Redefining freedom

[Talk at ISKCON, Laguna Beach, USA]

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So this is the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, 64th verse. My Lord Krishna is speaking, Attachment and origin, put it aside. Be free from it.
Bringing yourself under the control of yourself. How does one do that? By following higher wisdom, vidhi, scriptural wisdom. Vidheatma, vishayan indriyas charan, the movement of the senses towards the sense objects, one brings them under control.
By following scriptural wisdom, by this what will happen? Prasadam adhigachyate, one will attain prasad, one will attain mercy, one will attain purity, one will attain freedom. So in essence the verse is saying, if we put aside our attachment and aversions and regulate the movement of the senses towards the sense objects, according to scriptural wisdom, then we will become free. So this topic of redefining freedom, I will address it in four parts.
First is, I’ll talk about how there is freedom for and there is freedom from. Then I’ll talk about how love, sorry, freedom is needed for love and freedom is transcended in love. Then I’ll talk about how not all forms of freedom are equally freeing.
And lastly, we’ll talk about how freedom is not the ultimate end. Freedom is a means to an ultimate end. We live in a culture, so the first part about freedom for and freedom from, we live in a culture where most of us are proud of being in countries where we are free.
We are free to vote, free to have our religious beliefs, free to do the things that we think are necessary for our happiness, for our success, for our progress. And this valuing of freedom is so deeply enshrined in the modern psyche that if anything is perceived of or if anything is portrayed as, perceived of is by the observer, portrayed at is by the depictors. If anything is perceived of or portrayed as infringing on anyone’s freedom, then immediately that particular activity is revived.
That particular activity is strongly criticised and it is rejected. So freedom is as if enthroned as the supreme value today. And certainly, if we consider some societies of the recent past where there was slavery, in America there was slavery, many other parts of the world where there was slavery or people were controlled by tyrannical masters, then we feel, yeah, we never want to go back to that.
We want freedom. And that is naturally an understandable and a desirable value, freedom. At the same time, freedom is for a purpose.
We talk about, I want to be free to do whatever I want to do, which is, at one level it seems very nice, but at another level, what we call as freedom can actually take away our freedom. Say for example, parents tell their children, don’t get into drinking, don’t get into drugs, don’t get into bad habits. Now, especially when the children come to teenage, now teenage is actually a very turbulent time because that is a time when people are trying to discover their own identity.
In childhood, they are just known as, okay, I’m the son of so and so, I’m the daughter of so and so. That is almost a defining identity. When we become adults, we are persons in our own right.
Okay, I have this job, I have this degree, I have this position, I have this role. So, in adolescence, in teenage, we are no longer ready to accept the identity that I’m just somebody’s son or somebody’s daughter. At the same time, we have not carved out an identity for ourselves.
And at that stage, when we are very eager to have our own sense of identity, at that time, what will give us identity, whatever promises to give us an identity, we very easily get allured by that. So, for example, at that time, say, if the teenagers are in a culture where they are told that, they’re in a college where they’re told, okay, you know, taking drugs, it’s cool. Now, just because of the desire to look cool, they start thinking, I should drink, I should take these drugs.
Now, imagine, say, there are two students, both of them are staying in a hostel, and in between there is a joint where drugs are being fed. And here there’s a college. Now, both of them start going, one of them has heard about how dangerous drugs are and decided, I’m not going to drink, I’m not going to take them.
And that person just passes by and doesn’t even think about it. The other person has taken drugs once, twice, and then whenever that person is passing by the joint, the thoughts start going, maybe should I go and get some drugs? I know, yes, no, yes, no. That duality just goes on and on and on.
And if that person keeps indulging again and again, then over a period of time, it’s not just when they’re passing that joint, even as soon as they come out of their house, they start thinking, oh, I want to get this. I want to take the drug. And when people become drug addicts, that time, practically, as soon as they wake up, the first thought, they’ve not even come out of their bed, and the first thought is, I want to go there and get a drug.
So now, externally speaking, both of them are physically free. But internally speaking, only one of them is free mentally. The other person is mentally bound.
Although they appear to be free, I can go wherever I want, I can eat whatever I want, I can travel wherever I want. But wherever they go, the desire for drugs will be there, and it will drag them down. So in the Bhagavad Gita, in later chapter, 16th chapter, 11th verse, Krishna talks about how our desires can become like shackles.
āśā pāśiśatair baddhahā You can become bound by hundreds and thousands of desires, Krishna says. So now, when the parents were telling these kids, don’t take drugs, this second kid thought, I am free, I want to do whatever I want. I want the freedom.
Now what happened is, that same desire for the freedom, I want to do what I want to do, when I want to do it, that idea of freedom actually led to bondage. So the child may say, I want the freedom to take drugs. But there is one kind of freedom for, and there is another kind that is freedom from.
