Kali Yuga predictions – Superficiality Audacity Anxiety Spirituality

[Inspire – youth talk at Bhaktivedanta Manor, London, UK]

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, thank all of you very much for coming today evening and as mentioned we will have question answers primarily and secondarily I will speak a little bit about the Kalyuga which is the current age in the cosmic cycle and its characteristics. We all know about sciences like meteorology which tell us the future about the weather, day to day variations in weather as well as overall seasonal variations in atmospheric conditions. So, just as there is a physical atmosphere around us which affects us and we adapt appropriately to respond to it, if it is going to be cold, we have adequate appropriate kind of clothes, if it is going to be rain, we take a raincoat.
So, similarly the scriptures describe that there is not just a climate of the planet around us, there is a climate of the planet that is inside us. Now, there is our consciousness. Consciousness is essentially our capacity to be aware of ourselves and aware of the things around us and how our consciousness is directed, where it is focused, what it becomes attracted to, all that is up to our free will.
At the same time, it is shaped by various factors. So, the seasons in the cosmic history that are described in the Vedic texts, they describe the general direction of consciousness during these phases. So, the present age is called as the age of Kali or Kali Yuga for short.
Yuga means age and this is the age of material consciousness, where people although they are essentially spiritual, they are obsessed with material things. So, we have machines, we have mechanical behaviour and we have mechanistic thinking. Now, from external to internal, what do we mean by mechanical? Mechanical basically means that if there is a machine, you press a button, the machine responds accordingly.
If there is a lift, you press a button, another lift moves up, press another button, the lift moves down. The lift has no free will, it is based on whatever stimulus comes, the response comes accordingly. So, when we human beings, when we become mechanical, what that means is basically we just become stimuli driven creatures.
Some stimulus comes, that is the response. That stimulus comes, that is the response. Although we have free will, but rather than acting using our intelligence and using our free will, we become largely stimuli driven.
And the Bhagavatam in 11th canto says that this obsession with external stimuli and this letting the externals control our decisions, that is what characterises Kanyuga. The Bhagavatam describes a wide range of things. For example, at one level it says that, laavanyam kesha dharanam, it means a person will be considered attractive simply by their hairstyle.
The way they dress their hair, if somebody has got a very good hairstyle, oh, such an attractive person. Now, yes, hairstyle is one part of a person, but that is not the defining characteristic of beauty. But this is also, now hairstyle is just one thing, but the principle over there is what? Principle is over obsession with externals.
Some people may look very good, but they may not have a good heart. So if you get too caught with externals, then we miss out on the substance. So nowadays, many times there is this whole phenomenon of falling in love with each other, love at first sight.
Now the movies talk about this, novels talk about it. It’s possible that there is some attraction between two people, see each other, maybe some physical characteristics, some personality traits, you are attracted. Yes, the initial attraction is fine if it is there, but the stability of the relationship, the longevity of the relationship, that depends not so much on what happens at first sight, it depends on what happens after many sights.
After many sights, we start seeing the real character of the person and people want to be in love. People don’t want to love. There is a big difference between being in love and loving.
Being in love is just an infatuation. It’s some force that catches us and makes us do all kinds of things, just feel. We can do anything and everything because we are in love.
But that in love phase, it is driven by external attraction. And after a particular period of time, just as people fall in love, they will fall out of love. The same people who fight with the whole world, they say, I can’t live without you.
I can’t live without you. I’ll do anything for you. After a few months, they say, I can’t live with you.
What has happened? It’s all externally driven. It’s not driven by the inner character of a person. Now for relationships, there may be some attraction initially, but for the relationship to be sustainable, it has to go from that attraction phase to the commitment phase, where rather than just being in love, one chooses to love and sees the good side of a person and focusses on that and develops that.
Otherwise, no relationship can be stable. Just by externals, we get attracted and after some time, when those attractiveness of that external fades, then we get repelled. So the Bhagavatam says that relationships will be extremely short-lived because they are driven by externals.
So now what is going on over here? It’s not just a prediction of people will be attracted by hairstyle, but it is talking more about the tendency of the consciousness of people to be influenced too much by externals. When the consciousness is too material, we don’t see beyond appearances. The externals are what attract us.
Similarly, another prediction that is mentioned is Satyatve dharshtyam evati. Satyatve means truthfulness. Dharshtyam means that audacity.
So the more audaciously a person speaks, the more they will be considered to be truthful. In fact, that was Hitler’s formula when he bombarded the whole of Germany. Speak a lie long enough, loud enough, bold enough, and people will accept it to be the truth.
