Seeing God Plans 3Ps Sugrivas Story

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So I will speak today on how the lord’s plan works in our life in mysterious ways. So I will speak based on the Ramayana.
And I will speak Yeah. So we will discuss today on the broad topic of the lord’s plan and how it works in our life. Some of you may need to come here because I will be writing quite a bit.
You will not be able to see it from there. Those chairs can be moved here if you like. Unless of course you like not seeing it.
That’s also fine. Some people it’s a bit non-conventional. Some people prefer to just hear.
So now One of the One of the often frustrating things in life is that we make plans and our plans, we think there is a straight path ahead for the plans but instead what we get is a giant block like a blockage and there seems to be no way ahead. And in such times we may not only get frustrated emotionally but we may also lose our faith from a devotional perspective. Now the Gita explains that Krishna is the well-wisher of everyone.
So, interestingly it says that if we understand that he is the well-wisher of everyone then that by understanding this we will become peaceful. So in general it’s natural that if our plan is not working we will get agitated. It’s just a human emotion.
We want things to work out in a particular way. And even if we are trying to say do something for the service of the Lord. You know, so today we came by car and we got much more time than what we expected from Brooklyn.
So, all of you had to wait for some more time. Sorry about that. it was disturbing.
I’m not going to say that was the Lord’s plan. That was our lack of planning. But it’s natural that when things go wrong or things don’t go the way we wanted we get agitated.
But through even the situations Krishna’s plan is still working. So, I’ll talk about this from the perspective of the life of Sugriv. And many of us, we have our life planned in a particular way.
Okay, I’ll get this degree, then I’ll get this job, then I’ll have my family, I’ll do this, I’ll do that. And it’s important. At one level planning is a sign of intelligence.
It’s only intelligence people can plan. Those who don’t have intelligence they just be short sighted. Planning is not just a sign of intelligence, it’s also a sign of seriousness.
If we are serious about something, we plan about it. So, planning itself is a good thing. There is some American comedian who devotees of his quote that if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.
Now, that’s some truth to it. But it is not that God laughs at our plans. If you want to do something serious and you make plans about it, Krishna is pleased by that.
But, what it means is make God laugh it is that if we think that we will be able to bend the world according to our will and make everything happen according to our plan then there is going to be a problem. One of my devotee friends, a fellow preacher, he recently approached his spiritual master for blessing he was starting a new project and Maharaj showed him there is no doubt that you will be successful and there is no doubt that your plans will be unsuccessful. So, life often works in unpredictable ways.
So, planning itself is not a problem. So, we have, say if I am here now each of us has a path planned for our life to some degree at least. So, now if we consider Sugreev he also had a path planned for his life.
He was the younger brother and in general in the past there was this system of primogeniture. Primogeniture means the first child becomes the king. So, there is what is called as the heir and then there is the spare.
So, the idea is that if something goes wrong with the heir then use the spare. So, most of the world has more or less abolished the idea of royalty but the British still have it. So, one of the British was a spare.
He wrote a whole book called Spare and it’s his autobiography. It’s just, he is more or less complaining about how difficult life was. He was living in palaces but he was never going to be the king.
So, anyway, everybody can find something to complain about in life. So, Sugreev was the spare but he never had any jealousy towards his brother. His brother was clearly stronger than him and he thought his brother was wiser than him and he was happy to assist his brother and the two of them were a very powerful duo.
In teenagers language you call them the awesome twosome. They were like that and they protected their kingdom very well but unfortunately a terrible misunderstanding happened between them. I won’t go to the specifics of the misunderstanding because the part of the story I am going to talk about is much later but basically Wali thought that Sugreev had conspired to try to take the kingdom away from him.
Wali had thought that Sugreev tried to trap him inside a cave where he had gone to hunt or to kill a demon who had been terrorising their kingdom and Sugreev had no such intention. So, it was just a misunderstanding but the misunderstanding went downwards. So, Wali was strong but he also had a very strong temper.
So, he was so angry that he wanted to beat Sugreev and Sugreev realised he is very angry, I can’t reason with him so he went away from there. He ran away from there and Wali thought why would he run away if he had not been beaten. Sugreev was thinking that his anger will cool down.
