Managing Our Emotions – The Spiritual Way

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna welcome all of you to our evening seminar on this topic of managing our emotions the spiritual weight essentially if we take one glance at the newspapers everyday we will see that people are not in control of their emotions their emotions are in control of them some of you may have heard about the news how in Chennai a school boy went and killed his teacher just because the teacher had scolded him a little bit he went with a knife and stabbed the teacher to death in the classroom itself and this is just one incident another incident of an IIT boy who for no real reason committed suicide I go to IIT Kharagpur regularly and one of the main reasons why they invited a spiritual group over there is because they find that students today are not able to manage their emotions so suicide is the ultimate expression of failure in managing one’s emotions so suicide is not a small problem in the world today according to the world health organisation one million people commit suicide every year and one million is only the reported figure in general in general for every successful suicide actually it’s a contrast it’s absurdity to use the word successful suicide suicide is a failure but that’s the word they use for every successful suicide there are at least 10 to 12 suicidal attempts so this figure of one million works out to be more than the number of deaths due to murder and war crimes combined together globally it means more than the number of people who are being killed by others are the number of people who are killing themselves this figure of one million suicides per year works out to one suicide every 40 seconds that means since we started this discussion 10 people have committed suicide the WHO calls it a tragic social health problem with no wound cure of course they try to have free counselling and guidance but the root cause is pain I had given a seminar in IIT Mumbai and there they found a typical pattern where students would commit suicide and that was to hang themselves in the family so the IIT management had a major meeting and they decided we must stop suicide these are the top students they are the future of our country they cannot let them commit suicide so what was the solution they came up with they remove all the fans and replace them with air conditioners throughout the hostel now the fan is causing students to commit suicide it’s their own emotional chaos within them that is causing them to do that so of course any measure has its utility but if you want to truly solve problems you have to go to their root so let us try to understand today what actually is the nature of the problem exactly you see all of us are essentially emotional creatures and because we are emotional creatures we want some emotional excitement, some emotional fulfilment now one particular genre of entertainment and movies is called horror movies and the very name horror movie suggests that it’s not going to be pleasant it’s going to be a horrifying but people are so bored with their lives that any sort of excitement will do some sort of excitement we want in life in fact if we look at the violence in movies essentially if we saw a movie in 1950s 1960s probably fighting would go on but now most movies, what do they have? there is a big building and somebody blows a bomb and people say it’s fun why? because people are so internally empty and bored that they need a greater amount of shock externally to become stimulated let’s look at cricket earlier cricket there were 5-8 matches but the amount of excitement and stimulation over there is limited it’s so slow and gradually unfolding so then they shifted to one day matches the excitement is more now we can see the excitement is more that is fine but why is this extra excitement needed? because internally people are so bored and one day matches were not enough so then you have T20 matches and T20 matches are not enough because all the play in the room is over so you have IPL and basically what is happening all this if we compare it it’s like increasing the dosage of the painkiller the person has a disease and doesn’t know what is the cause of the disease then a temporary way to feel good is by taking a painkiller painkillers work but they work only temporarily and next time when the painkiller has to be taken during that intermediate period the disease has become more and more and that is why the intensity of the painkiller has to be increased more and more and at one particular time the disease becomes so bad the painkiller doesn’t work at all so essentially what is happening today is people don’t know what is wrong with their emotions how to manage and fulfil their emotions in a healthy and holistic way and so they try to get some sort of excitement and fulfilment in whatever way they can and because the external sources of fulfilment don’t satisfy them so they shake themselves and jolt themselves emotionally all the time essentially what is the definition of enjoyment of people today actually according to most people enjoyment is that activity which makes one forget the boredom and emptiness of life when we just forget and enjoy what about everything else for the time being that is not really enjoyment that is just trying to counter the emptiness of life by some external stimulation so we have people today who are emotionally wrecks wreck means some destruction so people who go to the verge of suicide they are emotional wrecks so now while dealing with our emotions there are two spoons of hope one is that we should just do what we feel like doing we have the commercial advantage, just do it so act for the moment, move for the moment act according to your impulses and the other way which is actually the spiritual way, the Vedic way the traditional Indian way is that restrain and discipline your emotions but today disciplining one’s emotions is seen as a deprivation of one’s freedom and just being able to do whatever we want to do that is seen to be freedom boys girls want to mix very freely they think our Indian culture is so old fashioned there are so many taboos on this you want to just enjoy so let us see now most of the western culture at least for the last 70-80 years has lived according to this principle of just do it and let us see what has happened so there are many books like this book particularly written by Dr. David G. Myers it is called the American Paradox spiritual hunger in an age of plenty so he compares America in the 1950s and America in 2000 essentially after America won the second world war it became phenomenally prosperous and because it became phenomenally prosperous the youth at that time had whatever enjoyment they wanted at their fingertips and from that time the culture became a vulture culture what is a vulture culture? it is like a vulture may go high up in the sky but from that height what is it looking for? for corpses for dead bodies so like that America has advanced phenomenally in terms of technology to some extent it is the world leader in technology but what is this technology being used for? it is mostly being used to try to gratify the emotions in more and more perverted ways the most perverted ways in which people try to gratify their emotions is through pornography this whole industry started from 1951 onwards and now it has become a major family disruptor because even when a couple is married what happens is that rather than trying to when ordinary husband and wife come together it is not as or worse not relating to the mind as seeing some bizarre horrible way of trying to fulfil one’s fantasies and because of this families get wrecked and we will discuss about this a little later the social consequences of using advanced technology to gratify the most animalistic desires of the human being so what is the consequence of that? let us see what Dr. Mayer says so since 1960 what happens if you just do what you like the divorce rate has doubled the teen suicide rate so since 1960s in America so some of you can come together actually some