And in fact, a large amount of the advertising industry functions on this. Just speak again and again and again and again, and once you speak again and again and again and again, just again when you are exposed to it, we start believing it. Satyatve, just because something is loudly spoken, does not necessarily make it true.
But that is the world we live in. If we just keep hearing this again, so many people, so many places, I see this ad, this ad, this ad, it must be true. So the external driven culture has actually been very strongly exploited by certain vested interests.
So for example, much of the advertisements today, they are about manipulating people’s feelings. That means, if you have this product, oh, you are good, you are good, you are smart, you are cool. If you don’t have that, nobody will look at you, nobody will care for you.
I once saw an advertisement. It said that, buy this car and enjoy the envy in your neighbour’s eyes. Now, what a pathetic standard of enjoyment.
It’s not even enjoy the car, it’s enjoy the envy in your neighbour’s eyes. And what if tomorrow that neighbour buys a better car and they will enjoy the envy in your eyes. So where is the real happiness over there? It’s all very external to it.
But just because the glamorisation is there, so because of that glamorisation, people get captivated. So once I was in an airport in Calcutta and I saw an advertisement. There was this young man who was walking along and there was a bevvy of beautiful girls walking and they didn’t even look at this boy.
And then suddenly a Bollywood star comes over there. And they all squeal and call out his name and rush to him and hug him and kiss him. And this boy is feeling sorry for himself.
Nobody looks at him, this young man. And then this Bollywood star comes and tells him, you want to know my secret? He says, yes, what is it? He says, put this shampoo on. Put this shampoo on.
And then he comes and applies that shampoo. And next time he’s walking on the road, the same similar bevvy of girls come and they rush to him. They hug him and they start kissing him.
And then he’s in nirvana. He thinks he’s very happy. But here, if you look at the advertisement, such an advertisement is actually an insult to both male and female intelligence.
Why? Because to say that a woman will fall for a man just because he applied some shampoo on his head. That’s an insult to female intelligence. And to say that men will believe in such fairytales, that’s an insult to male intelligence.
But in Kalyug, when we are externally driven, then we are all very insecure. One of the characteristics of, defining characteristics of Kalyug as I describe is anxiety. Upadrata.
Upadrata means people are very disturbed, extremely agitated. Sociologists are talking about what they call as an anxiety epidemic. Anxiety epidemic means that millions and millions of people suffer from enormous anxiety.
And normally, we understand that anxiety is a result of uncertainty. Say, if I have to catch a flight and if I don’t know whether I’ll reach to the airport in time or not, I’ll be anxious. And you think if the uncertainty goes out, the anxiety will go down.
But sociologists have found curiously that even if the anxiety is, even if the uncertainties have gone down, still the anxieties have gone up. So for example, in their first world countries and third world countries. So in third world countries, relatively speaking, the external anxieties are much more.
Say in India, if you turn on a tap, there’s no guarantee water will come. Sometimes. Or if you turn on an electric switch, there’s no guarantee the power will turn on, light will turn on.
Relatively speaking, in first world countries, that kind of anxiety is not there. And yet, sociologists have found that the anxiety levels in the first world countries are much more than third world countries. And not only that, even when people from the third world emigrate to the first world, their anxiety levels go up.
Their comforts also go up. But people end up being comfortably worried. Comfortably worried.
They are comfortable physically, but anxious internally. So the Bhagavad Gita explains, and the Bhagavatam reiterates, that anxiety, it may have many specific causes, but anxiety comes primarily from a materialistic worldview. When we have materialistic worldview, then our sense of self-worth, our very self-identity, comes from material things.
And material things are never in our control. So if my sense of self-worth comes from how much money I have in my bank balance, then if tomorrow I lose that money, what? The very thing that gives me security, my bank balance, that also causes me insecurity. What if I lose it? If my sense of self-worth comes from my good looks, how long are the good looks going to last? So that very thing, which gives me security, also becomes the cause of my insecurity.
So the solution, the Bhagavatam says, is that we need to become more spiritual. We need to root our sense of self-worth, our sense of self-identity, in our spirituality. So, the word spiritual has many different meanings for different people.
In the bhakti texts, bhakti yoga texts, spiritual refers not just to some state of mind. It refers to a level of reality. It refers to a level of reality.
It means that there is a material level of reality, there is a spiritual level of reality. And to the extent we rise to the spiritual level of reality, to that extent we find security, stability and happiness within ourselves. Somebody may say, I don’t believe in the spiritual stuff.
Yes, that’s possible. We all can choose what we want to believe. But at the same time, facts are facts.
So, some simple thought exercises about the spiritual essence of our being. All of us have a desire to live forever and to love forever. Most of the movies, most of the novels, they are about romance.