Generally we say anger with the passage of time it becomes cool. Nobody can stay angry for a very long time. So, people become cool.
That is true but that is not the only trajectory. When people become cool then they become reasonably peaceful. Reasonably peaceful means they are ready to listen to reason.
But anger with the passage of time need not always become cool. It can also become cold. And when it becomes cold then the person becomes hatefully peaceful.
It is not hatefully peaceful means anger is a very expensive emotion for the body. Anger makes us very restless. We just have too much energy.
Nobody can stay angry for a long time. But when the anger becomes cold then the person becomes filled with hate. Anger is impulsive.
Anger is hot-headed. Hate can be calculative. Hate can be cold-blooded.
So, Wali’s anger which direction did it go? Yes. It became hatefully peaceful. So, he decided that if you try to kill me once he will try that again.
And therefore, the only solution is I have to kill him. Wali was the brother for whom he had lived. He was not just his brother.
He was his best friend. He was his hero. And that very person was out to kill him constantly.
That itself was very painful. And Sugreev had to flee from one place to another to another to another. And he practically went all over the world trying to find out where he could hide.
He had to find both hideouts and escape ways. Because no matter where he would hide Wali was relentless. Wali would find that place.
And if he would find that place then he had to escape from there. And he thought that I have to keep searching like this. I have to keep fleeing like this.
Be a fugitive all the time. And when he had actually not done any wrong also it is very easy at such times to become very resentful. But simply for the sake of survival he had to become very very adept at finding out from this mountain which is the way out, across this river where can you cross, from where you cannot cross.
He basically became an excellent geography student. Now after that he found that the only place he was safe was right next to his kingdom only. Once Wali had become very angry.
He had killed a demon. He had flung the demon’s body far away forcefully. So that demon’s body had fallen in the precincts of a sage who was performing a sacrifice.
And the Wali could just kill the demon but he just wanted to boast about his prowess and let everyone see how powerful I am. The sage said that you have desecrated my sacrifice therefore I curse you that you will never be able to come here. If you come in this area you will die.
So then Sugriv could have become even more frustrated. First I had to run for my life because of a crime I have not committed. Then I had to run all over the world find ways here, there everywhere and I find no place to hide and then finally I find a place right next to my neighbourhood.
Then why did I have to run all over the place? Like we are staying in a particular home and then say we have got some reason we have to leave that home. Maybe the owner says you have to leave. And then we search all over the city trying to find some place to live.
We don’t seem to find any place. And then we come to know that the house right next to our house, the neighbour’s house is empty. Why did I come to know about it before? It is very easy to become frustrated.
But somehow Sugriv stayed over there till he finally met Ram and by the arrangement of Lord Ram Wali was punished and then Sugriv got the kingdom. Now after Sugriv got the kingdom, then the agreement was that Sugriv will help Ram find Sita. So after 4 months or 4 months, Sugriv just forgot initially because of various reasons but mainly that he had been out suffering in poverty for so long and suddenly he got so much enjoyment.
Like somebody has been fasting barely getting very little food to even survive. And then suddenly that person comes home or gets to a place where there is a fully stocked fridge and there is absolutely nothing to do. There is no work to do.
It is raining so you have been hungry for a long time. You finally come back home and then outside there is a lockdown and there is an unlocked fridge. And then there is a person being greedy so he just forgot everything.
He was jolted out of his stupor by Hanuman, by Tara, his wife and then by Lakshman and immediately took his senses. And that’s when he said that actually I have already called monkeys from, vanaras from various parts of the world and then see at that time the vanaras are sometimes equated with monkeys. It is true but it is not that simple.
They are considered to be celestial apes. They are considered. In many ways the vanaras were more powerful than humans.
So there is in the Puranas categorisation of various species given. Now we know how many human species are there? 400,000 400,000 How many? 400,000 or 40,000? 400,000 So what is this 400,000 human species? Actually there is only one homo sapiens. So what this human species is actually in this particular categorisation the deitas also follow the human species.
