Maslow’s theory of motivations – A Spiritual Perspective, The Monk’s Podcast 154 with Shyamananda P

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna, Shamanand Guru. Welcome to the Monks Podcast. Thank you for having me.
Wonderful that we are back together today. So I thought we could discuss today on a spiritual or a Vedic perspective on this concept of the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. So, you know, I had read about this in my college days in an extracurricular class that I had heard and it seemed very intriguing.
But I believe that you have studied it as a part of your academic studies itself, isn’t it? So, yeah, I think basically in every commerce or management studies, whenever the issue of what motivates people, when that issue comes, Abraham Maslow’s name comes up at the very top of those who have contributed to this thought. At the same time, we should be aware that not everything what he said is now agreed. And even in the material world, there are people who have different thoughts about how that hierarchy can be understood.
So I would very much like to be the like the person from a commerce and economics background and like to pose these questions before you and your angle of Gita and Bhagavad Wisdom could make a very interesting conversation. So shall we begin? Yes, please. All right.
So for the benefit of those among our audience who may not have had any brush with Maslow due to them studying the hard sciences, mathematics or other related subjects. This was kind of published in 1943 and then 1954, it became like a book which was published. And this is the beginning of the 20th century and the theory of motivation, what motivates people to do what they do.
I remember in one of our classes called Organisational Behaviour. He was a reputed HR professional. And he said, so everything about organisational behaviour can be summed up in one line.
And we were all ears as to what could be that one line which defines all of organisational behaviour. Why do people behave as they do? I still remember from 1988, but still I remember that line. And of course, when I read the Gita and also some of the Bhagavatam concepts, you really understand this is why people behave as they do.
So sometimes you feel that, you know, five, six years of studying microeconomics, microeconomics, human behaviour, cognitive psychology and sometimes just one particular thing from the Gita and Bhagavatam gives you a sense of satisfaction that, oh, this is how it all boils down to. So I had this kind of a moment with Maslow’s theory and here we are today, kind of rubbing it on the, do you know this theory that gold can be tested by rubbing it on a stone? There is a specific stone with the Zaveris or the dwellers and that one line it comes and they think it is a genuine 24 karat gold or whatever. So your intellect is that stone and my contribution is the theory part of Maslow and we will see whether whatever he says holds true.
So to put it very briefly, basic needs, psychological needs and self-fulfilment needs. These were the thoughts which came in the mind of Maslow. So basic needs are physiological needs, what your body needs and body is exclusively the physical body, food, water, warmth, rest and so on.
Higher than that are the safety needs, you need security, you need safety, like there is a rest which is a physiological need but unless that rest has an assurance of safety and security, you won’t be able to sleep properly. Like a very humorous example, if you are told that you can take rest in this nicely air-conditioned room with a warm bed or warm or cold depending upon where you are in the world and by the way there is a snake somewhere. So obviously your physiological needs are met but not your safety needs.
Then he said, he calls them the basic needs, then we need belongingness and love, we need intimate relationships, we need friends, community. This is where the explosion in exploiting this particular need with social media, with chat rooms, with Insta groups, with Facebook pages offering you this, at least claiming to offer this in plenty. Then there is esteem needs, now we have the last of the psychological needs, we need prestige, we need feeling of accomplishment with when we do something and lastly was according to Maslow, self-actualisation, this is the very word he coined, achieving one’s full potential including creative activities.
So this was 1943, 1944, he kind of little bit solidified them and then he kept on polishing his views and later these are the salient points added. This is not an all or none kind of a scenario, it’s not like if we don’t get all, we don’t, we get nothing, not like that. Also he observed that it’s not like when 100% physiological needs are met then you only have safety needs, 100% safety needs are met then you go for belongingness.
No, they kind of, it runs through the whole scenario and my last point now is one substantial addition was made to these five groups, I would not say five needs but five groups. There are cognitive needs where you need knowledge and understanding, you are curious about the universe, you want to explore aesthetic needs, you want to appreciate beauty, you search for harmony, balance and believe it or not, they are calling it transcendence needs, values which transcend your personal selves and in 1943, Maslow’s understanding was maybe one percent of American population, he only studied the best of the best, that means the best of the colleges, best of the business people and he said maybe one percent of them are approaching self-actualisation. So, this is the summary of what he kind of discovered or postulated.
So, you want to make a comment on this or before? Yeah, the first thing is I just thought of how we can have contemporary perspectives, not just on something which is like the Vedic texts which are thousands of years old, but a contemporary perspective on something which is going to have 50 years ago, 60 years ago. Like I don’t think when Maslow talked about belonging, he would have thought about social media and seeking likes and followers over there. So, that’s a contemporary expression of that.
So, that was quite striking what you mentioned. Now, when we talk about this hierarchy, it’s broadly speaking, I had heard of this as hierarchy of needs and you prefer to phrase it as theory of motivations. It seems that both words are used.