And most romance novels are filled with the idea of happily ever after. Now, in this world, nobody lives ever after. But still there is a desire, I want to live forever.
Nobody wants to die. Nobody, but still we want to live forever. Nobody lives forever, nobody loves forever.
Still there is such an innate longing. Where does this longing come from? If we were simply material creatures, then if you look around the world, in the material world nothing is permanent. Even the biggest of skyscrapers, even the tallest of mountains, nothing is permanent.
If we were simply material creatures, and nothing material is permanent, nothing material lasts forever, then where would we get the desire to live forever come from? If a child were born and brought up in a small tribe in Africa, child has never heard of anything beyond Africa, never experienced anything beyond Africa, and suddenly that child one day says to his mother, Mummy, I want a pizza. Where did you hear about a pizza? There is nothing in your environment which could ever inform you about a pizza. So just as desire for a pizza in an African tribal child would raise the question, where did this desire come from? So like that, when everything material around us is temporary, our very desire to live forever and to love forever, where can it come from? There is nothing in our environment which could have got that desire.
Where the desire comes from is not from our externals. It comes from our internal. It comes from our very core.
That core is who we are. That is the soul. So soul is the source of consciousness.
It is the spiritual reality that amidst us. And the soul is eternally a part of the whole. That whole is God, known by different names in different traditions.
He is revealed in the Bhaktiva tradition as Krishna. Krishna is the all-attractive supreme being. Krishna embodies everything attractive that we may find attractive in different people.
Whatever is attractive in anyone, that is found in its fullness in Krishna. So the soul, which is what we are, has a desire to live forever and love forever because the soul by its nature is spiritual, is eternal. That’s why the soul wants to live forever.
And the soul by its very nature is a part of God, part of Krishna. Krishna is the supreme level object. He is eternal.
And because we are innately His part, that’s why we have a desire to love forever. So it is the spiritual level of reality that we can find not just stability but happiness, fulfilment. So the whole focus of the Bhagavatam and its Bhakti wisdom is that we need to spiritualise our consciousness.
Now all of us are here in this world. We have some strengths, some limitations. When we are in material consciousness, we are always insecure.
Because we’ll see, this person has this. I don’t have this. This person speaks better than me.
This person walks smarter than me. This person looks more attractive than me. This person is like this.
This person is like that. We all have these externals which make us insecure. But if we understand that we are all parts of God, He has given us.
And whatever is necessary for our growth, He has provided us that. We are not meant to become insecure by seeing someone else. Because we don’t have to become like anyone else.
We just have to become the best you. If God had wanted us to be someone else, He would have made someone else. He has made you, you.
He has made me, me. And the purpose is not that we become like someone else. You become the best you.
I become the best me. And there are forces within us which stop us from bringing out our best. There are forces of negativity, forces of insecurity, forces of short-sighted desires.
And these forces that sabotage us, these forces can be overcome by our connection with Krishna. So bhakti is a process which removes the forces that choke us from within. It cleanses all those forces so that the pure, powerful soul, which is what we are, it manifests, brings out our best.
And we can contribute constructively in life. And ultimately we can attain Krishna’s abode, which is where we belong. So the bhakti wisdom tells us that what we are is God’s gift to us.
Whatever we are, some of us have some strength, some of us have some weakness, we all have certain strengths. So if we just focus on what we have, instead of worrying about what we don’t have. The materialistic culture always shows us what we don’t have and makes us dissatisfied.
Suppose after this programme there is a feast. Is there a prasad after the programme? Don’t suppose, it is there. There is a feast after the programme.
But suppose there is a special kind of feast in which every one of you is going to get different items. So I am going to get some items, you are going to get some items, you are going to get some items. Now I have got a feast in my plate and you have got a feast in your plate.
But instead of enjoying the feast in my plate, I look, oh he has got that, oh she has got that, oh he has got that. I keep looking at what everyone else has and I become dissatisfied. But if I just look at what I have and savour that, that is also delicious.
So what happens is when we have materialistic world view, we are always comparing ourselves with others and feeling deprived because I don’t have that, I don’t have that. But when we have spiritual world view, we understand that God has given me what I need for my growth. Let me just have that.
What we are is God’s gift to us. And if we just look within, we understand what our abilities are, we understand what are the forces that are choking us and overcome those forces, we can bring out our best. And so what we are is God’s gift to us.
What we become is our gift to God. In our life, we all can translate our talent into achievement. And when we do that, we contribute.
The Bhagavad Gita was spoken to Arjuna. And Arjuna was a great archer. He strived tirelessly to become an archer and he used his archery skill in the service of Krishna.
