Positive Thinking 10 – E of IDEA – Eternal love provides inexhaustible positivity

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Transcript

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Thank you. Hare Krishna.
Hare Krishna. Welcome back to our discussion on positive thinking. We are discussing the acronym IDEA for the four principal tenets of spirituality which boosts our positive thinking.
So we discussed in our previous talks I for identity, D for divinity. Today we will discuss, now we will discuss Eternity, E. In the next talk we will discuss A, Activity. So E, Eternity.
Our longing for happiness is fulfilled when directed towards an eternal object of love and God is that eternal object. It fully satisfies our longing for love. When we understand our identity as spiritual beings, at that time we understand that we continue to exist beyond death.
We do not, so death is a transition not a termination. So even after we understand that our own identity is eternal, that does not necessarily lead us to the conclusion that there is an eternal object for our love. Sometimes we may end up thinking that okay there is a eternal sense of oneness or eternal sense of merging into or negating our present existence or some other conception like that.
But the Bhagavad Gita and the wisdom literature of India they explain to us that actually God is eternal and we are eternal and our relationship with him is eternal. The great theistic traditions all talk about an eternal kingdom where we will find rest ultimately. Saint Augustine in the Christian tradition said that, O father you have made us for thee and our heart finds no rest till it rests in thee.
So our heart finds no rest till it rests in God. Now how do we move towards God? So now for this there are two different things. First is clarifying our conception of God and second is clarifying our motivation for approaching God.
So as far as the conception of God is concerned, all the great theistic traditions talk about how God is supreme being, he is omnipotent, he is omniscient, he is omnipresent and being thus supreme he is he is transcendent. So he is majestic. There’s no one who can compare with him in power and wisdom and that is definitely true.
But along with God’s greatness there is God’s sweetness. So God’s greatness stimulates submission and God’s sweetness stimulates affection and both these together stimulate our devotion, symbiotically synergize and strengthen our devotion. So how God is sweet is revealed in the Bhakti literature of ancient India.
So God in his highest manifestation is revealed to be Krishna and Krishna, the word Krishna means Sarvaakarshati Krishna. The one who attracts everyone is Krishna. So now if we look at this concept Sarvaakarshati, we are attracted to different things in this world.
The things which are attracted to can be classified broadly into six broad categories. So we are attracted to strength, to beauty, to knowledge, to wisdom, to fame and to renunciation. Now we are attracted to renunciation in the sense that if somebody can the fruit of renunciation is peace.
So if somebody can stay cool and composed even amidst promoting situations, we feel appreciation, admiration for the composure of that person. So now these six opulences, these six attractive principles, if these are present in one person, if there is one person who is beautiful, who is clever, who is strong, who is wealthy, who is famous, who is renounced, then how attracted to that person and suppose a person had these qualities fully unlimitedly in fact, then how much more attracted to that person. Such a person is Krishna.
So God has many different names Jehovah, Allah and all these names point to God’s greatness, his mercifulness, his powerfulness and that says in the sense all these names are valid and they are important names of God. Now all these names you describe different attributes of God, they lead to him becoming attractive. This attractiveness is his foundational quality and that attractiveness is conveyed through the name Krishna.
So in that sense, Krishna can be said to be the complete name of God. So when we approach Krishna we are not approaching some sectarian religious mode of worship. We are approaching the universal source of all existence and all attraction.
That is God and when we approach him, we actually find within him, because he’s so attractive, so supremely attractive, those who become devoted to him, their hearts get the supreme fulfillment and because he’s eternal, when we learn to love him, by loving him we also get raised to eternal level of reality and thus our heart gets everlasting satisfaction. In fact, beyond this world, beyond this universe, beyond this entire material existence, there is spiritual existence. In that spiritual existence, in the highest realm, there is the kingdom of God.
There is the Krishnaloka where he eternally reciprocates in loving pastimes with his devotees and that loving reciprocation is what our heart longs for eternally. Now when we look at, when we approach God, sometimes some people think that, especially skeptics, atheists, they think that God is just a feel-good concept. Even some religious people, they may think that okay, God exists to give me the good things in life and the good things are the good things of this world.
So in that way, God is not important, but what he gives to us is important. But a spiritually informed optimist, a spiritually informed optimism sees God not as a tool to the things of this world, but sees the things of this world as tools to be used in the service of God. We approach God for who he is, not what he can give us.
And in this way, when we love God, such pure love brings pure ecstasy to the heart. And this love becomes the foundation of the supreme optimism because this love, nothing can strip away from us. It will always be there with us.
And we are not just talking about after death, when it will be there. Yes, it will be there. Death itself becomes redefined for a devotee of God.
It’s not that we leave home at the time of death. We go home at the time of death. We go home.
Actually, our eternal home is with God. And if we have devoted ourselves to God, then we go to God to our eternal home. So death, although at a physical level, it is a traumatic event, but at a spiritual level, it is a supremely joyful event.
And beyond that, even in this life, when we are facing struggles and troubles, when we understand that God loves us and that there is a whole higher spiritual reality where the troubling things of this world no longer trouble, and that gives us solace and strength to move on even amidst the negativities that we encounter in life. So if we are thinking of positive thinking in terms of getting the good things of this world, or even if I have not gotten up in the future, I’ll get it. And even if not in the future, sometime later, I’ll get it.
So then, sooner or later, our positive thinking will leave us bankrupt because the things of this world will be taken away from us sooner or later. But if our positive thinking is based on the understanding that life’s supreme asset is our pure love for God, and we see everything in this world as a means to expressing our love for Him and experiencing His love for us, then whatever happens, we can continue to serve Him and reciprocate love with Him, and thus we can continue to have, to relish the asset of spiritual love. That is an asset which will never be taken away from us.
In fact, it will keep increasing more and more as we keep devoting to Him. Thus, understanding God as the supreme object of love, and as not just a supreme controller, but a supreme object of love, bring this change in our conception and the beautiful conception of God as Krishna revealed in the Bhakti literature, which revealed Him as the source of the six opulences, the embodiment of the six opulences that inspires us to love Him, change our conception of Him, and elevating our motivation for Him from using Him as a tool for the things of this world to approaching Him for the sake of loving Him. These two changes can bring our positive thinking to a level of eternal positive thinking, which is not affected by any changes,