of you can sit here some of you can go and see me please don’t block me please subscribe so the divorce rate has doubled the teen suicide rate has tripled the violent crime rate has quadrupled quadrupled means increased 4 times the prison population has quintupled quintupled means increased 5 times the number of babies born outside marriage has sextupled that means 6 times it has increased and the depression rate has soared to 10 times of the normal level what does it indicate? it indicates that when people just try to act according to their emotions and try to fulfil whatever emotional drives come in their minds then what will they have left? it makes them more and more miserable it makes them more and more unfocused please register sample statistics and there are many this whole book is an analysis of how America may have advanced technology technologically but it has deteriorated sociologically so this is one finding if we just do it just act according to our emotions it backfires and it ruins now let’s look at another survey and another experiment in fact which shows what happens if we try to control our emotions so this was an experiment done in Stanford University this is a traditional wisdom generated by the American people who said that a man is rich in proportion to the number of things that he can afford to let alone that means he can use something so this was the traditional understanding even in America around 200 years ago but now the idea is the person who dies with the biggest maximum toys in the world should die what are you going to do with it and the idea just get more and more and more nowadays people are so uncontrollable and greedy that what’s the person wants to be the wealthiest person in my city when the wealthiest person in my state when the wealthiest person in my country when the wealthiest person in my continent when the wealthiest person in the world when the wealthiest person in the history of the world and by that time the person will be in history so what do you carry? so Prabhupada, the Paharajah of ISKCON and he met Henry Ford who was the he met Alfred Ford Henry Ford a famous Ford motor company so I mentioned this in my book recession so Alfred Ford is a Hare Krishna devotee so he told me this incident the first time Prabhupada met him Prabhupada told him so you are the great grandson of Henry Ford where is he now? where is he now? and Alfred Ford let us say he is not trying to flatter me because I have so much wealth he is telling me yes your great grandfather earned so much but where is he now? where is he gone now? so we won’t carry much with us in the traditional understanding of all the traditional traditions of the world the modern understanding is grab as much as we can and enjoy so Stanford University they did an experiment on around 5 year old children they were given a sweet called marshmallow so it’s a nice documentary which I will show you so basically they told the children that now this is one sweet it is called marshmallow you can take it right now if you want but if you can wait for 20 minutes the researcher would say I will just go around do some work and come back and if you can tolerate and not eat that marshmallow during the 20 minutes then I will give you one more marshmallow so the children who ate the marshmallow during that time are called grabbers and those who tried to not take it they are called resistors so let us see what happened so this experiment at Stanford University they found that most of the students who were children basically grabbed the marshmallow and ate it but few of them resisted and they decided to track these children in their career in the lab and then say after 10 years what was their career study? 15 years when they were about to graduate what was their career study? let’s see what they found they found that there was a remarkably striking contrast between the character of the grabbers and the resistors they found that the grabbers were easily upset by irritations whereas the resistors could take challenges and irritations in intense strife they found that although these grabbers used to act on their emotions immediately I do what I want to do, I am free but at the end of the day these are very low self esteem why? because if we just act according to our emotions then we can never really achieve anything long term and because one cannot achieve anything long term one cannot regulate one’s emotions and achieve things literally once self esteem goes down, now all of us want the world to respect us the world will respect us we need to respect ourselves all of us have a big ego yes, I agree with this also but internally, if we are not able to keep our promises to ourselves then we fall down in our own hands and this is what happens to people who just fall prey to their emotions yes so I have planned this evening, I am going to study but then somebody says, why not go for a movie and then, yes, let’s go for a movie I enjoy that time but I know Lord, I need to go that time what happens? I fall down in my own hands that’s why those who were grabbers, those who were acting on their emotions, they have low self esteem similarly as far as decisions were concerned so because the grabbers have no higher principles or policies to build their decisions on so they were generally very indecisive should I do this or should I do that should I do this or should I do that sometimes people go to some shopping mall and they want to purchase one toothpaste and there are 25 brands of toothpaste and they get stressed which one to take so what is the big deal, just take some toothpaste brush your teeth, that’s all but when a person doesn’t have the overall foundation of integrity and self-mastery then they can be indecisive and sometimes when a person decides and the person is very irrationally obstinate in sticking to one’s decision a stubbornness so although a good sense is to be able to do this I’m going to do that on the other hand, the resistors had to take mature decisions and when it was necessary, they could stick to and follow through their decisions and other times when it was necessary, they had to exhibit and change their decisions so the decision-making ability among the resistors was much better similarly the long list, I’ll just go to a couple of points even when they became older the grabbers could not resist gratification for some good they could not put off their immediate urges for pleasure for something higher so I have an exam and I want to do something like go for a party if I do that, I’ll suffer in my grips so even for these ordinary worldly things we need some ability to control our emotions when we don’t have that we don’t develop it in the childhood we never try to develop it so these children, even when they grew up they did not have that to control their emotions on the other hand, resistors still had that ability and overall these were subjective very clear but subjective objectively they found that on an average the resistors had a 200 point score greater than that of the grabbers in the FSC exam when I say it is scholastic academic research it is given for entry in a degree school in America, top 12 equivalent of Africa in America so even academically the resistors were profoundly strong so talking like a woman, they hold this emotional intelligence and he concludes he says that the single strongest predictor of success in a person’s life is his ability to be a gratification his ability to say no to the petty desires for enjoyment so this is not a some religious or spiritual person he is a psychologist he is telling based on psychological surveys that the single greatest predictor of success is the ability to make gratification the ability to say no to your emotions and urges for a higher cause this is exactly what human culture is all about in the Mahabharata in the Mahabharata there is repeated talk about shreyas and pleasure shreyas means short term, immediate pleasure and shreyas means long term pleasure so the animals cannot think long term they just think short term I get something to eat so if a cat sees