Make a life, not just a living – LIFE acronym

[Talk at Bhakti Lounge, Wellington, New Zealand]

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank all of you for coming here today.
I’m grateful to be here. Am I audible behind? I’m grateful to be here amongst all of you. So I’ll speak on the topic of alive in the modern world, make a life not a living.
And I’ll be using an acronym LIFE. I’ll just go back around, go a little back first and I’ll talk about the history. How for the first time it struck me in my life that there’s a difference between these two.
About 20-25 years ago I was a student in India studying engineering and I was studying electronics and telecommunications in one of the best colleges in India and there was a professor who was very intelligent and he had written a book on engineering which had become very popular among the students. He was earning a lot of money. At that time generally teaching was not considered to be that lucrative a profession.
But even through teaching he was earning a lot. And then one day I came to my college and we were told that the college is off today. So I asked, what does it matter? It was that that professor had committed suicide.
Now he was one of the pride of the whole college in fact of the university itself. And then later on we came to know that he was brilliant, he was very successful, doing very well but he was his whole family had divorced, his child had left him and he was very very distressed in his life. And because of that he had committed suicide.
So that time it struck me that often when we look at people, we see people from a distance and we see them as very successful. So I was in America a couple of months ago, so one of my friends was a marriage counsellor and he told me there are two kinds of couples. Those who fight with each other and those whom you don’t know very well.
So from the appearance it may appear as if they are very happy but if you come to know them well, everybody has conflicts. Of course, different people have different ways of managing conflicts. But in general when we look at the world or we look at people often we look at how successful they are.
And one parameter of how successful they are is how much they are earning. So from a functional perspective money is a vital necessity. And we cannot live without money.
So in that sense we all have to make a living. By the same time we associate making a living not just with a functional necessity but also as a status symbol. As a sign of success.
And because of this for many people making a living becomes the purpose of living. And that leads to imbalance. So I’ll talk about this.
So at that time I started actually thinking now what is it that makes life worth living? What is it that brings meaning to life? And it was a year or so later that I got a copy of the Bhagavad Gita from one of my friends. The Bhagavad Gita is an ancient yoga text which talks about how to harmonise the material and spiritual aspects of our life. So that’s where my spiritual journey took off after that.
So I’ll summarise the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita as applied to this difference between making a life and making a living using an acronym LIFE. So L is first of all love. All of us want to love and to be loved.
Now love itself is a word which is bandied about a lot. And we may say love can be for different, in different directions. Somebody may have some hobbies which they love.
Somebody may have some things which they love. Somebody may have some activities. I love my work.
I love sports. I love my phone. One of the talks which I gave in America in Denver, one of the best attended talks, the topic of the talk was Do you need to break up with your phone? So people just right from the moment of waking up to the moment of sleep, their partner may not be with them but the phone is with them always.
So in that sense the phone can become a distraction. We may have different objects that we may love. But love is what actually brings you could say life to our life.
We all long to love and to be loved. We want reciprocation. Even through phone it is not just the phone that we love.
We hope through the phone we can have some kind of connection. Some kind of reciprocation. Be it through social media, be it through various forms of communication.
And this longing to love and be loved is actually what differentiates conscious beings from unconscious matter. We live in an age of science where there has been a phenomenal transformation in the way people live because of the effect of technology. And science seems to have a huge amount of explanatory power in terms of helping us to make sense of the world around us.
And yes, we have a lot of knowledge which we didn’t have a few hundred years ago. At the same time there are certain irreducible aspects to the human personality which cannot be measured in mechanical terms. Einstein is attributed to have said that gravity can explain the falling of objects.
But it can’t explain people’s falling in love. It can’t explain people’s falling in love. So with all our most sophisticated instruments that we have, there are many aspects of our life which are essential to us which cannot be scientifically measured.
One example is pain. The whole of medical science is at one level meant to alleviate pain. But there is no such thing as a pain-o-metre.
We could have a thermometer, we could have a barometer. We can’t have a pain-o-metre. We can infer, oh, your hand is dislocated, this bone is fractured, there must be a lot of pain.
But we can’t mathematically measure it. I was in Ohio State University, I gave a talk on overcoming fear. So there, he was talking about the historical evolution of fear.
That means, in the 18th century, what were people most fearful of? In the 19th century, what were people fearful of? In the 20th century, what were people fearful of? In the 21st century, what were people fearful of? So some fears stay common. But two fears that have been added prominently in the 21st century are the fear of terrorists and the fear of rejection. The fear of rejection.
In the past, relationships were, whether East or West, relationships were more structured. People married for life and marriages were arranged often. So, now, it’s like a marketplace where everybody has to peddle themselves, you could say.
And everybody is afraid. What if I’m rejected? So, when people want to form a relationship with someone, you would like to know whether this person really loves you or this person wants to use you. And that uncertainty causes within us the fear of rejection.
So now, the context I’m making here is, this is how to form sustainable, judicious relationships. It’s a big anxiety for all of us. And with all our scientific advancement, we can’t have anything like a love-o-metre.
If you want to form a relationship with them, put a metre on their heart. Do you really love me? And the metre will show us. It doesn’t work like that.
