Make your own destiny 1

Seminar at ISKCON, Chowpatty

PPT

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
I will bring your dinner. Hare Krishna.
So, I welcome all of you today and the next three days, two days, seminar series on Making Our Own Destiny. So, today, I will discuss in broad contours the concept of the destiny and its implications and we will have a lot of question and answers. So, if you have any of your questions, I will be stopping periodically during the course of the seminar and we will have question and answers and we will move forward at a pace that will largely determine how much question and answers we have.
And in the future talks, I will go deeper into the specifics of certain aspects of destiny that I will be discussing in broad contours today. Now, one of the easiest ways in which we can relate to the concept of destiny is by looking at something which is very much in the popular cultural imagination today and that is sports. So, few things captivate people’s imagination and attention as it is the sports news.
Now, while while there are various levels at which we can look at sports. One is, of course, the commercialisation of sports and the sheer glamorisation of sports which often goes disproportionate which often goes to excessive proportions. But another level what attracts people to sports is, of course, spectator sports offer entertainment but sports offer us an amplified microcosm of life.
Microposm of life means the kind of forces we face or we hope that we will face and emerge victorious. We will perform, we will have character, we will have grit. So, what we would like to do we project on our favourite sports stars and favourite sports team and try to hope and delight in their successes or we are devastated in their failures.
So, at one level, sports is basically a vicarious or a second-hand experience of life through the way others are experiencing life, the sports persons. Now, within this on the sports field, performance matters. It definitely, if say, cricketers, the most popular sports right now in India.
So, now, if you look at cricket, the way a batsman bats, or the way a bowler bowls, the way a fielder catches, whatever it is, the performance of a team matters. And sometimes, say, some players may just choke under pressure or they may excel under pressure. And by a little right or wrong performance, a whole match that is on the verge of being lost may be won by one splendid performance or by one poor performance, a match that is about to be won may be lost.
Now, so, performance undoubtedly matters. And yet, if we observe sports carefully, we will also recognise that there are situations in sports where factors beyond individual performance or individual capacity to perform, they come into play. And, so, performance matters, but performance is not all that matters.
So, for example, say, if we consider cricket, now sometimes the pitch is, cricket pitch may be such that, you know, batting second on that pitch may be very easy, or sometimes batting second may be very difficult. So, then, it’s not the performance alone that matters, the toss matters a lot. And the toss is an example of something which is not in human control.
So, we see these two forces in action in our lives also, as we see in sports. We see that our performance, the way we act, the way we conduct ourselves, the way we do things, that matters. But, there are things beyond our control also, which also matter.
And, this has to be very carefully understood. Sometimes when we talk about destiny, and sometimes when we talk about, say, the unchangeability of destiny, then, that leads to a particular doctrine called as fatalism. Fatalism is not related with fatality, which is a casualty or a death.
Fatalism is related with fate. So, the ideology which holds that fate is supreme, that nothing ultimately is in our control, everything is destined, that is called as fatalism. And, the idea of fatalism can make people unnecessarily passive.
And, this can often be exploited by people who are cynical. So, for example, we know that when the European colonisation started, so, the Protestants, basically the Protestants and Catholics were fighting in Europe, and they divided the world into two parts, basically. The Catholics went towards the West, and the Protestants came towards the East.
So, the Catholic missionaries, they went to Spain, mainly from Spain, mainly from Spain, Italy, Portugal. They went to the Americas, especially South America. So, there, now, all these colonisers who came, usually the number of forces they had was limited.
Thereafter, after all, invaders, the natives were far bigger in number, whichever place they were in. So, they often had to use trickery in order to win. So, one of the most formidable tribes in South America, they were not ready to submit to the colonial control.
And now, here, it was a complex web of theopolitics. Theopolitics means religion and politics all combined together. So, there, some of the Catholic priests, they penetrated into these tribes, and they penetrated on humanity and peace, and then they learned that in this South American tribe, they had a myth, or a legend, whatever you want to say, which went back for millennia.
And that was that on a particular day, at a particular time, when the constellation was in a particular way, as per astrology, when things were in a particular way, if an army would attack at that time, they would be defeated. And in the 17th century, early 17th century, more or less, so, these Catholic missionaries, they learned this, they learned the language, and after they learned the language, they learned that this is the time, they have this legend, that if an army attacks, then they will be defeated. So, they sent a message to the Spanish troops.
And the Spanish army, it was a very small contingent, but they came charging in exactly at that time. And when they came in at that time, these tribals, they, oh, that’s prophecy, our doom has come. And they just gave up.
They capitulated at that time, and they lost the war, although in martial terms, there could not have been any chance of their losing the war. So, the point is, the idea of predestination, of the idea that everything is distinct from the power, or by factors beyond one’s control, that idea can make people passive, and aggressive people can, in a very cynical way, exploit this. So, the Vedic understanding of the nature of reality, especially as explained in the Bhakti tradition, it is not fatalism.
It is not predestination. So, I’ll talk about some examples from the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, and the Bhagavatam to illustrate this. So, the point which I’m going to make first is that destination, here by destination I mean predestination.
So, normally we use the word destination for, say, if I’m travelling from one place to another, so what is my destination? That is the word we use for talking about how we may go from one place to another. So, but, when the destination is prefixed with the word pre, then predestination means where we are going to go, or what is going to happen. That is called as predestination.
So, here, the relationship between the word destination and predestination is interesting, which I’ll come to in a minute, but here, probably the more accurate word would be predestination. So, predestination is the idea that our destination in life is fixed. It’s not in our control that these things are going to happen no matter what we do.
So, in the Bhagavatam, in the tenth canto, there is the story of Vasudeva and Devaki. They were going on a chariot after their marriage. The bridal procession was marching in full elegance.
And Kamsa, out of his affection for his cousin sister, Devaki, was drawing the chariot. And at that time, suddenly, a celestial prophecy came to the sky. Kamsa, you fool, you are carrying the one who is going to carry in her womb the eighth child who will kill you.
As soon as Kamsa heard this, the complete world effaced. He was not just physically turned around from head to behind, but emotionally also turned around. The one for whom he was going to be a protector and benefactor, now he was out to become her murderer.
He caught her by the hair and raised his sword to lop off her head. Actually, even in killing, beheading is considered to be a very brutal way of killing. So, man, especially to behead a woman, that was unthinkable.
So then, at that time, immediately, Vasudev starts speaking. Now Vasudev is just married to his wife and he has… Actually, if we see from the point of view of affection, Vasudev’s relationship is just forming with Devaki. Whereas Kamsa, then they have been related since childhood.
And yet, all that relationship for Kamsa just evaporated. Then he felt that, I want to be killed by her. Now Vasudev, what was his attitude? He talked about various reasonings he gave.
Why Kamsa should not kill. And one of the reasoning that he gave is, he told Kamsa, ultimately, destiny is supreme. If you are going to die, then killing Devaki is not going to avoid your death.
It’s interesting that Vasudev didn’t turn the argument around and think, if Devaki is going to die, my argument with Kamsa is not going to help. Why didn’t he think like that? If the sword of destiny could have cut both ways. So what was his reasoning that because of which he used the argument of destiny for stopping Kamsa but he did not let the argument of destiny stop himself? The reason is, that will be elaborately our discussion in tomorrow’s class, but here I’ll just briefly mention it, that the notion of destiny has to be complemented with the notion of duty.
That there is destiny and there is duty. So for us, our decisions are to be based primarily on what is our duty. Not on what is destiny.
So now, in this case, Kamsa was not only forgetting his duty, he was actually brutally doing something that was, you could say, the anti-duty. It was probably the worst form of anti-duty that somebody could do. So it was, Vasudev tells him, explains to him elaborately, and the commentators elucidated his words further, and actually it was a horrendous action for a Kshatriya warrior to even physically attack a woman, what to speak of killing a woman, that was unthinkable, unconscionable.