The Bhagavad Gita offers Arjuna as a model of every man, as a model of every human being. Now what happened was that at the start of the Bhagavad Gita, he was overwhelmed by negativity, by materialistic consciousness. By the end of the Bhagavad Gita, he was enlivened because he had become spiritually conscious.
He was seeing himself through the eyes of the world initially. These are my relatives. These are my friends.
How can I fight against them? What will they think of me? What will the world think of me? Now when we see ourselves through the eyes of the world, we always feel insecure. But by the end of the Bhagavad Gita, he learned to see himself through the eyes of God. This is what Krishna has made me.
This is what I am meant to do. And if I do this, I will be successful. This composure will restore.
Bhagavatam in the 12th Canto, where it gives the predictions of Kali Yuga. It concludes by telling us to become spiritually conscious. The process of Bhakti Yoga, centred on the chanting of the holy names, is a very powerful way of raising our consciousness from the material to the spiritual level.
And the more we spiritualise our consciousness, the more we will find calmness seeping into us. The more we will find the richness of life all around us. Because we will see God in action within us and without us.
And the more we are able to perceive God, then we will find sweetness and happiness within ourselves. Thus, although the Kali Yuga’s predictions are very dire, but there is also a very powerful current of optimism that runs through it. Although the weather is going to be bad, although the materialism is going to be there in the mainstream society, but if we spiritualise our consciousness, we can counter the effects.
We can individually protect ourselves by becoming spiritualised in our consciousness and we can share that spiritualization of consciousness with others. And thus, we can not only find happiness within ourselves, but we can become agents for sharing happiness with others. So, I’ll quickly summarise, then we can have a few questions.
So, I spoke today about how there are environmental seasons which can be propagated by meteorology. Similarly, there are seasons of consciousness. That means, although we have free will and we can direct our consciousness whichever we want, but in certain times in the cosmic history, consciousness gets directed in certain ways.
So, Kali Yuga is the age when consciousness gets dragged materialistically. So, we have machines, we have mechanical people and we have mechanistic thinking. And mechanical people means the machine is stimuli-driven, people get stimuli-driven.
Just by external stimuli, their actions are driven, not by any deeper principles. So, based on external attractiveness, just by hairstyle, people think this person must be attractive and form a relationship. They fall in love, fall out of love.
Or, just if somebody can speak very impressively, they must be a very wise person. Audacity is considered a sign of truthfulness. And this is capitalised through advertisements.
Just by bombardment, aggressive bombardment, people are made to act in foolish ways, thinking that these things will make us happy. So, the defining characteristic of Kali Yuga is anxiety. And this anxiety is not caused by uncertainty, because even in the presence of decreased uncertainty, still there is increased anxiety, as happened in the first world countries.
This anxiety is caused by a materialistic mentality. Because when we define our sense of self-worth in terms of external material things, we are always subjected to uncertainty because those material things may go away at any time. So, the solution to anxiety and the solution to the evils of Kali Yuga is to become spiritual.
Spiritual is not just a state of mind, it is a level of reality. Now, everything around us is material, which is temporary, yet we have a desire to live forever and to love forever. That’s like an African tribal child’s desire for pizza.
It does not come from our external, it comes from our inner core, the soul. The soul is spiritual, eternal. The soul is a part of God, who is all-attractive.
It is from there that our desire to love and live forever comes. And everything attractive that we find in anyone, that is found in its fullness in Krishna. So, the spiritual worldview gives us a secure sense of self-worth because we understand that God has made me, me.
I don’t have to become anyone else. And whatever is needed for my growth, He has provided me. Instead of looking at ourselves from the world’s materialistic eyes and feel insecure, we look at ourselves from God’s eyes and we get security.
Like enjoying our own feast instead of looking at other people’s feasts. And this way, when we understand what I am is God’s blessing to me, what I am is God’s gift to me, what I become is my gift to God. So, by becoming spiritual, not only will we attain God ultimately, we will also be able to overcome the inner forces that choke and sabotage us.
And we will be able to bring out our best in a mood of contribution. Just as Arjuna was a great devotee and a great archer. Spiritually and materially, both he was competent.
Similarly, by the practise of Bhakti Yoga, we can become spiritually exalted in our consciousness and we can also do justice to our abilities and thus become fulfilled in our lives. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
Question from the audience So, because people in Kali Yuga want quick results, how can they get the patience to experience spiritual results of Bhakti Yoga? The results of Bhakti Yoga come at various levels. There is immediate, intermediate, there is ultimate. So, just the practise of Bhakti can offer us some immediate relief.
