Our longing for love – comparing materialist, Abrahamic, impersonal and bhakti explanations

[Sunday feast class at ISKCON, Delaware, USA]

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna.
Hare Krishna. Great to be here amongst all of you today. Thank you for coming and I will speak today on the topic of why we need spirituality and how the Bhagavad Gita is a universal and practical spiritual guidebook.
When we go through life, we all have certain needs which we strive to fulfil. So, for example, when a child is born, the child cries because the child may not even verbalise or may not even realise that actually I need food. But the mother recognises the child is crying and needs food.
And the mother provides. As the child grows, the mother understands, okay, when I feel this strange, unpleasant sensation in my stomach, that’s the time when I need food. And then the child cries or asks the mother for food.
When the child grows up, the child learns to associate. The child may grow, okay. This dry sensation in my neck, this indicates that I need some water.
The child may grow up and himself or herself go to a tavern and get some water and drink. So, basically, we all have certain needs and we all have certain ways in which we become aware of the need and certain ways in which we fulfil that need. So, water is a need.
And then, as we grow, the sense of dryness, we understand this indicates that I need the water now. And then, we understand, okay, drinking this liquid will fulfil that need. So, basically, we have a need, we recognise what the need is and we recognise the right way to fulfil that need.
So, as we move forward, our needs become… Some of the needs are deeper than the other needs. That means… What do I mean by deeper? Let’s say, somebody is sick and is in pain. At that time, say, if I have got arthritis, then I just move my hands or move my legs and I move because of the pain.
In that case, I may associate pain with movement. And then, I will think, I don’t want pain. So, what should I do? Just give a movement.
I can just stop moving my body. I will become free from pain. Now, that is true.
While this understanding is correct, it is not complete. Becoming motionless is not the solution. Nor is motion the cause of the pain.
The cause of the pain is the disease, the arthritis. And the cure for the disease is not just giving up motion. It is actually taking some medication and maybe doing some exercise which requires doing some motion in a regulated way even if there is some pain.
So, in this case, the need is to be free from pain. But, recognising that this is the way to become free from that pain, there is a superficial way to stop motion. And there is a super way.
This is the more and more substantial way. That is actually cure the disease. So, if we don’t recognise what actually the need is, then we won’t be able to address that need properly.
Another more contemporary example could be that if somebody has some problems, say, they are having some disease which is causing a lot of pain and they just take a painkiller. The painkiller may remove the pain but it is actually not curing the pain. It is simply covering the pain.
When there is a proper treatment needed, a doctor will give both a painkiller and a curative medicine. Sometimes the pain is a lot. The patient needs the painkiller to tackle the medicine, to tackle the situation that they are in.
But the painkiller alone is not enough. You need the curative medicine also. So, the Ishopanishad describes It says that we need Vidya and Avidya.
Vidya is knowledge. Normally we would consider Avidya to be the opposite of Vidya, that is ignorance. But in this context, Avidya doesn’t refer to ignorance.
It refers to another kind of knowledge. Vidya refers to knowledge of spiritual reality. Avidya refers to knowledge of material reality.
And the Ishopanishad says that by Vidya, by spiritual knowledge, we will go beyond this world. So, by spiritual knowledge, we will attain eternal life. And by material knowledge, we will navigate through this material existence which is like an ocean.
So, I’ll elaborate on this verse a little bit more. But the point is that when we have a particular situation in which we have a particular need, so identifying what is the way to address that need is important. If we study mathematics, and in mathematics, if we get the first step wrong, then no matter how well we do all the other calculations, nothing is going to help.
Because the first step wrong means all subsequent steps will go wrong. If we consider our needs, we easily understand food is a need, clothing is a need, shelter is a need, but we have deeper needs also. One need is a need for relationships.
Now, we are by nature social creatures. And even if we all have our particular nature, some of us may be introverts, some of us may be extroverts. Introverts are people who get strength by being alone and by being in contemplation when they are alone.
They process life and its events best when they are alone. Extroverts are people who get strength when they are with others. Even if we are by our particular nature introverts or extroverts, we all need relationships.
And how do we address this need for relationships? So, at one level, when we are born itself, we have our parents, we have many siblings, we have friends. As we grow up, we form various relationships. As we grow up further, then we marry.
And then, we further expand our relationships. Then we have children. We further expand our relationships.
And this way, we address our need for relationships by acting in the relationships that we already have and by also developing further relationships. And this is a very deep-rooted need. The need for relationships.
The need to love and be loved. We all have this as a core need. And in fact, most of the things that we do in our life in today’s world, we don’t really do them primarily for basic survival needs.
We live in a relatively progressive society. So, we may not have so much worry. Oh, what if I will starve and I will die without food? No.
Most likely, that is an extreme possibility. But when we work, we go to, we may get some degrees from some big universities. We try to get a big job.
We try to have a big house. These are not just survival necessities. We do these because somehow we hope that by gaining more wealth, by gaining more properties, by gaining more designations, we will by all these gain more love.
We want to love and be loved. And we want to become more attractive and lovable in the eyes of others. Whether it is people who we are already related with or people who we will relate with in future.
Most of the actions that we do, even if they don’t seem to be addressing this need, they are actually targeted towards this need. We want a very prestigious degree from a university. We want a high paying job or we want a fancy house by which we hope that people will be attracted to us.
And when people are attracted to us, we are attracted to them. Then in that relationship there will be love and there will be satisfaction. However, sometimes the way to fulfil the need can itself become so complicated that we get so caught in it that we forget what need we are trying to fulfil.
That means some people may try to earn money. I have to become wealthy. I have to get this much money.
I have to do this, I have to do that, I have to do that. And they go to any extreme to get their money. But in the process they neglect their relationships.
They not only neglect their relationships, they sometimes manipulate people, exploit people and they eventually become lonely and suspicious of everyone. So they actually did all this, they worked so hard to earn money so that they would be more attractive in the eyes of others so that they could attract love. But the process itself got so intricate that sometimes having a huge house offers nothing but the privilege of having a lot of space in which to feel lonely.
A big house but in getting that big house people have alienated so many other people. This is what happened to Dhritarashtra. In the Mahabharata, Dhritarashtra always had the sense of deprivation and inferiority because he was blind and so he couldn’t inherit the kingdom.
And he was, because he had the sense of inferiority and deprivation was throughout his life trying to mitigate that, trying to address that. And Pandu although the younger son, younger brother was very deferential to Dhritarashtra and when he would go out and conquer other kingdoms and get tributes he would give the biggest section of tribute to his brother. But when Pandu passed away and both he and Pandu had sons his attachment to Duryodhana became irrationally excessive.