Because human species is basically that species which has the capacity to perceive spirituality to perceive the ultimate reality to worship the lord. So even the asuras form the human species. The other species are like aquatics and birds and others.
So they don’t fall in that. So basically they have human like consciousness in the sense that they have the potential for spirituality. The potential for questioning what is the meaning of life ultimately.
So any species that has that now whether that species pursues that meaning or not, that is a different question. But if they have that potential they are called in the Vedic Sanctuary the human species. So the vanaras technically speaking they are in the hierarchy above the humans.
So not all the vanaras in that particular the monkeys who were being ruled by Sugriva, there were some who were devatas who sent them to the earth. They were extremely powerful. There were other monkeys who were also ordinary monkeys over there.
In their art. But anyway, this was very powerful. So when he called the monkeys from all over the various places see the monkeys were also a distributed race.
They lived in forests all over the world. But they had one king. And normally the king would not call them.
They would live in their own particular places. But in this particular case it was vital to call them from various places. And then they came and then very competently what happens is if somebody when we are working with somebody then initially everybody has to have some confidence building measures.
That when we tell somebody to do something, do they even understand what we are telling them to do? Do they do it or not? If they do it, then our confidence in them increases. If they don’t do it, the confidence decreases. So now in the case of Sugriva, you could say there was a strike against him first.
And he forgot his promise himself. He got lost. So now he had to do some damage minimisation.
So then he called all these monkeys and then in Rama’s presence he started guiding them. He told them, you go in the south, you go in the north, you go in the east, you go in the west. And while he was telling all of them in this way, he was guiding them very expertly.
When you come to this mountain, don’t try to cross from this side. It is very complicated. You go from this side.
Here you will find a cave. You can use that cave to go across. Here there is a river.
At this point this river is thin. At that point the river is very broad. So now when he was guiding all of this, Lakshman and Rama were hearing.
And then after he finished the guidance, Rama said, you like geography? He literally said that. But he said, I didn’t learn out of interest, I learned out of necessity. So whatever.
But the point here is that when he was learning about the various paths and the obstacles on those paths, he had no idea that he would be using that in the service of the Lord. But through the adversity that he was facing, and while facing the adversity, the skill that he was learning, that was preparing him eventually for the service of the Lord. So sometimes what happens is we make a very radical differentiation.
Say for example, if this is our life journey, this is the time when we start practising bhakti. Or we can say start practising Krishna Consciousness. So then we think that what happened before this was all material, and what happens after this is all spiritual.
Well, it is not that simple. It is not that before we started practising bhakti, Krishna was not there in our life. Krishna was still there in our life.
And Krishna was still acting in our life. And even now, say right now when we are practising our life, we may say, this part of my life is spiritual, this part of my life is material. Well, yes, sometimes it is helpful to classify like that.
Because we say, okay, in my home there is a temple, my family members are devotees, so everything that I do is bhakti. In my home there is a temple, why do I need to go to a temple at all? If all my family members are devotees, why do I need to go and associate with the devotees? Well, why? Because although it may all be spiritual, but do we see it as spiritual? In our home, in a temple, when we go, our primary purpose is, oh, this is a temple. I am going here to worship Krishna.
In our home, there are so many other things apart from worshipping Krishna. In our family, we have relationships, there are so many other aspects. Generally, the devotees are the relationship centre of Krishna.
So, the point is, not that our home is material and temple is spiritual. The point is, what is the effect of what on our consciousness? When we have gone over to a temple, it is much more likely that we will remember Krishna. In our home, how much is the likelihood? It is good if we can remember, but the likelihood is much more.
So, we all need association. So, the point is that we can’t simply equate the material and the spiritual. At the same time, we don’t have to radically separate the material and the spiritual.
Krishna is always acting in our lives. No matter what we are doing. So, right now, if you go in my past, this happened and that happened.
Especially when we do western outreach nowadays. Many people come from very disturbed childhood or disturbed upbringing. It is there everywhere now.
In India also, it is there. But the point is, oh, this happened and I was scarred because of that and I am wounded because of that and I have this conditioning because of that. Yes, it may all be true.