For example, we are disturbed and we come to the temple, just take darshan of the deities, just feel the spiritual atmosphere, participate in the pilgrims, we can sense a calming of our consciousness. So, there is immediate result also. At the same time, a sign of intelligence is to see not just the immediate, but to see beyond the immediate.
Not far from here is the place where Newton saw the fruit falling or he felt the fruit falling, which is a version of the story you want to believe. But, imagine if instead of Newton, there was a monkey over there. The monkey would just have picked the apple, and eat it and went on its way.
Newton did not do that. He could also have done that. What made this apple fall? He asked that question and in the answer to that question, he was able to postulate the law of gravity.
So, what that means is that we have an instinctive side. The instinct, as soon as I see food, I eat it. But, we also have an intelligent side which asks questions.
So, not just in the spiritual field, in any field of growth, if we act with instinct, we act with just impulses, impulsive side, we act with impulses, we will not grow. In music, in art, in writing, in sports, in sports also, it is not that the impulsive players are successful. They have to discipline themselves, they have to work hard.
So, even in material life, people do understand this point. That if we act impulsively, we cannot be successful. We cannot achieve in long term, sustainable, worthwhile success.
The same principle applies in spiritual life also. That there is immediate learning, but if we learn to act not impulsively, but intelligently, then we will get far deeper results than what we could get in material life. That’s why when we start practising spirituality, yes, there is immediate relief, we get some good feelings.
But spirituality is not just about feelings. It’s also about education. It’s about intellectual understanding.
The Bhagavad Gita is a philosophical book which addresses Arjuna’s concerns intellectually. So, that’s why if we are to practise spirituality, if we understand the philosophy, then that will equip us so that we are not impulsive and just driven only by the urge for immediate results. But we will be intelligent and we will be able to persevere till we get lasting results.
Even if they take time, we understand that they are worthwhile. So, by scriptural study, we will be able to get the patience. And by sharing scriptural knowledge with others in an appealing way, we will be able to inspire others also to get the patience to get enduring spiritual results.
Thank you. We have another question over here. Please everyone keep racking your brains after questions.
This will help us. You spoke about anxiety and how it is really prevalent in the past world. Could you have in touch with me on how to overcome anxiety? So, are there any practical tools that we can use to overcome anxiety? Worry is the interest we pay on loans we haven’t yet taken.
That means that most of the time we worry about things which haven’t happened. Which are unlikely to happen also. So, to be prepared for the future is intelligence.
To be paranoid about the future is self-destructance. So, basically, one of the practical ways to deal with worry is worry is caused because we are too much connected with external changing material things. So, when we withdraw our consciousness and focus the consciousness on unchanging spiritual reality that itself calms us down.
Say, if a boat is in a sea the waves will keep moving it up and down. If a person is in the sea they will move up and down even more. If they are in a boat that is anchored they will shake even lesser.
So, then the world changes will be inevitable. And the changes, if we are unsheltered like a person in the ocean will be tossed up and down. That will cause anxiety.
But the Bhagavad Gita says spiritual knowledge is like a boat. So, if we cultivate spiritual knowledge then that itself will shelter us. We understand I am spiritual.
I am a part of God who is spiritual. Then our anxiety will go down substantially. And not just spiritual knowledge but if we follow a spiritual process then that is like the boat getting anchored.
So, the process of mantra meditation chanting especially the Hare Krishna Maha Mantra in this age is like the anchor. So, when we anchor ourselves in spiritual reality anxiety will go down substantially because we will shift our consciousness from the material level which is changing and which induces anxiety to the unchanging spiritual level where we find security. At a practical level also once we have calmed ourselves down we can differentiate between when we are faced with some situations we can differentiate between which of our anxieties are simply imagined and which are real.
If we are not calm then we just get worried this may happen, that may happen and the problems start feeling bigger and bigger and we start feeling smaller and smaller. But once we have calmed down we can react to this if it happens by doing it. So, there are possibilities and there are probabilities.
As a possibility this roof may collapse. It may crash. But the probability is extremely low.
So, if we start getting paralysed by possibilities we will not be able to do anything. So, we use our intelligence to evaluate what is likely to happen and then appropriately prepare for it. So, connection with spiritual reality through spiritual knowledge and spiritual practises and then using the calmed intelligence to evaluate which anxieties are realistic and which need to be dealt with.
That way we can practically cope with anxiety. We have one question over here. Yes.
The future of Kali Yuga is already set to be degraded. Can we do anything to stop it? Yes. There are two different things over here.
That at a broad level certain things are set. But at an individual level we all can be agents of change. So, just like if there is going to be rains.