Now what was he longing for? He was thinking that if I cannot be the king then let my son be the king and through my son I will rule. But what happened was that his son, he was quite attached, envious and evil. And thus Dhritarashtra in order to please his son kept accepting more and more nefarious ideas.
But he himself acted in terrible ways. And throughout it all actually Duryodhana simply used Dhritarashtra. Duryodhana never really respected Dhritarashtra.
And Dhritarashtra also knew this. This was his dirty secret. Of course it was not a secret.
Everybody knew that he was manipulated. But he was thinking that I am the king. But Duryodhana was the real king.
And Krishna came as a Shanti Doodh as a peace messenger. At that time it was Krishna spoke to Dhritarashtra telling him, don’t fight this war against the Pandavas. They are your nephews and they will serve you.
You give them their kingdom, they will protect you. With their protection you will never have any danger. And Dhritarashtra just raised his hands.
He said, Krishna, whatever you say I agree. But my son doesn’t listen to you. You please persuade him.
And thereafter Krishna spoke to Duryodhana. Duryodhana of course would not listen at all. But eventually Duryodhana was killed along with his other brothers.
Then Yudhishthir became the king. And at that time Yudhishthir offered Dhritarashtra more respect. Then Duryodhana was offered.
For a long time this did not register in his mind because he was always lamenting, oh my sons have passed. So only towards the end of his life, he realised, what have I done? That the persons whom I tried to kill, they are taking care of me. They are taking care of me better than what my own son ever took care of me.
They are offering me respect, offering me regard and basically taking care of me. So sometimes if we don’t understand what our actual need is. So his need was just that although he was blind, he was a person in his own right.
He wanted to be respected. He wanted to be valuable. And actually he thought by Duryodhana becoming the king, I will get that.
Whereas you rarely have got it through the Pandavas, if he had supported them. And if he had supported them even a little bit, he could have had the Pandavas and his own sons living in their own kingdoms. So money is what we live with.
Not what we live for. What we live with is like if we are driving. We need fuel for driving the car.
But we don’t drive the car for fuel. We have a destination to go to and fuel is essential for that, going to the destination. So money is something which we need to live with.
It is not something we live for. So what we live for ultimately is love. We want to love and be loved.
But our society is so complicated today. The culture is so materialistic overall that what we live with becomes what we live for. And this miscalculation actually creates loneliness.
It creates mental stress. It creates depression. It creates enormous anxiety.
Why is that? Because what we live with, the resources, they are not always in our control. If we would like to have good looks, we would like to have good health, we would like to have good financial security, we would like to have good professional position. Now all these are important but they are not in our control.
Sometimes our health gets spoiled. Sometimes our financial situation may not be secure. One of our friends in California is doing his PhD in the post-retirement lives of sports stars.
Those who become phenomenally famous but after that when they retire just have a crisis of purpose. Who am I? What am I living for? Because they had this hybrid of personality. Everybody would go people would adulate them and now just don’t know what they are living for.
So actually speaking the road from fame to infamy is an extremely painful road to travel. Most of the world will talk about the road from anonymity to fame. Work hard, become famous, become successful.
Yes, no matter how difficult it is, I am going to do it. I want the world to know how special I am, how talented I am, how glorious I am. We work hard to climb up this road.
Now most people don’t succeed but even those who succeed nobody can stay on top for a long time. And when they go down from there, it’s extremely painful. So actually we don’t need fame per se.
What we want through fame is attention, is affection. And the nature of fame is so deceptive in a sense that there is a famous celebrity who said that throughout my life I work hard to become famous. Now that I am famous I work hard to get some privacy.
I put on goggles, I put on various costumes, various kind of ways to cover my identity so that I can go out in public. So here what is happening through all these we have a particular need but not understanding what is the need and what is the means to that need. We get so consumed by trying to get the means that we end up neglecting the need.
Now in today’s world relationships are a huge problem. Many families are breaking apart, across generations there are relationship issues and this happens more and more people feel very lonely. In the past we had joint families, then we had mostly nuclear families but today even that nucleus is splitting and we just have protons and neutrons orbiting around in the vastness of the concrete jungles.
At one level, people when they seek success, according to a particular definition of success, the definition is okay, I want to have this kind of job, I want to have this kind of career, I want to have this kind of social profile and they want it all so that they can address the need freely now. But in the process of getting that, they get so caught, so entangled that they end up neglecting the need. Most people when they are young, they lose their health in order to gain wealth.
Somehow or the other I want to get money and they will work excessive hours, take a lot of stress, they lose their health to gain wealth and then as they hit middle age and then their body starts undergoing a miracle of the wrong kind, then they lose their wealth to regain their health and eventually they end up losing both their health and their wealth. That is unfortunate. Now the Bhagavad Gita begins with Arjuna facing a similar dilemma.
He faces the should I fight against my relatives or should I just give up my kingdom? Should I just live peacefully? So when we get confused between what are the means and what are the ends, the means take up so much energy that we neglect the ends. That is when our mind goes on a hyper drive. The mind becomes enormously agitated.
If somebody is obsessed with wealth, then I have to get this wealth somehow or the other. The mind is so attached on this. Bhagavad Gita Krishna says I have got this much wealth and I will get that much.
By this scheme I will get this much. By that scheme I will get that much. So the mind on one side gets agitated because of the desire for wealth.
On the other side because it craving for wealth makes us neglect our relationships. So we also start feeling lonely. We also don’t have fulfilling relationships with others.
And that agitates the mind further. So we, in seeking possessions, we get agitated. We get mentally agitated because the craving is there.
And in seeking possessions, we also look for, we also neglect the relations. And when that has trouble, that agitates the mind further. And the mind, Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita says Upadrutaha.
Everybody in today’s world is very disturbed. And this disturbance is because we have not understood what our actual need is and how it is to be served. How it is to be addressed.
How it is to be fulfilled. This existential need to love and be loved, different people address it in different ways. I will talk about three broad ways.
We consider that there are the there are the Abrahamic religions in the world. There are the monistic religions. There is materialism.
And there is Bhakti tradition. So, as I said, our basic need is the need to love and be loved. Now, materialism actually tells us, materialism seems to be a very liberating philosophy.
No rules, no regulations. Just do whatever you want. Enjoy the way you want.