a rat the cat can’t think it is an ecology the cat has no ability to think like that we humans have the ability to describe and decide but if we don’t use that then we treat the animal badly and that is the unfortunate point of modern society today so shreyas is the typical behavioural pattern of animals shreyas is the desirable behavioural pattern of animals it is desirable even for material success, not to speak of spiritual success in any culture young people will always practise brahmacharya why? because if one’s mind is obsessed with the thoughts of sensual enjoyment then one cannot have the clarity and focus of thought to absorb oneself in educational learning but even in the western culture this was the paradigm and that’s why many of you are engineers medical students basically when you get a degree, it is a degree called bachelor of engineering so there is a bachelor why that word because it is implicit in the western culture in the western traditions all over the world that education if you want vidya then what you have to do one has to sacrifice enjoyment at least resonate and bhoga ki if one becomes a pursuer of pleasure then what happens? vidyaan you cannot study, you cannot learn either materially or spiritually a person can learn and develop so if we see the first survey from American paradox book showed that even materially just acting according to our emotions, just doing it leads to deletion and restraining or regulating our emotions leads to even material success so this is modern cutting edge sociological science reiterating echoing what the religious scriptures have always taught so now, generally speaking when we are told we have to give gratification we have to say no to certain things saying no is never pleasant you saw how those children, they were trying to restrain themselves and not eat that marshmallow and they were interfering it was almost like they were torturing themselves so isn’t that if we have to say that I should not engage in my emotions I should not act according to my emotions emotional urges emotional impulses does that mean I always have to keep saying no, no, no it will be too much however there is a third alternative one alternative is to act according to our emotions other alternative is to just reject our emotions what is the third alternative? so before we many statistics have confirmed this point when I wrote the book recession in the ad it was mentioned that New York Times article quoted 70 years of research which showed that if somebody wants to become a resist somebody doesn’t want to be a grabber somebody wants to become a resistor what is the reason for that? so this article was published on the eve of the new year and its theme was that if you want to stick to your new year resolutions add one new resolution in your resolution list many people take new year resolutions but if you look at their new year resolutions most of them are old year resolutions why? because whatever resolution we took last year we are not able to use it today and every year many of us take the same resolutions again and again so this article said that if you want to stick to your new year resolutions add one new resolution what is that resolution? add the resolution of increase religious commitment because the surveys found as done by researcher Michael McLeod in psychological bulletin surveyed people from 1920 onwards till 2000 almost it showed that in general religious people had more self-mastery than their non-religious materialistic atheistic counterparts so the way to become a resistor so that we can become materialistic is to become religious let’s see this point further so now when we talk about becoming religious what does that mean exactly? actually many people have very dry idea of religion you go to a temple and you ring the bell and then many people come to a Hare Krishna temple and they see that there is no bell over there what kind of temple is this? and the whole purpose of the temple is to ring the bell many people come to a temple and then the whole family comes the husband, wife, son, daughter grandfather, grandmother all of them have a good punch and what is the idea? oh god you have been sleeping so long please wake up and ring the bell that is the idea people have so what is the purpose of the bell is that to awaken our consciousness to a higher reality I am absorbed constantly in mundane reality mundane reality means wake up wake up there is a higher reality there is a higher happiness, there is a higher goal to life and I have come to the temple for that so that higher reality can be understood by us when we study the philosophy and that’s why Sri Prabhupada emphasised in the school temples that we should have regular classes and for the sake of having regular classes Sri Prabhupada said if the bell interferes don’t have the bell because there is a serious class going on and people come and time to time start ringing the bell and we don’t ring the bell at all class is not important ring the bell is important that is the purpose of the temple so the idea is many people have a very vague idea of what being religious means it is going to temple ringing a bell is one part of it but it is not the essence of being religious the essence of being religious is redirecting our emotions from worldly things to Krishna that actually is the magic of it what does bhakti do if I had to become spiritual I would say no to all my emotions one of our international spiritual leaders he said that he used to go to a Baptist church in America and the whole routine there was so monotonous and boring and one day he asked his father, the priest over there what do we do when we go back to heaven and he said I have never thought of that question and the whole idea that he brought is that heaven is like a perpetual family reunion where all the grandfathers great grandfathers, uncles all the family members come together and get reunited this is so boring I want something more exciting so the idea is that in the same God has revealed different religions but the extent of the revelation is different in different religions and when there is not a sufficiently attractive understanding of God then religions start repeating it becomes a border and a border again but in the Vedic tradition the revelation of God as Krishna is so attractive Krishna is not just a God who sits enthroned in cosmic majesty saying all of you it is not Krishna Krishna he plays to all of us to come and join in his eternal love drama in the spiritual world this is Krishna’s love basically a party because they enjoy it and that is the life that Krishna invites us to and it is not always that we go back to the spiritual world that we get the enjoyment even in this world here we get enjoyment because the whole process of living is joyful we sing, we dance we play musical instruments we have nice food it is all joyful if we go why don’t we go for movies so because I get better entertainment without doing anything why? when people go to a movie what are they doing? they are just watching somebody else dancing and they are imagining it is called vicarious pleasure vicarious pleasure means second hand enjoyment second hand enjoyment means somebody else is enjoying if I was there it would be so nice but that is actually just a very low level of enjoyment we learn it is not second hand, it is first hand we feel the action so what happens by the process of living is our emotions are not suppressed nor are they harmfully expressed if we suppress the emotion life becomes miserable but if we just in an unrestrained way express those emotions it also increases so the path of bhakti uses a general expression of emotions and the whole principle of Krishna Veda is that Krishna is showing to us how much he loves his devotees and he invites all of us, you also come and meet you also come and join my wonderful constables how wonderful is that so in the Mahabharata or rather in the Ramayana so basically what bhakti does is we are not just interested in seeing beautiful things we are interested in the best of things not that we say