So, is there some difference or is it essentially the same? The hierarchy, of course, we can say it’s a pyramid, so it’s a hierarchy, but need and motivation, do they essentially convey the same thing or are there some subtle differences over there? Well, psychologists don’t seem to agree on like a concrete definition of motivation. I think two, three days ago, you were saying that the word motivation seems to be like, what could be his sinister motivation? Some kind of a negative connotation. And now we have people who proudly say, oh, I’m a motivation speaker.
I help people get motivated. So, this, my old professor, when he said that, oh, we are simply vexed by this question. Why do people behave as they do? So, that seems to be like the perennial quest for understanding how do we, I think in all fields, we have this fixation with one particular question, like physics has this thing that can we explain the universe with just one equation, which can be worn on your t-shirt.
I remember somewhere that this was the ambition that this one equation should satisfy. So, maybe it is modern education, which kind of gives you that impetus for finding a one size fits all solution for everything. So, in that way, when Maslow said these are needs, later people said, no, it is not like somebody needs these things strictly in this serial order.
Also, Maslow famously commented that man doesn’t live on bread alone. But that happens only when he has bread. If he doesn’t have it, then that becomes his primary fixation.
So, how far it is true that for a student of Bhakti wisdom or Vedic wisdom that you need to have these things met. And another point which came up recently in one of our discussions was, it is futile to talk of religion to a man on empty stomach. Now, you nicely reminded me that this doesn’t seem to be like a Puranic quote or a quote from Mahabharata or Ramayana.
And I also could not find out. But it is generally accepted that if a person is hungry, you feed him and then you try to fulfil his other needs. So, that seems to corroborate well with Maslow’s observation.
Would you like to discuss on this? That’s a good point. So, two, three things. First is that I’ve always found that any system of classification of taxonomy that we may use, it is always an approximation of reality.
Just like a map. In a map, the boundaries seem very neatly drawn. This is India, this is Pakistan, this is China, this is Bangladesh.
But in the real life, especially I have the Bangladesh boundary, India’s boundary is very messy. There are many parts of India inside Bangladesh and many parts of Bangladesh inside India. And then inside the parts of Bangladesh which are inside India, there are parts of India again.
So, then they had to resolve the issues and took decades to resolve it eventually. So, similarly, any system of classification we have, it’s like a map of reality and it’s a tool, it’s approximation. So, we can consider at one level where the approximation helps or how much the approximation helps in help us in for navigating the territory and where the map doesn’t work, where there could be, the territory could be different from the map.
So, with that caveat, I feel that, see, although he talks about self-actualisation, in my understanding that there is, from what I heard of Maslow, he never really had a clear understanding of what the self is. So, if a person is spiritually very nourished, spiritually very contented, then to some extent, the other needs become less important. So, this is something which is also ordinary experience.
Sometimes some people become absorbed in doing some work, maybe they’re writing a book or they’re doing some research, or they’re meeting some deadline in something, and they forget to eat, they forget to sleep, and it’s not like austerity that they’re consciously doing, just forget it. So, in one sense, it is possible that even from empirical observation, that sometimes a person whose higher needs are fulfilled in a very meaningful, joyful way for them, their lower needs may become decreased, their lower needs may become not exactly eliminated, but substantially reduced or subordinated. So, now that, if that can happen for something at a material level itself, somebody can, had you mentioned with some famous mathematician or someone, when he was to do a surgery, he said that don’t give me anaesthesia, I’ll just think of math sums in my head, and he was able to get the surgery without any anaesthesia, and I had heard that even Stalin.
Yeah, that’s a story about Stalin, that he did not trust his physicians with anaesthesia, so he said I would rather tolerate the pain. Okay, so that’s also another example. So, it does seem that, now in one sense, it could say that for him, if it was not lack of trust, it was, was it the security needs trumped, what is the first level? First is basic physiological needs.
So, security, safety need could trump the physiological needs, or we could say here in this case, it’s, I think, it’s not esteem or prestige. So, it seems that if somebody is joyfully absorbed in something which they love, so that self-actualisation needs could sometimes override the physiological needs, and it might apply to everything, not entirely. It’s a, we have examples of parents sometimes depriving themselves and starving to feed their children or even doing something, something which is physically impossible.
Say, sometimes a parent sees that their child is trapped under a car and they suddenly get power to lift the car. And these are not just in movies, it has been documented in real life also, now that every parent will be able to do it. But it seems that in some occasions, the higher, so the higher is not just, in one sense, attained after the lower, but once the higher is attained, the lower can become less, less demanding.
It can consume less attention and it may require less, less absorption. So, then we could take this extrapolation for, extrapolate further and then we can understand how the Goswamis, Nidrahara, Vihara, Kadi, Vijitha, they had conquered food and sleep. So, any thoughts on this? Yeah, this is exactly what I would like to kind of drive our discussion towards.