However, if you go at a deeper philosophical level, materialism makes love itself meaningless. Because within the materialistic world view, we are nothing but just chemicals. So, love is nothing but the secretion of certain chemicals in our brain.
When a mother sees a baby and she feels love overflowing, that is nothing but what? Some chemicals in the brain. That’s all. It’s a very depersonalising, dehumanising conception of love.
And in materialism, the result is that although we may talk a lot about love, but actually love has no substance to it. Because as Einstein put it that, he said that gravity can explain the falling of objects. But it can’t explain people’s falling in love.
They’re two different things. So, within the materialistic world view, people talk about love, but actually what is love? We have, one of the greatest fears for people in today’s world is the fear of rejection. We form a relationship, the other person rejects me and goes and what will happen to me? When we want to form a relationship, we would like to know whether this person really cares for me or not.
We have so many different metres now. We have thermometers, barometers. Can we make a love-o-metre? When you form a relationship with someone, we put it on their heart.
Do you really love me? Do you really care for me? Love is real, but it cannot be measured. So, the materialistic world view actually has no room for love. Although materialism may seem to be liberating ideology, but at a philosophical level, there is no love at all, because we are simply chemicals.
And we are just chemicals functioning according to certain patterns in the brain, certain neurological programmes we have, we function accordingly. So, that’s why we set up the Harvard Medical School did a study of people, of young people in colleges who have free relationships with each other. The idea was free love will lead to freedom and happiness.
And they found these people who had no reservation in relating with anyone. They found them most lonely and guilty. Why lonely and guilty? Because they knew that they were just using others and others were using them to just relieve their sexual urge.
There was no real connection between people. So, they felt guilty and they felt lonely. So, materialism takes our longing for love into a total devastating dead end.
Then, there is what we could call as material religion. Material religion means that this is actually God exists and God will take care, if you worship God, God will take care of all your material needs. You worship God, God will protect you and you will be happy like you.
Not lifelong, forever you will be happy. So, indeed, and this material religion is present in all the religious traditions of the world, materialistic concept of religion, but in some religious traditions it’s most prominent. So, if we consider the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, Islam.
Now, in these religions, they talk about spirituality but they don’t have a very clear conception of the soul. So, because they don’t have a clear conception of the soul, the result of that is that often they think of liberation or deliverance as basically being a continuation of life in this world. So, I was educated in a convent school in India and at that time we studied the Bible and I had talked with some Christian teachers also.
So, their idea of heaven was basically like a perpetual family reunion. Your grandparents, your great-grandparents, your lost cousins, your this, they are all together forever. Now, that seems very good but it actually has several logical problems with it.
What we are trying to do is that the need for love, Bhagavad Gita explains that there is a soul and there is a body. The soul is present in the body and the soul goes from one body to another. But in some religions the soul and body are equated to be essentially one.
So then, the material relationships are spiritualised. So, the problem with this is that how do you address the various paradoxes that emerge because material relationships by their very nature are changing and are temporal. Suppose, somebody says my grandfather, I will meet them in heaven.
Okay. Will the grandfather be of the age of the grandfather? If they are of the age of the grandfather, will heaven be a heavenly prospect for them? It will always be 70, 80, 90 and they are young. Okay.
Everybody is young, then how do you have a grandfather and a grandchild? Or they have the idea that we have relationships, husband-wife relationship and there will be husband and wife in the heaven. Then the problem comes what if in a particular marriage one partner passes away and the other partner remarries. Then will there be bigamy or polygamy in heaven? That will not be a heavenly prospect for those who have it.
I was in South India going for a programme and there was a Christian preacher sitting next to me and he started talking about how Jesus is the only unless you follow Jesus, you won’t do whatever. I said okay, then what happens to those who never come to know about Jesus? He says they will all go to heaven. I said okay, then what about children who are aborted in the mother’s womb? What happens to them? Oh, they are innocent.
They are innocent, so they will be taken to heaven. I said okay, what is the purpose of life? He said to attain heaven. I said then why not abort everyone? Everyone will go to heaven.
I said no, no, how can you abort? He said okay, I said if you don’t abort them, if you abort them, they will go straight to heaven. If you don’t abort them, they will be born and they may not surrender to Jesus. If they don’t surrender to Jesus, they will go to heaven.
That’s how if you abort them, there is a guarantee they will go to heaven. If you let them take birth, there is a high possibility they will go to heaven. He said no, no, we cannot abort like that.
So here my point is not to criticise any religion. There are different religions also, there are different people who are of different level of philosophical expertise. The point is material religion where we try to extrapolate the material to the eternal.
That just doesn’t work. So even in every religion there is this idea of materialism that God will take care of my material needs if I worship. Once a person went to a Ganesh temple and he said I have taken this lottery and if I win this lottery, this is one million dollar lottery, I will give you half of it.
So he waited, after one week the lottery result was going to come. And when he saw the lottery result, he had won the lottery. He was delighted.
And then he looked at it and he saw that actually he had not won the first prize, he had won the second prize. The second prize was half a million dollar. So then he took that half a million dollar and then he went to the temple and he says Oh God, you are so clever.
You took your share before. So when there is material religion there can be this ignorance and self-centredness which can manifest in different forms. There is again the longing for love which we have.
We do not really relate with God as an object of love. We see God as a tool to fulfilling our loving relationships or our desire for love. Then there is what is called the impersonalist or the monist idea.
There are many different traditions. There are the ideas that ultimately everything is one. We have to become one with God.
I saw a slogan on one in college, one college in India I saw a slogan on a t-shirt of a boy. He said that I was an atheist till I discovered I was God. Now, okay if you are God, then why do you have to fall sick? Why can’t you be the number one topper in your university? Why can’t you get the relationship that you want? God is supreme.
This idea that we are God is a very titillating idea. Now, we are Godly, not God. We are made of the same spiritual substance that God is made of.
But we are infinitesimal and God is infinite. This idea that we are meant to merge with God and that ultimately there is oneness. This comes again because of a misunderstanding of our need for love.
When people are unable and people think that okay, I tried to form this relationship, this got frustrated. I tried to do this, this got frustrated. I tried to work at that and that didn’t work out.
So, people start thinking some people start thinking that actually this longing for love itself is the cause of all suffering. So, if I just give up this longing, then I’ll be free from all suffering. So, they think the solution is to just end existence.
Shrila Bhaktisthan Susan Thakur, the spiritual master of Shrila Prabhupada will tell a simple story to illustrate this point. He said that suppose a child has got cataract and child can’t see properly, the eyes cause a lot of pain, the child is crying, the parents are in pain. And suppose an uncle comes along and says the child has cataract, there is so much pain, just pluck out the eyes, there is no pain.
