Life’s 4 defining D’s: Desire, Decision, Destiny and Dharma

Program at ISKCON, Portland

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So today I’ll speak on four Ds. Desire, decision, destiny, and how all these three are tied together by Dharma. All of us have certain desires based on which we make certain decisions.
And our life is shaped, our destiny is determined by our decisions. So how all these three, which ultimately determine our life, how all these three can be guided, shaped, and optimised by Dharma. That’s what I’ll discuss today.
So essentially the underlying theme is that how the Bhagavad Gita helps us to choose the best desires, make the best decisions, and achieve the best destiny. And all this is centred on the Bhagavad Gita’s message of Dharma. At an external level, the Bhagavad Gita focusses on or begins with is set in a battlefield context.
Arjuna loses his nerve contemplating how can I fight against my relatives? And Krishna’s message at an external level can seem to be very simple. Krishna and Arjuna fight. But if that had all been what the Gita was about, Arjuna, you’re feeling nervous, you’re feeling weak emotionally, don’t become weak, fight.
Then that book would not have had much relevance for millennia, for millions of people. Most of these millions of people have never fought a war in their lives. Most of them have been spiritual, saintly people.
So when Arjuna is faced with the dilemma of whether to fight or not, he does not ask Krishna a simple question. He does not ask Krishna, should I fight or should I not fight? He asks in 2.7 of the Bhagavad Gita when he surrenders, So when he surrenders, he asks, I’m asking you, what am I asking you? My consciousness has become bewildered and therefore I’m asking you, what is dharma? I’m asking you. So Arjuna’s question is not just about whether I should fight or I should not fight.
His question is, what is dharma? And if we see at the end of the Bhagavad Gita also, when Krishna finishes speaking in 18.72 and asks Arjuna, have you understood? Have you heard, Arjuna? Has your illusion and ignorance been dispelled? Now Krishna, when he asks this question, he is not asking, so are you going to fight or not? That is what the question is asking. Is your ignorance removed? Is your illusion dispelled? Have you heard it? And Arjuna’s reply is also not, I will fight. In 18.72 in the play he replies, So he is saying, yes, my illusion is dispelled.
It is by your mercy that I have restored, my memory is restored. My doubts are gone. I’m determined.
I will do your will. So Arjuna’s conclusion on hearing the Bhagavad Gita is not that, oh, I should fight this war. His conclusion is, I should do Krishna’s will.
So the Bhagavad Gita is not a book that is a call for war. It is a book that is a call for harmonising human will with divine will. And the conclusion demonstrates that, Oh Krishna, I will do your will.
It’s only in one sense, incidental or circumstantial that this conversation happens on a battlefield. And it is that doing Krishna’s will means fighting the war. For most of us, we’re doing God’s will, harmonising our will with God’s will is not going to involve fighting a physical war, at least not with weapons.
It is, of course, going to involve something different. A war is also, we also have to fight a war, but it’s a different kind of war. We see the Bhagavad Gita is spoken on a battlefield.
Normally, if we see some war movies, or we see some, if we know anyone who has actually been in a war, in a war, a battlefield is not a place usually for deep philosophical discussion. Sometimes some people will be prompted by the thought of death. Okay, what is there beyond? But people don’t sit and discuss serious philosophy on a battlefield.
Because that is a place of urgent action. All the more so, if you look at the setting of the Gita, then Arjuna is right in the middle of the two armies, and both sides, the conches have been blown. That means the war is about to start.
At that time, Arjuna, he loses his nerve. So, in 1.30, he says that, I don’t know, everything that I think I may do, that is going to lead to misfortune. All around I see, like Arjuna had been speaking in today’s language, he said, I am seeing a lose-lose situation.
I do this, I lose. If I do that, I lose. What should I do? So, the Mahabharata, which is the bigger book of which the Gita is a part, the Mahabharata also has the same defining question.
What is Dharma? What is Dharma? What is the right course of action that we should take? So, now, with this background that establishes the Bhagavad Gita is a book about Dharma. Now, let’s look at these three elements that you are about. Desire, decision and destiny.
All of us are essentially desiring creatures. Now, if we see a new smartphone that has come, and we say, oh, I want to have it. So, now that smartphone is unconscious.
It does not desire us, but we desire it. So, now, these desires which we all have, they are the driving force of our life. If we just consider ourselves, if we look at an atheistic, utterly materialistic worldview, we are just biochemical bags.
And biochemical bags are driven by the drive to survive. Now, these biochemical bags, which are driven by the drive to survive, these bags, why should they desire the variety of things that we desire? So, now, if we see our desire, the factors of desire, where does this come from? The chemicals that make up my body and the chemicals that make up my cape of this mic, ultimately, they are made of the same ingredients. The same atomic fundamental particles are there, same electrons, protons, same subatomic particles.
So, why is it that when I look at a gulab jamun, my tongue waters, but the gulab jamun doesn’t water? I desire something, why isn’t that it? So, how is it that matter develops the capacity to experience matter? The gulab jamun is there in a plate, but the plate doesn’t think this gulab jamun is delicious. The gulab jamun doesn’t think I am delicious. But when we say it, we think, oh, this gulab jamun will be delicious.