But, we shouldn’t think that Krishna is not there. Or that Krishna was not acting. Krishna is always acting in our lives.
So, even now when you say, okay, my spiritual life is going on well, but this is going wrong in my material life, that is going wrong, that is going wrong. Yes, the two are separate, but two are also interconnected. Because Krishna is always acting in our life.
So, in general, the pain is just a fact of life. Everybody will have pain in their life, sometime or the other. Now, that’s what Krishna says when he says this world is tukha leya.
But Krishna does not mean to say that, okay, this world is tukha leya, so stay tukhi. Just stay miserable. That is not the point.
See, when pain comes, there are two trajectories we may go in. See, pain can be transmitted. Or pain can be transformed.
Pain is transmitted means what? You know, my parents are short-tempered, so I become short-tempered. My parents solve all problems by yelling at each other, so I also give yelling at everyone. So, I was abused, so I abuse others.
Unfortunately, this happens. So, pain, when it is transmitted, what happens is it creates a parampara of pain. You know, a tradition of tribulation, a tradition of distress being passed down.
But that is unfortunate. But the great potential that we human beings have is that we don’t have to go in this direction. Now, pain can be transformed.
And the transformation of pain, it primarily happens through finding some purpose. We can find a purpose that helps us to go through that pain. Now, that purpose may be found at that time, that purpose may be found later also.
When Sugriva was going through that pain of being chased, the only purpose for him at that time was survival. But through it all, he was learning something valuable. So, for all of us, when we go through pain, in the sense that when our plan doesn’t seem to work, in fact, when everything opposite to our plan seems to be happening, then it’s naturally going to be painful.
But through it all, now Krishna’s plan is always working. So, Krishna says that I am in control of the world. So, this last part I’ll talk about in this session, when we say Krishna’s plan is always working.
So, what does it mean? I’ll talk about three Ps over here. So, first is the plan. Our plan may be going wrong, but Krishna’s plan is far bigger.
And because Krishna’s plan is far bigger, Krishna’s plan can keep working even through our mistakes and our mistakes. So, how does this work? So, for example, say we are driving a car and say the GPS tells us to turn left and say we turn right. What happens? The GPS says you need to wait, we get lost.
No, the GPS doesn’t do that. The GPS reroutes and helps us find a way. So, God’s plan is basically God’s positioning system.
According to that GPS, you know we are always on route. Or rather, there is always a way ahead. You may sometimes go off track, but you can always reroute and be on route.
So, we need, when we study scripture, almost every story is a story of things going wrong in people’s lives. Pagishit Maharaj is having a virtuous kingdom and suddenly what happens? He is cursed. Cursed to just die.
So, throughout scripture we do see that bad things do happen to good people. But then, there is a bigger plan that is always working. So, when we study Shastra, it is important that this, when we talk about ultimately suratam sarvabhutana, that Krishna’s plan is working, this is Arshraddha.
That Krishna’s plan is never lost. This is what Bhishma says that, O Yudhisthira, the Lord’s plan is very difficult to understand. But the Lord’s plan is always working.
So, many times, if we look back at our lives, we may be able to make sense of the Lord’s plan. When this happened, it seemed so terrible. But now I see it was for good.
So, here, I will come back to this Lord’s plan a little later. But the second part is basically part. That we all have a part in the Lord’s plan.
When we say the Lord’s plan is happening, it is not just happening to us. When the Lord’s plan is there, there are two aspects to it. It is happening to us and it is meant to be happening through us.
So, it is not just that whatever is happening is the Lord’s plan. It is, we are also meant to do something. You may have heard this.
People have the Gita stars sometimes in their home. Jo hua, wo achha hua. Jo hua raha hai, wo achha hua raha hai.
Jo mane wala hai, wo bhi achha nahi hoga. Whatever happened was good. Whatever is happening is good.
Whatever will happen will be good. Well, the problem is that I have read the Gita dozens of times. I have friends who have read it many more times.
We never found any verse which comes even close to this. The point is that the Gita is not about so much about what is happening. No where in the Gita Krishna says that Oh, you are in this war where you have to kill your relatives, Arjuna.