Okay, pluck out the eyes. Other uncle comes along and says the child has got cataract, it’s causing pain, just kill the child. There is no pain at all.
How can you do that? That’s ridiculous. So, he says that similarly these two examples are what certain schools of thought talk at a philosophical level. Some people say that actually all relationships or longing for love it causes us so much trouble.
We form a relationship with someone that leads to this problem and that problem. I just don’t want any relationship at all. That is like saying that I can’t see with my eyes, it causes me pain, just pluck out the eyes.
Some people say that actually our existence itself is the cause of our suffering. So, when we go beyond existence, some people commit suicide in a physical sense by destroying the body. Some people conduct a philosophical suicide by denying their very existence itself.
Some people understand that in life, whatever we try, we do something, we get some pleasure, but then we get a lot of trouble. There is a philosopher who said that. Actually, Albert Camus is one of the philosophers.
He said that life is suffering. Therefore, the only philosophical question worth asking is whether to commit suicide today or tomorrow. And he wrote several books, all of which is don’t commit suicide today, wait for tomorrow.
Now, people get frustrated because this longing for love is completely… longing for love, going back to the three options. Materialism says this longing for love is simply a secretion of chemicals in our brain. So, material religion says that we just project this to the eternal level and there our longing will be fulfilled.
Impersonalism says reject this longing for love and merge it with infinite oneness. And then you will have peace. But none of these actually address our longing for love.
What the bhakti tradition tells us that actually this longing for love points to an eternal object of love. We are souls and we are part of a whole. We are finite being and the supreme soul is an infinite being.
Why do we at all have a longing for love? And we not only have a longing for love, we have a longing for lasting love. Most of the movies or most of the novels that become popular, they are about some kind of romance. And most romantic novels and movies, they end with the idea of happily ever after.
You want to live happily forever. However, in the world, everyone’s life is temporary. So there is no ever after.
The Bhagavad Gita says this world is It’s exactly opposite. Happily ever after. This world is temporary and it’s a place of distress.
But we have such a deep longing. Where does this longing to live forever, longing to love forever come from? Suppose there were some child in Africa. A remote tribe unconnected to the rest of the world.
No internet, no mobile communication, just living in those tribes. And one day that child goes to the mother and says, Mommy, Mommy, Mom, Mom, I want a pizza. What is the question the mother is likely to ask? What is a pizza? Where did you hear about a pizza? How do you know what a pizza is? There is nothing in the environment of that child that would tell that child, what is a pizza? So similarly, if you consider in our environment, there is nothing that lasts forever.
Everything is temporary. And yet, we have a longing to live forever. No relationship lasts forever.
And yet, we want relationships that last forever. So, where do they come from? Where does this longing come from? The Bhagavad Gita explains that this comes from our soul. The soul is a part of Krishna.
ममईवांशो जीवलोके जीवभूता जनातना I said, we are eternally a part of Krishna. And we are meant to love Krishna and delight in that loving reciprocation with him. Whoever and whatever we find attractive in the world, that thing or that person’s attractiveness comes from Krishna.
यद्यविल्भूतिवच्छत्तम् श्रीवनुजितनेववा तत्तनेवावगच्छत्तम् नमत्रेजुमच्छसंभवा Krishna says that that everything attractive manifests the spark of my splendour. Somebody may be very good looking, somebody may be very intelligent, somebody may be very strong, somebody may be very wealthy. And through all these, those people may become very attractive in our eyes.
So their attractiveness comes from Krishna. And temporarily they have that wealth, that strength, that wisdom, that power, whatever it is, the beauty and they are manifesting the spark of Krishna’s splendour. So when we are attracted to them, we are not just attracted only to them.
Actually we are attracted to a spark of Krishna’s splendour. And to the extent we understand this, that okay this person I am so attracted to this person. But what is it that is so attractive? The person is wonderful, but actually it is Krishna manifesting a spark of his attractiveness to that person.
And then, understanding this, we may relate with that person, but more than that we relate with Krishna. We develop a relationship with Krishna, because we understand he is where the attractiveness is present eternally. So whatever satisfaction we may get A. for our longing for love in any relationship in the world, that satisfaction will be deep, it will be satisfying, but it is temporary.
In the ultimate analysis, it is like a drop of water. But when we connect with Krishna, there in, what we get is like an ocean. And thus, that is where we find lasting satisfaction.
Krishna provides us with the Krishna himself acts as an eternal object of love. In the kingdom of God, the spiritual world, in Krishna’s kingdom, in Goloka, Krishna understands the delight in his God. Krishna delights simply in the sweet reciprocation of love.
He is not a God who delights in cosmic majesty. I am God, come and bow down to me. No.
Krishna simply acts in a way that he reciprocates love with his devotees. And thus, although he is God, what does he do? He does not God is infinite, but he is not stuck with his infinity. Like, some people may be very tall.
Now, having a big height is advantageous. You can see much further, even if there is a lot of crowd, you can see beyond it. But sometimes, if we enter a room where the door roof is low, we will bang our head.
So, if somebody is tall, they are stuck with their height. Krishna is not like that. Krishna is infinite, but Krishna is not stuck with his infinity.
He can manifest in a finite form. He can manifest in a small baby form. Krishna can be a small child.
And when Krishna Why does he become a child? It’s his leela. He does that so that he can reciprocate love with his devotees. One devotee of his, Mother Yashoda, she can offer him love in a maternal way.
And he can reciprocate love with her as a child. So, all the relationships that we have in the world, they are present in their purity and their eternality in Krishna. When British first came to India, and then they came to North India, especially the Mathura area, and there they found these pictures of Krishna.
And the sweet boy in Patra, someone had some pot, and the mouth with butter on it. Who is this? This is God. What is he doing? He is stealing butter.
Wow! On hearing this, they had the idea of God as a cosmic judge who sits in the clouds and sends thunderbolts to cast the sinful down to hell forever. The idea of God who steals butter, that just caused them to be intellectually short-circuited. What is this? But Krishna, he reciprocates love with his devotees in many Indian ways.
Krishna doesn’t need butter, but the butter represents the love of the heart of his mother. She cooks, she makes the butter, she churns the butter, and in Krishna, his mother will feed the butter to him also. But he is like his child who likes to be mischievous, he likes to be adventurous.