The first child has freedom from the desire for drugs. That thought doesn’t cross the mind also. There is no agitation at all.
For the second, there is so much agitation. Often the person succumbs, relapses, suffers, again resolves to give up, again the person succumbs. So, the point is that, sometimes, something which seems to be like a freedom can get us involved in something which is undesirable.
So, there is freedom for, and there is freedom from. So, freedom from unhealthy desires, freedom from that is actually also a form of freedom. In a particular culture, that may not be portrayed as freedom.
Oh, you are not allowed to do this, you are not allowed to do that. No, the point is, what is perceived by some as restriction is perceived by others as protection. The second kid who wanted to take the drugs, he felt, Oh, my parents are telling me, don’t take drugs.
It is a restriction. The other kid saw that, actually I am being saved from so much trouble, and saw that as protection. So, when we talk about freedom, freedom is not an unrestricted virtue.
It is like, again, a child. The mother may tell the child, you can play inside the fence. The child may say, why inside the fence? Why can’t I play on the road? Why can’t I play outside? Now, playing outside means, a vehicle may run over the child, or somebody may abduct the child.
So many things, dangers are there. So, the child can see that fence as a restriction or as a protection. So, actually, if we are to be truly educated, education is not just getting a degree.
Education is not just getting a job. Education is not just for getting a degree or a job. Education is actually, ultimately meant for understanding how to make healthy choices in life.
How to choose wisely. And in today’s culture, often, that which is a protection is portrayed as a restriction. And when a protection is portrayed as a restriction, then we break through and we break through it proudly and think I have become free.
But we end up bound. So, this is the first point. What there is freedom for and freedom from.
And sometimes, freedom from is actually more free than freedom for. Because if somebody has freedom from drugs, freedom from the desire for drugs, they can do so many more creative things in their life. They can make constructive constitutions.
But somebody who doesn’t have that freedom, even if they don’t become drug addicts, even if they don’t succumb, so much of their mental energy gets consumed in that inner battle. So, freedom from is also a very liberating form of freedom. Just be free from certain set of desires.
When that is there, a person can move on towards more constructive things in life. And we are free from unhealthy desires. So, if we start thinking of these unhealthy desires or the right to exercise, to indulge in these unhealthy desires as freedom, then we actually may think I am free, but we are getting more and more bound.
Now, the second point is that when we talk about freedom, the first is freedom for and freedom from. The second point is that when freedom is talked about, that freedom is needed for love and freedom is transcended in love. Since the turn of the 20th century, especially because of the ideas of psychologists like Sigmund Freud, the whole idea of free love or free sex became mainstream in western culture and then as the whole world is getting westernised all over the world.
Now, the sexual drive is one of the strongest drives in all human beings. And the standard way to regulate that, fulfil that, harmonise that with higher values is through marriage. And there have always been people who have had illicit kind of relationships.
But these were relegated to the fringes of society. People did that, but people didn’t celebrate that. People didn’t parade that.
But with the idea of free sex and free love, the words are very different, but they were equated. The idea was this is the way to freedom. This is our right.
We can have as many relationships as we want, as many partners as we want, and the more we do that, the more we are free. Now, at one level, the word free love sounds very attractive. I am free to love whoever I want.
But the term free love is actually a self-contradiction. Love is in its very nature a bond. And bond means that freedom is restricted.
Now, for loving, freedom is needed. If you want to love someone, a boy cannot put a gun on a girl’s head and say, love me or I’ll shoot you. She may say, I love you, but that’s not love.
So freedom is needed. All of us can set up a computer to start off with a message. Every day we start the computer.
The computer can say that, but that’s not love. We know that because there is no freedom. The computer is simply acting as a programme machine.
So when there is no freedom or when inherently there is no freedom, as in a computer, or when freedom is taken away by external force, then there can be no love. So love is needed for freedom. At the same time, love is transcended in freedom.
Sorry. Freedom is needed for love and freedom is transcended in love. That means when two people love each other, what happens? They give up their connections with other people so that they can connect deeper with each other.
Often when there is love, we do what the other person wants us to do, even if we don’t like that so much. That is the meaning of love. And similarly, overall, we can have many relationships which are superficial or we can have one relationship which is deeper.
And actually love, when we talk about love, it is all centred on deep relationships. So free love is itself actually a self-contradiction. Love is not free in the sense that love restricts.
Whenever we love someone, our emotions get concentrated in one person. So in a sense, love is a bond. But it is the bond that frees us so that we can have a deeper connection.
Without that bond, all our connections remain very superficial. The Harvard Medical School once did a survey. It was around 1990s, and it was replicated later also.