We have the prime example of the six Goswamis in our Gaudiya Vaishnav Sampradaya and specifically it is mentioned, Srinivas Acharya mentions in his Stuti, prayers glorifying them, that Nidra, Ahara, Vihara. So, basically he has negated three of the basic needs, which of course may not be in need from their point of view. And at the same time, these individuals are considered as the most productive and most charitable and always working for the welfare of people in general.
And at the same time, dheera dheera janapriyo, from their point of view, they are not distinguishing between somebody who takes whatever help they are offering and somebody abhors it, somebody is averse to it or somebody doesn’t take it. So, this seems to be like a complete different angle of looking at human behaviour. Beautifully put.
So, now another thing is that, going back to your earlier statement about whether a person can seek the higher without having the lower fulfilled. So, again my understanding would be to depend on person. Normally, no, but we have examples of say sometimes people who are on a search.
They may not have achieved a spiritual search, but just they are passionately seeking a spiritual search. Somebody might be on an intellectual search. Somebody might go, say for example, somebody goes mountaineering.
They want to climb the Himalayas, get to the Mount Everest. Then they may risk their life. So, in one sense, for they want that it we could call it a steam or actualisation and I want to have the distinction of having touched or conquered Mount Everest and for that they may risk their life.
They may endure extreme discomfort. So, that means that the lower needs can be subordinated for higher needs, for something higher, but say there are people who are living in the Himalayas and for them going to the Mount Everest is nothing exciting. In one sense, that’s common.
It may be difficult, but it’s nothing very exciting for them. So, then for them, if they don’t have food properly, they don’t have proper warmth and basic necessities, they would be miserable and for them, if they are there, they are not seeking really to go up the mountain. They may help those who are going up the mountain so that they can have their basic needs fulfilled.
So, could it be that, this example, that the needs are also arising from one’s, say, conception of life or one’s desires. In one sense, the difference between needs and motivations, which I had discussed earlier. So, generally, we often use the word between difference between need and greed.
So, greed is something which is excessive, disproportionate. Need is something which is essential. And now, if we consider desire, do we associate desire with greed or need? So, sometimes we could say, we desire something that we need.
I’m hungry, I need food and I desire food, but desire could also be associated with greed. And roughly, now I’m putting a lot of terms over here, but I’ll come to my point that we could equate desire with motivation. What motivates people? What do people desire when they do something like that? So, for most people, unless something higher catches their fascination, because of some reasons, some exceptional reasons, the lower will need to be fulfilled before they can get to the higher.
So, the desire needs to be addressed at a lower level before their desire can ascend to a higher level. And one way of correlating with this Vedic tradition would be, for most people, Dharma, Artha, Kama has to be addressed before they can move toward Moksha. Any thoughts on this? Yeah, this is a nice kind of correlation with the famous four Purusharthas.
Purusha is a person, male or female, and Artha is what do you desire? So, the Vedas exhort that first of all, try to find Dharma. That itself is a daunting task because Dharma is called Nihitakuhaya. It’s elusive, it is not easy to find.
You have to do a lot of introspection and also asking questions to the right people. You have to find the right people and then that Dharma will give rise to Artha. That Artha will give rise to fulfilled of your desires and ultimately Moksha.
So, what were you exactly seeking to find? So, the point I was making was that, is it that desire could be, we could equate desire. So, a desire at a lower level usually needs to be satisfied before a person can go to a desire at a higher level. That was the point I was making.
Now in exceptional cases, a person’s desire for something higher may be so strong that a lower desire may be neglected. See, this thing fits. What I read in one paper was that a very accomplished person, a very rich person or a very famous person, but he’s lost in the woods and that for a very long time.
So, the reason, the fact that he’s famous doesn’t help him now. The fact that he has money doesn’t help him now. He is hungry for the last two days.
So, only thing he wants is food. Now, this is just a situation just to make us understand or could be an exception. So, even though you may have other needs met at a particular time, that particular need could be the boss, could be the one, it could be urgent and it could also be important.
It may not be significant from your whole life’s point of view that, oh, I was just seeking a few pieces of bread or whatever. And you may pay exorbitant money also if somebody, like we’re just arguing for the sake of a discussion, that somebody comes and says that, okay, two pieces of bread, $20 each. You gladly pay because that time you’re hungry.
Okay. But that doesn’t mean that bread is all the time very important for you in your life. It is just at that particular time.
And if we bring in our question of theology, that I’m talking of a very high level, certainly not my level at all, that, oh, I’m starving for the last two days. Maybe Krishna wants me to starve. That’s all.
