SB 1.5.12 Re-education of values is essential for the redirection of the heart

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
outer situations thank you when we chant the holy names often the mind doesn’t value what we are doing and what we are going to get by what we are doing so the whole process of chanting is based not just on concentration on the holy name but on the re-education of the mind about what is of true value and Vyasadeva is offered that kind of re-education by Narada Muni in this section of the Srimad Bhagavatam chapters 4 to 6 of the first canto and herein he is describing that those things which normally people consider valuable they are of no ultimate value without Achyutabhava without a devotion to Lord Achyuta and then he gives two examples in this category Naishkarana is the freedom from karma which will ultimately lead to liberation from material existence especially in this context it refers to impersonal liberation and then there is the performance of future activities which leads to worldly prosperity and to the attainment of heavenly planets and he says that even that is inauspicious so if attainment of liberation is also not attractive then what to speak of attainment of heavenly planets so in our times in Kali Yuga heavenly planets and liberation may not be particularly strong allurements but we all have our allurements which distract us from focusing on Krishna and re-educating ourselves about these allurements and recognizing that they are really not of much value so for example Indians may consider that going to America or going to or people in general may think of moving from a smaller house to a bigger house moving from a lower position to higher position in the corporate hierarchy all these are ways in which we hope to improve our condition at a material level without necessarily going closer to God through that improvement so it is not wrong to desire to improve our material condition but to hope that improving our material condition in and of itself will make us happy and that we should let the hope for improvement of the material condition distract us from the focus on spiritual enrichment spiritual advancement especially during chanting that is definitely undesirable so by contemplating that everything that is that everything is that it’s not infused with the devotion to Lord Hari, Lord Achyuta that which does not help us to increase our devotion to Lord Achyuta all such things are ultimately futile they will not fulfill us in fact they will frustrate us and in this way we can try to offer a re-education to ourselves a re-education in values and chanting is actually a process of redirection of our consciousness from matter to Krishna but that redirection originates in the re-education and conscious contemplation in verses like these which point out the futility of the material things that we consider so valuable is a strong impetus for that re-education and subsequent redirection