When this free love, free sex culture became mainstream, they did a survey of college students. Most of these college students, they had free sex, free love, what they call as free love culture. They grew up in that.
And they said that, you know, does that make you more fulfilled? Does that make you more connected? What are your feelings? And most of these students, whether boys or girls, or teenagers and slightly beyond, they said, we feel very lonely. We feel very, very lonely. Now, the bodies come in contact with many people, but the hearts actually don’t connect with anyone.
We know that we are using others, and we know that others are using us. So actually, it led to a culture of great superficiality, where there is no deep connection, no deep relationships, no deep commitments. So when we talk about the very word commitment, commitment means there is a sacrifice of freedom.
But through that commitment alone, deep relationships develop. And love deepens when there is a bond through which that love flows more and more. When a mother has a child, at that time, to some extent, the mother gives up her freedom of having a peaceful night’s sleep.
The baby is often like an alarm clock that goes off without our setting it. Normally, we set an alarm clock at a particular time, and even when it goes off at that time, we bang it off, shut it down. But when a baby starts crying at night, no mother will shut it down.
Because there is love, and love means that the mother is ready to sacrifice her freedom to have uninterrupted sleep for taking care of the child. So there is freedom which is needed for love, but there is freedom that is transcended in love. Because there is a greater connection, there is a greater fulfilment in taking care of another life.
And the same way, any relationship, for it to stabilise and flourish, it requires a bond. So love as an emotion can flow towards many directions, but then it doesn’t flow deep, it doesn’t flow far, it doesn’t flow for long. And when it is flowing through a bond, then it flows far, it flows deep, it flows long.
So love, that means, even for the sake of relationships, when you talk about freedom, freedom is not the supreme value. Freedom is an important value, but freedom is to be subordinated to, for the higher purpose of love. Moving forward, the third aspect of love.
Now not all forms, or third aspect of freedom, not all forms of freedom are equally free. This is a point which I mentioned earlier, but I’ll elaborate that with another example, another set of examples. A fish is most free when it is in water.
It can swim upwards, downwards, left, right. Some fish can swim back also. So now, if that fish says, I want freedom, and freedom means, I want to go out of the water.
It can go out of the water, but it will be miserable. It will suffer, suffer terribly, and unless it comes back to the water soon, it will die. So, if in the name of freedom, we give up that which is our natural habitat, all things have their natural habitat.
If in the name of freedom, we reject that which is our natural habitat, then far from being freed, we actually become tormented. We become troubled. Just as a fish has its natural habitat in water, so for the fish, freedom doesn’t come from rejecting all restrictions.
Freedom comes from finding and respecting the right restrictions. As long as the fish is in water, it’s a restriction, but it’s a restriction that frees. It’s a restriction that frees.
Within the water, the fish is free to do whatever it wants. Outside the water, it can’t even survive, let alone do other things. So, freedom for the fish is respecting the restriction of the water and functioning accordingly.
The Bhagavad Gita explains that we are at our core, spiritual beings. And as spiritual beings, we are meant to live in spiritual consciousness. Our present existence is three-dimensional, spiritual, mental and physical.
So, the body is the physical, the mind is the mental, the soul is spiritual. And our current existence is distributed over these three levels. So, the soul’s consciousness is channelled through the mind to the body, to the outer world.
And presently, because we live in the material world, so our consciousness is largely materialistic. We think of pleasure in material terms. However, for us as souls, we have an innate longing for lasting happiness.
We want happiness that lasts and lasts forever. Most of the movies, most of the novels are about romance. And the romance is all centred on H-E-A, happily ever after.
Now, if we look at life, there is no ever after. And still, we all have an aspiration for ever after. Now, where does that aspiration come from? If I consider, say, if there is a child who is born and brought up in some tribe in Africa, where they have heard nothing about any culture apart from that tribal culture of Africa.
And suddenly, one day, that child starts saying, Mommy, I want a pizza. Mother-in-law says, What is a pizza? Where did you hear about a pizza? How did you get a desire for a pizza? If you have never heard of a pizza, to get a desire for a pizza is very hard. If there’s nothing in the circumstance that could have given the child a desire for the pizza, the question will come, where did this desire come from? Similarly, we all have a desire for life return.
And yet, none of us see anything in the world around us that is eternal. Everything is temporary, even giant buildings. Now, when the Twin Towers fell, it was not just a fall of a building.
It was actually the fall of a dream, the fall of a notion that this represents the prosperity and the power of America. So, a building which is as majestic as that could just fall in a few hours. Nothing is permanent.
So, if nothing in our environment lasts forever, from where do we get the desire to live forever and to love forever? There’s nothing in our circumstance which lasts forever. We don’t have any experience of that. This desire for lasting life and lasting love, it doesn’t come from our material circumstance.