don’t eat eat and only listen so the yes process of bhakti is not a process of saying no yes saying no is one part of it but the essential aspect of bhakti is saying yes we fill our minds and hearts with Krishna with the names of Krishna with the fast times of Krishna with the services of Krishna and that gives us so much more emotional content that our material desires disperse so basically in the Mahabharata in the Ramayana after the emotional churning meeting between Lord Ramachandra and Bharat and Bharat requests please come back and Lord Ram says no so it’s now the emotional climaxes of the Ramayana finally what happens is Lord Ramachandra gives his palm today imagine if two brothers are having a succession battle, you know all the wealthiest families in India when their father passed away the sons were at the necks of each other imagine one brother gives his palm to the other brother but finally Bharat took those palms and on his head he went away so when he went away at that time Lakshman and Lord Ram were talking and Lakshman had been initially very suspicious and very angry when he saw Bharat coming with full army he thought Bharat has come with full army to kill Ram and he was very very angry he was about to attack Lord Ram you know Bharat’s love for me is as much as your love for me how can you be suspicious why does he have to come with full army and Lord Ram said Lakshman if you are finding the austerity of living in the forest too much and that is why your anger is being expressed towards Bharat don’t worry when Bharat comes I will ask him to stay in your place and you can go and have a luxury Lakshman felt very embarrassed and eventually when he saw the intense tension of Bharat he was so touched and then he told he asked Lord Ram why do I get so angry so quickly so Lord Ram put his hand on his shoulder and said dear Lakshman you are sentimental Lakshman started thinking stay sentimental no sentiments are the beauty of life without sentiments life will become stone like but he said we have to choose our sentiments we have to nourish those sentiments which elevate us towards God which lift us towards nature and we have to reject those sentiments which take us towards vice, towards sinning towards crime sentiments are important sentiments can elevate you but they might seem to be sentimental not your own sentiments you see what does modern society do then modern society actually brings out the ugliest desires from one’s heart so one time I was going for a programme and there was a big holding of some beauty contest and all the obscene pictures and below that it was written the proceeds from this beauty contest will be used to treat AIDS patients and all the devotees with me we don’t know whether anyone will be cured by AIDS because of this but many people will get AIDS because of this so what happens is modern culture brings out brings out the ugliest emotions from within our heart so when that happens you see the perversity of the culture there was always people who were sinful throughout history in 16th chapter 4th verse that so that was there in all times but in Kanyada what is the great danger the danger is that the ungodly the demoniac is glamorised and advertised as a professional now when in movies there are very dirty obscene scenes what is the word that they use for it bold scenes they are shameless scenes so basically the point which I am making over here is that there has always been good and bad throughout the world but the danger of Kanyada is that the bad, the sinful is portrayed as a misfortune and that’s why you see society came to its knees because people’s ugliest desires are being brought out systematically so what does God want in Lakshmi if sentiments are very beautiful then we can evoke the right sentiments not the wrong sentiments so the whole process of life is to evoke the beautiful sentiments in a person sentiments towards Krishna sentiments towards Krishna’s devotees sentiments towards all living beings so when that happens in the best of a person otherwise the moral culture so what does it mean to bring out the best bringing out the best means that there are emotions which are conducive to our spiritual awakening there are emotions which are conducive to our social growth and finally those emotions are brought out by the bhakti culture so when we develop our love for Krishna Krishna is not just one historical personality Krishna is God who is source of everything some people think that Krishna is a mythological personality other people think that Krishna is a historical personality Krishna is neither mythological nor a historical personality he is a supreme personality because of the supreme personality when we love him we develop love for all living beings we develop love for everyone it is an advanced it is not very advanced then we can live in a way which brings out the best from us so I will conclude with a couple of incidents so now there are Krishna devotees all over the world there are Krishna devotees in Lapland a few years ago there was an article we were for Krishna and I am the editor who wrote that article so he was telling me that what inspired him to write that article was he went somewhere some far off country, Morocco or somewhere and there he found the Krishna temple and people got to be Krishna conscious then he starts the article by saying that what is India’s number one export commodity in the world so he said is it software engineers from India or is it Indians speaking English to comprise cheap labour for the rest of the world he said yes, they are there but if you go to Somalia if you go to Morocco, if you go to Madagascar you don’t find any Indian software engineers you don’t find any Indians speaking English but you will find Krishna temple and Krishna temple he says Krishna is India’s number one export commodity and so he said so of course Krishna is not a commodity he is a personality he is a supreme personality every language is appreciative now what is in it that attracted and attracted people all over the world to Krishna because Krishna is a supremely loving and lovable Lord and the idea the prospect of a loving relationship with a person of God is universally attractive to anyone in the world so the Christian consciousness movement is spreading rapidly all over the world and one of the places where it is spreading most rapidly is Russia, CIS that’s why the orthodox religious forces over there tried to ban some of the national controversy so basically they are alarmed because so many people are becoming devotees the news magazine said that in the CIS Hare Krishna is the fastest growing religion in the whole whole India so in Russia they have a festival they call it the folk song festival in the banks of the Volga river some of you may have heard of it the Volga river so this festival features people from different parts of the country coming for singing their folk songs so the devotees said we will go there and we will sing the folk song from India is that Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare so when they went there their plan was they had got a booth a pandal sort of where they were planning to sing from 7 to 8 8 to 9 class and 9 to 9 30 students then end the programme when they started the programme people just came in so happy singing all the other folk song festivals were performances that they had to watch but here people would participate not as you watch somebody else singing and dancing the whole pandal was crowded and it became 8 o’clock it became 8.15 when they tried to stop to start the class the singer stopped singing people kept singing because they didn’t know anything about the culture and they had put the Hare Krishna Mahavatar in the background in Russia so people were singing and the devotees were so happy they said let’s go on singing it became 8.30 it became 9 it became 9.30 the devotees were playing rodangas their hands were bleeding their throats became sore but people were so happy singing the devotees had the heart to stop when they were trying to stop so it went to 10 o’clock it