And we have so many of our saints, almost all of them, show this kind of example that maybe this is the way God has put me in a situation and I just need to cooperate with God’s plan. I’m again repeating, this is not for the novice, not for, you don’t need to kind of test your destiny with this kind of thing, but that Srila Prabhupada also has shown this kind of behaviour that all my money is gone, my chances of reaching here in Jhansi also are gone. And he said, I laughed.
Now, being bereft of everything, surely laughing is the last thing in anybody’s mind or anybody’s thoughts. But that came because, now this is what I would like to really say, this is a person who’s already self-realised. That’s the definition of self, which Maslow could not find because today, if you try to find what is the self, so here, sorry to say that, but the understanding of self seems to be very puny and very kind of trivial that, you know, I’m an actor, I am an astronaut and I am a published author.
That means I am self-actualised. I see myself as somebody doing this and that I am self-actualised. So, psychologists are saying that you don’t need to be a NASA astronaut to become self-actualised.
You could be a primary school teacher in a small town and if that is exactly what you want to be, then you are self-actualised. But the deep understanding of the self as a non-material spark of life, that part of life within us, which is spiritual, that is our real self. That is the point where self-actualisation or as psychologists have added transcendence needs that comes in the picture.
So, any thoughts on this? That’s nicely put. I like this point of sometimes I talk about self-realisation and self-actualisation. They are somewhat different.
Although the terms may be used as interchangeable. So, self-realisation is more of understanding who I really am. And that is the part of this, that is understanding that I am the soul.
And self-actualisation is the other extreme where it is actualising or making into reality, making actual the potential of the mind-body machine that we have. So, for example, somebody has a great musical talent. And if they have that musical talent, that’s wonderful.
And they can and should develop that talent. And if they develop that talent and they become a great musician, they become a great sports player, whatever it is, that is wonderful. But that in itself doesn’t make them self-realised.
So, they may have actualised their potential at a physical level or at a social level. So, this self-actualisation in that sense is a somewhat fragmented understanding. So, at one level the self is unchanged.
So, self-realisation is understanding our spiritual essence, what we eternally are. Whereas self-realisation is manifesting our potential through our body-mind machine. It is becoming what we are capable of.
And this is, we need a healthy understanding of when to focus on what. So, in some ways, if you see modern self-help books and everything, they focus primarily on self-actualisation. They have no idea of what the self is.
But you have so much potential in this world, you can become this, you can become that, you can fulfil your dreams. And there is a part of transforming or becoming within us which is important. So, Arjuna always had the talent to become a great archer and he became a great archer by his diligent practise and discipline.
But at the same time, just becoming a great archer itself did not make him a devotee, did not help him to realise that he is a part of Krishna. So, self-realisation is something different. So, in one sense, a holistic self-development is both.
There is self-realisation aspect and there is self-actualisation aspect. And if we are too otherworldly, then we focus on self-realisation and then we neglect self-actualisation. So, when he talks about actualisation needs, it is not so much of, he is using the self in a more metaphorical sense.
Something which you think which is very important, that which speaks to the deepest part of you, that you should be able to do it. So, an artist may feel, a writer may feel, I want to do nothing other than write. And that is wonderful.
But just by writing, the person is not going to realise that I am a soul. It can help detach them from other things. So, we could say that the motivational needs, they are needs of something, actually one says other than the self.
That their needs of the body, their needs of the mind, their needs of the ego. And then, there is the soul’s need also expressed through it. But the soul’s ultimate need is to just realise who we are, not in terms of what our body and mind’s nature is.
So, quite often when they talk about self-actualisation, it is more like understanding yourself, how aligning with yourself and then becoming what you are meant to be according to your so-called, according to your psychophysical nature. But the essential of the self is something different. Any thoughts on this? Yeah, very nicely put.
Now, I am very clear about why you maintain this distinction between self-actualisation and self-realisation. And now it is very clear. So, the point is, like today, see 1943 and now it is 2021.
So, almost 80 years after this theory has made its rounds. There seems to be some kind of, well, I am putting it this way, some kind of glee on the faces of modern psychologists that say, oh, he’s not at all totally right. So, Maslow doesn’t have that kind of following or some kind of celebrity status.
But they say at least he laid the foundations of understanding hierarchy of needs or motivation or why do people behave as they do. Today, they are putting more of an emphasis on happiness. And this is a very interesting subject that Finland, Denmark, basically Finland and Denmark, they rank very high on the happiness index.
And Bhutan as a country also ranks very high on the happiness index. But if you see the kind of mobile phones per 10,000 population, the ratio of tarred roads per 10,000 population, how many vehicles are owned per 100,000 population, Bhutan has very low scores on that. But why are they happy? So basically, it is like framing of the question that when you use your definition of self-actualisation, like your mind, body, and that full development, oh, I wanted to be a Formula One race driver.
I wanted to be a model. And now today’s young boys, many of them would like to be YouTube influencers, or Formula One race drivers or film heroes. Girls would like to be models, YouTube influencers, social media experts.