It comes from our spiritual core. At our core, we are spiritual beings. And the spiritual core of us, the Atma, as it is called in the Bhagavad Gita, is eternal.
And because the Atma is eternal, because the soul, whose consciousness is currently projected into the material realm, so the soul is searching for the eternal at the external level. So, we are looking for the eternal in the temporal. In the temporary material world, we are looking for eternal because we ourselves are eternal.
So, the point I am making through this is that for the soul, the spiritual environment, the spiritual consciousness is the natural habitat. Just like for the fish, the water is the natural habitat. Now, when a fish comes out of water, it starts suffering.
Similarly, when we come out of spiritual consciousness, then we start feeling dissatisfied. We start feeling dissatisfied. That means that we start feeling there must be something more in life.
I want something more. I want something more. I want something more.
No matter how much we have, this craving for more never goes away. Now, the Bhagavad Gita and the broad Bhakti wisdom tells us that as I said, our existence is spiritual, but currently we are in material circumstances, material body. So, the body and the mind, both are considered material.
The mind is subtle matter which acts as an interface between the soul and the body. So, if we are in material consciousness, we strive for material things. And all material things, the Mahabharata explains, they all boil down to four essential bodily drives.
The drive for food. The drive for sleep. The drive for sex.
And the drive for power. I want to protect myself. I want to show that I am superior to others.
It can be financial power. It can be physical power. It can be intellectual power.
There is power. So, just like animals. There is a pack of lions.
There is a king of lions. The king of lions wants everyone to core down. Core when the king is passing by.
So, these four drives, they are innate to the body. Food, sleep, sex and power. Show of strength, show of power, so that we can defend and dominate.
Now, these are there in the animals and these are there in humans. They are there in everyone. Last year, I had a lecture in science and spirituality in Cambridge University.
And while coming back, the devotees took me by the tree under which Newton saw the apple falling. That tree is like a pilgrimage place for scientists. So, now, when I went there, I was thinking that if instead of Newton, a monkey had been sitting under a tree, the monkey would have just picked up the fruit, eaten it and gone on its way.
Similarly, many humans could also have eaten the fruit and gone on their way. There is nothing wrong in that. But Newton did not simply act on the bodily impulse of eating food.
He thought of something higher. What made this fruit fall? So, if we consider all advancement in knowledge that we have made, that is being made when we think of something higher than the bodily drives. If Newton had been simply thinking of eating, he would not have thought what made this fruit fall.
Einstein said that all the arts, sciences and religions are fruits of the same tree, the tree of human intelligence. Now, when the human intelligence is directed towards the natural world, towards material world around us, to understand how it functions, that leads to development of science. When we try to replicate that world through our creative faculty, that leads to the arts, writing, poetry, painting, music, all these.
And when we try to understand the world beyond the material, when we try to perceive that something more, that leads to the religion. So, the freedom which we talk about, the freedom that will truly free us, the freedom that will help us to attain lasting life and lasting love is the freedom that will raise us to spiritual consciousness. When we are in material consciousness, we are always dissatisfied, wanting something more, something more, something more.
And usually, at the materialistic level, freedom, we conceive that as basically freedom for newer forms of eating, sleeping, mating and parading our strength. So, we think of newer and newer ways of doing this as freedom. When I was studying my engineering, I studied electronics and telecommunications engineering.
And I was actually more interested in the pure sciences. I would have done much better in pure sciences or in philosophy of science. But I got into engineering because that was the glamorised career.
And then in my final year engineering, I studied. We had a subject centred on television, TV engineering. And then at that time, this was around 20 years ago, more than 20 years ago.
So, the book started by saying the most extensive and transformational application of electronics engineering has been in making TVs. So, that really deflated me. I am using all my best intelligence to make idiot boxes for making people into idiots.
Is that what I want to do with my life? Of course, TV can be used for educational purposes. And TV is used for educational purposes. But we compare how much is used for just pointless entertainment.
It just stultifies the brain. So, actually, I find intelligence must have some higher purpose. So, if we see most of the purpose for which even technology, technology is a product of the human intelligence.
It’s definitely intelligence required to process how does this work? How can we make this work in this way? A lot of intelligence goes into making technology. But most of the technology is today used for eating, sleeping, mating and defending. Now, for finding out better arrangements for doing these things.
Now, doing these things in itself is not the problem. But doing only these things is a problem. Thinking that doing these things in better ways, newer ways, that is freedom, that is our right, that is what we want to do.
That is a problem. That will always keep us dissatisfied. Now, very few, all species eat.