So, where does it, now scientifically speaking, it is understood that our body is made of the same elements, same fundamental elements, not in the sense of chemistry elements, but in the sense of components. It is made of the same components as the gulab jamun on the plate in which the gulab jamun is kept. So, where do we get the desiring faculty from? So, that faculty to desire and based on our desires, we experience.
So, if someone likes gulab jamuns, then that seeing the gulab jamun causes pleasure. If somebody likes gulab jamuns, but has got diabetes, then that same sight of gulab jamun causes irritation, causes frustration. And somebody else who is selling gulab jamuns, that person when he sees the desire in the eyes of others, he feels delight.
Oh, my gulab jamun is out to sell now. So, we see that same matter can produce different experiences based on the different kinds of desires that people have. So, where does our faculty to desire come from? That comes not from the biochemical bag that is our body.
That comes from our spiritual essence. It is the spiritual essence within us that is the source of desire. Just as if say we are driving a car and we come to a crossroad.
So, one road is smooth and another road is a either filled with a lot of traffic or it is a in America you may not have roads with a lot of damage. But in India often there are roads which have bumps and which have potholes. So, if I see two roads and then I come to know that both roads are going to the same destination.
The car itself does not make a decision. Should I go here or should I go there? The person driving the car who uses a mechanism. So, the conception that the body is a biochemical bag and that this biochemical bag is functioning that is a correct but not complete.
So, to give this example suppose a car was moving on the straight line and then okay this road is a road filled with potholes. This road is a smooth road but the car moves this way and not this way. Now, if we analyse this from a mechanistic perspective we will find at we can extend okay the car would move like this.
Why did the car turn like this? Oh, because someone was there in the because look at it from first from the mechanistic perspective and okay the wheels were moving this way but the wheels turn like this. Now, why did the wheels turn like this? Oh, because the wheels are controlled by a whole axle system which controls it. Okay, but what happened to that? How did it turn? Okay, because the axle system is connected to steering wheel and the steering wheel turned left and that is why the car turned left.
Okay, now we know why the car turned left. The car turned left because the steering wheel was turned left. Is it a correct explanation? Yes, it is a correct explanation.
See car turned right because car turned left because the steering wheel turned left. But is it a complete explanation? It is correct but it is not complete. Because there is a person who desire, okay, I do not want to have a jerky, jolty, bumpy ride.
I want to have a smooth ride. Person decided to turn this way. So, the capacity to desire does not come from the body.
Although the bodily mechanisms may explain how certain actions are performed. So, right now bodily mechanisms may explain how I am producing the some patterns that are coming out of my mouth. But the biological explanation does not explain how those sound patterns get invested with me and how you can understand those sound patterns as meaning something.
So, the point I am making is normally most people are driven by desires towards materialistic things. Okay, I want to buy this, I want to own this, I want to enjoy this. But if you look at desire itself, desire cannot come from matter.
Desire has to come from something which is non-material. Because matter has no capacity to experience anything, no capacity to desire anything. Matter simply exists.
So, just by introspectively considering our capacity to desire, we can understand that we have a spiritual side. And that spiritual side is what the Bhagavad Gita explains. It says, आत्मा अविनाशितु तर्विद्धि यिनिन सर्वमिन अवततं विनाशमवे स्यास्य नकष्चित् कर्तमर्हति 2.17, Krishna says that this Atma, the soul, is actually the source of consciousness.
And this source of consciousness is what gives the current of life to the body. Now, Baldevidya Bhushan is a famous commentator of the Bhagavad Gita. And he explains something interesting about the soul.
There is a ज्यानरूप, and there is a ज्यानस्वरूप, without going into technicalities. I mentioned earlier that how the same गुलावजमन can trigger different emotions in different people. Some people may say, the mouth starts watering.
So, for some other people, the same गुलावजमन, why can’t I? Frustration. Suppose somebody has got diabetes, I can’t eat it. I want to eat it, but frustration.
And somebody else who is a गुलावजमन, a person, when he sees गुलावजमन, he doesn’t see it as a delicious substance. He sees it as a source of money. So now, how is it that the same object can invoke different desires? So, Baldevidya Bhushan explains that the capacity to desire comes from the soul.
That is the ज्यानस्वरूप. But the ज्यानस्वरूप or the, in the form which the consciousness, which the knowledge, which the desire takes, that varies from person to person. Just like we can have a, if we had say a white tube light over it, it would be white light.
But if that white tube light were covered by a reddish film, the light coming out of that white tube light would be no longer white, but reddish. So similarly, the soul is pure and the soul’s original desires are not pure desires. But if the soul is covered over by different kind of contaminations, different kind of conditionings, then the soul desires different things.
The other, the desire changes. So now, this brings us to the next point of understanding that desires ultimately come from the soul, but they are expressed differently based on the kind of conditioning that the soul has. इच्छाद्वेश सुखं दुख्षं संगातः चेतनाद्रति एतः चेत्रं समासेन सविकारमदान्यतम् In the 13th chapter, 7th verse, Krishna describes the चेतना, consciousness.