And what to speak of, not just any woman, one’s own sister. And what to speak of, not just one’s own sister, actually to attack and want to kill one’s own sister at the time of her marriage. Each of these would have been enough, any one of these reasons would have been enough to stop any other person from doing such action.
Even if we have some quarrel with someone, you know, somebody’s birthday is there, somebody’s marriage is there, at that time, we don’t explode in quarrel with them. Now even if we have quarrel, we put it aside and some other time we can settle this. This is a woman for celebration.
So at such a time, for Kamsa to act in such a way meant that he had completely lost track of what his duty was. So, now if in the hope of gaining something, or in the hope of avoiding something, hope of gaining something desirable or avoiding something undesirable, in such a hope, if somebody starts giving up duty, at that time, destiny can be used as an argument to remind them of their duty. On the other hand, for Vasudev, his concern was what is my duty? So, he knew at that time that he could not fight with Kamsa and succeed.
Multiple reasons, Kamsa was, he was benedicted in various ways because of which he was a formidable, almost unstoppable warrior. More than that, they were more or less in Kamsa’s territory. Usually, marriages happen at the place where the bride comes from.
So, it was in Kamsa’s territory. And there, for him to fight against Kamsa and stop him would have been difficult. And more importantly, there were other ladies also were there in the procession.
Everybody, the whole royal family was there. And he didn’t want bloodshed to happen which would lead to indiscriminate violence against anyone and everyone. So, Vasudev, he knew that his duty as a warrior was to protect his wife.
But he realised I cannot do this duty by fighting. Therefore, he chose to fight with logic and reasoning. And, in the reasoning, one reasoning he uses is of destiny.
So, often, debating with people is also like fighting. It is fighting and Vasudev chose to fight in defence. At any philosophical point, it is a weapon.
Any ideological point, any philosophical point, it’s a weapon. And the weapon can be used for good, it can be used for bad. So, the knowledge of destiny, of things being predestined, that can be used to get people to do the right thing as Vasudev was trying to do with Kamsa.
Or, the knowledge of destiny or the argument based on destiny can be cynically used to get people to do the wrong things. Or, it can be used to rationalise one’s own wrongdoing. So, now, today we live in an ethos where most people tend to think that everything is in my hands.
And we will discuss more about this. But even a little conduct of life can show us that yes, we can make a lot of difference, but there are a lot of things in which we can’t make a difference. And the idea that everything is in one’s control can lead to a whole set of psychological problems, which I will be discussing more in a later talk.
But right now, we will be focussing on the point that yes, there is destiny. The knowledge of destiny has to be properly understood. So, predestination is no rationalisation for inaction.
One shouldn’t think that because everything is destined, so I don’t have to do anything. Now, so, for example, if a student has an exam, and the student doesn’t study for the exam, doesn’t study at all for the exam, and after that the student says, the parents say you have to study for the exam. Now, whatever is going to happen in destiny, that’s going to happen.
If the student says that, then, the point is this is the same argument that Dhritarashtra used in the Mahabharata while talking with Vidura. So, before the war started, before the war was going to take place, various levels of peace negotiations happened. Actually, three levels of negotiations happened.
First, the Pandavas, they were allied with Drupada, and actually at that time, the Panchala kingdom and the Kuru kingdom, they were the two most formidable kingdoms over there. Many other kingdoms were strong, but these two were the strongest. And that’s why initially, Duryodhana and the Kauravas’ plan was to dispossess the Pandavas of everything.
And that’s how they sent them to Varanavata and tried to have them burnt alive. But, the whole order changed when Arjuna got the hand of Drupada. Because once Arjuna got the hand of Drupada, that means he was allied with the powerful Panchalas.
And once he was allied with the powerful Panchalas, Dhritarashtra knew he can’t mess around with the Panchalas. So, the Pandavas themselves were powerful, but allied with the Panchalas, they would have been unstoppable. So, now again, just before the Kurukshetra war took place, at that time the Pandavas wanted to send a message of peace, but send a message of peace in unambiguous, strong terms.
So, they sent the priest of Drupada as a messenger. That means, they sent through the message, the unspoken message, the subtext was there. Drupada, his own royal priest if he is coming, that means Drupada has full backing for the Pandavas.
So, they sent the first. Then Sanjaya heard about, sorry, Dhritarashtra heard the message and then he sent Sanjaya. And basically, at that time when he sent Sanjaya, his argument was very cynical again.
He said, Oh Yudhishthira, ultimately, even if you are a grahastha, we have to become vanaprastha. And the world, whatever we have, we have to renounce that. You are so fortunate, you already did vanaprastha.
Why do you want to become a grahastha? Why do you want to fight to return to a lower order of life? So, actually, at that time, it’s quite a fascinating dialogue. But while this is happening, so then, of course, they send back the message. It was a fitting reply.
And Sanjaya actually, initially when Dhritarashtra goes, Sanjaya is quite impressed by Dhritarashtra’s arguments. But when the Pandavas reply, Sanjaya actually takes the role like a, almost like a chastiser of Dhritarashtra, very respectfully. But still, he chides him at that time.
And at that time, after that, Krishna himself comes. So, during this period, at that time, Vidura is trying to make Dhritarashtra see sense. And Vidura tells Dhritarashtra that if you don’t stop your evil son from antagonising the Pandavas, then the resulting war will cause the destruction of the entire Guru dynasty.
And you, by your passivity, will be responsible for that. Dhritarashtra doesn’t want to listen to Vidura. So, he tries to rationalise.
And he says, oh Vidura, if it is the will of almighty destiny that the Guru dynasty will be destroyed, then who am I, a tiny mortal, to stop the will of almighty destiny? So, at that time, Vidura cuts through the self-serving rationalisation of Dhritarashtra through words that are vital in understanding the interplay of destiny and activity. He says, destiny determines the consequences of our actions, not our actions themselves. Destiny determines the consequences of our actions, not our actions themselves.
That means, what he is telling Vidura is, Vidura says to Dhritarashtra, yes, it may be that, even if you stop Duryodhana, still there might be a war and then the Guru dynasty might be destroyed. But, destiny is not forcing you to support Duryodhana. Or, going back to the student example, the student says, whatever you are saying is going to happen.
Yes, destiny determines the result after you go to study and give your exam. Destiny doesn’t determine whether you study for the exam or not. This brings us to the difference, which I will explore again more in the future class, between detachment and irresponsibility.
Now, what is the difference between being detached and being irresponsible? There are various aspects to it, but one difference, primary difference from our analytical perspective is that detachment is after the action. Irresponsibility is before the action. That means, after the student has studied for the exam and given the paper, then constantly worrying, how much marks will I get? How much marks will I get? That worry, don’t do like that.
Detached. So, after we have done our action, to not be emotionally obsessed about what is not in our control, that is detachment. Whereas, irresponsibility means, before the action only, I don’t do my part.
So, irresponsibility is never rationalised, never supported. And that’s why in the famous verse, कर्मन्यवाधिकारस्ते माफलेषु कदाचेन, the last part is, माकर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्, माते संगोस्त्वकर्मणी. So, 2.47 in the Bhagavad Gita states that, this verse has actually four parts, out of which usually only first line, one fourth is quoted.
कर्मन्यवाधिकारस्ते, you have a right to do your work. माफलेषु कदाचेन, do not be attached to the fruits of the work. You do not have a right to the fruits of the work.
माकर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्, do not think that you are the cause of the result of your work. माते संगोस्त्वकर्मणी, do not be attached to not doing your work. Now, to understand this, the point is, destiny, after we do our action, destiny determines the consequences of our actions.
Destiny doesn’t determine our actions themselves. If destiny was going to determine the actions themselves, then the whole, not just from our normal conduct point of view, even from scripture point of view, scripture itself would become meaningless. Because often scripture gives us guidelines.