But how many species have a problem of obesity? Practically, no species has the problem of obesity of the scale that we humans have. Why is that? Because we are looking for the spiritual in the biological. That means food, there is some pleasure in eating it, but food is primarily a biological right meant to energise the body.
We can get some pleasure in eating, but we can fulfil our longing for happiness only at the spiritual level, longing for lasting happiness. When we either don’t know about the spiritual level or when we neglect the spiritual level, then we look for that lasting happiness at the bodily level. Whether it is in food, whether it is in sex, whether it is in sleep, whether it is in show of strength, but none of these can satisfy us.
I think Oscar Wilde, he said, man is the only animal who eats when he is not angry, sleeps when he is not tired, mates when he doesn’t want to reproduce, and fights even when there is no reason. So what is happening? The same biological functions, which are just biological functions, when we make them as means to pleasure and make them as the primary means to pleasure, then those very things become the sources of suffering. So when we, as spiritual beings, seek pleasure at the material level, then we become like the fish who has come out of water.
When we are in spiritual consciousness, we can naturally be happy. But when we come out of spiritual consciousness to material consciousness, then we become like the fish out of water. We are looking for the eternal in the temporary.
Eating is a temporary activity. You can’t eat 24 hours a day. No matter how much sex is glamorised in the movies and in so many other media, people can’t have sex 24 hours a day.
Just for a few minutes, that’s all. So no activity at the physical level can give lasting pleasure. But when we look for the spiritual in the physical, we set ourselves up for frustration.
And we become more and more conditioned. We become more and more bound. We feel, I can’t live without this, I can’t live without this.
But actually, in the process of that, we just get a little pleasure, but we get so entangled. There is so much agitation, so much suffering that comes because of that. So the real freedom is the freedom to rise to spiritual consciousness.
When we rise to spiritual consciousness, we will find happiness within ourselves. In our connection with the source of everything, with God, who is known in the Bhagavad Gita as Krishna. So that connection is established through the process of bhakti yoga.
Yoga in general helps us to become a little detached from the physical and focus on something higher. Of course, people can nowadays do yoga just to enhance the physical also. So that I can look better, so that I can attract other people’s more.
That is, at the biological level, that’s fine enough. But we are underutilising the potential of yoga. So bhakti yoga, what it does is, we are at this level, at material consciousness.
And we think freedom means, okay, I want to explore more and more material things. Fine, we can explore, but no material thing can give us lasting happiness. So when we talk about practises of yoga, we raise our consciousness from the material to the spiritual level.
And this raising of consciousness to the spiritual level brings freedom. Because once we rise to the spiritual level of consciousness, we realise, I am an atma, and the atma by nature is satchitananda. The atma by nature is joyful.
When I understand the soul’s joyfulness, then we naturally ourselves experience joyfulness. Brahma bhoota prasannatma. In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says, in 18.54, that one who is at the spiritual level is prasanna, is joyful.
That joyfulness becomes ours as we rise to spiritual consciousness. Now, I’ll conclude with this point, that freedom, as I said, freedom for a fish is to accept the restriction of being in water and then learning to swim freely in water. So like that, for us as souls, freedom means accepting the restriction that keeps us on the path to spiritual consciousness.
Now, if we engage too much in materialistic things in a disproportionate way, then our consciousness stays stuck at the material level. It cannot rise to the spiritual level. When it cannot rise to the spiritual level, then we miss out on the very fruit of freedom for which we are seeking freedom.
We want freedom to be happy. But as long as we are in material consciousness, no matter how much freedom we will have, we will not have happiness. So when we accept the regulations, there are regulations to freedom in the process of yoga, but they are not meant to be deprivations.
They are not meant to be kill joys. They are not meant to be spoil sports. They are meant to be facilitators for the raising of our consciousness.
Our consciousness is our energy. If our consciousness is thinking, okay, where can I get the next food to eat? Where can I find the next mate? Where can I find the next material thing to enjoy? Then our consciousness is not available for rising to the spiritual level. So when there is regulation at the material level, the consciousness calms down and it becomes easy to raise the consciousness upwards.
As the consciousness rises to the spiritual level, then there is real freedom. The freedom to seek and savour happiness that is natural to us as souls. By that, practising the process of bhakti yoga, in this light of this analysis, let’s look at the verse now.
Krishna says, rāga-dreṣha-vimukta-iṣṭho Put aside your attachments and aversions. That means at the material level, I like something, I don’t like something. So we often function based on, I will do what I like, and what I don’t like, I’ll just not do it.
Yes, that’s fine. We have our likes and dislikes. But if we want to pursue any higher purpose, we often act based on that purpose.
So rāga-dreṣha-vimukta-iṣṭho At the material level, what you like, what you don’t like, don’t get too obsessed by that. Put it aside for a higher purpose. And primarily our likes and dislikes, they are expressed at the physical level through our senses.