And in that mischief and adventure, he creates excitement and mother Yashoda gets excited. And thus the love becomes intensified. Krishna performs many sweet pastimes in which the whole purpose is just the intense reciprocation of love.
Krishna, he is God, but what he delights in is not his Godhood, but in love. And for the sake of love, he becomes like a small child who may even be punished by his mother. His mother may tie him up and he is scared of his mother.
So in the kingdom of God, God doesn’t reign supreme. In the kingdom of God, love reigns supreme. And God becomes subordinate for the purpose of love.
And there is devotion, this loving devotion, this bhakti, is something which is available to us not just in the kingdom of God. It is available to us even now. The Bhagavad Gita setting demonstrates, you know, before the Bhagavad Gita started, the Pandavas, the Kauravas choose, they try to get allies from different sides.
So when Duryodhana and Arjuna both went to Krishna, and at that time, Duryodhana went in, Krishna was taking rest, Duryodhana went and stood by his head, and Arjuna stood by his foot. And that time when Krishna woke up, he saw Arjuna, and he got him and turned around and said, Oh Duryodhana, welcome, you are also here. He said, what can I do for you? Duryodhana said that, we are fighting a war, and I have come to seek your help.
So he turned to Arjuna and said, I have also come for the same purpose. Duryodhana, ever insecure, he said, I came first, so my right is first. And Krishna said, actually, both of you are related.
So I have decided personally I will not fight you. But I can be there as a counsellor. On one side, I can be there, and on the other side will be my army.
For Duryodhana, the choice was a no-brainer. And for Arjuna also, the choice was a no-brainer. But their brains worked in different ways.
So Duryodhana was eager, I want to choose. Krishna said, No, Arjuna is younger to you, let him choose first. And then Arjuna said, Oh Krishna, I want you.
Duryodhana was ridiculing Arjuna and his men, one of whom, such a sentimentalist, what with one person and one whole division of the army, he was still externally reacted as if, OK, you are taking Krishna, I will have to settle for the army. He settled for the army and went away. Internally he was jubilant, I got a full army, Arjuna got a poor end of the deal.
But, when Arjuna chose Krishna, what was the result? And throughout the Kurukshetra war, at the critical moments, Krishna gave the right guidance. Krishna helped Arjuna. And although Krishna did not fight the war, Krishna guided Arjuna to fight the war in such a way, that Arjuna was victorious.
So, Arjuna represents the spiritualist, the devotee. Duryodhana represents the materialist. So, for us, if our longing for love is to be fulfilled, we need to choose God first.
We need to choose Krishna first. And temporarily, it may appear as if we choose Krishna, we are losing certain material things. If we come to a temple, for a satsang programme, we may feel, oh, two, three hours of watching TV, I am missing that.
If we practise bhakti, we do some puja, I could have read a newspaper, I could have chatted with someone, but I can’t do that. So, we feel that, just like Duryodhana thought that by choosing Krishna, I will lose the army. But, eventually, Duryodhana ended up being the loser.
Because Arjuna, when he chose Krishna, he got Krishna, and he got Krishna’s infinite wisdom through that. Similarly, if we choose Krishna, and we choose Krishna by practising bhakti yoga, by chanting the holy names of Krishna, by coming to satsang, by doing swadhya, studying the Bhagavad Gita, by doing the puja at our home, by these, when we choose Krishna, then Krishna will guide us in all the difficult moments of our life. Of course, he will guide us even in the happy moments of our life.
He will be there with us, within us. He is always there with us in our hearts. But when we choose him, we open our hearts to him.
We take wisdom from him. We become open to taking his guidance. And Krishna is with us no matter what difficulties life may send our way.
With our connection with Krishna, we get the inner strength. We get the inner stability. And we will be able to face life’s difficulties.
In our possessions, sometimes we may have some things, sometimes we may lose some things. In our material relations, sometimes there will be ups and downs. All these can cause insecurity.
But if our connection with Krishna is strong, that will be the supreme security. And with that security, whatever difficulties life may send our way, we will be able to face them. Not only face them, we will be able to go through them and we will be able to grow through them.
So connecting with Krishna through bhakti is the supreme way to fulfil our longing for love. And Krishna is not just a God who exists far away in the spiritual world, whom we will attain when we get there. Krishna is not just a destination in devotion.
Krishna is the companion in devotion. Sarvasya chaakya nirvisa nirvisa. He is there in our heart with us right now.
Suppose we decide to go from here to L.A. to meet some VIP, some special person. Very important person, but we have never seen him till now. Used to have board appointments, used to sit in a flight, eagerly waiting to meet that person.
Then you get down, you take a car and go to their house and knock on the door. And knock on the door, you open the door. And he is welcome.
And what is the start? And the person who opens the door is the same person who was sitting next to you in your flight. But because you had never seen them, so you didn’t know, you didn’t recognise them. So Krishna is like that.
It is not that we attain Krishna as a destination at the end of our life. Krishna is our companion right now. Krishna is closer to us than the closest person to us can ever be.
Even if we love someone very much, even if we hold them in the tightest of hugs, that person cannot come as close to us as Krishna always is. He is there inside our hearts. He is there because He loves us.
Because He wants the best for us. He wants us to fulfil our longing for love eternally. So how far is Krishna from us? He is just one thought of Him.
He is just one thought of Him. You just think about Him. If we hear His Bhasa Leela, if we chant His names, if we hold His form and darshan, if we pray to Him, we can invoke His presence within us, we can feel His presence.
And in that presence we can get security. The world will have its problems, but our connection with Krishna will give us relief and strength amidst the problems. See, outside it’s very hot.
Now we don’t have the power to change the weather. But we can come inside an air-conditioned room and we can feel comfortable. Similarly, the world has so many things going on, the more we think about those things, this is not working, that is going like that, that causes problems, agitation.
But if we bring our thoughts towards Krishna, that is like bringing our consciousness into an air-conditioned room. When we do that, we will feel relief, we will feel strength. Krishna says that, Krishna says that, Bhagavatam says, if you become conscious of Krishna, even if different problems come, by remembering Krishna, we will get the strength to face those problems.
And be able to tolerate and transcend those problems. Whatever, whatever life may get us through, Krishna will get us through. Whatever life may get us through, Krishna will get us through.
We just need to stay connected with Krishna by practising bhakti, and both in this life and beyond. Our deepest need for lasting love will be fulfilled by Krishna eternally and perfectly. I’ll summarise.