And if they become, they feel according to Maslow, you give me a certificate saying, oh, you’re self-actualised. Self-actualised, you could be according to this theory, but you could not be happy. So even if somebody gets what they want, Maslow would give a certificate saying that according to me, you are the top 1% and you have nothing to gripe for, no excuses to make any kind of mistakes or not excuse to make mistakes, no excuse to grumble about anything.
But that’s where the theory falls on its face, that contentment and satisfaction and happiness that still eludes people. And this is where we have the real understanding of the self as distinct from your material body, your mind, and ego, a completely spiritual entity, a spark, which is what is famously used many times that the self is like a spiritual spark. And Bhakti Yoga wisdom is where you fan that spark and grow into a big fire.
That is a metaphor for growing your spiritual personality. And then whether you have friends, or you may not have any friends, whether somebody is a recluse, a meditator just sitting alone in the forest, but there is no requirement for any friends or any intimacy or anything. So can we discuss a little bit more on the actual understanding of self according to Veda wisdom versus what psychologists call the self? Yes, it’s, I think this could even be a separate podcast in itself.
But in presently, the idea of the self, they say that the self is basically constructed. So their idea is that we have a social self based on our social identity, we may have a cultural self, we may have an emotional self. And now the idea is that, so it’s almost like self is equated with one’s self-identity or self-identification.
So cultural self means, I may think that I’m a traditional Indian, or a social self maybe thinking that, okay, I’m belonging to a particular profession or a particular regional demographic group. And whether underlying all these selves, there is any real self, that is something which is open to question. And especially because with this thought of Anattavada, that Buddha rejected the idea of self, or at least he is attributed, that is a teaching attributed to him that he rejected the idea of a self.
From that point onwards, what has happened is that the idea that many people today think that there is no such thing as a self. So the notion of self is something which is an illusion, which is either psychological illusion or like a neurological illusion. And by the brain’s functioning, we get the idea that there is a self.
But this is, for most people, this sounds completely irrational and acceptable. Because we do all function as if we have a self. So, I can talk about the problems with this theory of the idea that there is no self.
But that’s, but before I go to that, if you want to add something or respond to this, this idea of a self, you can tell and say something. No, you carry on. Okay, so one way to talk about is that if the idea of the self is constantly changing.
Now, we are constantly changing the impressions that shape who we are and shape who we think we are, they’re constantly changing. But, so this is from a psychological perspective. But the point is that there is some substratum that is unchanging.
Otherwise, if you throw a person from a 50-story building down, is it that by the time that person crashes to the ground, that person has changed to somebody else and that person won’t die, somebody else will die? No, it is you will die and that’s why we are afraid of death. Somebody might be 60 years old and their mother might be 85 years old and she might say, oh, my little boy. She might have called him a little boy when he was 5 years old.
Now, from 5 to 60, there is a big change. But still there is something unchanging. So, the problem here is that one of the characteristics of the Atma that Bhagavata says in 224-225 is that it is not perceivable.
It is not even, what is that word? Vishwamitra Ghatak would explain that it can be known only by Shastra. It cannot even be reliably inferred. What is the verse after that? Where it says that, something like that.
So, anyway, the point is that it is achintoyam. So, it is not manifested and it is not even contemplatable. So, avyakta in one sense, we can say that it refers to that it cannot be perceivable by the senses and achintya is 225, it is not even perceivable by the mind.
So, it can only be perceived by scripture. Now, of course, we could say that we can make inferences about the existence of the self as soul by biological analysis and it’s possible. But it’s not a irrefutable analysis that will be acceptable for everyone.
So, in that sense, that’s the problem that we implicitly accept that there is a self, but to get a clearer understanding of the self, perception or inference alone may not help. So, we need some kind of higher understanding means that comes from scripture. So, just to complete this point, normally in science, we talk about empiricism and rationalism.
But it’s interesting that Einstein himself says that how intuition is a far greater source of understanding than either experimentation or theorising or reasoning. And in some ways, in religious traditions, we have the conception of revelation. So, revelation is like a, we could say, a dramatic comprehensive transmission of wisdom from a higher source to a particular living being.
But in another sense, when a living being gets an intuition or what we call as inspiration, just sudden understanding, this is right, sudden clarity, sudden conviction, sudden resolution of complicated problems. So, many of these people who, many of the scientists and musicians who made these breakthroughs, many significant breakthroughs, they said that it’s almost as if we got the answer on our own, not on our own, it’s almost as if the answer came on its own, as if planted inside us from somewhere else. You know, poets talk in terms of the poetry told me to write me.
There is a famous author, I forget his name. He says that, you know, how do you write your novels? He said, you know, I just follow the characters and no doubt whatever they do, that’s my novel. So, the idea that something beyond us may reveal something to us.