So, love is a fundamental reality. It’s a vital need for all of us. And yet, it is something which cannot be mathematically quantified or scientifically measured.
So, what exactly is love? Where does it come from? So, love is what we all need. But to understand what is love, we need to move to the next level. So, I is intelligence.
Intelligence means that if you want to make a life, not just a living, we need to have something to love, someone to love. We need to have love as a driving force in our life. But to understand love, we need intelligence.
The intelligence here refers to trying to understand or analyse, where does love come from and where is it going to take us? What is it actually? So, as I said, this mic is made of matter. And if say, I take this phone and I drop it. I won’t drop it, obviously.
But if I drop it, we can predict how soon it will fall, how much force with which it will fall. But with respect to people, we can’t predict mechanically. So, there is a non-mechanistic aspect to our personality.
And where does this come from? So, that is where our loving nature also comes from. And that the Bhagavad Gita explains is coming from our spiritual side. So, we need intelligence to pursue or to perceive, to be able to make sense of our spiritual side.
The Gita uses the word Gyan Chakshu. Chakshu means eyes, Gyan is knowledge. The eyes of knowledge.
Often we think we see with our eyes. Yes, we do see with our eyes, but actually it is with our intelligence that we make sense of what we see. Suppose a person lives in a village and has no knowledge about, say, modern market economy and stock market.
And that person just happens to come to a stock market. And there is a big screen over there and a stock market crash. He is observing and this line goes down and people get heart attacks.
What is this? A line on a graph has gone down. What is the big deal? So, he is seeing the same thing, others are seeing the same thing. But actually, we don’t see with just our eyes.
We see with the intelligence that helps us to make sense of what our eyes are showing us. So, this is the idea of the eyes of knowledge. So, intelligence or knowledge, they help us to understand that our loving nature comes from something which is beyond our physical body.
And that is the source of consciousness. The soul or as the Gita calls the Atma. This is a non-material particle that animates the body.
And it is this that is the source of consciousness, the source of our loving nature and the source of all the emotions that we experience. It is the soul that longs to love and to be loved. And the soul, the word soul is often used in in today’s world.
It is often used in a metaphorical sense. The soul of India is so and so. The soul of Australia is so and so.
The soul of this team is so and so. So, that is used in a non-literal sense. But the soul is also a literal entity.
It is a non-material particle which has its own self-existence. And this existence we can infer simply from the fact that matter doesn’t have consciousness. But we have consciousness.
So, fundamentally speaking, in terms of composition, this hand and this mic, both are made of the same atoms and molecules or the same fundamental particles. But this doesn’t have consciousness. I have consciousness.
You have consciousness. But this comes from the soul. But the intelligence can be applied to make one more inference.
We not only long to love and be loved, but we also long to love and be loved forever. There are thousands, maybe millions of movies and novels across the world and the majority of them are on the theme of romance. And most romantic movies or novels, they depict a H-E-A, happily ever after.
Now, if we look at real life, life is terrible. We all have to die. When I was in New York, we passed by the place where the Twin Towers had been.
And when the Twin Towers fell, it was not just the falling of a building. It was actually the fall of what that building represented. And that represented the dream of security and prosperity.
So, actually, by looking at big objects around us, we get some sense of connectedness, sense of security. But nothing in this world is eternal. The Twin Towers did not last forever.
And even giant mountains, the Himalayas or the Andes or the Rockies or whichever mountain it is, it may look huge and may live for maybe existing for thousands of years. But even that is not eternal. So, if nothing in the world around us lasts forever, then why do we get the desire to live forever? Why do we get the desire to love forever? Suppose there is a child living in some remote African village, that they have no connection with the rest of the world.
And one day, that child comes home and says, Mom, Mom, I want a pizza. What would the mother ask the child? What do you think she would ask? What’s a pizza? What’s a pizza? Even if she knew, where did you hear about the pizza? There is nothing in the environment which would tell the child anything about a pizza. So, when the desire comes like that, which has no stimulus in the environment, then naturally the question comes, where has the desire come from? So, similarly, nothing around us lasts forever.
And yet, we all have an innate longing to live forever and to love forever. Where does this longing come from? This is just as out of place as the desire for a pizza in a child who has nothing in the stimuli which will tell the child about the pizza. So, actually, again, the Gita explains that this longing to live forever and to love forever comes from our spiritual nature.
We are souls and we are parts of the supreme soul. The supreme soul, the infinite consciousness, is an all-attractive, all-loving supreme person. That person is known by different names, different traditions.
The Bhakti Yoga tradition knows that supreme by the name Krishna. So, our longing to love and to be loved, it is ultimately meant to be directed towards the eternal object. And, because Krishna is connected with all living beings, so when we learn to love Krishna, our love extends to everyone.
So, actually, the intelligence is what helps us to find out what will be a truly fulfilling object of love. Now, this is not meant to minimise the relationships we have in this world, but it is meant to contextualise them. Contextualise means that these relationships can be fulfilling to the extent they inspire us on the journey towards our eternal relationship.