Earlier he has said, चेतना कात्मात्मा, but now he is saying that चेतना, consciousness is produced by चेत्रविकार, by the change of the material elements that comprise our body. That means, depending on the kind of conditioning that we have, our desires will be expressed differently. So, if a soul takes birth, if a soul takes birth in South India, that soul gets covered by a subtle body, which thinks, oh, masala dosa is very nice.
If a soul takes birth in America, that soul is covered by a subtle body, which thinks, oh, hamburgers are very nice. If that soul takes birth in China, then it is covered by a subtle body, which says, chow mein is very nice. So, now the same desired faculty is there, but the desired faculty is expressed differently.
Now, our desires determine our decisions. That means, say, as I said, if a person is travelling on the road, and the person says, I want a smooth ride, this road is bumpy, this road is smooth, so let me take this road. So, the desire for a smooth ride makes us take the particular decision, makes the car driver take the decision to move in a particular way.
So, our desires determine our decisions. In some cases, the link between desire and decision is so instantaneous that we don’t even recognise that a decision has been made. We just act instinctively.
So, let’s consider this first from a perspective of non-humans. When a dog, when a cat sees a mouse, suppose tomorrow is Ekadashi, the cat sees a mouse on Ekadashi, it comes, today is Ekadashi, it should pass. Why can’t it think like that? That level of decision faculty is not there.
So, the desire and the decision are locked together. Now, sometimes this locking together of desire and decision can work to our detriment. So, there is a Russian scientist, Alexander Pavlov, he did a series of experiments on human psychology.
And then he found something which he called the Pavlovian response, which is later called. So, what is that? He had some dogs and he fed the dogs food. But whenever he would feed the dogs food, he would ring a bell.
So, he would ring the bell when feeding the dogs. So, now, normally, when we see food, something which we are going to eat, then that causes our mouth to water. So, that is a biological response, because saliva is secreted so that we can digest the food.
The same happens in dogs also. When the dog sees a bone, that dog starts watering. So, now, when for a consistent amount of time, every time he gave food to the dogs, he rang the bell.
And then afterwards, he stopped providing food but kept ringing the bell. And he found each time a bell is rung, the dogs started salivating. So, what does this mean over here? That in their mind, the dogs had very strongly, instinctively associated the sound of a bell.
The sound of the bell made them presume that food will be available. And thus, they started anticipating the food and their body started secreting saliva. So, here, as I said, the desire and the decision becomes so locked up that one at a biological level acts subconsciously, acts without even being conscious.
We all, when we say we desire, we desire, what do we desire? We all desire happiness. When we desire happiness, where we seek happiness is determined by our society, our culture’s definition of happiness. Every culture has a certain definition of happiness.
So, for example, I will start with a simple example of how different cultures have different definitions of things. So, when we are happy at seeing someone, in different cultures, some people may shake hands, some people may hold hands, some people may rub noses. So, there are different ways in which people may offer greetings.
But the point is, that is a way greetings are offered. That’s a part of the culture. So, similarly, we all have certain definitions of happiness.
Definitions of happiness means, okay, if this happens, I will become happy. If I get this, I will become happy. If I get this, I will become happy.
And because we naturally desire happiness, so based on our definition of happiness, we automatically desire and decide to do certain things. So, for example, if a person is alcoholic, then that person has the definition of happiness that drinking alcohol provides happiness. And the whole life of that person is governed by that definition of happiness.
Now, even if after drinking alcohol, the next morning, there is a big hangover, but still, because the definition of happiness is there, next time the desire for alcohol comes, immediately, almost instinctively, instantaneously, that desire will transform into a decision. And the person will move towards taking alcohol, drinking alcohol. And this is how many times our resolutions are sabotaged.
Suppose an alcoholic decides that I am no longer going to drink alcohol, that has got me into a lot of trouble. But then next time, suddenly the temptation comes, the person drinks alcohol, and then again has a hangover the next morning. Why did I drink? I have made a decision not to drink.
So, what happened? So, there is a decision that was made, but that decision did not involve revision of the definition of happiness. Because that revision of the definition of happiness was not there. So, the desire and decision get locked up, almost instantaneously, and desire leads to a decision.
In many computers, there are default settings. So, for example, if you want to surf the net, so say if someone has made Google Chrome as the default browser, so as soon as we click a link, we do not make a decision to open Chrome. That is the default setting.
All that we want to do is, we want to follow a link, and maybe we will read a page. But based on the default settings in the computer, a particular browser gets immediately opened. That is the default setting.
Suppose some browsers consume a lot of bandwidth, or they take a lot of energy, power, whatever, and we do not want that browser to be opened. Or some browsers nowadays, some people say they monitor all your browsing, and then they shape advertisements accordingly. Suppose we do not want to use a particular browser.
But if that is the default setting, then we may decide I am not going to use this browser. But next time I click a link, immediately that browser will open. Why? Because our decision has not changed the default setting.
We have to follow that decision. If I have decided I am not going to use this browser, the decision has to be followed by the conscious effort to change the default setting. If you do not change the default setting, the decision will not be sustained.