So, that is also required to some extent for self-realisation, for understanding the self. So, this whole dimension of the self, it seems that it is missing in most western philosophy of self as Atma, self as a non-material source of consciousness. Can I turn to another point? Yes, please, please.
So, this thing of physiological needs, food, clothing, shelter, the closest which comes to alluding to this concept is, if you don’t act, how would you maintain your body? So, it’s a very interesting thing that Krishna mentions it in this particular way. And as far as the basic needs are concerned, like sometimes students in India, especially they ask that, if we follow the Gita, would we have food to eat? So, does it address at Maslow’s basic theory of physiological security? And Prabhupada would say, of course. Why do you think Gita would say anything impractical? Do you agree that living beings subsist on food grains? He would say, yes.
Food grains come from rains, completely observable phenomenon, nothing wrong with that. But when the rains are born from Yagya, from sacrifice, you may say, come on, how come, you know, you just perform some fire sacrifice and rains come? So, well, if the first two are common sense, that you need to eat grains to eat. Prabhupada said, you cannot eat nut bolts, you cannot eat PVC pipes, you cannot eat PCBs, you cannot eat chips, not the potato ones.
So, you need grains and it is as, like it is common sense, grains need to be grown and they grow by good rainfall. Good rainfall is a product of sacrifice. You have to find out which is the recommended sacrifice for that particular time and your bodily endowment.
So, Vedic wisdom is not saying that, like this is another fear or sometimes in India, people ask that, what if you negate all your basic needs and only concentrate on self-actualisation? Now, for some time, we will go with Maslow’s term, although we know that we are talking of self-realisation, or we can use self-realisation also. What if somebody makes self-realisation the only goal of his or her life? Will they be excused from having to worry about the basic needs? That’s interesting. You know, one of the things which I have repeatedly come to realise is that sometimes, one of the best ways that, it’s considered rhetorically shady strategy, that it is to create false parallels or to create false polarities.
So, that means, what are the false polarities that if you do this, will you have this? So for now, yes, theoretically speaking, we are not saying that people have to starve so that they study the Bhagavad Gita or chant Krishna’s names. And as we know, Prabhupada also arranged for food for life and that compassionate attitude was there, no doubt. But the point is that, in how many people are in the situation where, actually they have to be like that, that they have a choice.
You know, if I chant my rounds, I will not be able to do my job and therefore, I will not have food to eat. So, how many people are in that situation actually? So, if somebody is in an emergency situation, yes, society is meant to create resources so that people can have gainful employment and financial stability. And the individual also needs to take some responsibility for that.
But in general, for most people, this is, we could say, more of an excuse than a reason for not exploring spirituality. So, it says, people say, India is so poor, why does India need to develop economically right now? Why should India need more of, say, humanitarian work, economical development and these things, economic development. India doesn’t need spirituality right now.
So, one response could be, okay, if that’s what we need, is everybody doing that? Is everybody contributing to economic development of society? You know, are you doing some humanitarian work to help people who are underprivileged to develop economically? No, the people who say this, quite often are engaged in all kinds of sensual pleasures, which may actually have very little to do with humanitarian work. They may be having their luxury, they may be spending their time in mundane entertainment. I’m not saying this is bad.
That’s not the point over here. The point is that how many people actually do this? So, that’s one way of looking at it. Any thoughts on this? Yeah, somebody, I think there was a group of Chartered Accountancy students, CA students, and they said, so is the goal of ISKCON to make everybody into a monk? What would happen to the world if everybody becomes a monk? And one of our senior teachers said that, okay, what if everybody in the world becomes a Chartered Accountant? So, he said, no, that’s not possible.
So, why not possible? Well, somebody has to work for someone. So, similarly, don’t worry that everybody is going to become a seven headed monk, and that’s what our goal is. It was never our goal.
It was never even, it is not impractical also. It is, as you rightly said, it’s simply an excuse for someone to not take spirituality seriously. Yeah, having said that, I’m not categorically saying that this is not important or this should not be done.
That’s not the point at all. Correct. Definitely, we recognise the importance of certain things in certain situations.
So, fully agree with that point. Maybe our importance of, maybe our importance in giving importance to understanding Gita wisdom gives people the feeling that, oh, this will talk only of that. That means that is the only goal which they want all of us to have.
Okay, that’s a good point. Not at all. We just want you to understand that there could be this hierarchy of needs.
And as we see, even the, I just repeat, even modern psychologists don’t agree that this is a concrete line in stone kind of a hierarchy. But that hierarchy or whatever categorisation, not a hierarchy even that is acknowledged by Vedas. The Vedas recommend a lifestyle where all these needs are met.
And just like a novice student is given certain privileges and certain strictness. Like from in primary school, you have to be at a particular time, you have to have your clothes, you have to have your, like in our school, the shirt must be tucked in, shoes polished black, no long hair. But then at a PhD level, they don’t expect somebody to come at a particular hour or there is some bit of a leeway in what your attire could be.