So, we all in our relationships will experience some ups and downs. We have a vertical relationship with Krishna, and we have horizontal relationship with others. And, if we seek love only in the horizontal relationships, if there is some up-down that happens, some upheaval that happens, and it will happen, because all of us go through different phases in our life.
When the upheavals come, we will be shaken, we will be shattered. But if we have a vertical relationship with Krishna, that will be our stability. That will be our anchor.
And that will help us to weather the storms that may come because of the ups and downs in our horizontal relationship. So, intelligence means to understand how I can direct my love in a truly fulfilling avenue. And the whole process of Bhakti Yoga is made for this purpose.
Bhakti Yoga is a time-honoured process which enables us to spiritualise our love, to direct our love towards the Supreme, and through the Supreme, towards others. That brings us to F. F is focus. Focus means that, okay, even if I understand that love is what I truly need, I need intelligence to understand that there is Supreme, but what do I do practically? Focus means all of us have to understand what our strengths are, what our weaknesses are, and how best we can contribute.
Otherwise, we may end up, the world is here to come on, do this, do that, try this out. There are so many allurements and propositions that may come either from the advertising industry, from the people around us. Even if they are well-wishing, they may not be doing that which is the best for us, because they may not even know it.
As long as our sense of self-worth comes just from what people think about me, then we cannot actually look within to find out what we are meant to contribute. When we have a sense of security that comes from within, I am an indestructible conscious being, a part of the infinite conscious being, and that infinite loves all of us. Krishna loves everyone of us, no matter what we are right now.
So when that understanding which you get through the bhakti yoga, that gives us security, and with that security, we can focus on what best we can contribute. Otherwise, we are all simply trying to play out various roles which either society has consciously foisted on us, or we have subconsciously adopted in the hope this will make us lovable in the world’s eyes. This will make us look successful.
We all need love, and normally we want to acquire something so that we can get love. We want very good looks, we want wealth, we want a good degree, we want to earn a lot of money. All these things attract love.
But many of the roles that we take up from the outside, they may not be natural to us. And one of the biggest causes of dissatisfaction is that people choose careers, or choose vocations for which they are not at all fit. And I come from India, which is a very educationally conscious country.
People have dreams. Okay, my child should become like this. So, once there was a court case.
The mother and the father went to court. And the father wanted their son to become an engineer. And the mother wanted her son to become a doctor.
And when they went to the court, the judge said, Why do you have to come to the court? Just ask the child. He says, No, we can’t ask the child. Why not? He’s not yet born.
He’s not yet born. Now, that kind of parental pressure may not be there in the western world of the world, but there is peer pressure. And often because of peer pressure, we do many things just so that we look good in people’s eyes.
Now, it’s not that we have to look bad in people’s eyes, but we have to be true to ourselves. And the capacity to focus. What are my strengths? What is my interest? What is it that I would like to contribute? That inner calmness, that inner stability to look within and to discover this.
This doesn’t come as long as we are too dependent on others for our sense of self-worth. The easiest way to become miserable is to try to please everyone. Try to please everyone.
So, we cannot do that. Focus. So, we all have got a particular body-mind machine.
As I said, we are souls and the body and the mind is like a machine for us. And it has certain strengths. Every one of us is meant to contribute in our particular way.
It says that what we are is the infinite’s gift to us. And what we become is our gift to the world. So, what we are is something which we need to understand.
But as long as we are looking outwards for validation by the world, we cannot look inwards to understand what we have. I’ll give an example to this before I move on to the last point. Suppose there is a feast after this programme.
No, suppose there is a feast. But suppose there is a special kind of feast in which everybody had different items in their plate. Now, I have a delicious feast with many delicacies on my plate and you have a delicious feast.
Everybody has a delicious feast with various delicacies. But instead of looking at what is in my plate and savouring that, he’s got that. He’s got that.
Oh, he’s got that. He’s got that. If I keep looking at what everyone else has, the end result would be, although I have a delicious feast, I’ll not be able to relish it.
Because I’m looking elsewhere. So, similar becomes our situation when we don’t focus. Instead of looking at what we have, what we can develop, what is it that we can contribute, we just keep looking around and looking at what is glamorised in society.
And we try to keep craving for that. So, that is an endless chase. Because what is glamorised in society today will be different from what is glamorised tomorrow.
So, when we are not able to focus, we just keep chasing after moving targets. It’s Oscar Wilde who said that fashion is a form of ugliness so unbearable that we have to change it every six months. So, what is fashionable today? Everybody wants to do that.
That becomes old-fashioned in six months. For people who want to be fashionable, there is no insult as unbearable as being called old-fashioned. I am not old-fashioned.
I didn’t spend any amount of money to look fashionable. So, fashion is of course a very gross example of the kind of dress or hairstyle or whatever. But our whole life can become styled or shaped around what is glamorised in society.
And then we will not be able to do what we are meant to do. What we are meant to contribute. So, that is a focus.
If you want to make a living or a life, you have to focus and find out, look within ourselves to find out what our gifts are, what we can contribute. And last E is experience. Experience means that life is meant to be lived in the moment.
Often, our expectations of life come in the way of our life. What do I mean by expectations of our life come in the way of our life? That means we all make certain plans. Okay, this is what I am going to do.