Next time, link is clicked, immediately that browser will open. And then if we get too caught in reading the article, then we read half the article and then, oh, I was not going to open this browser. So, similarly, we all have an innate desire for happiness.
And based on our definition of happiness, there is a certain default setting in our consciousness. And that default setting determines whenever we desire happiness, where we will seek that happiness. So, our alcoholic has got the default setting that drinking provides happiness.
And even if the decision is made, no, I am not going to drink. But if the default setting is not changed, that means the definition of happiness has not been revised, the next time when the desire comes, the decision will happen automatically. I am unwell and I want some pleasure, immediately I am going to go to a bottle and start drinking.
And then maybe a person drinks half of it, all of it and then, oh, why did I drink this? Many times you may experience, why did I do that? Why did I do that? I was not going to do that. In fact, I decided not to do that. So, what we, we made a decision, but we did not change our definition of happiness.
We did not change our default settings. So, desire, decision and then there is destiny. I will come back again later to talk about how we change our default settings.
But before that, let me go to third part, that is destiny. So, destiny means what we ultimately attain, what is our destination. Normally, we talk about destination when we go on a travel.
I am travelling, say, from here I am going to go to Seattle. So, my destination is Seattle. So, we talk about that in a physical sense, when we are going for a journey, going for a travel.
But destiny refers to our destination in a sense of where our life is going, where the life journey is going. So, now, the word destiny is used in two senses. Why some people say discover your destiny, achieve your destiny, make your destiny, take your destiny in your own hands.
And we say, we are the makers of our destiny. When we use this word, destiny in this sense, this means that we are thinking that destiny is something to be determined. Destiny is something which we are going to determine.
And sometimes we use the word destiny in opposite sense also. We use it in the sense that my destiny is rotten. And so, there was a movie, The Fault in Your Stars.
So, the idea is the stars, you know, the stars shape our destiny. And the fault in the stars means, okay, again, your destiny is faulty because your stars are faulty. So, we use the word destiny sometimes in that sense also.
The destiny is something which is predetermined. The philosophical term for that is predestination. Predestination means what is going to happen in our life is already predetermined.
So, now, is the future, what is going to happen in our future, is it in our hands or is it already determined? In the Mahabharata, before the Bhagavad Gita is spoken, just before the Kurukshetra war is about to take place. And before the Kurukshetra war is going to take place, many people try to out, try to petition for peace, try, there are vigorous peace negotiations. So, one of the persons, Sanjay, sorry Vidura, Vidura is Dhritarashtra s brother and he tells Dhritarashtra, you should not fight otherwise your whole dynasty will be destroyed.
So, then Dhritarashtra uses a false reasoning and he says that, oh, if it is the will of destiny that our dynasty be destroyed, then who am I, a tiny mortal, to stop the will of almighty destiny. So, now Vidura replies, okay, destiny determines the consequences of our actions, not our actions themselves. Destiny determines the consequences of our actions, not our actions themselves.
What this means is that suppose I want to come down from the story building, now I can come down by the staircase, I can come down by elevator or I can jump down directly from the balcony. Now, the destiny does not determine whether I jump down from the balcony or come down by the stairs. But if I decide that I am going to, if I choose to jump down from the balcony, then destiny determines that my bones will break.
Destiny does not determine our actions, it determines consequences of our actions. Now, if a student doesn’t study for the exam and then says, oh, I did not get good marks because my destiny was poor, okay, not your destiny. It was not destiny that was poor, it was actually the action that was poor, one did not study.
So, first thing is that our destiny is not predetermined. Yes, there are certain things, just like I said, if we have come to a crossroad, if I choose this road, this is going to be smooth, this is going to be jerky ride. Now, destiny determines what we will encounter after we make a decision.
So, in that sense, destiny is like the road structure that is already determined. But where we go on that road structure is not determined. So, our destiny in that sense is in our hands.
So, in 15.8, 10 and 15.8 in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says that the soul goes from one body to another body. And how this happens? One needs jnana chakshu, the eyes of knowledge to see. Krishna further says that the soul is Ishwara, the soul is the controller, the soul is the determiner of one’s destination.
So, I talk about desire, decision and destiny. Now, let us, I began by talking about dharma. Then I talk about desire, decision and destiny.
Now, I will bring these two together and see what the Bhagavad Gita has to say about it. So, the major problem that happens for many of us is that we make, we often make self-sabotaging choices. We act in ways that often damage us, that often hurt us.
So, this happens because our desire and decisions are locked together, sometimes even without our, no, awareness and without our control. So, for example, somebody is walking along and carrying a glass of water and suddenly the glass of water slips and the water spills over. Now, there is a voice inside us which always passes comments, whatever is happening, that voice is the voice of the mind.
So, when we say we spill water, the mind says, you are a useless buffoon, you are a useless buffoon. Now, when we hear this, now if someone else, you know, if some friend came and said this to me, you are a useless buffoon, you will get angry with that person. How dare you say like this? But when the mind says this, we accept it, yes, I am a useless buffoon and we become depressed.