became 11 o’clock and 12 o’clock 1 o’clock at 1.30 the amplifier started giving smoke and at that time they decided to stop it was time to end and then next morning when the devotees had just got up and they were getting ready to start their morning programme just finishing their early morning programme in the meditation so one Russian devotee came there and he said to the leader that there is a young couple who want to meet we want to ask some questions they were there by yesterday night’s programme so they were typical young people Russia after the fall of communism it has also become quite westernised so they were typical scantily dressed young couple and they said so this devotee was translating to English they said welcome to this area of the country for our honeymoon and yesterday night was the best night of our honeymoon and what night was it yesterday night? and they said never in our life have we experienced so much happiness so so we were happy hearing it so we have one question yesterday’s song we were singing we were so happy what was that song? so they had no idea what they were singing but just singing that made them so happy no because ultimately the soul connects with God in the nature of God ultimately those people aren’t angels they are souls we are so happy in the relationship with Krishna so yes we use language to communicate philosophies like people understand humanity at the level of intellect but I think this whole vibration acts in the soul it awakens the soul to its dormant potential for love and happiness so bliss is not just one experience there are experiences like this of devotees all over the world we have devotees going and doing programmes in jails there is a beautiful book written by one of our leaders called Holy Jail so what is this book about? it shows how devotees have gone all over the world in different parts in jails and there they have reached out to prisoners and prisoners have come to this book so the point here is that ultimately there is a relationship with Krishna and we don’t know and in material life actually this family is a struggle rather than making others fulfilled emotionally it makes sense for the actually agitated opportunities and it brings out real and real emotions in the devotees but how can devotees be fully relaxed in a gentle relationship it is not just a religious ritual because actually you are the real Krishna you are really there and I want to express my love to you you see this so it is visible appeal appeal to Krishna to awaken your emotions and if you try it it has nothing to do with you this sort of readjustment realignment of our emotions is not just an emotional adjustment because it involves a profound redirection of the mind emotional adjustment means that ok I was thinking like this I am thinking like that bhakti is about positive thinking but positive thinking has to be based on a positive understanding of mind if I say the glass is half empty then I am being negative thinker I am being a positive thinker so there are many modern self help books which talk about how to think positive not to think negative bhakti agrees with that bhakti goes further because ultimately bhakti is the projection of ultimate improvement so if the glass is empty and someone doesn’t think positive the glass is full you should tell that person your brain is empty isn’t it so actually bhakti involves not just some emotional adjustment but it involves a redirection of the mind based on the recognition of reality so the kind of transformation that happens in a person’s bhakti that it’s not just that people feel happy naturally people’s desires change which is what we call mental America at that time it was the age of hippies mainstream American youth rejected the mainstream religion mainstream college education, career chart and they all went into drugs the American government tried drugs but most people were not interested in giving up drugs those who were interested also were not so bhakti is based on developing our higher emotions and experiencing a higher component to a loving connection with god and when that is experienced then all the load comes off just like now this one small light when somebody says just close the door come on, if you close the door I won’t be able to see anything we are so attached because that is the only sense of life we have but if there are 3 duplets all of them are one so when we have no experience of spiritual happiness we have experience only of material happiness and material happiness is much smaller than what was life but that’s all what we know that’s why we can’t give it up but when we experience spiritual happiness it’s like a duplet when they are turned on then it doesn’t matter even if you don’t get the material enjoyment it doesn’t matter if you try to see new it’s great but if we fix our mind then we can see this is the change we are in Krishna so since we are in Krishna we all need to experience spiritual happiness and that happiness not only makes us to be happy but it also makes us happy it enables us to spend our time and do good work in this world and ultimately we end up in a world beyond this world I started by talking about how today’s society is filled with emotional wreckage by acting on their emotions people are suffering American Paradox book shows how America has been really terribly from 1960 to in terms of objective scientific statistics then we have science also shown being able to restrain our emotions helps us to become more productive more proactive, more successful in life then how does one become a resistance isn’t it painful when you connect with Krishna you sound like an integral mass and that gives you the inner strength and Vedic revelation in Bhakti Yoga makes that higher connection joyful because Krishna is really marvellous and when you connect with him and experience what happens and it’s like when a bigger light is switched on small light doesn’t matter we discuss the experiences of the devotees in Russia and other places also so in a sense emotional management is to place ourselves in a culture which brings out our inner emotions and to avoid the culture which brings out our lower emotions so our modern culture doesn’t bring out the lower emotions that’s why we need forums like the Switzforum that we have we have some groups and that will be a subculture that will protect you from having the lowest emotions in English and in other languages are there any questions? yes do you think now I go to the Lord like Krishna who said to me next year the Vedic culture describes that because God is Asaraj Asaraj means he himself is happy and he shares his happiness with many people in different ways so Krishna and Ram are one person with different personalities Krishna Ram, Narsimha, Vishnu Vamana, Bara they are all one person with different personalities and their different personalities are there so that different devotees who have different attractions different personality traits can get that continuous relationship with the Lord yes so now the Vedic programme is, I have a full scenario on this the varying objects of worship I’ll explain that briefly yes there are some people who are attracted to Lord Shiva some people are attracted to Deva and these are also talked a lot about so now it is very clear if we read the Bhagavad Gita Krishna tells what is the purpose of this worship of Lord Shiva in 7th chapter verses 20 to 23 or verses 20 he talks about the system of these personalities are called as demigods so just like you have semi circle and then the half circle so demigod is these are very powerful personalities much much powerful than this but they are not as powerful as God so they are called intermediate image Krishna tells what is the purpose of this worship he tells that I whatever form somebody desires to worship I make his feet straight because I am present in the parmatma’s behalf I make his feet straight and then what happens it can’t be this way that person worships when that person worships what happens is he gets the fruit from that devata but who is giving that fruit he