I am going to get this degree. I am going to get this job. I am going to have this relationship.
I am going to move forward in my life. And we all have some kind of script for our life in our mind. And it is good to plan.
It is good to have dreams. At the same time, if life turns out in some other way, then we have to deal with that. Sometimes, if we are too caught in our head and our dreams, we can’t experience life as it is.
We can’t explore life as it is. We can’t do what we could in the present situation. I will explain with another example.
Say, we expected someone. We told someone, please, I am coming here. You get this.
He said, yes, I will get it. And it is very important for us. Now, they forgot to get it.
And some people forget to do things and they forget that they have forgotten to do things also. That is even more infuriating. But suppose, they just forgot.
Now, that thing is important for us. And we have to make some arrangement what to do now. Naturally, we will feel angry, we will feel annoyed, we will feel infuriated.
But just the fact that they did not do it and our getting angry about it, how much does that help us in arranging for it now? Our, we have, this is the reality, this is our expectation. And the greater the gap between the expectation and the reality, the greater is our frustration. Now, yes, our plan is disrupted.
And because our plan is disrupted, so, we will have to recalibrate. We will have to plan, what do I do now? But, quite often, when our expectation is frustrated, we are so caught in resentment and the frustrated expectation that we have no mental energy left to deal with the reality. He should have done that.
She should have done that. How could he have forgotten? How could this have happened? Well, it’s happened. It’s like we, if we, when we live in the mood, experience, that means, that actually, okay, what is the situation right now? Instead of comparing the present situation with my expectation and getting frustrated at the expectation not being right, this is the situation and let me experience it right now.
Otherwise, we are trying to play a role in a drama that has been cancelled. We are going to a place where there is no drama, there is no audience, there is nothing we can do about it. Okay, now another drama has started.
Something else is happening. So, we have to play that role now. So, imagine somebody is rowing in a boat and they practise a lot and they want to exhibit how nicely they row.
And they are in a boat and they are rowing, moving their hands gracefully and suddenly a stormy wave comes and topples the boat and then it knocks the oars also off their hands. Now, they are in the water still they are moving their hands. You have to move your hands but not to swim, not to move the oars.
There is no oar, there is no boat. Meet the reality as it is. So, what happens sometimes when life doesn’t turn out as you expected, we are so frustrated with what has not happened that we fail to experience what has happened.
You say, what is there to experience? This is a terrible thing that has happened. No, it may be terrible right now but there is a higher flag to whatever happens. And if we experience what is happening right now, okay, this has gone wrong but what is the situation right now? If we focus on that situation then we will find that although a door is closed, some other door will open.
There is a higher plan to life. As I said, it’s the infinite consciousness who oversees things. So, yes, things do go wrong and it’s not that we have to imagine bad things are good.
But, bad things do happen but good can come out of the bad things provided we look for the good. Instead of, if we just caught in, why did this happen? Why did this happen? Why was my expectation frustrated? We can’t experience the reality as it is. And especially this experience can become very enriching if we have practised bhakti.
Because what happens, bhakti yoga helps us to raise our consciousness upwards. So, there is, as I said, there is material reality and there is spiritual reality. And most of the times we function at the material level.
But, if we, then, at the material level, our plans are frustrated. At that time, either we can stay frustrated or we can raise our consciousness to the spiritual level. We raise our consciousness to the spiritual level, we’ll experience relief even amidst the problem.
Often, what we demand is that release from the problem. This should not have happened. If it has happened, it should be fixed.
As long as we are demanding release from the problem, we are caught. And we are caught in why our planned movie has not been enacted. How our planned script is not being played out.
But something else is happening. When we are caught in that movie, we cannot play it. We cannot experience that.
So, when we focus on life as it is, there may be pain. There may be distress. But, through that distress, through that frustration, something else will emerge.
Something better will emerge. I’ll conclude with a small experience I had. It’s nothing very big, but when I was 8-10 years ago, I used to travel quite a bit in India.
I got a fracture once. A severe fracture in the same leg in which I had a handicap from early childhood. So, I couldn’t travel.
So, I was in a hospital. And in that hospital, I was giving an online talk to some students in some other place on a spiritual topic. So, I was using Skype for giving that talk.
And then, it was simply an audio talk, not a video talk. So, I got absorbed in speaking and I closed my eyes. And I closed my eyes and continued speaking.
And after 15 minutes, when I opened the eyes, I saw the connection had gone. And I looked around. Where did the connection go? And then I looked at my phone because I was giving a talk.
So, I had kept my phone silent. So, then I looked. There were almost like 25 missed calls there.
And then I saw, it was almost as soon as I closed my eyes, the connection had gone. So, for a few moments, I was just so frustrated. After 15 minutes of a talk, we got wasted.
We were speaking as if nobody is there. And then, after that, I journal sometimes. So, when I was journaling, just writing out his experience, it struck me at that time that actually while I was speaking, I was absorbed.
I was sharing spiritual wisdom. I was savouring that spiritual wisdom. And I was absorbed.
And it is only when I came to know that the audience is not there, that I got frustrated. And from that, I got the idea that actually, for sharing spiritual wisdom, I don’t need an audience. Even if there is no audience, I can speak.