If somehow we study for an exam, we forget something at the time of the exam and then, okay, everybody forgets something at some point. We forget one thing at the time of the exam and then the voice from inside says, you are a good for nothing student, your life is going to go waste, you will never pass any exam and you will be a failure throughout your life. From forgetting one fact to making a judgement about the whole life, it is a huge extrapolation.
But there is this voice within which sabotages us. So, this is the voice of the mind. Now, what is the voice of the mind actually? The mind’s voice is nothing but the result of our default settings.
Just as I said that, if we click a particular link, the default settings will determine which browser opens. So, similarly, for all of us, based on our upbringing, our culture, the kind of people we have associated with, we have got certain default settings. And if our culture is largely materialistic, and that is how I think in today’s world, materialistic culture means that material things are what matter.
Our looks, our clothes, our gadgets, our pay cheques, our all the material things that we have, they are what matter. That is what material, materialistic civilisation, materialistic culture tells us. And when this is the kind of messages that are constantly coming upon us, materialism creates within us always a scarcity mentality.
A scarcity mentality is I do not have enough. Now, one of the easiest ways to make oneself miserable is to watch advertisements. Because what do advertisements do? They are essentially showing us the things we do not have.
And if you just keep seeing all the things that I do not have, all of us have certain gifts, which we have been given. Those gifts are what God has given us. So, it is said that what we are is God’s gift to us.
And what we become is our gift to God. We use our talents, we use our abilities, we make contributions, and that is our gift to God. So, to understand this, suppose there is a, say after this programme, there is a feast.
But it is a feast in which every plate will contain different items. And suppose our plate also has a feast. But we are going, hey, this person has got that, this person has got that, this person has got that, this person has got that.
We are looking at what everyone else has, and we do not see what we have. And we become miserable. Oh, I did not have that, I did not have that, I did not have that.
Focus on what we have. So, materialism creates a scarcity mentality by showing what everyone else has. Now, we see people who have better looks than us, we see people who have better memory than us, people who have more money than us.
And generally, in materialistic society, all the glamorised models are those who have the best material assets. And because of that, we fail to see what we have. And we end up with a scarcity mentality.
And this scarcity mentality keeps us perpetually unhappy, no matter what we have. So, when we talk about this locking together of desires and decisions, and that ultimately determines our destiny, if we want to be happy, we need to unlock, unlock the desire and decisions that have been locked together, often in self-sabotaging ways. So, for example, when we sit happily, peacefully at our home, and suddenly we see some advertisement, we think we got a smart phone.
But then suddenly we see advertisement of a smarter phone. My phone model is old fashioned, now I don’t have a new phone. And I have to get that phone, but how will I get that phone? I have to get this, make this scheme, do this, do that.
And then just by observing that and following the train of thoughts, the desire leads to decision and in the process, our satisfaction is eroded, if not completely disrupted. So, to the extent we can understand how our desires and decisions are locked together, and we unlock them. And then we cultivate healthy desires and make wholesome decisions to the extent our destiny will become auspicious.
So, this is where dharma comes into the picture. The word dharma actually is sometimes translated as a religion or sometimes translated as duty. But these are all, relatively speaking, imprecise translations.
The word dharma comes from the root dhruv, dhruv means to sustain. So, that which sustains. So, dharma is that activity which sustains our existence.
That which enables us to live as we are meant to live. That activity which enables us to discover our nature and to harmonise with our nature. That essentially is dharma.
So, the Bhagavad Gita describes that we are souls and the soul has a natural capacity to desire. But the Bhagavad Gita, that is, Atma Gyan is one feature or one major teaching of the Bhagavad Gita. But the central teaching of the Bhagavad Gita is Bhagavad Gyan, is knowledge of God.
Now, the Bhagavad Gita doesn’t talk about God as just some presence somewhere in a cloud, watching and blessing or punishing. No, the Bhagavad Gita describes that God is the embodiment and fulfilment of all the highest desires of our heart. God is the embodiment and fulfilment of all the highest desires of our heart.
So, in the Bhagavad Gita 10th chapter, 41st verse, Krishna states that, He says that know that all opulent, beautiful, whatever we see attractive in this world, that attractive object reflects a spark of Krishna’s all attractiveness. So, if we see someone beautiful and we feel, oh, how beautiful this person is. Yes, that beauty is real, but that beauty is just a spark of Krishna’s splendour.
If we see someone who is brilliant, very intelligent, that intelligence is real, but that intelligence, that brilliance is just a spark of Krishna’s intelligence, Krishna’s brilliance. So, whatever we desire in this world, actually we are desiring Krishna because that desirable object’s capacity to attract our desire comes from Krishna. It’s like if we are cold and we’re trembling, we need some warmth and there is a fire which has just been extinguished and there is just few sparks over there.
But if everywhere there is cold and that is the only place where there is some warmth, we will go there and try to warm ourselves with whatever residual warmth might be there in those sparks. But you understand this spark has come from a blazing fire and that blazing fire is the next room. Then immediately we’ll put aside the spark and we’ll go towards the blazing fire and then the warmth and the comfort and the relief from cold that we want, we will get that fully.
Similarly, in this world, we are attracted to various things. Our power to desire is directed towards various things. And why? Because those things promise pleasure.