says I am going to give him that fruit so why is Krishna giving the fruit through the demigods Krishna is like the prime minister and the demigods are like the ministers Krishna is like the king and demigods are like the ministers so let’s understand our situation we are all the children of God and somehow we left the family so in the bible there is a story of the prodigal son his son suffers terribly in separation from his father and then he returns back to his father and father welcomes him and says come back the whole palace is yours and then it shows how much God loves the son and the soul has left God and come to this world God still welcomes him with open mouth although he was rejected that is one level of revelation of God’s love in the Vedic culture God’s love is much greater so if the son leaves his father now the son is having some misunderstanding with his father because of which he doesn’t want to have anything to do with God what happens if he can’t worship God he has to become a priest but Krishna is so compassionate he doesn’t say that having faith and devotion to me is the entry level qualification for becoming a priest he says it doesn’t matter if you can’t accept me as your lord I will offer you somebody else according to your tendency now you can leave so it is like the son has left his father and gone to some other place and there he is trying to earn a living by working under somebody and that landlord is torturing him and extorting him so the king sends him to the next city then he says you go to that city and tell them I will give you the same rewards I will give you better rewards I will treat you better then he says and what happens the son comes back in the kingdom of his father he has not yet come back to the palace of the father he has not yet reconciled with the father he has come back to the kingdom of the father he came directly to the kingdom of the father, to the ministry so the ten lords are made like that those who cannot worship Krishna Krishna says you can’t worship me I have no desire to be the exclusive object of worship my desire is not my own prestige, my desire is your emulation, your emulation so if you cannot worship me worship somebody else and by that you become one of his spiritual followers what is the logic? now gradually this person starts imitating, okay I am worshipping this person I am obeying this minister he is also obeying somebody and then he says okay if you are obeying that person then I am going to worship this person he goes there and he is following him so the system of any god worship is for creating an intermediate buffer step for those who cannot serve god for those who are not so as to be artistic so to give them an intermediate buffer step Navishnikanth writes and there are many stories in the Vedic literature and there are two stories here, one is of the great poet named Chandigarh Chandigarh a Bengali poet and he is a great devotee of Vishnu Krishna a very beautiful poet so I always used to wonder why is his name is Chandigarh if he is a worshipper of Krishna so the story is that he was actually a great worshipper of Chandigarh and he was very wealthy and he had a young brother who was a worshipper of Krishna and his brother was relatively poor and he had a beautiful garden from which he would offer flowers to Chandigarh Chandigarh is a farm of those days and then one day his brother asked we have so many flowers can you just take one flower and offer it to Mahishmukh so in the afternoon Mahishmukh was crying whole garden with only one Chandigarh, cannot touch even one flower his brother said he is sad and he did not want to trespass on his brother’s property one morning his mother had gone to take bath and when he came back he saw this beautiful flower and in his mind he thought maybe I could offer one flower to him and then Krishna said that even if somebody does some minus to him, Krishna is so eager to help to help elevate us then even in India he would offer so then his brother came and took the same flower and offered it to Chandigarh and as he was chanting the stotra immediately Chandigarh appeared I am so happy so he was surprised and he said actually I am asking you I have been worshipping you for so long you never came what do you mean let me be in peace he said today you have denied me so one morning when she told him the whole story when he said that worshipping Krishna is better than worshipping you Krishna said Krishna is not just my lord he is the lord of my lord my lord is Shiva now Shiva’s lord is Krishna Parvati Devi asked Lord Shiva the whole world is chanting so many people in the world are chanting your name Lord Shiva so I said you have been chanting and I am also chanting so when I was in the Parvati Pura and it says so I said I am chanting this is giving great joy to my mind so she said Chandigarh asked why didn’t you tell this to me earlier that worshipping Krishna is better than worshipping you you never asked this to me earlier you are so busy asking you never asked me for actual knowledge of what is the highest truth in life but today because you performed you offered me a prasad of my lord so I said thank you so there are many stories Lord Shiva appeared and then he was very angry Lord Shiva asked what do you want so one of us said he must give me that which is most dear to you and that will be my story and after that he gave me Krishna great joy great joy there are many stories like this someone sincerely worships the Devi also and they will guide him in worshipping so it’s a multi level system for gradual progression in the Vedic culture so some of you have been worshippers of some you should not see it as oh I have to do the worship I am not even some of the people actually it is by the blessing of the ordinary whatever worship you have done that you have come to Krishna’s home and if still there is some doubt there is some confusion then you can just pray to Krishna and pray to that Deva and he will guide you to your home he will guide you to your home and still you will come to your home and you can read Bhagavad Gita for yourself ultimately what we have to do is to listen to Krishna I have read a few Bhagavad Gita and this is what the essential issue of Krishna is it’s clear anybody else have any questions why Krishna, why a male why a male character represents Krishna oh very good question why a male I am not a female in Times of India there is a column called speaking tree so I contribute regularly over there one of the articles that was published over there is God male or female that’s there on my website also so basically I have published this article so the start of the article I wrote was is there in my book also it says before we can understand whether God is male or female we have to understand that we are neither male nor female we are souls we are not males we are not females as long as we have a bodily misconception we will drag our conceptions into it so the soul doesn’t have a bodily gender what we talk about a gender is a characteristic of the body and at the time of death we will leave this body and go to some other body so before we can understand anything about the gender of God first thing we have to understand is I am not a male and others say women are not they are not female, they are souls all of us are same so now in the Vedic culture in the Bhagavad Gita this word is a reflection branches are downwards and roots are upwards so where do we find the tree? in the reflection if we have a tree in the bank of a river and it is reflected in the tree we see the tree upside down so Krishna says that whatever they, in this world is a reflection of only a female in this picture so we have the male-female polarity, duality and polarity of male-female in this picture and the Vedic culture recognises this polarity in this picture so Krishna is male Krishna is female Lord Ram is male Lord Vishnu is male and if we look at the Vedic reference we don’t say Ram is male Radha is male Lakshmi is female so the feminine is a reference in this picture so actually Radha-Krishna Radha-Krishna when