So vishayan indriyasya What does it mean to put aside our likes and dislikes? It doesn’t mean that today I like something and today I decide I won’t like it. The attachment will go away. Or I dislike this, I don’t want to dislike it.
The dislike will go away. That won’t happen. Krishna says be free from attachment and aversion.
That means, don’t let it determine your actions. vishayan indriyasya charan ātmavasya Regulate the movement of the senses towards the sense objects. And how do we do that? Any kind of regulation, it can become a torture.
If somebody just starts starving, starts stopping taking food, that’s starvation. But if they are under medical guidance, they are regulating their diet, maybe even fasting, that can be boosting for their health. So it’s not just arbitrary denial of things, it’s a vidheyātmā, under higher scriptural guidance.
Under the guidance of the wisdom text like the Bhagavad Gita, when we regulate ourselves materially, then what happens? prasādam adhirakṣati We will get prasāda. Our consciousness will rise upwards. We will get mercy, by which we will come to spiritual consciousness.
We will become pure. We will become free from unhealthy desires. And therein, we will relish higher happiness.
The next verse talks about it. prasāde sarva-duḥkhānāṁ hāni-rasyopajāyate prasannacetaso yāsu buddhiparyavatishtate Krishna says, once we get the prasāda, once we get mercy, get purity, then the miseries start decreasing. And then, prasannacetaso yāsu we will become cheerful, we will become joyful.
So I’ll summarise. I talked about, the topic was, does anyone remember the topic? Yeah, freedom. Redefining freedom.
So I talked about it in four parts. First was, freedom for and freedom from. So our society cherishes a lot freedom for.
I should be free to do what I want to do, when I want to do it. But sometimes freedom for or freedom from is actually a more healthier form of freedom. I gave an example for this.
Does anyone remember? Drugs, yeah. In adolescence, we think, I want to go against my parents and do what I want to do. But then, that getting into drugs, that just takes away so much mental energy, so much time.
And somebody who is free from that desire for drugs, that person can do so many higher things in life. So freedom from unhealthy desires is actually very empowering freedom that frees us for doing more productive things. So, that led to the second point that, so this was simply with respect to activities.
Freedom from and freedom for. Then I talked about relationships. Talked about free love is actually a self-contradiction.
Isn’t it? Love itself is not free. Love is a bond. So, we can connect with many people, but we voluntarily choose not to connect with many people so that we can connect deeper with one person.
And, there is so-called free love or free sex. Actually, it leads to just using people for satisfying our bodily urges. But, people feel lonely.
People don’t feel connected. So love, in any relationship, whether it is a spousal relationship or whether it is a parental relationship, we give up freedom so that there can be a higher fulfilment. And that higher fulfilment of a deep loving connection comes through commitment, which in essence means giving up freedom.
This is another perspective for saying that simply freedom is not the supreme thing. That freedom is for a purpose. So, freedom is needed for love, but freedom is transcended in love.
Then I talked about how freedom is not just rejecting all restrictions. Freedom is respecting the right restrictions. What was the example for that? Yeah, fish in water.
Thank you. And then, now that example, I elaborated a little more philosophical detail that the soul in spiritual consciousness is like a fish in water. The soul in materialistic consciousness is like a fish out of water.
And how do we know that this stuff called spiritual consciousness is actually for real, the spiritual side is actually real? That I talked about how we all have a longing for lasting happiness, lasting life, lasting love. And there is nothing that lasts in the world around us. Just like a child in Africa desires a pizza.
Where did you get this desire from? Similarly, we in the temporary material world, if we get the desire for eternal life and eternal love, the question becomes where does this desire come from? It comes from our spiritual core. The spiritual core, now we are currently looking for the spiritual, the eternal, in the material, in the temporal. And that leads to continuous dissatisfaction.
No matter how much I get, I want more, more, more. So that continuous dissatisfaction is like the fish out of water who is perpetually suffering. So like that, when we, spiritual beings, start thinking of freedom in terms of physical drives.
We have four primary physical drives. Which are those? Food, sleep, sex, power, self-defection, defence, domination, war basically. So now, these are common to all living beings.
But we human beings, when we start thinking that doing these in newer and newer ways, that is freedom. Then, we actually in the name of freedom bind ourselves more and more to material consciousness. So all the things that define us as humans, that have come because we subordinated these drives.
Whether it is the sciences, Newton just could have picked up the fruit and eaten it. But instead of succumbing to the bodily drive, we thought, what makes that fruit fall? So whatever distinguishes us as humans, that has come whenever we have risen above our bodily drives. Unfortunately, many times we rise above the bodily drives to fall back again to the same drives.