But the pleasure, even if they give pleasure, that is just like a drop. It is like the warmth provided by a spark. It is limited.
Now we can look back at our own life and see many of the things that we thought would give us pleasure. And when we get those objects, we get some pleasure. But after that, the pleasure ends.
Now we may think that, okay, I’ll get some new clothes or a new car or a new hairstyle, a new gadget. And when we get that, there is some stimulation, some attraction, some titillation. But then, after a short time, the newness wanders off.
The newness wanders off. And once the newness wanders off, it just fades away and we wonder what happened. Nothing great about it.
So, for example, when people fall in love, at that time, they say that it is such an irresistible attraction at that time. And then they say, I can’t live without you. And then what happens? After some time, those same two people say, I can’t live without you.
Now they say, I can’t live with you. What went wrong? What went wrong was that when the relationship is formed just based on surface attraction, the nature of all material things is that the surface attraction doesn’t last for long. Yes, there can be sustainable relationships if there are two people who are committed to that relationship and they have compatibility between them.
But just the surface appearance, things which look attractive, their attractiveness doesn’t stay for long. Why? Because we are mistaking the spark to be the fire. We are looking within the spark for the warmth which is to be found only in the fire.
We are looking in temporarily material things for the satisfaction that is found only in the eternal supreme reality, eternal spiritual reality that is God, Krishna. And thus our desires are misdirected. I explained that how these dogs, because of habit, food is what is going to satisfy them.
But because they are habituated that whenever food comes, a bell will ring. So, when the bell rings, immediately they are about to start watering. So, what has happened? Their mind has made a mistaken connection that bell ringing means food will come.
So, saliva starts circulating. That’s a Pavlovian response, a mistaken response. So, like that, in our minds, by the default settings of the mind, we have made a mistaken connection.
That mistaken connection is that the attractive objects of this world will provide happiness. Yes, we need the objects of this world for survival, for living respectively in this world. But they are not the source of happiness.
Even if they provide happiness, that happiness is temporary. Therefore, sometime after that it will go away. So, if you want lasting happiness, we need to redirect the power of desire from the world and its objects to Krishna.
When we do that, we will find lasting happiness. So, when we chant the holy names, when we chant Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare, this at one level seems to be simply some utterance of sound vibrations. Yes, it is an utterance of sound vibration.
But through this utterance of sound vibration, by consciously, by conscientiously, and by constantly. So, consciously, conscientiously, and constantly, when we expose our mind to Krishna, Krishna is manifesting as a sound. When we expose our mind to Krishna, slowly the mind starts recognising, Oh, this sound, it’s source of such great pleasure.
It can bring great happiness. Sometimes in children, they may just get attracted to some drink which somebody else is having. And the mother is giving a drink to them, and the drink that mother is giving is also delicious.
But they are saying some other friend who is having that drink, I want that drink. And now that drink is not good for their health. So, the mother gives this drink, child shakes that, no, I don’t want, I don’t want it.
And the mother says, I want that. No, I don’t want this. I want that.
But if the mother just drink this, no, no, drink it, drink it, drink it. Then gradually some of the drinks has gone, the child is shaking the head so much, nothing is going, it’s going all over the face. Nothing is going inside.
But somehow a little drink percolates in. Hey, it’s nice, isn’t it? Now, sometimes the child, because of that, the children are also having more. No, I said no means no.
So, even though the drink is delicious, no, I will not take it. But the mother goes, drink, drink more. Give me more, give me more.
And eventually, the child starts enjoying the drink. So, what has happened is, our mind is like that child. And the child is caught, oh, I want that, I want that, I want that.
And even when we come to the holy name of Krishna, which is actually the soul, which can be the source of sublime, supreme happiness. But the mind becomes like that restless child, shaking the head, no, no, I don’t want this, I don’t want this, I don’t want this. And actually, we chant the holy names, but we don’t concentrate on Krishna.
So, because of that, we don’t experience Krishna while we are chanting. But somehow, despite that, we expose ourselves to Krishna. We expose ourselves to Krishna, we chant the holy names, then gradually, there’s some contact with the holy name that happens.
Then, Sukhena Brahma Samasparasya Atyantam Sukham Asyute The Bhagavad Gita in 6th chapter, 27th verse describes, Sukhena, happiness, Brahma Samasparasya, contact with Brahma, spiritual reality, supreme spiritual reality is Krishna. When there’s a contact with Sukhena, Brahma Samasparasya, Atyantam Sukham Asyute, there is an ultimate happiness that we will experience. That ultimate happiness comes when we contact Krishna.
So, anyone in any part of the world, if they chant the holy names of Krishna, they will experience something special. They will experience a calming of the mind. They will experience a clearing of the head.
They will experience a warming of the heart. They will experience some peace, some joy. Now, what that experience is, we will not be able to ourselves comprehend it.
We will experience it, but we will not comprehend it. For comprehending it, we need the Bhagavad Gita. I’ll conclude with this example, and then we can have question answers.
Suppose, now it’s lightly cold. Suppose, it’s very cold, and there is a small baby who is trembling because of the cold. And the mother sees, oh, my baby is trembling.