Do like this, don’t do like this. But if everything is destined, if even our own actions are destined, then what is the point of scripture telling do this or don’t do this. Krishna says, नश्रोष्यसी वि नंश्यसी He says, in 18.58 he says, if you become conscious of me, you will pass over all obstacles by my grace.
If you don’t become conscious of me, then you will be lost. So here, Krishna is clearly telling Arjuna, you have a choice. यथा इच्छसि तथा करू In 18.63, 5 verses later he says, as you desire, so you do.
That means, you have a choice. So the whole concept of destiny does not mean that we all are like puppets with nothing in our control. It does not mean that.
So one extreme as I said is to consider that everything is in our control. The other extreme is to think that there is nothing in our control. So the idea that everything is in our control is called in Vedic parlance as कर्मवाद कर्म is action and everything is in my hands.
That is the idea which is prominently present in today’s world. And the other extreme is fatalism which in Vedic parlance is called as दैववाद So कर्मवाद and दैववाद कर्मवाद is everything is in my hands दैववाद is nothing is in my hands. However, the reality is continue this example that the reality is कर्म and दैव both play a role in bringing about the फल.
So to put it in a simplified mathematical form, कर्म plus दैव plus काल leads to फल. कर्म, दैव, काल then from these three combined we get the फल. फल is the fruit.
Simple example to illustrate this. How these three produce the result. Consider a farmer who is desiring a harvest.
A rich harvest. Now in this case the farmer is ploughing the land and sowing the seeds. This is the farmer’s responsibility.
That is the कर्मवाद. Now after the farmer has sown the seeds, ploughed the land, now after that the rains have to come. The rains have to come in a timely manner in an appropriate quantity.
That is the दैववाद, the destiny. That is something which is not in the farmer’s control. After that, when both of these work out fine, the farmer ploughs the land and sows the seed, when the rains come properly, then काल, time has to pass.
Then by that the seeds will grow, germinate and the फल, the harvest will appear. So कर्म plus दैव plus काल leads to फल, the fruit. Now here if we see in any action, for example, for students, studies have to be done.
After studies are done, yes, even with the best of studies, sometimes the student may fall sick before the exam or sometimes something might come in the exam, the student may prepare everything but one part the student doesn’t prepare, that’s what comes in the exam. Or sometimes the student prepares but the examiner has fought with his spouse before the exam, before checking the paper. So hundreds of things can go wrong.
In cricket, the bowler may bowl a very good ball or the fielder may card a very good catch but then after the card they find the bowler has bowled a no-goal. So now even after we do our कर्म, there are things which are beyond our control. That is the दैव पार्ट.
And then there is the काल. काल means a student gives the exam and after the student does the well-well also, the results don’t come immediately. They vary.
The magnitude of the काल that will pass between the कर्म and the फल, that will vary in different situations. But the काल does play a significant role and we cannot expect results immediately. So now the idea that there is no destiny, it removes the aspect of दैव.
So कर्म will lead to फल. If I just study, if I work, then I am going to get the results. And nobody is going to stop me.
This idea is often valorised in today’s popular imagination. And certainly there is no rationalisation for lethargy or irresponsibility or apathy that can be drawn from the Vedic philosophy. But if there is too much focus on the idea that our actions alone determine the results, then despite our best actions, best in the circumstances, despite our efforts and the results don’t come, at that time the effect on one’s morale can be enormously crushing.
Failure is always an event. Failure is never a person. Failure is an event that can happen in a person’s life.
But it is not that because of that event, if we think every result that comes in my life, that is a statement about who I am. Then we start taking everything very personally. And when we take that, we become extremely emotionally vulnerable.
We become extremely insecure. And this is one of the major reasons of people having enormous amount of psychological problems today. Of course, there is a lot of factors involved.
There is stress involved. There is the uncertainty of life involved. So psychological problems are complex.
But one important factor there is that when we don’t understand our proper place in the overall scheme of things, when we don’t understand our proper place in the overall scheme of things, when we think that we alone determine all the results, then when we don’t get the results, we start feeling that I am worthless. But that’s not true. Even if we tried something and the result didn’t come, that the past results don’t take away our capacity to make present efforts.
So we always have the capacity to work, to strive, to do what we can, to move towards achievement, towards contribution. So the karmavata can also become, karmavata will excessively emphasise the idea that everything is in my hands, that can cause a lot of psychological damage. And the other extreme also is there, if I think that everything is destined, nothing is in my hands, that can also cause damage.
That can make people unduly passive. So going forward, let’s look at an example from the, yeah, this is something which I will elaborate. I’ll just mention this briefly.
And the whole principle of karma and how it works, I’ll be talking in a later class. But I’ll just mention these terms over here. And I’ll explain them more in detail tomorrow.
What exactly is destiny? See destiny is not that there is some evil power somewhere up there, who is out to make us fail. Sometimes people say that the world is against me, maybe God is against me. Or there is something that is against me.
There is no inimitable power out there to crush us. What we call as destiny is essentially this. Destiny is the aggregate of the reactions to our past actions delivered to us according to a higher plan.
Destiny is the aggregate of reactions to our past actions. Every action that we have, we do according to the principle of karma, there is a reaction to that. And these reactions do not necessarily come about immediately.
The reactions often get accumulated. And when they get accumulated, that accumulated content, it comes to us later at various times. So the aggregate of the reactions to our past actions, that comprises our destiny.
And that destiny unfolds in various ways. So when that is delivered to us according to a higher plan, that is called destiny. It is said, the Bhagavatam says, our own karma, that comes to us but means under divine supervision.
Netra is eyes and under the vision, supervision, overseeing, under supervision of higher power, higher intelligence, the results come upon us. So now here, there is within destiny, there are these four different kinds of karma. So there is Sanchit Karma.
Sanchit is basically accumulated karma. So to understand this, let us consider a simple example. Suppose there is a water tank, a big water tank.
And there is one pipe which brings water inside the water tank. And there is another pipe which takes water out of the water tank. Usually say the water that goes out, that is below.
The water that comes in is from above. So now, the actions that we are doing right now, they are also going to create reactions. And they are also going to make our future destiny.
So the actions that we are doing right now and the reactions that come to that, they are like the water coming into the tank. They are like the water coming into the tank. And whatever actions that we have done in the past, the cumulative of that, some of it is coming upon us.
So the things that are happening to us right now, they are like the water coming out of the tank. So we might just be going through life in a normal way and suddenly we find that we have an accident on the road or suddenly we find that some germ infects us and we get an accident. Or there is some misunderstanding and suddenly small misunderstanding just snowballs into a big relationship problem.
All these things happen. So this is basically the reactions to our past actions which are coming to us. So destiny is not in that sense something which is absolutely fossilised eternally.
Destiny itself is fluid. It’s fluid. Fluid means what we are doing right now is contributing to our destiny and what we are enduring right now is also exhausting our destiny.
So in that sense, destiny is dynamic. It is not frozen. So there is Sanchit Karma is the total accumulated karma that we have.
All the water that is there in the tank, that is like the Sanchit Karma. Now within that, there is the Kriyaman Karma. Kriyaman Karma means that is the water that is going inside.
The Kriya that we are doing right now that is contributing to our future the reaction the things that are going to happen in our life in the future. That is adding to the karmic stockpile that is our destiny. So that is the Kriyaman Karma.
Then the Prarabdha and Prarabdha Karma. So Prarabdha Karma means that which is the technical terms and again I will go into the details but broadly to explain over here. Prarabdha Karma basically means that there is a certain amount of karma that is more or less going to come to us whatever we do.
So for example, say somebody is born with a sickly body or somebody is born in a poor family. Somebody is born with some people are born with fabulous looks some people are not born with such great looks. Now this, the body that we have and the body institution that we have that is like a vehicle in which we have to travel.
And this vehicle we can tinker with it a little bit but we can’t change it entirely. The physical vehicle that we have the material vehicle that we have for going in this world that brings with it a certain consternation a certain gamut of strengths and limitations. And that determines certain things which we can do and which we can’t do.