That means, we use science and technology to think and come up with brilliant things. But ultimately, all that is used to satisfy the bodily drives. Study electronics engineering to make idiot boxes, to make people into idiots.
So, our capacity to think of things beyond the bodily drives, that is directed properly through the process of yoga to raise our consciousness to the spiritual level. So in the process of yoga, there is restriction. But that restriction is not meant for deprivation.
That restriction is meant for focussing and raising our consciousness upwards to the spiritual level. And when we become spiritually conscious, then within ourselves, in our connection with Krishna, through devotion, we experience the fulfilment, the lasting fulfilment that we have been constantly looking for. So when we attain spiritual consciousness, when we are absorbed in loving devotion to Krishna, that is the ultimate freedom.
Because Krishna is within our hearts, our consciousness is with us. We remember Krishna and we are joyful. We don’t need anything else.
And that capacity to find happiness within ourselves, that is there within each one of us. And each one of us has the capacity to attain that consciousness. If we just follow the process of bhakti yoga and connect with Krishna, then all our aspirations for lasting life and lasting love will be perennially and perfectly fulfilled.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. Thank you.
Are there any questions or comments? Yes, please. You are asking that when our loved ones suffer, we suffer. So where is the freedom in that? Freedom does not necessarily mean being free from suffering.
Freedom actually means being free for doing that which is important for us. That means whenever we have to work for some higher cause, then that involves accepting some amount of suffering. But we have that higher cause which inspires us.
So when we love someone, now it depends on what kind, what is the reason for which they are suffering. But our goal is not simply to avoid suffering. As I said, when a mother is taking care of her baby, she has to wake up late at night.
It’s not a pleasant thing to do for her. She might be tired. She wants her rest.
But she wakes up. But in taking care of the baby, there is a deeper fulfilment. So like that, if we go through life simply thinking about how I can avoid suffering, then we are underutilising our potential.
Our goal in life is to make a positive contribution, ultimately to make a spiritual connection with Krishna so that we can attain eternal happiness and love with Him. So in the process of moving towards that destination, we will go through ups and downs. And if we take that suffering that we go through while doing our duties, while being in our commitments, then that will also purify us.
Now the problem comes when our attachment to our loved ones becomes disproportionate. That means, like in the Mahabharata, the example of Dhritarashtra’s attachment to Duryodhana is there. Dhritarashtra, he was the king, he was blind and he was blindly attached to his son.
And so he lost sight of right and wrong, of dharma and adharma. And he condoned adharma, he got himself entangled in adharma by that attachment. So when a particular relationship blinds us so much that we lose perspective of right and wrong, of dharma and adharma, then that relationship is a problem from the perspective of our spiritual growth.
But otherwise, even if there is some suffering because a loved one is suffering, you know that through that we are all getting purified. If we accept it in spiritual consciousness, if we pray to Krishna for help, if we go deeper in our relationship with Krishna. See, when a loved one is suffering, naturally we are also suffering at that time.
But if they see us suffering, that will increase their suffering. We are meant to be a source of strength for them at that time. And for that we need to go deeper into our connection with Krishna.
So if we connect with Krishna and we experience some shelter in our connection with him, then we can give shelter to others. If somebody is sick, and they see that we are so troubled by their sickness, then that burdens them further. If they see we are actually coping with it, not that we are heartless and uncaring for them, but that at least we are not on the verge of breaking down because of that, then that makes them reassured.
It decreases one burden on them. So our spirituality can actually help us to help others, help our loved ones when they are going through difficult times. Does this answer your question? Thank you.
Hare Krishna. Any other questions? I have a question. I have a question for you.
There are eight points of yoga, Ashtanga Yoga, Meditation Samadhi, and Bhakti Yoga. Yeah, good question. The eight points of Ashtanga Yoga and Bhakti Yoga, how do we reconcile them? Basically, on the path of spiritual growth, there are two distinct phases to it.
One is detachment from matter, and the other is attachment to spirit. So Ashtanga Yoga primarily focusses on detachment from matter. Yam, Niyam, Asana, Pranayam, Pratyahara, Dhyan, Dharana, Samadhi, especially the first five stages, they are all centred on regulating our interaction with matter so that we can connect with spirit.
And then Pratyahara is actually the sense of disconnection from matter to a large extent. And then we go inwards. Dhyana, Dharana, Samadhi is where we start connecting with spirit in our inner meditation.
Now if you look at the Patanjali Yoga Sutras themselves, they talk about Ishwara Pranidhana, surrender to Ishwara, but they don’t directly tell who is that Ishwara. So Patanjali lived in a culture, he wrote in a culture, where knowledge of Ishwara was already there. So he did not have to specify that.