And the mother puts a comforter, a nice thick blanket. And then the baby stops trembling. Now, if the baby is very small, the baby doesn’t even understand that there is someone who is my mother, and my mother loves me.
Now, for small babies, their conception of reality is everything is potential food. So, whatever they get, they drink milk from the mother’s breast. They take their finger, and they start sucking that.
They take their leg and start sucking that. They take a toy and start sucking that. So, even when the baby is getting food from the mother, the baby, when she is very small, she doesn’t even understand.
That there is someone called my mother, and the mother loves me. But, she feels comfort. Say, when the baby is cold, and a blanket is put, the baby feels comfort.
And then as the baby starts growing, growing, growing, then the baby starts understanding that, oh, there is my mother. And when the baby is trembling, and as she is growing, and then she feels warm. And she understands that, oh, my mother must have put the blanket on me.
Although the eyes are not open, and she is not seeing the mother. But just from the comfort and the warmth that is felt when the blanket is put on the body, the baby understands my mother is there. So, this requires some amount of growth.
The baby is very small. The baby cannot make the connection between the comfort of the blanket, between the warmth of the blanket, and the love of the mother. Making the connection requires some level of cognition and development.
The child has to grow up at least to some level. Similarly, we all are right now in a stage of spiritual infancy. And when we are in a stage of spiritual infancy, we, this world causes us to tremble.
There can be anxieties, there can be uncontrolled desires, there can be various kinds of troubles. We shiver because of that. But when we chant the holy names of Krishna, when we absorb ourselves in remembrance of Krishna, we experience relief.
Relief from the anxiety, from the agitation, from the trouble. It is not that the problem goes away, but we experience shelter. We experience wholeness.
We become calmer, and our head becomes clearer, and eventually we can deal with the problem better. So when this happens, if we are in our spiritual infancy, now what is it about the remembrance of Krishna, about the sound of his mantras, that enables us to experience this relief? In our spiritual infancy, we may not be able to make the connection. Just as a baby does not make the connection between the warmth of the blanket and the mother’s love.
But as we study the Bhagavad Gita, as we become philosophically more well-learned, as our spiritual awareness awakens, then we start making the connection. Why does remembrance of Krishna provide so much relief? Why does, if I get absorbed in chanting of the holy names, how is it that I experience relief from my agitating desires, agitating anxieties? How do I feel so safe, so comfortable, so secure, so warm? That is because this is Krishna manifesting as his holy name. It is Krishna’s love that is providing me comfort and relief.
And then when we get this experience, we all get this experience, but from the experience, we need to make the connection. We need to make the connection that this spiritual relief, this spiritual shelter that I’m getting, this expresses Krishna’s love. And therefore, rather than loving the objects of this world, I should turn my love towards Krishna.
And when we do that, when we turn our loving, our faculty to love, our desiring capacity towards Krishna, that is when our default settings change. Our default settings change. So once we change, say, from one browser to the other, and every time next time you click, immediately that new browser will open.
So like that, purification, we say we need to become purified. Purification essentially means change of our default settings. What setting? It means change of our default definition of happiness.
If we become, we’re not pure, then we think happiness means I have to obtain external material things, then I will become happy. But once we become purified, we will understand that happiness means connecting with Krishna. To the extent we connect with Krishna, to the extent we become happy.
And connecting with Krishna doesn’t mean rejecting this world or renouncing this world. It simply means rejecting and renouncing the illusion that this world can make you happy. We use the resources of this world, understanding that they also come from Krishna.
We use our talents, understanding that they come from Krishna. Use whatever relationships we have, we understand they are all, not just my relatives, they’re all parts of Krishna. So we connect the whole world with Krishna.
And in that way, our, the spiritual direction of our happiness, the spiritual orientation of our life, the redefinition of our life, of our conception of happiness, from material to spiritual, doesn’t mean that we reject the material. It means that we connect the material with the spiritual. So when Arjuna asks, What is dharma? And he concludes by saying, I will do your will.
What it means is, Arjuna has understood that the purpose of life is to connect his desire and capacity with Krishna’s desire and capacity. To harmonise his will with Krishna’s will. So for us, you know, how do we harmonise our will with Krishna’s will? There are basic activities which are generally told to us.
We do directly devotional activities. We chant the holy names of Krishna. We study scriptures.
There’s what we call A, B, C, D. A is association of devotees. We associate with spiritually minded people. That gives us inspiration to do spiritual activities.
B is study books, study Bhagavad Gita. C is chant the holy names. D is we worship the deity form of Krishna.
We take Krishna Prasad. So when we do these activities, by these we show Krishna that we want to do his will. It is not that Krishna is going to stand next to us and tell us in every situation in life, do this, don’t do this.
No, we may not have that kind of access to Krishna right now. But when there are clear-cut situations in which when we know that this is the time when I can study the Bhagavad Gita, this is the time when I chant the holy names. When we do these devotional activities directly, then by that we show Krishna that I want to do your will.