At a very graphic level once we have a human body we are souls that’s one of the basic teachings of Bhagavad Gita. The soul is different from the body. The soul can go to through different bodies.
So once the soul comes in a human body then the human body means that we cannot survive in water the way the aquatics can survive. We cannot fly in the sky with the same natural ease with which birds can fly. So this is a basic limitation of the body.
Now we can say develop submarines or ships or we can develop planes and helicopters whatever by which we may be able to do certain things. But the same naturality with which certain boys can do certain things we may not be able to do that. So there is certain things which come just by having a particular kind of body.
Having in a particular kind of situation. So for example if certain people are born in a particular part of the world, their skin pigment is of a particular colour. So people born in India have a particular kind of skin pigment.
People born in Africa have a different skin pigment. People born in America they have a different skin pigment. Now people may try to do plastic surgery to change things a little bit here and there.
But basically that is the way we have got a certain thing. So that is the prarabdha. So once we get the bodily vehicle, certain things come fixed with that.
A prarabdha means, this is more or less like a weather forecast. Weather forecast means that the weather tells us, okay today it is going to rain. Now we can’t change the rain.
But if we know it is going to rain, we can prepare for it. We may decide that I may not go out. Or I may go out with a raincoat or an umbrella.
So by knowing some things we can prepare for it and we can better deal with it. So a prarabdha, broadly speaking, these words are complex and I am giving very skeletal understanding of these words right now. But there are certain things which are destined to happen to us.
But our response is not fixed. Our response can be changed. So for example, with respect to a prarabdha, if you want to look at it.
Some people, they have very delicate digestive systems. Just a little eating imbalance. Maybe a little too oily or too spicy or too salty or whatever.
And then, it is like an earthquake happens inside their stomach. They just can’t tolerate it. There are other people who treat their tongue like a conveyor belt.
They eat all kinds of things and they eat a lot. They eat heavy items and still nothing seems to happen to them. So why is there a difference like this? Yeah, this is, as I said, different people’s bodies are different.
And just like some people have these allergies. Some people may have some allergy to a particular thing. Some people hear their grinding sound, they can’t tolerate it.
Some people see spiders, they can’t tolerate it. So, now these are just, the body is wired in such a way that certain things bring certain excessive reactions. So, this is to some extent unavoidable.
But, the reaction may be unavoidable, but a circumstance is not necessarily unavoidable. It’s like, if there is rain, I am going to get wet. And if I get wet, say, if I have respiratory tract problems, then I may get respiratory tract infections.
So, the reaction may not be unavoidable for me, but whether I get into circumstance itself, that I can control to some extent. So, that way, I can minimise the trouble that I might get into. Similarly, if I understand that, okay, I have a weak digestive system, then if I am more watchful about my diet, then the complications that come, that will be much lesser for me.
So, this is where our initiative comes in, even when certain things are going to happen, within that, we can minimise the reactions that we get to them. So, that’s why, as I said, destiny is fluid. Destiny is not something which is frozen.
It is fluid in terms of we are ourselves creating our destiny right now, by the actions that we are doing, and even whatever is going to come upon us, with the magnitude to which it affects us, that is also changeable. So, yeah, this brings us to that. Can we change our destiny? So, it’s yes and no.
So, first of all, the word destiny is used in different senses. Semantics is the study of words and their meanings. So, if you look in terms of semantics, we need to recognise that if we look at destiny as what is going to happen and what we are going to do, what we are going to achieve.
These are two different things. Now, some people say, oh, you have bright destiny ahead of you. Or, they say that you are destined for great things.
So, the word destiny we often use in different senses. So, first is, what is going to happen? If that is what we are going to talk about, then yes, certain things are going to happen in our lives. And those may be unchangeable in the nature of certain things happening.
But within that, how we act, the choices that we make, those are within our jurisdiction. So, when we say we can make our destiny, what that means is we recognise there is an unchangeable element within what is going to happen in my life. But there is also a changeable element.
Understanding the balance between the two is extremely important. If we are to use our energies productively. Sometimes, we may oscillate from one extreme to the other extreme.
So, how much can we go beyond destiny? Should we accept destiny or should we change destiny? We can look at this from the Ramayana’s perspective or in the Ramayana narrative, we see that when Ram is exiled, at that time, Dashrath Maharaj is devastated. Swoons in horror comes back to consciousness against swoons. Comes back to consciousness against swoons.
And finally, when Kalki has Sumantra summon Ram to come there and Ram comes and when he sees Dashrath is dishevelled, his eyes are bloodshot red, he has not slept throughout the night, he has never seen his father in such a dishevelled state. And he asks, what is happening? So, father, you have called me, what is the instruction for me? He asks, so Dashrath Maharaj doesn’t have the heart to speak those heart-breaking words. And at that time, Kalki, her heart has turned into stone.
Sometimes, people think that if you become detached, you will become insensitive, you will become hard-hearted, you will become uncaring. Yes, that’s possible. But that happens when people misunderstand what detachment is.
Actually, what makes us hard-hearted or what is more likely to make us hard-hearted is not detachment but attachment. When we become attached, then our all capacity for sanctions, our entire capacity for experiencing emotions, that gets concentrated in one thing. And then we experience a huge amount of emotions in connection with that thing.
And we lose the capacity to experience emotions with respect to other things. So, because of her attachment to Bharat, actually it was not even attachment to her Bharat, it was attachment to her own imagination of what Bharat would like. So, she was actually trying to please not Bharat but her own projected conception of what Bharat would be.
But because of her attachment to the kingdom, she became desensitised to everything and everyone else. She couldn’t even perceive the heartbreaking agony that Dashrath Maharaj was going through. She saw with her own eyes how her husband was swooning and crying and yet, what was she thinking? She thought, all this is just a show to make me go weak.
She was thinking, actually I am being strong. I am not becoming sentimental to protect the rights of Bharat. So, it was only when Bharat came and there was a confrontation between Bharat and Kaikeyi.
But actually the real confrontation was in Kaikeyi’s heart between her imagined conception of Bharat and the real Bharat. And it was that time when Bharat completely rejected her. At that time, she became disabused of her illusion.
But the point for us is that when she spoke those heart-breaking words that Dashrath Maharaj again fainted, told Ram that the king has told you to go to the forest. So now, Ram just accepted it very gracefully. And Ram told, actually I had always thought that you treated me like your own son.
I treated you just like my mother Kaushalya. I thought you also treated me like your own son. But today, it grieves me to know that you never accepted me as your son.
If you had accepted me as your son, then to ask such an insignificant thing as a kingdom, you wouldn’t have even needed to go to the king. You just had told me and I would have given the kingdom. So even such words had no effect on Kaikeyi.
And as Ram came out, he had come on the chariot, but now he started walking on foot. And then the news spread. Something devastating has happened.
And as the news spread of what had happened, Lakshman came there. Lakshman is… If you look at the Mahabharata or the Ramayana, sometimes the way Lakshman speaks, you may feel like he is like a modern voice, ranting at the ancient fatalism. So he argues.
So what happens is Ram goes to Kaikeyi, to Kaushalya and tells her. There is a whole dramatic, heart-wrenching narrative there. But eventually, Lakshman just rails and he says, how can you accept this injustice? He says, the kingdom is meant to be yours.
How can they send you to the forest like this? You cannot accept this. So at that time, Ram says, O Bharat, when I heard Kaikeyi speak those words, Kaikeyi always loved me like her own son. Her love for me was to flow as uninhibitedly as the Ganga flows.
Lakshman was so angry. He said, that’s what I can’t understand. He said, how did the Ganga dry up overnight? So at that time, Ram says, yes, that’s why when I saw Kaikeyi speaking like this, I understood that this is the action of destiny.
Her change, total change of heart like this was an action of destiny. Then, Lakshman is not yet done. He says, it is only cowards who accept injustice as destiny.