We cannot stop the rains. But if we know the rains are going to be there we can have a raincoat with us. We can have an umbrella with us.
We can inform others. They can have an umbrella. They can have a raincoat.
And although the rains are there we don’t have to get wet if we are prepared. Similarly, yes, society will get degraded. But it doesn’t mean that we have to get degraded.
And in society also if we look at history of the world all the major changes have begun with a small but significant minority. A small group of people who are together they want to make a positive change. And from them the change radiates outwards and then it becomes a mass change.
It is also described that although the Kali Yuga is a dark age Krishna never abandons him. Krishna comes as the holy name Kali Kali Naam Rupe Krishna Avatar and he offers himself by taking shelter of whom we can protect ourselves. And he comes as Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and said that after his descent for 10,000 years there is going to be a golden age.
So, although Kali Yuga itself is dark there is a golden age that is going to be there for the next 10,000 years and therein we can all become agents of change. Although there will be degradation at a social level at an individual level we can be agents for the elevation of human consciousness and in the distant future there is going to be degradation but in the near future we can all become a part of the elevation that is also going to come. We have another question here.
I would like to point out how can we maintain a spiritual identity in a world which has little to no value? It has little value for spiritual kind of identity. From my experience you can have a spiritual way of thinking but outside in the corporate material kind of world to portray that is seen more as a weakness than something good. How exactly? The spiritual portrait as a weakness? Because the principles they differ so it might be maybe gentleness, tolerance, kind of not commanding people etc.
That’s like that’s kind of philosophy. But in the whole world there is a high energy of passion and this material alpha male kind of dominance which if you don’t portray you can hardly be successful. So if you are tolerant or gentle then we can’t be successful in the corporate world today.
So how can we be spiritual in that situation? Being spiritual essentially is being in a mood of service and contribution. That we understand that I am a part of Krishna and I am meant to serve Krishna. Now how exactly I serve Krishna that will vary and whatever my particular role requires I do that.
If you consider the Mahabharata Bhima was a very aggressive person but he is also a great devotee. Yudhishthira was a very gentle and kind person he was also a great devotee. So spirituality is not about suppressing our individuality it is about sublimating our individuality.
So some people are by nature outgoing more assertive or even aggressive and that’s the way they are. There are some people even in today’s world they are more introvert they like a low level of stimulation and they function well in that and it is not that there is only one way to succeed there are certain locations where a particular kind of role is ideal but there are many other ways in which one can contribute in the world and the important thing is we don’t stereotype spirituality to be spiritual I have to be like this the essence of spirituality is that I have a mood of service and if for the sake of service if we have to take initiative if we have to promote ourselves if we have to make our presence felt make our voice heard that’s not against the principle of spirituality the important thing in spirituality is that whatever we do we do it in a mood of service and also tolerance is actually important in any field again we have stereotypes of what tolerance means tolerance is not passivity tolerance is the capacity to keep small things small now in our office we may have some irritating customer now if we let that person irritate us we can’t function but if we have the capacity to tolerate just neglect that person and do our work eventually our work will speak so gentleness, courtesy these are virtues that are actually universally appreciated there are times when we have to be assertive but if we have a core character which is made of qualities that are appreciated then they will shine through yes the aggressive kind dominating kind of person might make an attractive first impression but over a period of time we have to sustain somewhere we can’t be sustained on impressions so how good a person is to work and to work with that is what is going to determine a person’s success so if we understand that I am going to serve Krishna and whatever it takes to serve Krishna I’ll do, I don’t restrict myself to certain stereotypes but it’s not that I let the world determine what I should do I just function in a mode of service bringing out my best side and we’ll find that we will be able to do what it takes it’s not that we have to be anti-spiritual to be materially successful nor is it that we have to be we have to give up material success it is that when we give up stereotypes about what is required for material success and we give up stereotypes of what it means to be spiritual and we just basically cultivate the mode of service then dadami buddhi yogam tan yena mam upayanti Krishna gives the intelligence of how to function in whatever role we are in any other questions? we have a question over here so if we were to do the relationship what would it take for us to move and how would we need to be so if we are individual agents then how should we be in a way that we can connect with each other and help each other it is in every relationship we see that as a relationship not just with that person but we see that also as a relationship then we won’t just be reacting to what that person is doing in this situation how can I best serve Krishna then we will respond according to our principles our values suppose there is a cloth shop now some people when they go to purchase clothes they just want to look at the whole shop and they look at 100 clothes and they don’t take in one dress now the attendant can get irritated I have to take all these clothes, I have to iron them and some customers are so finicky that as soon as they come in all the attendants want to go away but now suppose there is an irritable customer and then the attendant is taking care the attendant thinks that my salary is not coming from this person my salary is coming from my boss the camera is here and my boss is watching even if I don’t make the sale