And when we show Krishna that I want to do your will, then at other times when his will is not clear, Krishna will give us guidance from within. The Bhagavad Gita does not describe, does not talk about a God who is somewhere up there passing judgement on us. God, Bhagavad Gita describes, is right next to us in our own heart.
It is not that he is causing problems, nor is he in his own world, not worried about our problems. He is right next to us, guiding us to face the problems, to overcome the problems. Krishna is a God who is a guide by the side.
He is a guide by the side. And the whole process of Bhakti Yoga is connecting with this guide by the side. When we get connected with him, then we are guided.
And then our whole life, so Dharma is what? Dharma is those set of activities that connect the human with the divine will. So there are directly devotional activities which we do, that is our Dharma. So we chant the holy names, we associate with devotees, study scriptures, we worship the deity.
When we do this Dharma, we are directly connecting the human with the divine will. And when we do this, we get the intelligence by which we can connect the remaining aspects of our life also with Krishna’s will. And then all our other activities also we can make Dharmic.
We can use our material abilities and our material resources for spiritual purposes. So Dharma in this way permeates our entire life. And when Dharma permeates our entire life, then desires, our desired faculty becomes spiritualised.
Because we are desiring Krishna, we are desiring to serve Krishna. And then by this, when our default settings are spiritualised, the decisions that we make, they are no longer self-sabotaging, they are self-uplifting, they are self-empowering, they are self-liberating. And thus our destiny becomes that we will eventually be united with Krishna in eternal love.
It is a code for a life of everlasting happiness. So I’ll summarise. I started by talking about these four D’s.
Dharma, desire, decision and destiny. So I talked about desire. In Dharma, the Bhagavad Gita is not just a manual for, not just a call for war.
Arjuna asks, not whether I should fight or not, but he asks, what is Dharma? And Krishna concludes, not by telling Arjuna, are you going to fight or not? Have you understood? And Krishna says, Arjuna responds by saying that I will do your will. So the Bhagavad Gita’s essential message is that we should harmonise the human being with the divine will. Then we discussed about how our capacitive desire points to our non-material nature.
Now gulab jamun cannot desire itself. Now can the plate which contains gulab jamun desire it? It is only conscious being that possesses the capacitive desire. So our desire comes from our spiritual side, from our atma.
But presently, our desires are often misdirected. Just like a bright light can become jarring red when filtered. Similarly, when covered with a red film.
Similarly, the pure desires of the soul become impure because of conditions. And then I said how desires lead to decisions. So this can happen, say, if I’m going on the road and I want a smooth ride.
So I choose a comfortable road, not a jolting road, not a jerky road, a road which is filled with potholes. But this, from desire to decision, can also happen instinctively. If we have got certain definitions of happiness.
So an alcoholic, from the desire for happiness to the decision to drink alcohol, that these two are locked together. And sometimes this locking can be undesirable. I talked about the Pavlovian response of the dogs, which mouth, tongue started watering, not on seeing food, but on hearing the sound of a bell.
Then we talked about destiny. The destiny is not something that our future is entirely determined. Destiny determines the consequences of our actions, not our actions themselves.
We choose and then accordingly, based on our decisions, our destiny is determined. So then I came back to dharma and I talked about how our desire for happiness is natural. But when we look for happiness in material things, because material things are temporary, they can only provide at best temporary pleasure.
So they are like a person in cold looking for warmth in a spark of fire. We need to go to the whole fire and that whole fire is Krishna. So with the Bhagavad Gita’s wisdom, we redirect our desire from the spark to the fire, from the temporarily attractive objects to the eternally attractive supreme object.
And when we do this, we start, we need to not only desire Krishna, but change our default setting so that whenever we are looking for happiness, we look for happiness not in material things, but in Krishna. And we have the example of a child who doesn’t want to drink a delicious drink, although it is delicious, because the child is captivated by some other drink. Or earlier the example of how we have a feast in our plate, but we are looking at the feast that everyone else has.
And that’s why we are having a scarcity mentality. So at that time, when our mind is restless, then our intelligence needs to be like the mother. Our intelligence is the mother and drink this.
When the intelligence chants the holy names, remember Krishna. And then gradually the taste of the sweetness of Krishna starts becoming apparent to us. Then we go, this is good.
I shouldn’t look for anything else. Let me do this more and more. Let me become more devoted to Krishna.
So the shelter, the relief that we experience in the remembrance of Krishna, that is an expression of Krishna’s love at our level of experience. Just as the warmth that a baby experiences from a blanket is the baby’s experience of the mother’s love for her. So we can need to make this connection between the experience of relief and Krishna’s love.
Once we make this connection and accept that connection, then our default settings will change. And then we will be able to look for and find happiness in Krishna. And seeking happiness in Krishna doesn’t mean just rejecting the world, but means rejecting the notion that the world alone can make us happy.
Rather, we reconnect the world with Krishna. And to the extent we do connect our heart with Krishna through direct and emotional activities, which is dharma, then we show Krishna, I want to be connected with you. And then other activities also, Krishna gives intelligence.
So dharma, buddhi, yogam, tam, by which we can become connected to him. And that way, all our desires will become spiritualised. Our decisions will become auspicious.
And then our destiny will become eternally joyful. Thank you very much.