And that’s the time, I started online outreach. I started doing some videos. I did some courses.
I have a couple of websites and YouTube portals where I started. That was about 10 years ago. That time, YouTube and all this was not so common.
So, online outreach was not that common. But at that time, it just opened a new door for me. So, my expectations were frustrated.
When I am speaking, people are hearing. I was frustrated. But, thankfully, somehow, something guided me during the journaling session.
Instead of focussing on the frustration, I focused on the experience. And while the experience was going on, it was not as I had expected. But still, it was satisfying in its own way.
So, for all of us, when our expectation is frustrated, at that time, if we just say, this is not happening, it’s not that we can be happy about it. But, what is happening? What is the positive to experience in this? And if we have that attitude, that every moment in its own is worth experiencing. Is worth experiencing.
And especially if we understand that there is a higher plan. There is a higher plan to life. And that higher plan helps us that whatever we are experiencing, it is not pointless, it is not worthless.
Something positive can come out of it, if we look for the positive. So, this experiencing capacity is increased by meditation. When we do meditation, at that time, we strive to live in the moment.
And not just live in the moment, but live in the moment with some spiritual consciousness. There can be different forms of meditation. We focus on mantra meditation.
So, when we chant the mantras, the mantras are the spiritual stimuli. And when we focus on the sound of the mantra, through music or through singing or through personal reciting, what we are doing is, we are experiencing that sound. And as we experience that sound, we will find that there is a lot of solace, lot of strength, lot of sublime satisfaction that will stream into our being from a higher strata of reality.
And that experience will give us strength to face whatever negativity life may send our way and to pursue the positivity, the positive purposes that we want in our life. And thus, when we learn to experience, we will realise that we are actually, we can live life at every moment. When we have that opportunity to connect with the infinite.
What is the positive thing that I can experience in this? What can I learn from this? How can I contribute in this situation? Every moment can actually become opening of a new door for us. Something which can help us to learn and grow in our life. So in this way, we can all, we have to earn a living but we don’t have to restrict our life to earning a living.
We all can move from earning a living to actually living a life. So I’ll summarise what I spoke today. I spoke on the theme of don’t just live a life, earn a living, make a living, make a life.
I started by talking about how this professor was very successful but he was frustrated in his personal life and committed suicide. So, I talked about an acronym LIFE. Anyone remember what was L? Yeah, LOVE.
So LOVE, talked about how it is LOVE that makes our life worth living. Everybody has something that they love and that’s what they become cheerful. They become vibrant, they become lively when they talk about what they love.
So, it is LOVE that we are all looking for. That’s what drives us. And where does this nature to LOVE come from? Talked about I was INTELLIGENCE.
In INTELLIGENCE I talked about two things that one is where does this loving nature come from? No. Love can’t be quantified. There cannot be any love and yet love is a real experience.
So love comes from a spiritual level of reality. Because we are conscious beings, spiritual beings and we long to love and be loved. So consciousness comes from another strata of reality.
And our loving nature discussed about how a longing to love, not just to love but to love forever. That is out of place in this world. Just like an African child desiring a visa.
That longing to love doesn’t come from the outer world. Longing to love forever doesn’t come from the outer world. It comes from our inner core.
We all are parts of an infinite being. Infinite consciousness. And the perfection of love is for the finite consciousness to love the infinite consciousness.
And that infinite consciousness is an all attractive person, Krishna. And we have a vertical relationship with him and we have a horizontal relationship with others. So whatever ups and downs we experience while seeking love in this world, we can weather that if we are anchored in the vertical loving relationship with Krishna.
And F was? Focus. Focus meant that the world will subconsciously prompt us to do this, buy this, eat this, pursue this. But much of it might be just not who we are or what we are meant to be.
So, we talked about how parental pressure might start even before a child is born. Or peer pressure might just force us to do so many things. But if we have a spiritual self understanding, then we will focus not on what the world is proposing us to do, but focus on what we have been lifted, what we can contribute.
Instead of looking at the delicacies that are in others’ plates, we focus on what is in our plate. Instead of simply trying to do that which is glamorised in the social mirror, we look within and see how best we can contribute. What we are is the infinite gift to us.
What we become is our gift to the infinite. And last P was experience. Means that sometimes life just parts our expectations.
And at that time we are so caught in the movie that was disrupted that we can’t experience life as it is actually. So yes, nobody likes to have their expectations parted. But continuing to just resent that parted expectation or wanting to continue to reenact that role is like rowing when there is no boat and there are no oars.
We have to deal with reality as it is. And although the experience may seem unpalatable, but if we know about life’s spiritual side, we can raise our consciousness to the spiritual level. And then we can experience strength and satisfaction and serenity at the spiritual level even when there is frustration at the material level.
Even if there is no release from the problems at the material level, there can be relief from the problem at the spiritual level. And when we do this, not only can we go through that frustrating situation without too much disruption, but we can look for the positive, that some door may be open and there is a higher plan to life. And if we are open to experience, then every moment can be an opportunity to learn and to grow.