the attendant may not make the sale but the attendant is throughout curtains throughout polite then the boss will see that you know how to deal with tough customers although they may not make a sale but still the attendant will be pleased you know how to deal with tough people so what happens is when we have a vertical relationship with Krishna we have horizontal relationship in this world with others and we have a vertical relationship with Krishna that vertical relationship with Krishna gives us the stability and the perspective to cope with irritations in our horizontal relationship if we don’t have that vertical relationship then whatever others do we simply react to that and often small things become very big by that but if we focus on trying to how can I serve Krishna in this situation I am interacting with this person but I am not interacting only with this person when we are in a relationship it tends to define us so if I define myself as an employee of this company if I define myself as the son of this person if I define myself as the husband of this person the wife of this person these self-definitions if they are our primary self-definition then if there is any problem in that relationship we become insecure so spirituality means our self-definition is I am a servant of Krishna and as a part of Krishna I will function as a son of someone as a spouse of someone as a parent of someone but those are second so when we define ourselves in terms of a vertical relationship with Krishna we can avoid emotional over-dependence in our horizontal relationships when we are emotionally over-dependent then we become too vulnerable to knee-jerk reactions and that makes those relationships very volatile but when we are rooted in our vertical relationship with Krishna when we define ourselves in terms of our relationship with Krishna then whatever storms come in our horizontal relationships we can weather them with much more maturity thus actually our vertical relationship with Krishna can make our horizontal relationships also better How can we use spiritual knowledge to deal with big social issues present in the world today? Yes, in the UNESCO charter it said that a war begins in the minds of people that’s why war ultimately can be ended only through the minds of people so on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations I was invited to a world peace conference and there the India head of the United Nations is saying that since the starting of the United Nations they had 60 major sister organisations there are millions of people working billions of dollars spent and yet in all those 60 fields which United Nations has worked things have become worse things have not become better so what is the cause of this? specifically there are individual causes which need to be addressed but actually whether it is India or whether it is the West ultimately the more the consciousness becomes materialistic the more people become self-centred then the more they are going to be exploited and the more things are going to become worse so at a broad level if you just keep looking at the news and see this problem is there, that problem is there you can just feel powerless you can just feel as if we can’t do anything but if we see that yes there are specific problems which are caused by specific factors but yes there is violence against women, there is corruption there is terrorism, all these problems are there but if we see what is the cause? violence against women is caused by lust, corruption is caused by greed terrorism is caused by anger and these three are qualities which increase when people are unspiritual when people are materialistic when people become spiritual then naturally these decrease so in the Vedic culture there are two means of bringing about welfare in society there is Shastra and there is Shastra Shastra is weapons so Kshatriyas, those who are the martial guardians of society those are the administrators they are meant to use weapons to curb the wrongdoers and to discipline them so now if we are in a position where we can influence governmental decisions and we can ensure that the rule of law is maintained that is what we can do but if we don’t have that, the second thing is what is always accessible to us Shastra, so Shastra is for punishing the wrongdoers Shastra is for educating people so that they don’t become wrongdoers or educating people that there is a better way to live a better way to happiness than by exploiting others now that is what the Brahmins do so Krishna Prabhupada he founded the International Society for Krishna Consciousness primarily for sharing spiritual knowledge and through the sharing of spiritual knowledge gradually as more and more people become spiritual they spread out and they make changes and over a period of time there are Kshatriyas people who have influence in society they become spiritually minded, they will also bring out a change so the change that is brought from a grassroots level that is what is going to be a lasting change most of us we live with the expectation that maybe some leader will come who will clean up the system yes if a good leader comes that is good but all of us, if the change is sustainable it cannot be dependent on one good person to come it has to be a change which comes from the grassroots level and the spiritualization of consciousness which each one of us can do and each one of us can share with others that is the change in the grassroots level so although it may not seem to have any immediate effects but over a period of time it has a substantial effect the river like Ganga which is so flowing very powerfully if you look at the origin of it, just a small trickle just many many trickles when they come together they become a tributary, when many tributaries come together they become a river, that river flows and becomes a powerful force eventually so each of us can be like a one trickle and as we come together, as we inspire others to become spiritual that becomes a tributary and many tributaries come together and that becomes like a river that can bring about change so rather than getting obsessed over big social issues changing which is not within our power we can focus on changing ourselves and helping others change by the sharing of spiritual knowledge and that addresses the problems at the root the American thinker Henry David Thoreau said that one hacking at the root of evil is more effective than a thousand hackings at the shoots of evil so the shoots of evil we see many problems, many criminals are there some of them are going scot free, they need to be punished but even if the