one God manifests into this so Radha and Krishna are not just two new personalities who have some sort of relationship they are God one God before we speak of reciprocating love Radha-Krishna so we don’t say that God is masculine God is masculine Radha and Krishna are both masculine now when we understand God we have to understand that there is in understanding of God there is understanding of God’s greatness and there is understanding of God’s sweetness in Sanskrit it is called Aishwarya and God’s Maha so when we think about Aishwarya we focus on Krishna God’s majesty God as the ruler of the world God as the generator, organiser or operator of the story so that role is played by the masculine aspect by the male aspect but when God is at home and we see if you look at Krishna Leela in Krishna Leela Krishna becomes born again now Krishna fulfils the desire of the woman why? because it is the nature of love that the lover subordinates himself will be loved so from the point of view of Aishwarya, from the point of view of greatness as far as administrative aspect of the universe is concerned we focus on Krishna because Krishna is the masculine aspect or the Vishnu aspect he is the controller but when we focus on God’s sweetness then actually Radharani is in a position of honouring Krishna just like there is the prime minister of the country the prime minister of the country when he is in office at that time everybody is eluting him respecting him very much but when he goes back home he has his mother his mother is not going to salute him what is the mother going to say? so she will be treating him affectionately and then you don’t feel like that you like that so when Krishna is God in office when he is acting as Vishnu he is very crazy at that time the focus of worship is Krishna but when we talk about God at home at that time the focus of worship is who answers Krishna in fact Radharani becomes the medium for us to admire Krishna she is like the mother so the mother is easier to please when he is the mother then the father becomes the sister so that’s why when we chant Hare Krishna we have the name of Krishna two times we have the name of Radharani how many times? we have we have 16 times in the full Mahamandala 16 times the name of Radharani is there 8 times the name of Krishna is there 8 times the name of Mahamandala so we approach the Lord through Radharani so from the point of view of Aishwarya Krishna is the focus of worship from the point of view of Madhuri Radharani is considered the highest so there is no sort of male chauvinism in the understanding of understanding of God is far far loftier than mundane concepts of chauvinism or feminism any questions? yes even after knowing what to do our emotions go in different directions we have to do two things to prevent the emotions going in wrong directions first is not let the external circumstances be there where we can get provoked and we can get debated as much as possible avoid it we cannot avoid it entirely but atleast we can avoid very provocative situations if you are in college you see that there are some boys in college who are completely into degraded things there will be others who will be more focused on studies so we have to find a friend circle if you can get a devotee friend circle that is the best if you don’t have a devotee friend circle atleast try to find a friend circle that is pious atleast they are not doing sinful or pious or degraded activities in that circle you put it to some extent its very important for us to have a good circle not put ourselves in situations where we get provoked first thing is try to see whether you can situate yourself in situations where you are relatively safe where the mind doesn’t get the opportunity to go in wrong directions see basically the mind is like a pond so when there is a pond of water it can get disturbed in two ways somebody throws a stone it will start coming other is there is some fermentation going on deep below and suddenly bubbles come up so the first point I am saying is try to avoid external disturbances the second point is sometimes even when there are no external provocations still our mind goes in wrong directions for that we have to develop our willpower and developing our willpower basically willpower is like muscles developing muscles is a matter of choice and practise I try to lift 100 kg weight I can’t do that but if I lift what I can say 10 kg weight gradually I can go up to 11 kg, 12 kg 13 kg whatever we can do we should do right we keep doing the right things we exercise our moral muscles so moral muscles will become stronger so willpower is not something which is very abstract or very intangible, it is very practical these are the situations where my mind goes off in wrong directions I will not do it, at least this time I will not do it make a resolution and how do we develop our muscles no no actually it is not that when the mind gets elevated I will control it it is not that when a weight lifts he suddenly goes into the tournament and I lift it he can’t do that, he has to practise for a long time so he had a childhood friend who has become a bodybuilder and his bodybuilder was also very good looking he used to get into a lot of affairs with women and then the women would ditch him take his money and go away and every time he would come to this devotee and he would say that this woman ditched me and she went away and finally he was trying to tell her that she is not interested then he told her finally she said what is the meaning of your big big muscles if some frail bodied woman can make you cry he had never thought of that he said I don’t have another one type of muscles that you have but still no woman has made me cry today he said because I have a different type of muscles what are they he said I practise everyday on a different type of dumbbells what are those dumbbells he said spiritual dumbbells so chanting Hare Krishna is not just some dharmic activity we do as a ritual actually when we chant Hare Krishna what are we trying to do the mind is running here and there we try to fix it on Krishna the more we fix it on Krishna the more we succeed in fixing it on Krishna the more we experience spiritual strength and spiritual happiness so the more we experience spiritual strength and spiritual happiness the more we will be able to develop our spiritual essence and the more we will be able to resist the temptation of this dharma so its like If there is a power socket, if I put my hand in the power socket, I get electrified, because the power socket is connected to the powerhouse, which is full of power, generating power.
So like that, Krishna is a reservoir of happiness. When we connect with Krishna, we experience happiness. So, generally if we just do the ritual, then what happens is we are not really connecting with Krishna.
You know, everyday you may utter the word Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, and it’s fine. But that feeling, that consciousness connecting with Krishna. In a food butting example, when a batsman is batting, it’s not just that he has to swing his bat.
He has to swing his bat in such a way that the bat and the ball come in contact. In his case, when there is a bat and the ball is somewhere else, in his case, it will be in the middle. So like that, our chanting Hare Krishna is like swinging the bat.
But our concentrating on it is like the bat and the ball contacting. So, we have to concentrate. So if we chant Hare Krishna regularly, we will find our ability to curtail and control the wrong moments of the mind and improve tremendously.
And this is the most powerful. So, everyday in the morning, as much as possible, we try to chant or inspire another Brahman. It will inspire us, give us the real strength to resist the temperatures in the room.
As soon as the temperatures come, I think also we will chant Hare Krishna. We have to leave the mind empty and people will not appreciate it. Krishna describes, Krishna says, He says, that by the real practise of spiritual chanting, what happens is, And here, this is what you are saying.