And I conclude that meditation is a powerful way to learn to experience the moment. And when we experience the spiritual sounds that come during meditation, then that sensitises us to experience life from a spiritual perspective. And then we learn to live life from a spiritual, with pursuing spiritual experience, then our life will become constantly beneficial.
And thus we can move from making a living to making a life. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Are there any questions or comments? Yes, please. You spoke about how the evidence for a soul is that no object doesn’t have consciousness, and we have consciousness in our soul. I think we all have a soul, but I also have an impression that everything has some form of consciousness.
You know, objects are all made up of energy and matter, and matter is energy from the universe as well. So, basically my question is, does everything have like a soul, or are we just a higher form of consciousness? I don’t mean like everything. Yeah, good question.
And also the animals obviously have a higher consciousness than objects, but we have a higher consciousness than animals, but we still do not feel animals. Yeah, so, does everything have consciousness, and do we have a higher consciousness? What about animals? At one level, at one level, consciousness is not a monopoly of the humans. Consciousness is present wherever life is present.
So, animals have consciousness, birds have consciousness, plants have consciousness, even microbes have consciousness. So, basically, consciousness, how do we know it is there? There are internal symptoms, there are external symptoms. The internal is what I talk about experience.
A robo can very well do many of the things which human beings do. You can programme a computer, every time you open the computer, the computer may say, I love you. Now, we are not going to think about falling in love with the computer and having a loving relationship.
That’s just a programme. We know that there may be a stimulus and there may be a response, but there is no experience. So, one characteristic of consciousness is there is a stimulus, there is a response, but there is an internal experience.
Now, that internal experience is something which we can say, we don’t know. If you are having experience or not, how do I know? It’s an inference I have to make. And based on how I observe you, how you talk with me, you can infer that I have consciousness, you have consciousness.
But apart from that experiential aspect, when consciousness is present, there is another consequence. That matter where consciousness is present behaves differently from matter where consciousness is not present. Normal matter, we could say, which is matter without consciousness, that basically exhibits three states in its existence.
That is, it is created, it deteriorates and is destroyed. For example is mike. It is created at a particular time, over the period of months or years, it will become deteriorated, one day it will be destroyed.
In contrast, wherever there is soul present, that exhibits not these three, but three more stages. Wherever there is matter with consciousness, it is created one time, but then it grows. Grass grows, microbes grow, we all grow.
Not only we grow, there is maintenance. If my hand is cut, there will be clotting and there will be bloom. If this mike is cut, there will be no clotting, there will be maintenance.
And then there is reproduction. If we like a good phone, we can’t just bring two phones together and make a baby phone. Wherever there is life form, where there is consciousness, there is reproduction.
And then after that, of course, there is deterioration, our bodies will also grow old, and there will be destruction. So the presence of consciousness somewhere can be seen through this. Apart from creation, deterioration, destruction, there is growth, maintenance and reproduction.
So animals definitely have souls. Plants have souls. Microbes have souls.
At the same time, there is matter. For example, mike, this wall, this does not directly have consciousness for which is manifested through it. At another level, we could say that there is consciousness everywhere because it is said that the infinite pervades all of existence.
And the infinite is infinitely conscious. So in that sense, consciousness pervades all of existence. But that infinite consciousness, for us, when we as conscious beings are in a particular body, then we are attached to the body, we are bound to the body.
Whereas the infinite is not bound to anything. So in the sense that the infinite is present everywhere, we could say that everything has consciousness within it. But it is not that everything has a conscious finite being who is embodied within it.
But plants, animals, anything which exhibits life, anything which exhibits consciousness, anything which exhibits growth, reproduction, maintenance, that is where consciousness is definitely present as an embodied individual spark of consciousness. Any other questions? At a practical level, different people perceive, different individuals perceive, focus, experience with a different level of clarity. So it’s not the same for every person.
Theoretically, yes. What do you think? Is karmic baggage or some other reasons exist that different people, different individuals look at them differently? So not everyone has the same level of intelligence or they don’t see things and focus or experience the same way. Yes.
Suppose we have this light. Now, this light, if I cover it with, say, a red film, then the light that will come out will be red. If I cover it with a blue film, the light that will come out will be blue.
Similarly, all of us, we could say, have different sources of light, the source of consciousness. That’s the soul. But the soul is covered over with different impressions, different layers.
And those shape how consciousness comes out. And this shaping happens even in this life. All of us have different upbringings.
So that’s why two people think differently, act differently. But this is not just limited to this life. Because the soul is eternal, the soul has existence before this life.
And the soul has existence after this life. And that’s why children, they’re born often with certain characteristics. I was in London and I was giving a talk on reincarnation.
I have a book on reincarnation also. So there, I was talking, in that book I mentioned about monozygotic twins. When all twins are physically similar.
But monozygotic twins means there’s one zygote which splits into two. And then two people are born. They are genetically not just similar but identical.
And yet, they are, these two genetically identical people are also different. They have the same genes, they have the same upbringing, same parents. Still they are different.
They have different moods, different personalities. So when I was in London, I was talking about this, and then one person in the audience, he raised his hand and said that, I’m a monozygotic twin. I said, I’m spiritual, my twin is not at all spiritual.