Heroes fight against injustice. You should, the kingdom is yours and you should fight for it. He says, nobody will be able to stop you from gaining the kingdom.
Whoever stops, they will meet their death at my arrows. Lakshman is ready to take out his weapons and fight. He is so angry.
He says that the king, you know, he is being maddened by lust for his youngest queen and that’s why he has lost his intelligence. He is so angry. He doesn’t even refer to Dashrath as his father.
He just refers to him as the king. He says, if he comes in the way, even he will have to meet my arrows. At that time, Ram replies, Lakshman, if your arrows have to reach our father, they will have to go through me.
Lakshman sobers down. Lakshman is still very resentful. Then Ram tells him that actually, I am not concerned about what is destiny.
I am concerned about what is my duty. My father has told me to go to the forest. Therefore, I will go to the forest.
If Ram had been fatalistic, whatever is destiny dishing out, then I will accept it. Then later on, when Sita was abducted, Ram could have said, it is the will of destiny that Sita is abducted by Ram. Why should I fight? He could have even rationalised.
I am in the forest right now. I don’t have any soldiers. I don’t have any generals.
Such a formidable demon and you get kidnapped. What can I do? Actually, I don’t even know who has kidnapped her. If destiny wants me to fight, then destiny will send me a message from somewhere where she is gone.
No, he did not rationalise at that time. Why is that? Because for him, he was at this point in the Ramayana, he was the Raj Kumar. And he considered his foremost duty to his father, to obey his father.
And he adjusted as much as possible, all his other duties accordingly. But when he was in the forest, he was the primary protector of Sita. So he considered it his foremost duty to do whatever it took to protect her.
The point is that the important thing is not what is destined or what is not destined. The important thing is to focus on what is the right thing for us to do. What is our duty? The enduring significance of the Bhagavad Gita is primarily because it is not just a battle, it is not just a discussion about whether Arjuna should fight or not.
The Bhagavad Gita is a conversation that happens when two warriors or two armies are facing each other. And a warrior and his counsellor his charioteer who is acting as counsellor they are discussing. So at that time normally at the same time what they would discuss, a warrior and his charioteer or his mentor, they would discuss his war strategies.
But actually in the Bhagavad Gita there is practically no discussion of any war strategy. In fact, after the second chapter there is very little references to the war also. In the whole 700 verses of the Gita, the references to the war are not more than 15 or 20.
And most of the references come in the 11th chapter where Krishna is revealing the Vishwaroop. Apart from that there is very little references. So why is that? Because the question itself that Arjuna asks, Arjuna does not ask should I fight or should I not fight.
You see, when he surrenders to Krishna in 2.7 he tells him … … … … … … So I surrender to you, I become your disciple, I am overcome by weakness, I am indecisive. … I am asking you, what am I asking you? … … I want to know what is Dharma? The word Dharma is astonishingly multivalent. Multivalent means it has many many meanings.
Here the word Dharma is used in the sense of duty. And he is asking, what is my duty? The enduring relevance of the Bhagavad Gita is because its defining question transcends is its context. The context is very much there, but the Bhagavad Gita’s discussion is not limited to its context.
In fact, it goes far beyond the context. And that question, what is dharma, that is what we all need to understand. What is my duty and how I can perform my duty in different situations.
The Bhagavad Gita does not talk about fatalism. It does not end, if it had been fatalistic, then the Bhagavad Gita could have said that Arjuna, whatever is going to happen is going to happen. So Prabhupada in one lecture, he says, Krishna did not, after Krishna spoke the Bhagavad Gita and actually Krishna even revealed that all the Kauravas are going to be destroyed.
But after that revelation, what does Krishna tell Arjuna, therefore you rise and fight. So Prabhupada says in a lecture, Krishna did not tell, Arjuna did not tell Krishna, Krishna that you are God, you fight and get victory, you know, I will sit and eat Bhang, you know, or I will drink Bhang or I will eat something, tobacco or whatever. There are people who claim to be religious and they do not do anything practical.
And Arjuna takes up responsibility. Bhagavad Gita concludes with, I will do your will. So the whole principle in the Bhagavad Gita is that we have to use our intelligence to do what is within our focus.
So that brings us to the role of intelligence and this will be the concluding point today. We will discuss much more tomorrow about karma, dharma, but we can have questions and answers here. So intelligence, what does intelligence mean? There are various aspects to it.
But Buddhish, the Prabhupada defines in the Tenth Canto Purport that intelligence means to see things in proper perspective. To see things in proper perspective means what? That we see things as they are. Some things are changeable, some things are unchangeable.
So when we understand, okay, these things can be changed, these things can’t be changed. And what may be changeable, what may be unchangeable, that may also not be exactly rigid. There might be some fluidity in that also.
So what might be unchangeable at one particular point, that might become changeable in future. But the point is, there are certain things which are beyond our control at particular times in our life, at particular situations. And when we waste our mental and physical energy, railing against those things, trying in vain to change those things, at that time, we hurt ourselves.
Not only we hurt ourselves, we actually hurt ourselves more than what is necessary. So quite often, if we focus on what we can change, then what we can’t change won’t be so consequential. It won’t burden us so much.
Suppose I fall sick. Now I had planned to travel somewhere, I had planned to go for some outing, some picnic, something which is very pleasurable for me. And then suddenly just before I go there, I get some flu and I fall sick.
Now if I’m sick, yes, there is the weakness, there is the temperature, there is the physical inconvenience. But once the disease is diagnosed and it is being treated, it’s not a big problem physically. But if throughout that time I start thinking, all my friends have gone there and I am here, I am here, why couldn’t I be there, if only I was there.
So now what happens? Often our reaction to a problem makes the problem bigger than what it needs to be. Our reaction to a problem makes the problem bigger than what it needs to be. If I am sitting here, if I am lying on my bed and thinking, why couldn’t I go there, why couldn’t I go there, why couldn’t I go there, then I am making myself miserable.
Okay, I couldn’t go there, but while I am here, there are things which I can do. I can read something, I can hear something, I can make sure that I take the medicines properly, I can recover, I can talk with someone, I can meet someone. Whatever it is possible within that situation, once we recognise this principle that destiny determines something, but destiny doesn’t determine everything.
So if I think that everything is in my hands, then I am sick and I cannot even get out of my bed and I think, oh no, I should be going there. And I will make a mess of myself if I try to go somewhere where I am just not physically in a condition to go. But once we understand that there are things which are beyond my control and if I focus on them, if I obsess over them, I will make myself miserable.
But I recognise that there are things beyond my control. The nature of the mind is to go towards extremes. One extreme is to think that everything is in my control.
And then when you find that everything is not in my control, the mind goes to the other extreme, thinks nothing is in my control. That’s why there are among the different kinds of mental problems that are there, one problem is depression. And there are different kinds of depression.
Among the clinical depression, there is a kind of depression called as manic-passive depression. Panic-passive depression means there are people who have phases of hyperactivity. Many of the biggest dictators like Hitler was posthumously diagnosed from his characters as having this.
There are phases when people think that I can do everything. And there are manic levels of energy. And then suddenly after some time, one thing goes wrong, second thing goes wrong.
Just go down to such a level. At one level, people think I am going to conquer the world. And then the next day, I don’t even want to get out of my bed.
So, we go through these extremes because we don’t understand our proper place in the scheme of things. We are not God. The idea that everything is in my hands is basically the idea that I am God.
So, when we find that I cannot be God, we go to the other extreme. Oh, I cannot do anything. My luck is bad.
So, we think that everything is not my luck. You are ruining my luck. Yeah, whatever things may go wrong, there are always things which are in our capacity to change.
So, we focus on what can be changed. Then whatever can’t be changed, that doesn’t burden us so much. That doesn’t appear all that consequential.
Or that so much defining or crushing. And the whole message of the Bhagavad Gita is, of the Bhakti tradition in general is, we focus on what is in our hands and by that we grow. Now, in this whole class, I have not talked much about Bhakti and the role of Krishna.