The mind will go in this direction, that direction. Yes. Whenever the mind wanders, because of its temporary and unsteady nature, bring it back in the direction of the mind.
When will I bring it back? How long will I keep doing it? As long as I keep doing it, I have control over the mind. Gradually the mind will stop. Gradually the mind will stop.
How will you control the mind? Chant, chant a Brahman. Intelligence sustained by conviction. Intelligence we get by understanding the philosophy.
Conviction we get by, We just think that the mind says, mind goes to cricket, mind goes to movie, mind goes to… We have experienced many of these things. There is a little pleasure, but after that there is only boredom. So, that conviction you have to get from our experience, from our studies, is not going to get you anywhere.
Because the mind on the system, don’t let it go in other things. The sixth chapter, I quoted all these verses, 6.95 to 6.98, is a very practical example of a spiritual struggle. So, it is a struggle, but it can be a successful struggle if you do this.
So generally we go through four stages. The first stage will be helpless defeat. Sometimes people come to Krishnamoorthy and they tell him, okay actually we are supposed to do what we are told to do.
We are supposed to give up meat oxidation and this and that. I give up Krishnamoorthy. Forget it.
I can’t do it. You can’t imagine life without it. So at that level what is happening is, that spiritual muscles are so weak, it’s like you tell a baby to lift 100 kg weight.
It’s not possible. So that is the level of helpless defeat. But then in the same way, if he keeps eating food regularly and growing, maybe become a teenager, teenager, and then he has muscles to lift a huge weight.
So say every day we chant Hare Krishna, Nirmala Krishna, our muscles are growing, they are becoming bigger, stronger. So the second stage we come to is struggle and defeat. That’s why I will be doing this, you are not doing this.
We plan it, we struggle and then we defeat. But still if we keep practising, then what happens? Third stage we come to is struggle and success. Struggle and success.
Why? Because we are growing stronger. If we grow stronger, eventually we can control the money. And then finally we just keep doing it.
Keep doing the right thing and keep battling. Then we will come to the level of helplessness. The temptation is still there.
So it’s very important that when the mind starts going in the wrong direction, we should not give up. We should not give up. That is just a trick of the mind.
Say somebody is fighting a boxing match. Now the boxing match is going on. Actually practising spirituality is like boxing with the mind.
You are fighting a boxing match and suddenly the opponent knocks a person down. And then, so like that sometimes we end up doing something wrong. Now if the boxer has fallen down, now who should we go to? If we ask the opponent boxer, Now he is going to do it.
He will just do it. Who should he turn to? He should turn to his coach. This is what he does.
So sometimes what happens is our mind only makes us do wrong things. And then after we end up doing the wrong thing, we ask the mind only. The mind is going to like it.
So we have to consult those who will encourage us, not those who will discourage us. So we shouldn’t be frightened if sometimes the mind seems to be too strong. I can give you a simple example of how in the circus the wild animals are created.
In the tiger, sometimes you see in the circus, the tiger behaves in such a bizarre way. It will jump through some bar, some circle, it will go this way, go that way. How did the tiger, it is so dangerous.
It becomes so docile. You see, it is not so submissive or obedient. Our mind is like a tiger.
It is the training that a circus trainer gives the tiger. What is the training? The training is that the tiger is starved by the trainer. So we do like this, if we don’t do like this, we starve.
And what happens when the tiger is starved? When the tiger is starved, it will roar more. When the tiger is starved, it will roar more. It will roar so ferociously.
It is a person not experiencing the tiger. It is only the trainer, not the people. The experienced trainer knows, when the tiger will be roaring louder, it will speak up.
So finally it will roar and roar and roar. And then it will know it is me, go ahead and eat it. And then it will go back.
So what happens is, when we don’t do wrong things, our mind is like the tiger. And we are starving it. So what happens? The mind roars, go ahead and eat it.
Go ahead and eat it. And then we say, earlier I never had this desire so strong. Now the desire is getting so strong.
How did I do it? You do not think you are a perfect human being. So when this transitional period is there, we need to understand modus operandi. Modus operandi is the way things work.
So the mind is just trying to threaten us. But if we know we are frightened by the threats in the mind, and if we are temporarily locked down, the other way around, in this heart, we turn, we consult devotees, we encourage them, and we take care of them. So in a situation like this, we constantly take care of these things.
So it is practically like that. Man does not have the means to succeed in life. He just has to succeed.
Krishna told Arjuna, in the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna said, how did I do this? How did I do this? He came to Vishnu in person. And Krishna reveals him in the second chapter of Vishnu. And he shows how everybody is going to be destroyed.
All your opponents are going to be destroyed. Arjuna says, I don’t want to destroy them. You just become the destroyer.
Krishna showed him this. Arjuna said, I will fight. I have my arrangement.
All your enemies are going to kill me. You just become the destroyer. Actually, in a situation like that, all these bad desires in the mind that are there, they are not going to be destroyed.
Krishna is already killed. You just become the destroyer. So when Krishna shows Vishnu to Arjuna, now Arjuna understood this is not Vishnu in person, but this is Vishnu unstoppable.
Unstoppable. So I just cooperate, I will become the destroyer. Same way, we may find everything is difficult, but actually now we have Krishna, we have experienced the higher happiness.
No matter how much we try to go towards lower happiness, it will not make sense. It will not make sense. It’s like somebody, who was used to reading with a small candle.
Then he gets a pupil to read him. Can he still read him? He can struggle and try to read him a candle, but he always longs for a pupil. This is a very crude example.
Similarly, that little happiness that was there in material life, was so tiny, in the last one hour. But now when we have experienced, even a little of spiritual happiness, we got a lot of happiness in our life. So it is the definition of unstoppable.
I am just saying that. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
Krishna Shri Gopal Nithi. Yadu Nath Nidhi Nithi.