wrongdoers are punished as long as the culture remains something which triggers lust and anger and greed within people no matter how many wrongdoers are punished others will come out but if the culture is made more spiritual that is like hacking at the root of evil and that is what will be a substantial change another question over here what do I God give to you? and what do you think God gives to you? at the end of time you can have one question the first question is what does God give to you if you want to be a human being and whatever you become from that it is not something that you give to God good question so if you are born with demoniac qualities are those demoniac qualities God’s gift to us and if somebody becomes a big demon is that their gift to God there is when we say that something is God’s gift to us what it essentially means is that it is a resource how we use the resource is up to us now within whatever we have so we all have done certain karma in the past and based on that karma we have a constellation of good and bad some talents, some limitations some virtues, some vices now whatever that combination is that combination is suitable for our spiritual growth so when we get karmic reactions when we get a particular body, a particular mind it is not just a random package of karma put together it is not a random heap of karma randomly mixed together and given we are given what we need for our life journey to grow through it and to move towards Krishna so now for any person in the world even people who are talented they also have an impulsive side and they need to discipline their impulsive side in sports there are many players who may have great talents but they can’t overcome their nerves and they can’t develop their talents so by their past karma they had the talent but they also had that vulnerability to nerves so then they have to train themselves to overcome the lower side so basically we all have a higher side and lower side so the combination is what is best suited for our growth from where we are but how we use that is up to us if we develop our lower side then we are actually neglecting the gifts that God has given to us so we could say that the good things that we have the bad things we have that combination is something which is our starting point but how we choose it is up to our free will so what we become is our gift to God it is not just a factual statement it is more like a prescriptive statement that we should become something which will be a gift to God so we have to bring out the best within not the beast within we all have our lower side and if we fuel those impulses then what we are doing is not a gift to God it will become like a burden to the world so when God has given us a certain starting point but then he has also given us the spiritual knowledge by which we can bring out the best within us so if we neglect that spiritual knowledge, if we neglect that process say it is like we have been given some ingredients for cooking something so now I have also been given a manual by which I can cook if I use the manual, cook, then I can have a nice delicacy to eat so similarly we have been given a certain higher side we have a lower side but we have been given the guidelines by which we can bring out the higher side and we can cook the lower side so to the extent we follow that manual then we will be able to tap the gift otherwise we neglect the gift and instead of becoming a gift we become a burden so that is the responsibility of our free will so everybody, even people who are demoniac they have certain abilities but they misuse those abilities but scripture guides us how we can best use our abilities so when we do that and when we guide ourselves according to scripture then we can actually become and our life can become a gift to God I think final question can you talk about how to reduce fear if others become insecure because of us because of our success because of our qualities because of whatever it is if others become insecure because of us then what should we do as far as possible we are all we all have a lower side we have a higher side and our interactions with others should be such that we help them bring out their higher side so if I am very successful and if I just parade my success in front of others that may make them envious that may make them insecure this person has achieved so much and I have achieved nothing and instead of bringing out their better side they want to pull us down so as much as possible when we are with others especially people whom we know tend to be insecure rather than we talking about our success we can talk about them and we can help them feel secure feel a sense of self worth especially if we can connect them with Krishna we can only offer them a limited amount of security but if we can help them connect with Krishna by which they can connect with Krishna that is a very powerful way of overcoming their insecurity for them having said that we need to know that everybody has to deal with their own issues and we we can’t become too obsessed with others so we can try if we find that somebody is becoming too insecure then we can try to decrease the triggers for that insecurity so we don’t have to if we find certain features within us we can downplay them if it is possible without interfering with our duty our service to Krishna, our growth as much as possible we can downplay it in their presence but apart from that we just move on in our life and as we keep moving on we deal with our issues, we can pray to Krishna to help them and they will have to deal with their issues the door to personal change can be opened only from inside we can inspire others but we cannot make anyone change if somebody is insecure by our world, by our actions if they feel that we are successful and if they feel that we respect them, we value them that may give them a sense of security but after having done our part, if they are still continuing their way then we just pray for them and we move on we move on in our life and they will have to deal with their own insecurities if they are hurting us because of their insecurity then we may have to take appropriate action so that we don’t give them the power to hurt us, we protect ourselves but we can’t deal with other issues for them they have to deal with it if they want us to help, we can help we can only do three things for people we can provide them knowledge we can provide them facilities, we can provide them an example example so based on these three things we can provide them knowledge we can provide them some inspiration if we do that, that’s all we can do