The role of God and how he intervenes, that will be in our future discussions. But let’s summarise what we discussed today. I started by talking about what exactly is destiny and how it works.
First of all, destiny is not some remote abstract philosophical concept. But we see the factors involved underlying the whole discussion about destiny in sports. That in sports performance matters.
But even in something which is so centred in performance, even in that field, performance is not all that matters. The toss may play a defining role, the nature of the pitch may play a defining role. So many other factors also matter apart from the performance.
So, then we discussed how if one extreme is emphasised, that actually destiny is there and nothing is in my hands, then there are people who can cynically exploit the notion of destiny and overpower others. People may become unnecessarily passive. We discussed about how the Catholic mission is connived with the Spanish invaders and exploited the prevailing South Indian tribal notion of a legend that at a particular time people, invaders will come and they will overpower us.
Now, that is not the Vedic understanding. Because we discussed Vasudev-Kamsa-Devaki incident that Vasudev told Kamsa, if your death is destined, what will you do by killing Devaki? You cannot avoid destiny. But he did not turn it around and think that if Devaki is trying to die, why am I trying to argue with her? He will be focused on what was his duty.
So, the notion of predestination is not a rationalisation for inaction. Then Vidura told Dhritarashtra that destiny determines the consequences of our actions, not our actions themselves. For a student, student cannot say I will not study and whatever is in my destiny will come.
No, students, whether they study or not, that is in their hands. After they study, whether the results will come or not, that will depend on destiny. So, to not be emotionally obsessed with the results after we have done our part, that is detachment.
But to not do our part itself, that is irresponsibility. So, we discussed karma plus daiva plus kala that leads to phala. So, the farmer’s exam, the farmer has to plough, then the rains have to come and then time has to pass, then the fruit of harvest will come.
So, we discuss further, what exactly do we mean by daiva over here, destiny? So, it is not some inimical power out there, out to get us. It is daiva is basically the aggregate of our own past karmic reactions, which come to us according to a higher plan. And within destiny, we discussed the concept of how different kinds of karma.
So, our whole, you could envision our karmic stockpile as a huge water tank, which what we are doing is right like adding water to that water tank. That is the kriyaman karma. What we are getting right now, that, so the total is sanchit karma.
And what we are getting right now, that has these two parts, prarabdha and aprarabdha. Prarabdha means, we have got a particular kind of body. And within that body, certain things are going to come with that.
A particular, say, complexion, a particular way of speaking, or particular intellectual capacity or whatever. It is like a vehicle which we have. So, that may not be changing.
And along with that, because we have got a particular kind of body, say, somebody has got a body with a weak digestive system, then certain digestive problems are likely to come. But that is the aprarabdha. That means, that will come, but we can adjust and minimise it.
It is like a weather forecast. We are prepared, we can minimise the consequences of that. So, in that sense, destiny is not completely rigid or frozen.
It is fluid and we can adjust things. So, is destiny changeable? It depends on how we are talking, what we are talking about it. Certain things are going to happen to us.
That we may not be able to change. But our response to it is something which we can definitely change. So, in that sense, when we talk about making our destiny, we are talking about choosing wisely our actions now.
And for choosing thus, we discussed that. It is not that the scriptures talk about passivity. We saw Ram, he at one level accepted the order to be exact, to go to the forest, when his father told him.
And he should have said, I think there is a will of destiny, that is why I am doing it. But then later he said, yes, the will of destiny is there. But for me, the more important concern is that my duty to obey my father.
But when the whole idea of something beyond one’s control happens and that goes against one’s duty. When Sita was abducted at that time, he aggressively did the necessary to counter the injustice. And understanding the difference between what is in our hands and what is not in our hands, that can help us to focus our energy productively.
So, if we think everything is in my hands, then that causes us to take failure personally. We think of failure not as an event, but as a person. And then we can become psychologically damaged.
So, we can go from one extreme to the other extreme, where there is manic, where I think I can do everything. And otherwise, I think that I cannot do anything. But by focussing on what is in our power to change, we can actually make the unchangeable more bearable.
And we can actually create auspiciousness for us in the future. So, the Bhagavad Gita, its enduring relevance comes from the fact that it is not just a question of whether I should fight or not in a particular battle which happened long ago. It is a question of what is my duty.
And understanding our duty is what is most empowering for us. When we overall understand the concept of destiny and understand that we have a role to play in this overall scheme of things. So, thank you very much.
Are there any questions? Yes. Guruji, in Sandarbha’s, Jiyo Goswami in Sandarbha’s, he mentions about the eternal aspect of the scriptures, wherein they are Apoorvashi in nature and they are eternal in that sense. And there are billions and crores of verses which are there, out of which certain verses are manifested time to time.
and even the Ramayana and Mahabharata which were written that came previously before that activities happened and everything is eternal. So how do we understand that everything is, it looks like everything has been written already and they are going to happen in the same sequences. Then what is the choice and the role of them acting there.
So it says in the Sandarbhas that the scriptures are eternal. So are the events that are going to happen in the Ramayana and Mahabharata, are all of them destroyed entirely? Actually, Jiva Swami in the Sandarbhas is talking about a particular context. And these sort of discussions primarily come in the first of the Sandarbha, Tapo Sandarbha, which is talking about epistemology.
Epistemology means knowledge about knowledge. What is the method by which we can understand which systems of knowledge are reliable and which are less reliable. So he’s talking essentially on the eternality of scripture to talk about the necessity of scripture as the most authoritative way of acquiring knowledge.
So it’s not necessary when he’s talking, every point is always made in a particular context. And if we don’t take that point, if we divorce that point from that concept, the purpose, as I said, any philosophical point is like a weapon. That weapon can be used for a particular purpose or it can be misunderstood and misused for another purpose.
So somebody can say that, oh, the soul is all, some person may say, take the knowledge of the soul. The soul is eternal and they may use it, rationalise it to kill people. In any way, kill them, they are not going to die.
They are souls, they are eternal. But no, that is not the point of the knowledge of the soul. The point of the knowledge of the soul is something different.
It is to focus on the eternality of the person, not to rationalise unjustifiable violence. So like that, when we talk about scripture and its eternality, we have to understand that scripture is shabda. There is scripture which manifests as sound.
There is scripture that manifests as text. There is granta. There is shabda and there is granta.
And these two are not the same. So, for example, we say Vyasa Nehru wrote the scriptures 5000 years ago. That means scripture which is eternally existing as shabda manifests as granta.
So, for example, we have Krishna speaking the Bhagavatam to Brahmaji at the start of the universe. That is spoken in a condensed form. It is very short.
So that is basically a shabda. It is not as granta. So, when we think of scripture, we tend to think of it only in terms of granta.
But it is not in terms of granta. It is in terms of shabda also. That is why when we have, say, we have at the start of the universe from Brahmaji, we have the demons stealing the Vedas.
So, it is not just the granta that is stolen, it is the shabda that is stolen. They try to control the shabda. So, anyway, the point which I am making here is that we should not have this idea that scripture is only limited to a particular narrative.
There is Krishna’s will and Krishna’s pastime which are manifested and Krishna himself is unlimited. So, because Krishna is unlimited, so he can act in different ways. And the shabda that is the root of granta, that shabda will manifest accordingly.
So, Krishna and the various characters that are there in scripture, they can act according to their own will. They are according to their own Krishna’s will. Krishna and the various characters in his pastimes will act.
And the way they act, that will be manifested in the scripture when it is manifested at that particular time. So, rather than thinking of scripture as containing only one narrative, we should understand that scripture is like a network of narratives existing in a subtle form of shabda. And depending on which particular narrative is called for at a particular time, that will be recorded in the granta when it comes.
That’s why we have difference and sometimes the same pastime is described differently in the Mahabharata and the Bhagavatam. The reason for that is the Mahabharata has a particular focus of the narrative and the leela that has happened at a particular time in the universal history is described in the Mahabharata. The Bhagavatam has a different narrative focus.