I spoke today about, I spoke about how our needs, how we can, why do we need spirituality, and how the Bhagavad Gita guides us spiritually. So I started, we all have certain needs, and we learn how to fulfil those needs. A child just cries, and gradually, as he grows up, he understands, okay, there is hunger, there is thirst.
And this food and this water is the means to fulfil that. So we have needs, and we have to understand how the needs to be fulfilled. But sometimes, some needs may not be fulfilled properly because, say, somebody has pain because of arthritis, and when they move, they cause pain.
They may think motion is causing the pain, and they think, I’ll stop motion. But stopping motion is not the solution. Curing the disease is the solution.
Somebody may have some disease, and they think that I take a painkiller, and the pain goes away. But they are fulfilling the need in a healthy way. Because the need is to cure the disease and take the medicine for that.
So similarly for us, our deepest need is the need to love and be loved. And whatever we do in life, it is consciously or unconsciously an attempt to fulfil that need. We try to get an education in a prestigious institute.
We try to get a high-paying job. We try to get a fancy house. We try to have attractive looks.
All this is so that we can become more lovable in people’s eyes. But unfortunately, sometimes in seeking these things, we get so lost that we end up losing the loves. People seek wealth so that they will be loved.
But in gaining wealth, they alienate people. And then, they may get a big house, but that only offers them the privilege of a large space in which to feel lonely. So money is what we live with, not what we live for.
And what we live for ultimately is love. So where does this longing for love come from and how can it be fulfilled? So we discussed four different possible explanations for this. We talked about materialistic worldview.
It might seem very liberating. No rules. No restrictions.
Just enjoy life. But materialism reduces love to just some secretion of chemicals in the brain. And that is, when people live at a materialistic level, even if they say that it’s free love, all that happens is, they’re just using each other to gratify their sexual wishes.
And that’s why relationships crumble and people end up feeling guilty, lonely and mentally depressed. Then we talked about material religion, which tries to eternalise our longing for love at the material level. It says, whatever relationships we have in the world, they will have eternally in heaven.
But we saw the logical fallacies with that. How will it work out in there? Will the old people be eternally old? If children die when they’re infants, then will they go to heaven? Or before they’re born, if they go to heaven, then why not abort everyone? So material religion may also work that way. We use God as a tool for fulfilling our desires.
Where love is for something else in the world. We talked about how the lottery ticket. God, you already took half of your part before.
So in material religion, again, our longing for love is not fulfilled. Then there is impersonalism, which holds that actually we just have to negate and reject our longing for love and merge into infinite oneness. Like people think that I am God and I will merge with God.
But then, we cannot be God. God doesn’t become God. God is eternally God.
And we are obviously not God because everything is not in our control. So, materialism is a misunderstanding. Sorry, monism or impersonalism is a misunderstanding.
It’s like a child has cataract. And instead of curing the cataract, we say pluck out the eyes or kill the child itself. So either give up the longing for love or give up your existence itself.
But no. The cataract has to be removed. That means the misdirection of our longing for love, that has to be corrected.
And bhakti yoga offers the redirection of that longing. And that is offered how? By explaining that God is an all-attractive person who is the source of the attractiveness of everyone who we found attracted in the world. They manifest a spark.
Krishna is the whole flame. They can give us a drop of love. Krishna can give us an ocean of love.
And Krishna in his kingdom does not reign supreme. Rather, he becomes like a small child. He takes on various roles so that love can reign supreme.
God is infinite, but he’s not stuck with his infinity. He does not delight in his godhood, but he delights in the reciprocation of love. So Krishna steals butter not because he needs butter, but because that’s how he steals his mother’s heart.
That butter is an expression of her heart. It’s an intense reciprocation of love. And lastly, concluded by how when the choice was there between Krishna and his army, Duryodhana chose the army but Arjuna chose Krishna.
And although Arjuna might have seemed to be a loser because he did not get the army, he was the leader. Because Krishna guided him at all the critical moments. Decisive moments.
Similarly, when we are practising bhakti, it might seem that we lose certain things, we lose time, we lose certain freedoms, but actually we gain Krishna. And Krishna is the greatest treasure. Krishna, he’s not just a destination to be attained, he’s also a companion with us right now.
Krishna is just one thought away. If we practise bhakti yoga and don’t direct our thoughts towards Krishna, we can feel his presence even now. And when we feel the presence, then it provides us relief even amidst problems.
It’s like we get relief in an air-conditioned room even when it’s hot outside. So whatever life may get us to, Krishna will get us through. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. Are there any questions or comments? Do we have time? Any questions? Yes, please. Regarding the choosing Krishna between Duryodhana and Arjuna, what made Arjuna to choose Krishna and what made Duryodhana to choose his army? What is the quality of the army? Okay, good question.
Thank you. Why did Arjuna choose Krishna and why did Duryodhana choose the army? Duryodhana was always very materialistic. He always thought in terms of things.
He always thought in terms of things. And he assessed value simply in terms of those things. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna talks about divine and demoniac natures.
In the 16th chapter. Daiva, Asura, Sampad, Vibhaga, Yoga. 16th chapter.
So we all are born with certain qualities. Now it’s not that we are stuck with those qualities. Those are particular inclinations that we have from our past.
We can change those inclinations. But it requires effort. Inclination means let’s say if this floor if it were inclined like this.
Then if water falls on the floor naturally water will flow in that direction. And if there was some electronic equipment there and we don’t want water to touch it. Then just our wanting that water should not flow there will not stop the water.
If it’s inclined the water will naturally flow in that direction. So for demoniac people their mental floor is inclined towards materialistic things. For ungodly people, for materialistic people their mental floor is inclined towards materialistic things.
So when they have nothing to do automatically their thoughts gravitate towards material things. And depending on how ungodly a person may be, they may go to that much extremes to get those material things. So some people, everybody wants money.
But some people have ethical limits. I want money but I will work hard to earn money but I am not going to hurt anyone for that. I am not going to steal from anyone.
So how steeply it is inclined that also varies for people. So when it’s very steeply inclined then even ethics are pushed aside in the pursuit of whatever you want. So in Duryodhana’s case his mental floor was heavily inclined towards materialistic things.
And he kept increasing it. We may all have particular inclinations but we can choose to correct those inclinations also. For Duryodhana he was he was born with some inauspicious signs which indicated that he had a demonic nature but he also associated with people who were demonic.
There was Bhishma and Vidura also in his court but he kept them at a distance and he chose as his guide Shakuni who further fuelled his negative desires. His negative inclinations. Arjuna on the other hand was born and brought up in a forest among sages.