I’m introvert, he’s extrovert. I couldn’t understand why we are different. So there is this difference which comes also from previous lives.
So basically, whatever actions we do, they also cause impressions within us. And those impressions are embedded in the subtle body, in the covering on the soul, basically. And that is what shapes our perception.
So because of that, all of us have different capacities to analyse intellectually, to focus, or to experience. Still, no matter how many impressions are present in us, beyond it all, we remain souls. And whatever impressions are there, they can be countered.
If they are unhealthy, their influence can be transcended. And if they are positive influences, they can be channel constructed. But the individuality, or the variety in our particular personalities, or especially our different capacity to pursue spirituality, or pursue life itself, that is because of the different impressions that are there on the soul.
Okay? Any other questions? You mentioned this video call that you did from the hospital. It wasn’t quite what you expected it to be when you lost the connection. And then you mentioned that you picked up your journal and you wrote about it, and that there was a shift happening, and that you could refocus on the present, let’s say.
Is there something that we enact by gaining more clarity on the situation and perhaps raising our consciousness and making space? You can say, or is there something that also comes from, let’s say, a highest level? Yeah, okay. So, if we are to experience life in a different way, how does that happen? Is there something we can do to experience it in a higher, different way? Or is it something that comes from some higher strata? Is that the question? Yeah. So, it works both ways.
Sometimes, even, for example, in science, many of the major breakthroughs happen through inspiration. And Gauss was a prominent mathematician, in electrical engineering, and he came up with certain equations for electrical engineering around the 1850s. He just didn’t know where they came from.
He couldn’t have a mathematical proof for those equations, but they worked. And scientists all over the world started using them. Then he died, and several decades after he died, then the mathematical proof for those equations worked.
He asked, where did you get it? He says, I got it. Sometimes when we say, I got an idea. If you think about the way we are saying it, I got an idea.
So, when I got, that means somebody gave. How did I get that idea? Sometimes some thoughts just come well-formed within us. This is the answer.
So, as I said, there is an infinite consciousness which is present everywhere. So, that infinite consciousness is also present within us. And sometimes we get insights, inspiration.
So, that top-down revelation is also possible. Sometimes we are going through some situation, and suddenly we get an insight which shifts the perspective. If we get it, that’s wonderful.
At the same time, we can also, that may not always come. So, we need to ourselves also recalibrate. So, there is Somerset Maugham was a famous writer, Nobel laureate writer.
So, he was asked, do you write only when you are inspired or do you write daily? He said, I write daily at 9 a.m. and make sure that inspiration arrives at 9 a.m. Now, what that means is, obviously, we can’t command inspiration to come, but we can prepare the ground for it. So, if we try to cultivate a receptive consciousness, if we do regular spiritual practises, meditation, study of spiritual books like the Bhagavad Gita, then that makes our consciousness more spiritually receptive. And then, that, not only can we receive that higher insight faster, but also we can perceive ourselves, this could be seen this way, this could be seen this way.
The more we are the more we are consumed by a particular experience, the more we cannot rise above it and look at it. So, both are required. Sometimes we need absorption, so that we can do a thing fully.
But sometimes we also have to look out from outside perspective to see how things are going on. So, that capacity comes by our spiritual practises. So, some things like journaling or just doing some introspection on a regular basis, looking at our own lives, looking at our day, all this, what it does is basically we are going through life, but we look at ourselves from outside perspective.
This is what is happening. So, there is often a focus on living in the moment, which is true, but you know sometimes we can get so caught in the moment that we are actually not living in the moment, we are living in the mind’s movie about the moment. We think I am living in the moment, I think I am talking with someone, but I am not talking with that person, thinking this person is like this, like this, we are lost.
So, if we just distance ourselves, what am I doing? So, that helps us. I find three questions very helpful for cultivating self-awareness. What am I doing? Why am I doing? And how am I doing? So, just asking ourselves these questions, it helps us recalibrate, because we may start off doing something very systematically, but then suddenly I am going to get distracted.
What am I doing? If I am having a conversation with someone, I am having a conversation with this person. Why am I having this conversation? Sometimes you start talking with some people, you want to deal with one issue, but suddenly something else comes up, something else comes up, and then this goes on a rambling track. Why am I doing this? How am I doing this? I am getting annoyed.
So, this capacity to look at ourselves is something which is a special endowment which we have, but we often don’t use. So, if we learn to look at ourselves from outside perspective, and these questions help in that, then that can also help us to experience life from a different, fresher perspective. Thank you.
Any other questions? When you went on your spiritual path, I guess, when you can sort of separate yourself from sort of social and cultural conditioning, I am wondering if, you know, because in terms of consciousness, all of a sudden you are freed from sort of these frameworks, and you can act more in accordance with your own sort of being in a much more direct way. So, I guess, did how you act and see the world completely sort of transform when you went on that sort of journey and were separated? So, yeah. So, when I went on my spiritual journey, was it a sudden dramatic shift in the framework in which I lived, the way I look at the world? I wouldn’t say it was some one sudden moment of transformation.