And that’s why the leela that happened in another yuga or another kalpa, another time in the cosmic span, that is described at that time. So, it is not that Krishna and everyone else has to act according to only, it’s not that Krishna, they all have to act according to script and nobody can deviate from the script. It is not like that.
The script itself is something which is flexible. And the multiple narratives, the multiple scripts are present in a needed form. And depending on which leela Krishna manifests at a particular point or depending on which, what a particular sage wants to recollect and share at a particular time, that particular pastime is manifested in the scripture.
Does it answer your question? We will have to think about it a little bit. These are subtle things. The important point is scripture is not, scripture is a reflection of Krishna’s will.
It is not the determiner of Krishna’s will. So, Krishna’s will can manifest in different ways and that will be recorded and reflected in scripture. It is not that Krishna has to act according to scripture.
Scripture manifests according to Krishna’s will. And because Krishna’s will can act in various ways, that is manifested in a subtle form through the shabda form of scripture and that becomes manifested in the karantha form of scripture depending on how the sages recollect and describe at particular times. Any other questions? Very good, Prabhuji.
Prabhuji, what role do star signs play in a person’s destiny and also the feelings and intuitions a person gets? Okay, one question. So, what role do the star signs play in a person’s destiny? Firstly, there are different ways of looking at things and this has to be very clearly understood. Today, our prominent way of looking at the stars is that they are just gigantic lumps of matter which are orbiting according to certain laws and that is all we think that is there.
Yes, that is one level of perception. But that is not the only level at which they can be perceived. So, to understand this, the standard example that I gave is that suppose you have say white, you have chalk and you have coal and we grind both chalk and coal into powder.
We get white powder, we get black powder. If we mix the two together, we will have a grey looking powder, a powder that looks grey. But if I look at that same grey powder under a microscope, I won’t see grey powder at all.
I will see white granules and I will see black granules. Now, what is it actually? Is it white and black granules or is it a grey powder? Well, what it is will depend on the scale at which we are perceiving it. Under microscope, it is something different.
To my eyes, it is something different. To my naked eye, it is something different. So, like that, at our level of perception, the stars and the celestial objects, they may seem to be just insatiate lumps of matter.
But at another level of perception, they are not just lumps of matter. There are higher beings who are associated with those particular planets. And those higher beings are a part of the cosmic plan for orchestrating things in the universe.
Say, for example, say, I take too much electricity and don’t pay the electricity bill. So, at that time, I may think that is happening in a particular corner here and from this wire, I have taken out some illegal connection and I am getting electricity from there. But then from somewhere, some shop, some store or some office somewhere, I might get a legal notice that you are fine this much.
Now, I may say, if I just look at it from a very disconnected perspective, I may say that, hey, this particular connection was here and this office is here, what is the connection between them? But this whole thing is an interconnected network. So, like that, the whole universe is an interconnected cosmos. And our actions, so just as the action of stealing electricity, the reaction to that is coming through a particular agent.
That is the, say, the electricity officer over there or whoever it is. So, like that, whatever actions we do, the actions produce reactions. And those reactions come through us through certain agents.
And those agents, some of, a portion of those agents are the higher beings who are associated with the planets. So, that is why when a person is born, at that time, the way the stars are, that to some extent determines and by that one can foresee certain kinds of events that are going to happen in that person’s life. And by understanding this broad trajectory of the experiences of the event that is going to come in a person’s life, that can be understood.
Just like, say, if I am going from here to Nasik, then if I have a map, then I will know, here there is going to be a bridge, here there is going to be a ghat, here there is going to be a rocky road, here the road is very smooth. So, that is more or less like a, once the pathway I know, I get an idea. But there also, I can choose.
If I go through a slippery area fast, my likelihood of accident is much more. If I go slowly, the likelihood of accident is much less. So, like that, the star signs, what we call as star signs basically, they are not just signs.
There are higher beings who are associated with them and they have some responsibility in maintaining the universal order by becoming instruments for some reactions to come upon some people. And a rough indicator of that comes through the position of the stars at particular times. So, star signs, they play a role in the unfolding of our destiny.
And by understanding that role, to some extent, astrology tries to give us some means to either minimise or prepare ourselves for dealing with this. Does it answer your question? Any other question? We will come back to you. Yeah, I will come back to you if you don’t mind.
Hare Krishna Guruji, you said that we choose beauty over, instead of focussing on what is unchangeable, but to what extent should we focus on beauty? Like hypothetically, Lord Ram was exiled for 14 years. He came back, Bharat got him. But had KK totally cut off with him completely, to what extent would the beauty part be justified by Lord Ram? Means, till what? Means if the other person totally cuts off.
Okay. Then what? Till where can the beauty go on? So, is our beauty towards others unlimited? Or if the other person, say, cuts off a relationship, say if KK had exiled Ram for life. He is totally ignored.
Completely rejected, yeah. See, the notion of beauty, one of the important principles in the Vedic context is to understand that what is right and wrong. Or what is duty and karma and vikarma.
This is not categorical. It is contextual. Categorical means, to consider morality as categorical means, this is always, anything that falls in this category is always right.
Anything that falls in this category is always wrong. It’s not like that. He has to speak truthfully, it is good.
It is the right thing to do. But, if, say, rioters have come and our friend is targeted by the rioters, then that friend has come to us and asked us for a place to hide, and his friend is hiding in our house. The rioters come, is there this person in your house? At that time, if we speak the truth, we will be actually defeating the purpose of speaking the truth because we will cause the death of that person.
So, what is right and what is wrong is not just categorical. It is also contextual. There are categories of right and wrong, no doubt.
But, along with the categories of right and wrong, there is also the context that has to be considered. That’s why, if, say, if we are having a particular relationship and we have a particular duty in that relationship, now, duty, there is, love can be unilateral. But, a loving relationship cannot be unilateral.
It has to be bilateral. I can love someone without that person at all caring for me. But, that is just, that is not a relationship per se.
So, we cannot neglect the context. And, depending on the context, rather than thinking of the whole concept of duty as a rigid adherence to some core that is given in some book somewhere, you shouldn’t think of duty as like that. It’s not that, I mean, we say we should follow scripture.
It is not that all the time, you know, it’s like when you are travelling on a map, you are constantly referring to a map. Okay, should I go left? Should I go right? Should I go left? Should I go right? It’s not that scripture means every single thing that we have to do, we have to find some code somewhere and then decide what I am going to do. No, the point is, yes, we do need to understand scripture.
But, once we understand scripture, Krishna says that the more we live according to scripture, the more the dhami, buddhi, yogam tum yena mam upayandit. When there are broad guidelines in scripture, when we follow those broad guidelines, then our intelligence becomes clarified, we become purified, and then from within we start understanding, okay, in this situation, I should do like this. In this situation, I should not do like this.
So, usually when we have to make these kind of decisions, we should not make them in the rush of emotions. So, if you have to take a particular decision about what is my duty, rather than impulsively saying that I reject you or something like that, we need to, whenever there is emotions are too much, just pause, press the pause button. Don’t take any decision at that time.
Press the pause button. And then, once we, after that when we have calmed down, we can consult our well-wishers, maybe some relatives, some spiritual guides, and then we can pray, and based on that, we can take a decision. Quite often, even our own emotions, we need to take into consideration.
Our emotions are not the only thing that should determine our decision, but we cannot neglect those emotions also. So, we factor them into the picture, and we contemplate, we pray, and over a period of time, if we keep acting, gradually the course of action will be revealed from within. So, one thing is for sure that duty does not mean an unlimited liability.
Using, say, some financial language, duty is not a lifelong indenture to an unlimited liability kind of action. That is context that has to be considered. And the consideration of context requires a certain level of dispassionate analytical capacity.