Of course, I don’t want this to be stretched. But because the student has shown that much of merit, so certain lower things are kind of neglected, because the higher duty is expected. So this is what I am trying to say that somebody who’s already self-realised, you cannot expect these needs to show up in his life as a matter of hierarchy.
Like somebody is an excellent, somebody is fully fixed in the self and still compelling that, you know, okay, my spiritual poetry is top-notch, but I haven’t eaten for the last 12 hours. We don’t see that kind of a complaint. We see that when we read in the prayers that basic needs like food, rest, they are not repressed, but they are transcended.
Is it right to put it like that? Beautiful. I fully agree about this point. It’s in no way self-deprivation.
It is more of the self having a higher level need fulfilled, by which a lower level need becomes somewhat redundant, we could say. Now, so just to integrate this, this point about that for some people, the lower non-fulfilment of the lower needs can be an obstacle which needs to be removed so that they can actually progress toward the fulfilment of the higher needs. But for most people, it is, they will in their own routine lives create arrangements for fulfilling their normal needs, their basic needs, we could say.
And it is not necessarily automatically that one may progress toward higher needs. This is the interest, maybe you could comment on this point, that so would a person automatically progress toward seeking spiritual fulfilment, what we can call a self-realisation. In one sense, as human beings, once we have basic survival, we look for safety, then we look for belonging, we look for not just a sense of belonging, but a sense of respect.
I want to be accepted in social circle and I want to have my own space. I want to be respected in social circle. And then I want to make my own distinctive contribution.
So, you could say that accepting is belonging, then respected, being accepted is belonging, respected is esteem, and then in some ways manifesting my uniqueness, my distinctiveness, not necessarily egoistic sense, but that’s self-actualisation. So, a person may progress upwards, but unless there is some impetus, a person may not necessarily go higher and higher and may never go towards spiritual needs in the sense of self-realisation unless they get some good association, unless they get some spiritual association. Any thoughts on this? Yeah.
So, this is primarily seen in the lives of a few prominent members of society who were not part of the counterculture. Ambarish Ford, like a scion of the Ford dynasty, then Marco Ferrini, who became a Matshavatar Prabhu later, one of the youngest millionaires in a town famous for design, especially in marble and wood, and then George Harrison, and later Bhaktivedanta Swami would talk about Muhammad Ali. So, this is like two generations of famous personalities, rich, famous, and they seem to have everything what others could feel that, okay, only if I have that, I’ll be happy.
This is something which people have that only if I reach that stage, that hierarchy, then I’ll be happy. And almost all these individuals at a particular point of time, they ask the question, what next? And the universe could not give them any answer. Okay, I have these millions, I have fame, I have youth.
Like, I think Bhaktivedanta Swami talks in terms of Muhammad Ali telling him that I just need to pick up my phone and any of the female celebrities of whatever category, whatever field will gladly accept my invitation to spend some time with me or whatever. But then comes the question, what next? So, what next? I feel has a connection with the hierarchy. All my physical needs are met, my emotional needs are met, my esteem needs are met, I have everything.
Still, why do I have the question, what next? That means there is something which is there, it’s hidden from me. And as you said, when they come in good association, if they ask the proper questions, then they are given the proper definition of what the self is. And as Bhagavatam describes, a fish out of water syndrome.
Put a fish in a luxury bed with a fabulous home theatre system surrounding him with the best of sounds and visual entertainment and the fish would just request, what next? Just put me in water. So, self-realisation as defined in our Vedic wisdom is, if you ever find yourself asking the question, what next? After getting everything what the world has to offer, obviously it means your real self has not been even understood or satisfied. And as Bhagavatam famously says, Satisfying the self fully or the Gita talks of Satisfying the self fully or the Gita talks of Yes.
So, that is the stage of self-realisation, which not only completely satisfy the self and even what people like imagine now, having achieved that, one comes to the realisation, there is nothing more to be achieved. And funnily, some people feel, oh, that’s very bad. That will put an end to all my activities.
If there is nothing else to be achieved, then it will be bad for me. So, they would rather be perennially in search of satisfaction, rather than get something which actually makes them satisfied for the fear that, oh, if once I’m satisfied, then I’ll be bored. I’ll be bored with the same, doing the same thing.
But they don’t understand that the spiritual self, it is fresh. It is new. Always new, always fresh.
And at the same time, you’re doing the same old thing again and again. Like people say, what do you get from chanting? And Prabhupada’s answer was very cryptic, more chanting. Oh, that means you are in a perennial sense of dissatisfaction.
That is the be all and end all of your spirituality? Not at all. That’s beautiful. So, I think those verses which you quote from the Bhagavatam on the Gopis, they are amazing.