Arjuna already had a godly inclination but in the forest among sages that godly inclination further increased. And even when the Pandavas were in the forest although life had treated them so unjustly, they had been robbed of everything still even in the forest the Pandavas would hear from the sages and they would learn spiritual wisdom. So basically our behaviour we can say our actions or our behaviour is shaped by five factors.
One is our past life karma. We are souls for a multi-life journey and by our past life karma right from birth we get some inclinations. In childhood all babies cry but some babies cry in a way they just need attention.
Some babies cry in a way that they just bring the whole house down. Some babies even when they are in their on their backs, they are looking up. One day I will grow up and take over the house.
So different people just have different natures. So now our past life karma comes as our inclinations from birth. In today’s language we may call it as genetics.
Some people are genetically very musically inclined. Some people are very good at maths. Some people are good at different things.
So our past life karma is one factor. Second is our upbringing. The kind of upbringing we have with our parents and immediate family that shapes our behaviour a lot in terms of what impressions are formed in us during our formative years.
The third is our association. The kind of people whom we associate with our desires become shaped accordingly. Beyond that is our freedom.
These three factors past life impressions upbringing and association. These three push us towards certain behaviours. But they don’t force us.
When they push us we can counter push. And that counter pushing capacity is what we have by our freedom. And beyond that the fifth factor is God’s grace.
So by divine grace the force with which the force with which these three factors push us that can be increased. And by God’s grace our capacity to counter push can be increased. So Durvedhana unfortunately all three during his he was born with demoniac qualities during his upbringing he imbibed the envy and insecurity that Dhritarashtra had.
And as he grew up he chose to associate with Shakuni. For the Pandavas it was exactly the opposite. That’s how when the critical moment came he chose in an ungodly way.
That’s what Durvedhana did. Mera Daljuna chose in an ungodly way. Does it answer your question? Thank you.
Any other questions? Thank you for coming. I have a question. Continuing to what he asked.
Was there a destiny associated with this that even though what Shakuni said for Duryodhana that you should not deviate. You should always get Krishna. Like in all the instructions of Bhagavad Gita.
And still he panned for that. Is it the God’s grace? Okay. Is there some destiny involved that Duryodhana chose wrongly? All the Shakuni told him that he should get Krishna.
Actually as per Shakuni telling him to get Krishna that is not there in the original Mahabharata. There are many later retellings of the Mahabharata. In which there is black and there is white.
And there are many shades of grey. The Mahabharata challenges our ethical conceptions. Because there are many characters who are in various shades of grey.
But these shades of grey are further muddied. Are further made confusing by further later retellings of the Mahabharata. Wherein some characters are portrayed to be more white than they were.
Some black characters are portrayed more white than what they are. Or some white characters are portrayed more black than what they are. For example, some people portray that some retellings of the Mahabharata say that when Duryodhana fell down in the Mayasabha because of the water.
He did not notice the water. So at that time Draupadi said Andhe ka beta andha. The son of a blind is a blind person.
Now Draupadi never said that. It is not given in the Mahabharata. So sometimes some retellings have some additions.
But beyond the specifics, let’s look at your point. Are there certain things which are distinct? Destiny basically refers to the things that are not in our culture. Last year when I came I spoke a whole seminar in the Hindu temple on the topic of destiny.
So whenever we act there are four factors which are important. There is karma which we do, our action. There is daiva, that is destiny.
There is kaala, the passage of time. And then there is kala, the result. When a farmer wants a harvest at that time the farmer has to sow the seeds, plough the land, that is the karma.
The rains have to come at the right time and quantity. That is the daiva. Then the season has to change till the harvesting season comes, that is kaala.
And then finally phala comes. Or say a couple wants to have a child. They may unite, that is karma.
But not every time with union conception happens. That is daiva. But just because conception has happened you cannot get a baby in union.
That is the period of gestation. That is the kaala. And then there is the delivery.
That is when the phala comes, the child is born. So daiva basically refers to the things that are beyond our control. The things beyond our control that also shape the result of our actions.
So our actions are not determined by daiva. What destiny determines is not our actions but the consequences of our actions. What destiny determines is not our actions but the consequences of our actions.
We may do something very diligently. That is say a student may study very well for an exam but somehow they don’t actually do very well in the exam, they don’t get good marks. Maybe some very difficult questions come, maybe they forget something at that time, maybe the exam there is a bad move when they check the paper.
Maybe the computer has a glitch when recording the marks, whatever. They don’t get the result. A student studying is not determined by destiny.
Our actions are up to us. If our actions were determined by destiny then there would be no concept of free will. There is no meaning to the idea of free will.
If our actions were determined by destiny then scripture itself would become meaningless because scripture tells us do this and don’t do this. If scripture tells us do this and don’t do this scripture would become meaningless because we have no capacity to choose. So we are programmed.
If we are programmed then scripture itself will become meaningless. It’s not true that everything is not destined. Our actions are up to us to choose.
And once we choose a particular action then the consequences are determined by destiny. So about 25 years ago when I first started speaking giving classes so I was told that when you speak then you give 10 point instructions. But the last instruction was depend on Krishna.
And understand that ultimately whether people understand the message, appreciate the message, that’s not up to us. It’s depend on Krishna. But in bracket was depend on Krishna but only after you have prepared.
If somebody doesn’t prepare for a class, this is I am depending on God. Whatever will happen will be by destiny. That will not be destiny.
That is my responsibility. If a child is not studying for the exam and a mother says please study. He says no no whatever is destined will happen.
No, that is not destiny. Destiny is after we do a particular activity after we do our part then whether result comes or not that is determined by destiny. So Duryodhana’s decision was very much up to him.
But he chose wrong and then the consequences came. They understand that. Last question.
How can we start loving our parents? It’s not like but we know that How can we love our leaders? The word love has many different meanings. Just because we have a loving disposition towards someone doesn’t necessarily mean that we have the same action towards everyone. Like in the Bhagavad Gita it is said that the spiritually minded people see all living beings equal.
So even not just all human beings but all living beings and animals. You see ultimately there is the same soul present in everyone. Similar soul present.
There is soul in a dog’s body in a bird’s body in a tree’s body Soul is essentially like us. So it is said that the wise people see everyone equally. But equality of vision equal vision does not mean identical action.
Why is that? Say suppose there is a cat nearby and there is a lion nearby. Now both of them are souls. Both of them are biologically the same family also.
Like a cat is nearby if we clap, the cat will go away. But if a lion is nearby if we clap, we will go away. So we may understand in principle that the lion and the cat they are also both souls.