Jo ho raha hai, wo achha hua raha hai. It was, bad things do happen in the world. But the point is that good can come through bad.
Bad things can happen in life. So, when we say God’s plan, it is not just automatic. We also have to play a part.
The Gita’s focus is not so much on what is happening as it is on what we are doing. The whole focus is for Krishna to persuade Arjuna to play his part. So, how do we play our part? That is through service attitude.
A seva bhav. We understand that we are always parts of Krishna. Now, if we understand that we are parts of Krishna, that is a philosophical truth.
Practically, it means that we have parts in Krishna’s plan. If somebody is a part of the Indian cricket team, then what does it mean? They have a part in the Indian cricket team. What is the part? If you are a bowler, you are a batsman, you are a fielder, you are a cricket keeper, you have a part.
So, every one of us has a part. And our part is to serve. So, what happens is, this is where we were talking earlier about planning.
The problem is not in planning. Planning is important. But planning can be done in a mood of controlling or planning can be done in a mood of serving.
So, in what mood am I planning? So, am I planning so that Krishna, I am your servant, I want to serve you better. Then, even if our plan doesn’t work, our purpose is to serve Krishna. My plan is not working, but I will serve him whatever way I can.
When we are planning in a mood of controlling, then it can make us un-Krishna conscious. But our serving mood can make us Krishna conscious also. So, we have our part and we never lose our part.
We never ever lose our part in Krishna’s plan. So, Krishna has a plan and we have a part in Krishna’s plan. But in that mix, it’s okay.
How do I make sense of my part? But there seems to be nothing I can do at this present. And that’s where, we will talk about the last part, that is perspective. So, to understand Krishna’s plan, there is Shraddha.
Then there is, this is Seva. That we are parts of Krishna. We are meant to serve Krishna.
And then perspective is more about Chakshu or Drishti. Krishna Chakshu, Prem Chakshu, those words are used. So, what exactly is this perspective? What is the perspective that can help us to see that even in this situation, there is some plan for my life.
There is something for me to still do. This is where, three things we will talk about over here. Let me go down over here.
I want to be the first right over here. Basically, this perspective, it expands our understanding of the length, the breadth and the depth. Let me explain what I mean by length, breadth and depth.
Length means that we often tend to look at things from a short term perspective. Alright, now this is terrible. This is good, this is bad.
But what may be good or bad right now, may be very different from how it may be eventually. So, if we have a long term perspective, then our vision of good and bad can change dramatically. A child may feel, playing is so wonderful, studying is so boring.
But studying can lead to a bright career in the future. So, the Gita tells us this especially by telling us that we don’t just have this one life. Life is not like a sprint.
We are running, running, running. Everybody is a rat race. The problem with the rat race is that even if you win the rat race, you still remain a rat.
And whoever gets to the destination, it’s just ultimately everybody has to die. This Italian proverb says that at the end of the game of chess, the king and the pawn go into the same box. It’s like that.
We are going in this rat race. We have a short term view of life. Life is like a sprint.
But actually life is like a marathon. So, it’s a big picture. It’s not just this life.
It goes beyond this life. Krishna tells Arjuna that you are thinking that you are shooting arrows and you will be killing Bhishma. But Bhishma is a soul.
And he is now in an ageing body and he has lived virtuously. So, he will be elevated to a better body. So, expand your vision.
So, to be able to see Krishna’s plan, when we study philosophy, some people may say, why do I need all this philosophy? I just like to chant. I just like to hear katha. I like to go kirtan.
I like to feel bhav. It’s good to feel that bhav, to feel that emotion. But the problem is that life’s experiences will often give us many other emotions.
Because when we face adversities in life, when we come to kirtan, we have feelings of bhav. But when we go out of kirtan, we will have abhav of bhav. All that emotion will go away.
So, at that time, it is our understanding of philosophy that can give us a perspective. So, first is the length of our existence. And the second is the depth.
I’ll come back to the breadth at last. Depth means what? That our existence is not just our body. There is our body, there is our mind and there is our soul.