See every culture that is there, certain knowledge is presumed. So for example, if in today’s culture I talk about the Statue of Liberty, now I don’t have to explain that the Statue of Liberty is actually a statue here in this place, it looks like this, it’s just known at that time. But then somebody in other time, 500 years ago, what is the Statue of Liberty? And what does it represent? That knowledge may not be available.
So what has happened is, in the Yoga Sutra, the talk about Ishwara is there. And Samadhi at one level is absorption in Ishwara. But that is, who that Ishwara is, and exactly how to absorb oneself in that Ishwara, that is not talked about in Yoga Sutras.
So the Yoga Sutras primarily focus on detachment from matter. And they talk about absorption in spirit. But what exactly that spiritual reality is, that is not talked so much.
Now, in the Yoga Sutras, Yogas Chitta Vritti Nirodha, that the perfection of yoga, the yogic connection is said to be the stopping of the material movements of consciousness. Krishna also talks about that in the Bhagavad Gita, in 6.20 to 6.23, when he says that yatra paramate chittam niruddham yogasevaya yatra chaivatmanatmanam paschanatmanitushyate So Chitta Vritti Nirodha, that is the definition of Yoga and Yoga Sutra. And that same word, Nirodha, Krishna also uses.
yatra uparamate chittam niruddham yogasevaya That means basically the consciousness stops moving at the material level. The material movements of consciousness stop. And then what happens, Krishna talks about it.
yatra chaivatmanatmanam One turns inwards and sees the inner territory, sees the inner reality. paschanatmanitushyate And one delights in that. So what is there in the inner terrain, that is revealed more and more in the Bhakti Yoga tradition.
So in a sense, the Ashtanga Yoga and Bhakti Yoga are meant for the same purpose. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says in the 5th chapter that that these different paths yet sankhe prapate sthanam tad yogair apigamyate ekam sankhyam cha yogam cha yah pashyate sa pashyate In 5.4 and 5, he says that actually these different paths, they ultimately are meant for the same goal. One who sees that they are entirely different paths with no similarity, he says that is bala.
That is like a childish mentality, which cannot see deeper. So the yogic path focusses primarily on disconnection from matter and connection with spirit. The Bhakti Yoga path focusses directly on connection with spirit.
Now that means the spiritual reality that is God in his transcendental personal form is talked about, is revealed in the scriptures, in the Bhakti texts. And we meditate on him, we serve him, we connect with him. And by that absorption in spiritual reality, our disconnection with material reality starts happening automatically.
It’s like if I have a glass of water. Now I could try to remove all air from it, create a vacuum over there and then I fill water in it. Or I just start filling water in it.
The more I fill water in it, the air in it will automatically go away. So like that we can remove material attachments from our consciousness and then cultivate spiritual attachments. So in this progressive path of Ashtang Yoga, it leading to perfection is talked about in the 6th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita.
The 6th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita is called Dhyan Yoga or Ashtang Yoga. And it culminates in 6.47, where Krishna says, योगिनावपि सर्वेशाम् मद्घते नान्तरात्मनाश्छ्वधावान् भजते योमाम् समे युक्ततमोमतः Among all the yogis, the topmost yogi is one who meditates on me, within one’s heart, and one who gets absorbed in me. So till now, Krishna has talked about detachment from the material world so that one can come to the culmination of yoga.
And then from the 7th chapter onwards, Krishna starts talking about a different language. Not so much about detachment, but about attachment. So the peak that Krishna describes starting in the 2nd chapter and culminating in 6.47, that peak and alternative way to attain it, Krishna talks about in the 7th chapter.
And the first verse he says in 7.1, मैं आसक्तमनः मैं आसक्तमनः पार्थ योगम्यं जन्मदाश्रयः असंशयं समग्रम्माम् यथा घ्यासिसि तज्ञूनू Krishna says that this perfection of making my mind attached, making your mind attached to me. He says the Ashtang Yogis are absorbed in me. That absorption will come when there is attachment.
How can you become attached to me? He says I will tell you that process. And that process he describes from the 7th chapter to the 12th chapter, that is actually the process of Bhakti Yoga. So both Ashtang Yoga and Bhakti Yoga are meant for ultimately the same purpose of detachment oneself from matter and attaching oneself to spirit.
Ashtang Yoga makes it like a two-step process. First do this, then do that. Whereas Bhakti Yoga focusses directly on attachment to spirit and as a by-product, detachment to matter also happens.
Does that answer your question? Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Thank you very much for your kind attention. Hare Krishna.
Shreemad Bhagavad Gita ki. Shreemad Prabhupada ki. Gaurabhata Vendaki.
Thank you. Shreemad Bhagavad Gita ki.