Looking at our past in a wholistic way can help us shape our future – Chaitanya Charan

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
When we look at the past, one way we may look at it, it’s just a waste of time, I was wasting my human birth, before I came to Krishna Bhakti, that we had best, if only I could have avoided it, if I had come to Bhakti in my childhood, if I’d been born in a devotee’s family, it would have been, it would have been so nice, and in one sense that’s true, however, we can’t change the past, and another, so this is a good way of looking at past, because ultimately we want to attain Krishna, and every moment that is disconnected from Krishna, that is distracted from Krishna, that is just prolonging our existence in this world.
So that’s one good way of looking at the past, but this is definitely better than, hankering for the past, and thinking maybe my life in the past was better, I was happier, I was enjoying life more, which is rarely true, but our mind can make us imagine anything. However, a healthier way to look at the past, is to see that our past was a mix of good and bad, and that prepared us for coming to Krishna. So Krishna works in our life, irrespective of whether we are working toward him or not.
So from our perspective, our coming to Krishna consciousness, can seem like a dramatic change in our life. Maybe our life was going in one direction, and suddenly it starts going in another direction, sometimes an entirely opposite direction. While that is true from our perspective, and it’s important to recognize that perspective, but from Krishna’s perspective, actually he was always acting in our life.
So even when we are going somewhere off track, Krishna was still in our hearts. Krishna says, I am guiding the wanderings of all living beings. He doesn’t say at this time, he says, all living beings, I am guiding their wanderings.
So that means Krishna is acting in our lives, whether we are turning toward him or turning away from him. So one aspect of a Krishna conscious vision, one way we say that, sorry, so one way a Krishna conscious look at the past we can say, we may say that I was just wasting my time in the past, which is one way of looking at it. But how was Krishna acting in my life, when I was unaware of him, when I was forgetful of him, because he was acting even then.
And understanding this actually can help us spiritualize our vision of our past. And it is not just an ideal look at the past. It is, if we are going to look at everything through Krishna conscious perspective, our devotee tries to see everything as related with Krishna.
So even when we come to, when we interact with people who are not yet familiar with Krishna consciousness. So those who are not KC, those who are not yet Krishna conscious, we see what spiritual potential they have. So why not, then why not see what spiritual potential our pre-KC self had, before we came to Krishna conscious, what was our consciousness, what was our nature.
So to see everything in Krishna consciousness means, we even look at our past from a Krishna conscious perspective. Now Dhruva Maharaj does say that I approach the Lord for such a petty desire, but that is his realization. And that is an appreciation in one sense, if you want to put it this way, that Dhruva Maharaj’s expression is a declaration of how extraordinary, the higher taste of beholding Krishna and loving Krishna is.
So while he laments about his past, the Lord does not undermine or dismiss his past. The Lord tells him, go back to your kingdom and rule the kingdom. And when he goes back to the kingdom, he is not dismissive towards his relatives.
He is not dismissive to any of them. So in that sense, we can see this, can say something like, Dhruva Maharaj, look at the past. It is not a condemnation of the past, of his past.
And his past, of course, was exalted. He was born in an exalted family. He had a very devoted mother.
But of even his past motives, but a proclamation of the glory of the higher taste. So sometimes what happens is, we take contextual statements and we absolutize them. Then what happens is, we think, oh, everything in my past was simply a waste.
Well, not entirely. So another reason, one reason why we need to look at our past is, because if we are Krishna conscious about everything, why not see Krishna everywhere? See Krishna in our past also. But another important reason is, we are informed by the past.
By informed means, the word information nowadays refers only to data. But informed. So informed means, we are formed internally.
So our inner world is formed by our past. And we bring that into a Krishna consciousness. And here Dhruva Maharaj is lamenting the fact that he had unworthy desires from the past.
And yes, that is something which at one level is not the highest motive to approach Krishna. Of course, Krishna says even such people are Sukrutina, those who approach him for wealth. They are also pious people.
They are good souls, Krishna says in 716 in the Bhagavad Gita. But still, that is not the highest desire. So we can say that, okay, we also came, maybe we came only for prasad.
We came because we are just frustrated with life. In Kali Yuga, Krishna talks about four categories of people who come to him. In Kali Yuga, there are also four categories of people who come to Krishna.
And those four categories are those who are distressed, those who are distressed, those who are distressed and those who are distressed. Everybody is distressed in some way or the other. Maybe some relationship problem, maybe some financial breakdown, maybe some psychological meltdown, whatever it is, maybe some existential emptiness, but they are distressed.
So we come because of whatever reason. We may come for relief from distress. But what happens is, we may say, okay, I had those desires and I abandoned those desires now.
So my past doesn’t have any bearing on me. But actually our past doesn’t just give us those desires that we abandoned. Our past also gave us our attitudes, our worldview, our values.
And those don’t change so quickly. So with respect to say attitudes, some people by nature are more optimistic. Some people are more pessimistic.
And that’s how they will be. It’s not that that is going to change magically because they come to Bhakti. It’s like we know there are four Varanas in the Vedic standard.
And it is not that just because a Kshatriya comes to Bhakti, the Kshatriya will suddenly become a Brahmana. So we could say our values in terms of our core values of our psychophysical nature, they remain the same. So understanding where we have come from helps us understand what we are carrying.
Now, what we are carrying is not just a burden that we have to give up. So we can say when we say we are informed by a past, what we are carrying from our past, it’s at one level, if you can say, it’s not just a burden we need to shed. Yes, that’s there.
So, for example, impure desires. But it’s also our resource for moving ahead toward Krishna. Our past has made us who we are.
So our interests, abilities, we could say even nature, psychophysical natures, those are our resources by which we are moving toward Krishna. And in that sense, it is not just a burden we have to abandon. It’s our resource.
So understanding what resources we have, that’s very important for us to move ahead in our life. So at some level, we easily understand it. Say some new person comes in and then we ask, what do you do? We understand what their abilities are and then we may engage them in service accordingly.
But that’s at a gross level. But at a deeper level, some people are more of an introvert nature. Some people are of an extrovert nature.
And then understanding that is important to decide what kind of services they can do the best. So it is for guiding others. It is also for guiding ourselves, because in general, when we are introduced initially, we are just told to surrender and obey and we do whatever services we are told to do.
And that’s important to learn as a matter of submission and discipline. But over a period of time, if we are to serve Krishna sustainably, then we have to understand our nature and we can best serve accordingly. So what we are carrying from our past is also our resource for moving toward the future.
And that’s why understanding, looking at our past in a holistic way is important.