And that comes by spiritual purification and by prayerful contemplation. Does it answer your question? Yes. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Yes, there is a question behind. Yes, ma’am.
Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna Swamiji, you gave us a concept that destiny is Karma-Vaad, plus Dev-Vaad, plus Karma, that will give us the fruit. In many situations, we have seen people who have not been endeavouring enough, and they are extremely rich and just minting money, and money is flowing to them at all levels.
Or another example, a child who is just studying probably half an hour, one hour, and who is extremely brilliant, and does extremely well in the exams, compared to a child who is just slogging, slogging, and does not even come up to that level. So, here it is the Dev-Vaad which is very strong in this case. So, then how do you explain certain situations, especially when children ask us this question? I agree.
How do you explain this? Yeah, so some people may be extremely wealthy, and they also keep making more and more wealth, without making much effort. Some children may be precocious, and they study well and they get a lot of marks without any effort. So, how does the Karma and Daiva factor in such situations? Yeah, the destiny can bring about some positive things for some people throughout their lives.
But even within that situation, the duty or the endeavour has to play some part. So, yeah, some students may be really very good at say, somebody is a mathematical prodigy. They are just phenomenally good at mathematics.
But even they have to do some effort. If they do not even open a mathematics textbook, then nobody will come to know that they are mathematical prodigies. They may themselves not come to know also.
So, in some situations, the extent of effort that is required may be extremely less. And in other cases, the extent of effort required may be much more. So, this is why we need to make sure that we do not let others definition of success rule our life.
That means, if we think that, say, okay, becoming an engineer is the success of life. But then if I have a talent for art, if I have a talent for some other field, that means somebody else is really a natural fit for engineering. Yes, the brain works in a particular way.
I think in a particular way and they move on. Somebody else is very good at art. So, a large part of living happily life, being successful in life is to look at ourselves to understand what we are good at and to focus on developing that.
And in some cases, the diva factor by the will of destiny, some people may have a lot. But even among such people, how much endeavour may they do that can determine, somebody might just be a mathematical prodigy and somebody else, even the mathematical prodigy has to work if they want to become a mathematical genius. Prodigy means somebody has ability, but genius means somebody who is actually converting that ability into achievement.
So, there is work that is required for that. And even for such people, if they do take initiative more, they may be able to achieve much more. But if we see such a thing happening, then rather than just railing at the unfairness of destiny, we need to focus on what we are good at and focus on developing ourselves in those fields.
Does it answer your question? Maybe I will get more clearer. Anything specifically is not clear in this? Guruji, we have seen that even sometimes certain people don’t put in efforts in relationships and they are like just receiving, receiving, receiving or they are like just complacently sitting and earning so much money. I have personally seen in certain friends and relatives.
So, what I understood right now is that you need to work at least little bit to put your destiny in place or if you work a little more, you will get a much better destiny. So, that much I got clarity. Can some people just get all material things in this life without any effort on their part? Yes, that’s definitely possible.
Say for example, even in today’s world, say in some countries which are welfare states, say the whole health is the responsibility of the state. So, if anybody falls sick, the bill just goes directly from the doctor to the government. So, they don’t have to pay anything at all.
There are a few countries like that. So, now we may say, you know, if I have a health crisis, I have so much anxiety because how will I manage the finances? They don’t have that anxiety. Yes, if they are born in that particular country at that particular time, it’s we understand that’s my destiny and because of that, they don’t have to worry about that at all.
So, destiny can create certain situations in which we don’t have to worry about anything at all. So, the main point I was making is there can be facility, there can be areas where some people are exceptionally endowed in things and they may not have to endeavour at all. But rather than worrying about or getting obsessed with why there are such things, we can focus on what our strengths are and try to develop them.
And the important thing is that your destiny determines what we have. Whereas, our happiness depends on what we do with what we have. So, some people may have a lot of wealth but whether that wealth will necessarily make them happy, that is questionable.
And quite often when people get wealth without really endeavouring for it, they don’t value it much and then they misuse it or just waste it and despite their wealth, they are not happy. So, our happiness doesn’t depend so much on what we have, it depends on what we do with what we have. And in that sense, our happiness is very much something which we can shape by our choices.
So, thank you very much. This is a question that children generally ask. They are very confused and then Krishna comes in pictures.
So, I just got that. Thank you. So, one last question.
If you have any more questions, we can continue tomorrow also. But one last question. Very interesting.
Ramji, you told in the last that intelligence is knowing what you can change. And in case of Gautam, when he was exiled, he knew that he could change the situation and because of duty, he accepted the situation as a destiny and moved ahead. But generally in our case, we see it’s very difficult to actually understand.
We know that we can change a lot, but taking action against it or accepting it as a destiny, it is very difficult. So, how can we in general, our lives understand that the thing is changeable, whether we should accept it as a destiny or change it, how we can understand. So, what if we face a situation in our life where some things are changeable, but we are unable to decide whether we should put in the time and effort to change it or not.
Yes. All of us have to choose our battles. There are a lot of things that can be changed.
And whether it is mine, that should be my focus. That is something which we have to individually decide. There are hundreds of things which we can see in our situation, in our family, in our society, which we can change.
And we may not have, we just don’t have the resources to change all of them. So, we have to focus on that which is our strength, that which is our priority, that which is most important for us and do that. So, that’s why there is associated with the concept of the soul, there is a concept of Kshetra.
Kshetra in the Vedic culture refers not just to the body, but it refers to the sphere of influence. There is Kshetra and there is Kshetragya. Kshetra is the sphere of influence, the sphere of cognition, the sphere of action.
And there is Kshetragya, the knower of that. So, as souls, we have a certain level of control over our body. With that, our Kshetra, also depending on our particular situation, say, a person who is the boss of a particular office, that boss has an influence over that office.
Somebody is the CEO of a company, a global company, that they may have a much bigger influence over a bigger circle. So, we have to understand what is our extent of influence, what is our priority and then decide in a particular situation whether we need to focus on changing that situation. And choosing our battle is extremely important.
Otherwise, if we start fighting every single cause or every single situation, we try to change, that will not work. So, basically, when we face some difficult situation, we have three broad options. One is that we change the situation.
Second is that we tolerate the situation. Third is we walk away from the situation. So, now, all three may be, all three are acceptable in different circumstances.
Walking away is not the same as running away. Running away means we are primarily afraid of the situation, that is why we just want to go away from it. Walking away means we understand that there are other things which I have to do in my life and that is why I do not want to get entangled in this.
So, in some situation, we want to walk away from that situation. That is perfectly okay. So, sometimes it may be that we tolerate the situation.
Okay, this is there, but this is something which is manageable. Sometimes we want to change the situation. So, a destiny does not mean that there has to be a stereotype response from our side.
We have to use our intelligence and then we have to choose the course of action. The Pandavas, when they were initially trying to figure out things, how to deal with the Kauravas. So, when Bhima was poisoned and then Bhima survived and he came back in the Nagaloka, at that time Yudhishthira told, don’t create any hostility.
Don’t tell anyone that you have been poisoned. So, he said that at this point, we have tolerated. Then later on when they were taken to Varanavarta and then they were burned in that house, just walk away from there.
This is not something which somebody is trying to burn you alive. You cannot stay there. Just walk away from there.
But later on, at one particular point when they tried to dishonour Draupadi and even after the 14 or 30 days of exile, they did not listen. At that time, they decided they have to change it. They fought the war.
So, that is, of course, we have to go within the narrative of the Mahabharata to understand why a particular thing has arisen at a particular time. But the point is that they also chose different responses in different situations. And what is the best response? Again, we have to pray, we have to consult our religious or spiritual guides and then we have to, using our God-given intelligence, arrive at a particular decision.
Thank you very much. Shri Prabhupada ki Gaur Bhakta Vindaki Jai Gaur Premani Tomorrow we will discuss primarily about karma and how karma, our actions come through various kinds of karma. Then we will discuss further about how we can respond to the karma in various ways.
Thank you.