And that’s a very, I think it’s a very sweet note to, sweet and spiritually and devotional note to conclude that when the highest need is fulfilled, then nothing else matters. Then, for example, the Gopis are ready to go to hell to please Krishna for just one moment, to release Krishna’s headache for one moment. And that indicates that when that they don’t really care for anything else at all.
So, we could say that in one sense, we have to, at our stage, we have to gradually take care of all the needs. We have to, in a balanced way, take care of all the needs while at the same time making sure that we give you attention to the higher needs. And then as the higher needs are getting fulfilled more and more, then our dependence on the lower needs may become lesser till eventually we may transcend them.
And those are the examples which we have. We cannot artificially imitate them. But they can be a source of inspiration for us rather than thinking that I am supposed to imitate them.
So, imitation will be impossible. And thinking that imitation is impossible, we may consider, we may actually harm ourselves or reject the whole thing as impractical. But that higher experience can actually make the lower, not exactly redundant, but less insistent, less important.
So, that is the end of my notes here. Would you like to summarise? Actually, we touched upon quite a wide spectrum of thoughts. Yes, true.
So, let us see, we discuss, as I said, a good amount of things. Well, basically, you introduce the concept of Maslow’s theory of motivation and broadly the five levels, physiological, then safety, then love belonging, then esteem, and then actualisation. So, in organisational theory, this is what makes people tick.
That is the understanding. So, now from a Vedic perspective, we understand that there are people, that we are ultimately spiritual beings, but we are encased in physical bodies. So, the body-mind machine also requires to be taken care of.
And then in that connection, we discuss that there is this hierarchy rigid. So, is it always the way this way, this is how it works? So, I discussed even in, what to speak of spiritual life, even material life. If a person very concerned about something higher, Stalin being concerned about his safety or author or some author or creative person being inspired in a flow of creativity.
So, even those needs may be subordinated or forgotten because of some absorption in higher things. So, any system of classification is like a map, which is a tool, approximate tool for the territory. It’s never a precise replica of the territory.
So, then, does normally people have to fulfil the lower needs to get to the higher needs? Yes, most people have to do. And you mentioned about how when people, if people’s lower needs are not fulfilled, can they not fulfil the higher needs? Well, that might be possible, but it’s rare. The tension between the two is rare and society needs to be arranged so that people can have their lower needs fulfilled.
And then they can go to the higher needs. But just think, if people, because my lower needs are not fulfilled, so I won’t go to a higher needs. And what may happen is the lower needs may keep expanding, and then they’ll become desires that gravitate towards greed and people get diverted.
So, they never rise to something higher. So, in principle, humanity has to live in a holistic way. You talked about how people think that they are happy.
Say, people in Bhutan may top in the happiness survey, Scandinavian countries top in the happiness survey. But this is more of a subjective conception. And if you look at the overall way of living, now, in some places, maybe people are free from physical dependency on gadgets and comforts, and still they’re happy.
Another place, they’re heavily dependent on those things, and then they think they’re happy. So, we can’t just rely on our subjective feelings if we want to actually grow in our life. And then I talked about this concept of this hierarchy of needs is good.
But even when he’s talking about self-actualisation, there is no clear understanding of the self. The self-actualisation is more of manifesting the potential of the mind and the body. But there is self-realisation, which the Gita and Vedic texts talk about, which is realising who we essentially are.
And that, if it is neglected, then everything else may give some fulfilment, but it won’t produce anything enduring. And later, we talked about how, also I mentioned, we have talked about the Dharmartha Kaamoksha. Yes, in the Vedic standard also, it’s understood that we fulfil the lower needs to go toward the higher needs.
But the understanding is the higher also needs to be pursued. And that pursuit may not happen automatically. It has to be sought consciously.
And sometimes it’s by the association of devotees that one will be able to do that. And we talked about people who are super successful like George Harrison and others. It is only when they found something higher that they got satisfied.
So, unfortunately, in today’s world, the concept of self itself is rejected as a psychological construct. But there is a self which needs to be realised, which is avyakta achintya, but it can be realised through scriptural revelation, it can be understood through personal intuition also. And lastly, we talked about the Samadhi verses, where there is a supreme fulfilment, where none of the material pleasures or the material distresses trouble a person because they become so spiritually fulfilled.
And they can embrace troubles, in fact, they can embrace deprivation of their lower needs for the sake of the higher fulfilment like the Gopis of Vrindavan. Any points you want to add? Since in this podcast, we talked about the self and you mentioned a very important point that the very idea of self is rejected. When did the rejection actually become prominent or the West never accepted the idea of the Vedic self? Maybe that’s what we could discuss in another podcast.
Oh, yes, that would be a very fascinating topic to discuss. Thank you very much. Thank you.
For your association today. Hare Krishna. And look forward to it in the future again.
Hare Krishna.