first in the entire university.
He is very happy. Everybody is coming and congratulating him. The devotees also went.
And then on the day of the results, they had another programme. The devotee told him, you see, now Krishna has fulfilled your desire. Now you should fulfil your promise to Krishna.
Please come for the programme. He said, you know, today I can’t come. All my friends have arranged a party.
You see, the friends have not arranged a party. He has only arranged a party. This is to celebrate.
Generally, what is the material idea of a party? Party means, you know, somebody who has got something, you exploit that person. You make him pay for this and that. He said, anyway, there is a party and I have to go there.
The party is to celebrate my getting the first strike. How can I not? From tomorrow onwards, I will start coming. And then he went to the party and he was just 24 years old.
In the hotel, with all the mundane music going on in the background, while he was just enjoying with his friends, suddenly he got a heart attack. And before they could rush him to the hospital, they had already left the party. So, you know, he kept saying, later, later.
And what happened? What was the use of his coming first to the university? That is not going to help him in the next life. And the chance for Krishna consciousness that he lost, that is an eternal loss for him. So, it’s not that he had to neglect his studies, but he could have balanced his studies and his spiritual commitment.
So, when we say later, often we end up cheating ourselves. Therefore, let’s not postpone our Krishna consciousness. If we need to balance, let’s take guidance from the seniors and learn an intelligent balance.
But let’s balance both our responsibilities. And we will find that actually if we practise spiritual life, we will become better in our material life. In tomorrow evening’s concluding talk, I will explain this principle a little bit more about how spiritual life makes our material life also better.
But suffice it to say that we need to find a balance. Otherwise, we will cheat ourselves. I had, unfortunately, Kailash cheated himself.
But of course, because he had done some spiritual life. So, in his next life, he was able to continue. Similar to this boy, because he had practised some Krishna consciousness.
And wherever he gets a birth in the next life, he will be able to continue his Krishna consciousness. So, in that sense, his Krishna consciousness will stay with him. But it will get postponed so much.
And the trauma of death, the trauma of rebirth, so much unnecessary pain one has to go through. One can avoid that by being intelligent and by being focused on Krishna consciousness. So, I will quickly summarise.
We started by discussing about the seven qualities, seven lessons that we can learn from Kailash. So, first was the kind-heartedness of Narada Muni. So, although the devotees don’t need anything from us, still they come to us, not to take anything, but to give something to us.
Again and again and again. We don’t see any such kindness anywhere in this world. Then we discussed about the difference between attachment versus affection.
So, taking care of our loved ones, their bodies is natural and necessary, but it is not spiritual. We discussed the viewer world. And our relationships become spiritual only when we start taking care of our souls and the souls of our loved ones.
We discussed that we have duty towards our family members, but we also have duty towards God, how He has provided digestive system, He is maintaining our whole body. God gives and forgives, we get and forget, impossibly. So, we have to balance between the two.
Otherwise, if we become attached, we neglect our social responsibilities, then we have to face the consequences. In Independence, we discussed how Krishna never forces us. He gives us choices and He tells us the consequences of the choices.
So, we have to use our intuitions to make the right choice. And L was later. Tendency to postpone makes us lose precious opportunities for spiritual life.
So, in that we discussed the story of the clock merchant. So, people say we will practise later, but what happens? When you say we will practise later, that means you are practising material life now. When you practise materialistic life now, then those desires and habits become stronger.
It is very difficult to give them up. Everything as it becomes old becomes weak, but material habits, habits in general, the older they become, the stronger they become. Then the next day was afterlife.
Our next life is determined by our desires and our activities, karma. Therefore, just as a person who is a tenant always wants a permanent house, we should want a permanent body, spiritual body and plan not just for our immediate future, for our career now, but our career returnment. And we discussed as shock treatment.
So, in order to make his son become happy by getting the inheritance that he had for him, the father had to use the doctor to give him the shock treatment when he had amnesia. Like that Krishna, in order to give us eternal happiness in the spiritual world, uses material nature, maya, to give us shock sometimes, so that we wake up and turn to him and return to him. And then last stage was the human form.
Like a person in IIT, spending his time searching for good food, loses what IIT has to offer. Like that, in human form, if we waste our time searching for eating, sleeping, mating, defending, we lose what the human form has to offer. Instead, we focus on balancing both and we will do better in our material life also and we will be able to achieve a lasting gain through our spiritual life.
We discussed the story of the CJ medical student and their connections. Let us learn an intelligent balance and march forward in our spiritual life. Thank you very much.
Are there any questions? Yes. Is there any question related with this class first? I can take that directly. Any question related with this class? Your question is, in which form does the spiritual energy exist? Yes, the spiritual energy essentially means the connection or the connectedness with God.
So, it is not necessarily existing in a gross form that we can touch or perceive with our senses. It is in a subtle form. Just like when a person dies, immediately before, say, at the moment of t equal to t0, he dies.
Then t0 minus delta t and t0 plus delta t, you take. There is no difference in the mass, in the chemicals, in the weight, in the shape, but there is a big difference in the person. There is a soul.
Soul has left. The soul, of course, has a form, but that is not manifest to our material vision. Similarly, spiritual energy is not formless, but that form is not perceivable to us.
The presence of spiritual energy, we perceive through our experience. For example, in the morning, you know, all of you are dancing in the kirtans. Now, obviously, there is some energy which is making you dance.
But what is that energy? Actually, you cannot say it is material. It surely requires some spiritual energy to dance so much. And you would not have that much energy to dance in a material function, you get tired.
But in spiritual life, of course, you get spiritual energy. The spiritual energy can even energise us materially. But the spiritual energy is not material.
It can have material effects, but it is always very subtle. It is something which is beyond our perception. It is beyond perception, but it is within experience.
Like many people, even people who do not have such a strong religious inclination, they feel good when they come to a temple. What makes them feel good? Because at a deep level, the soul is connected with God. And although their intelligence may not make sense of what this God is, what this religion is, their mind and senses may not find things very attractive, but a soul at a deeper level resonates with the spiritual atmosphere.
The spiritual vibrations touch. Spiritual energy is subtle in that sense.