But they are differently disposed towards us. So I have to act in an appropriate way with them. This means that although a person, even a spiritually realised person may see the cat and the lion identically in terms of seeing them spiritually but the action will be dependent on the kind of body they have and the kind of disposition they have towards us.
So loving our haters doesn’t necessarily mean that we treat them the same way as we treat those who love us. What it means is that we have the same benevolent disposition towards them. We want their good also.
Just as we want good for our loved ones we want good for them also. For even those who hate us. But how we act with them that will be because the way we are acting we have to act appropriately in response.
In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna tells in the 11th chapter Arjuna you should fight this war. Fight this war and your enemies will be killed and you will be victorious. That’s my plan.
That’s 11.33 Krishna tells Arjuna तस्मात्तमुत्तिष्ठ एशो लबस्व जित्वा शत्रुण् भूँश्व राज्यम् सम्पुत्नम् मयाई वैस्तेन् यह तः पूर्वमेव निवित्तमात्रण् भवसव्यसाची Your enemies are already killed. Krishna uses the word specifically enemies. But then in that same chapter 11.33, 11.55, 22 verses later Krishna says मिर्वैरह सर्वभूतेशु यह समानेति पांदव One who has no animosity towards anyone When you practise bhakti in that way you will come to me.
So Krishna tells Arjuna to fight. But Krishna is also telling Arjuna don’t have any animosity towards anyone else. Then you will say, why should he fight? The whole message of the Bhagavad Gita is don’t just see the other person in relationship with you.
See the other person in terms of your relationship with Krishna. So you Arjuna are a Kshatriya. You are a martial guardian of society.
You have to maintain law and order of society. You have to establish Dharma. And the opponents are disrupting Dharma.
So you have to punish them. That is your duty. But do it do it to establish Dharma.
So Arjuna fought the war not to take revenge against the Kauravas. If he was doing it to take revenge then it was in personal animosity. And Krishna says, don’t have any animosity towards them.
Arjuna fought so that he could establish Dharma. Now if they had continued to rule Arjuna cannot treat Duryodhana with the same respect and the same way as he treats Yudhishthir. Yudhishthir is Dharmic.
And Yudhishthir will do good to everyone. Duryodhana will manipulate everyone and exploit everyone. So Arjuna had equal vision towards everyone.
But his action towards them was determined by how they were acting. Not just towards them but how they were acting in the broader social context. So our we have to be fixed in the understanding that I am meant to serve Krishna through all my relationships.
And different people how they affect us in that relationship accordingly we reciprocate with them. So we have a good intention towards everyone. We want everyone’s good.
But whether we ourselves can act to bring about that good or not that will vary from person to person. So practically speaking if somebody offers affection naturally we reciprocate. If somebody is adverse to us spreading false rumours about us backbiting against us then we don’t have to go down to their level and backbite and spread false rumours about them.
But we may not be able to have in our dealings with them the same warmth and affection that we have towards those who are behaving nicely with us. So what we need to do is that we don’t just we don’t have the policy of tit for tat. But we also have to be realistic.
That means if somebody has hurt us in the past, somebody has betrayed us somebody is on a mission to destroy us if we just go ahead and be defenceless in front of them they will destroy us. And that is not intelligence. So intelligence means that we understand that we have a purpose in life.
All of us have been given certain gifts by Krishna. All of us are in particular positions, with a particular role, with particular responsibilities and we are meant to do these in a mood of service to Krishna. Now while doing these when we face some challenges say others obstruct us then how best can we pursue our purpose do or perform our role, do our responsibilities while these people are opposing us.
So we don’t let any other person’s actions define our responses. Our actions are determined by our purpose, our principles. And if somebody is obstructing us somebody is troubling us we may have to take the appropriate action not to take revenge against them but to protect ourselves.
To protect ourselves so that we can serve Krishna. Actually Prabhupada was a great saintly person who wanted the good for everyone. He travelled in the old age across so many oceans just so that he could give the message of spiritual love to everyone.
But when he was in Mumbai he was planning to build a temple for Krishna over there and there was a politician who gave him some land and the politician was very cunning. He took the money and he didn’t want to give the land also. So at that time Prabhupada said that I’m not going to let the land that is meant to build a temple for Krishna be stolen away like this.
So Prabhupada practically fought, not physically but legally he had to actually go through so many manoeuvres and then eventually that person passed away and then eventually his wife she was left and she came to her senses and she came to make an agreement to give the money. And then at that time Prabhupada was so kind he said you are just like my daughter. I’ll take care of you.
And Prabhupada offered a complete affection at that time. So that means that rather than thinking this person is acting like this so I’ll act like this. Or this person is acting like this.
I’ll just tolerate and I’ll let myself be hurt. Not that we hit them back or we let them hurt us. The important thing is we focus on our purpose in life.
And while pursuing our purpose, sometimes you might just decide that okay this person is troubling me but it’s not that big a trouble. Let me just tolerate it and move on with my purpose. Sometimes you may decide that this person is troubling me so much that I can’t just do my purpose.
So then I have to do something to protect myself. And we do that not in a revengeful way but just in a protective way. I’ll conclude with a simple example for this.
Say that suppose we are travelling in a local train in India. In India we have a local train with a capacity of 50 people but sometimes there are 250 people in that boat. So everybody is squeezed in a place like Mumbai.
And some people like to boss around. So we are standing and the person standing next to us is pushing us. And suppose we get angry.
Who do you think you are? I’ll push you back. They push us and we push them. And we get so caught in pushing each other that our station comes and goes and we are still pushing.
That is pointless. So we may decide it’s just a short ride. You want to have your space? I’ll just move aside.
And we get down the station and move. So keep small things small so that you can focus on the big things. The big thing is to get to our destination.
The small thing is where we stand. But suppose that person doesn’t just push us that person starts pushing us out of the train itself. Then we can’t tolerate that.
Then we have to take a stand. We may have to complain, protest, raise a cry. And we have to take a stand over it.
So how we respond to the person is determined not just by how they are acting. It is determined by our purpose of what is important for us. And if we stay fixed in our purpose and we have a benevolent disposition towards others but we act in a way that serves our purpose then gradually sometimes those people’s hearts may change.
Because we are kindly disposed towards them. When they see that we have no agenda against them sometimes their hearts may change. Sometimes if they don’t change still we will be moving forward in our purpose.
Does that answer your question? Thank you very much. Shri Prabhupada ki Jai. Gaurahat Vindahi.