It was a gradual growth, but there were a couple of defining incidents. One of them was that I always, as I said, India is a land of academic pressure, academic achievement. So, one of my dreams was, I wanted to be the, in India, the word is topper.
Topper means number one. And I was always a good student. I was always among the top rankers.
I was never the first. I was sometimes second, sometimes third, sometimes joined first, but never the first. So, that was one of my frustrated dreams.
And then, when I was studying my engineering, I gave GRE for going to America. And I loved English since my childhood. So, many times Indians struggle in English.
So, I gave GRE. At that time, it was about 2400. I got 2350.
So, I was not just first in my college. I was first in the history of my college. I was first in the whole state of Maharashtra, which has several million people in it.
And, I was on top of the world. I said, all my dreams have come true now. And then, after some time, I realised that just looking at the mark sheet doesn’t give much pleasure.
It is when people come and congratulate, that gives pleasure. And somehow, it happened at that time that three of my friends forgot to congratulate. First person forgot.
Okay. Now, it’s not that they had any bad intention. Everybody knows it.
What’s the big deal? So, second person, it happened. Third time, it happened. At that time, somehow, I sort of saw myself from outside.
And I said, wait a minute. When third time it happened, I was annoyed. Why is he not congratulating me? Doesn’t he know what I have achieved? When I was feeling agitated like that, it just struck me.
I thought that becoming a topper will make me happy. But actually, it has made me more dependent for my happiness on others. Earlier, I could just interact with people, talk with them and go on.
But now, I am so dependent on them. They have to congratulate me. Otherwise, I get agitated.
So, is this really the way to happiness? I might achieve something special in future and something more. But will that really lead to happiness? So, that’s when I started thinking that happiness has to come from within. Certainly, we have relationships and we would like to be appreciated by others.
But our sense of happiness can’t be dependent entirely on external things. That’s when I started exploring the spiritual side much more. So, that was one formative incident which made me look inwards for happiness.
Another was that since my childhood, I had a lot of faith in the power of education. So, I liked teachers. I thought they were a noble profession.
And when I was in college, I joined a social welfare organisation which used to go to slums near my college and offer free tuition classes to the poor kids who were there in the slums. And then, I was teaching English, History, Maths. So, as I was teaching these things, I became friends with those kids.
And I found most of them came from dysfunctional families. Their fathers were alcoholics. There was domestic violence in their homes.
I started feeling that am I really helping them by just teaching them some English, Maths and subjects like this? So, at that time, our organisation decided to diversify into anti-intoxication, anti-alcoholism campaign. One of my friends took up a small village and along with a group of other friends. So, I used to go to slums.
He used to go to that village. And over a period of months, they actually made the whole village free of alcohol. Small village it was.
And similarly, some of the people to whom I was interacting, we encouraged them to… We got in some professional on a few occasions. But it was just talking with them, encouraging them. We helped them to become free from alcohol.
That was considered a big achievement. And then one day, or one evening, my friend came back from that village. I had come back from the slums.
And he looked shattered. I said, what happened? He said, the previous week, there had been the local elections in the village. And one of the political candidates, in order to woo the voters, had brought three truckloads of free alcohol for everyone.
And not only the fathers, but also their kids had drunk. So, at that time, I thought that we may inspire people, we may educate people, we may inspire them to change, but there has to be some change that has to happen within. Without that, there cannot be sustainable transformation.
I felt that my efforts to help people were like pouring water in a leaking bucket. I was doing my best, but people just couldn’t receive that help. So, therefore, it was at that time I started looking for what could transform people internally.
And I was not just talking about people out there. I knew I also needed to be transformed. I, in my youth, was infamous as a very short-tempered person.
Wild with anger. And that’s when when both these incidents happened, I got in touch with the Bhagavad Gita. At that time, I started studying it.
I started practising bhakti yoga. And I found that my anger went down substantially. And then I felt, this is transforming me.
One of my friends was a roommate. So, he was just at that time getting into alcohol. And then he also started practising bhakti and just gave up that habit.
So, I felt, this is what can transform. So, this is how I can contribute. So, after I passed out, after I… Actually, in India, pass out means graduation.
When I spoke this in America, I passed out. What happened? He passed out. Why did he pass out? Pass out means… I realised it means to fall unconscious.
So, anyway, after I graduated, I worked in a software company for some time. But then I felt that I could contribute much more by sharing spiritual knowledge. So, I would say, it was not a radical rejection of the past.
It was more of a progression. Certainly, for my parents, it was a little difficult to accept it at that time. But over a period of years, we’ve seen that ultimately, parents are our well-wishers.
And they… At that time, my father felt as if I was wasting my life. So, he was very upset. But then over a period of years, he saw that I was writing books and I was contributing constructively.
Now, I am travelling to various parts of the world and speaking. So, he is quite happy with what I am doing now. So, I would say that there is some amount of rejection that is involved.
But it’s not just a rejection. It’s more of a progression. We have certain understanding and from that understanding, we evolve upwards.
There are certain misunderstandings which we do have to give up. But spiritual life is more of a progression from where we are not a rejection of who we are. Yeah.
I would say elevation of values. So, thank you very much for your attention and for your participation in Question and Answers. Hare Krishna.
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