Sometimes, what may be painful for our body may actually be beneficial for our soul. Just like when we fast or some other sacred things, it’s not very pleasant. But it is purifying.
So, our existence is multi-level. And that’s why if somebody is looking only from the physical perspective, then they will feel, what is the point of it all? What is the use of this? I am practising bhakti and still, sometimes we say, monastic people are so wealthy and spiritual people don’t have so much wealth. But no.
You can be wealthy, there can be people who can have a lot of wealth and people can be comfortably unhappy. They get a lot of comforts, but they can still be unhappy. They have a lot of physical sensations and physical detonations.
But somebody who is devoted to the Lord, their heart will be enriched with bhakti. And at the physical level, we feel that we get pleasure through things. And things are important for us.
But at the inner level, what matters to us is our thoughts. So, actually we may have the best things around us, but our happiness depends not so much on the things outside us, as the thoughts inside us. So, bhakti and our spirituality, it enriches the thoughts inside us.
So, when we understand the depth of our being, yes, things may be at a social level, maybe I don’t have as much respect as I thought I would have had. Maybe I don’t have as much money in my bank. Maybe my health and fitness are not as good.
But internally, our heart is turned towards the Lord. Even through it all, we will not feel peaceful. We will be joyful.
That is the depth of our being. The last part is the breadth. By breadth, I mean that the path ahead.
We often think that there is one path ahead for us. And if this path doesn’t work, then everything is over. But Krishna’s vision of what we can do in the future.
Life’s path is much bigger. It’s like we are going along one lane, and we think this is the only lane I have to go according. But life’s express way has many lanes.
We see when Prabhupada was in India, he was trying to share Krishna bhakti in India. It was not working. And Prabhupada decided to come to America.
Now, at that time, there had been a few other spiritual leaders before Prabhupada had come to America. But they had all been quite young. And they had influential followers.
Prabhupada had no one. Prabhupada came to America. And even when he came to America, he came to New York.
At first, he was more with the elite crowd of New York who were interested in yoga. But then, Prabhupada came to the lower east side. He had no idea about the counterculture at that time.
But he knew these people were interested, and he went there. If you look from a material perspective, if you see Prabhupada on one side, and his early western disciples on the other side, there is practically no material similarity. By age, there is a huge difference.
There is not just a generation gap, probably two or three generations gap. They are at the age of his grandfather. He was at the age of his grandfather.
It is not just the age gap. The counterculture had the idea that don’t trust anyone above 30. Their idea was that 30 is the biological boundary beyond which you lose your intelligence.
You are a radical, you are a revolutionary, you are a free thinker, till you come to 30, after that you just lose your intelligence. So, Prabhupada was not 30, Prabhupada was not 60, Prabhupada was 70. So, age, then if you look at culture, Prabhupada was a person who had never even eaten a drunk tea or coffee throughout his life.
He lived a very pure life. So, nobody had to tell him to follow the regulative principle, that was just a part of his culture. His followers, and their practically only regulative principle was to break all the regulative principles.
That’s just the way they lived. Now, from an education perspective, Prabhupada was deeply learned in Shastra. Prabhupada’s English was also what he had learned in 1920s.
His disciples in 1960s, they had learned in 1950s. So, both from a material and from various perspectives. Prabhupada spoke the same English, but they had extreme difficulty in understanding his English.
From the perspective of religion, Prabhupada was telling them about the idea of a God which they had never heard of. One of Prabhupada’s disciples, he was a professor in college and he said, while teaching English literature, he was doing something on Krishna Consciousness. Some of the students complained to the principal.
And he said that, this principal called, I heard you are talking about God in your classes. He said, is there any rule that we can’t talk about God? He said, no. He said, what are you talking about? A strange conception of God.
He said, what is your conception of God? He said, I have no conception of God. He said, if you have no conception of God, then how can you say that my God is strange? He said, what are you talking about? A God who is black? That is all. The racial division was there.
The civil rights movement was going on. So, you are talking about a God who is black? Before that he said, you are talking about a God who is a cowboy? No, he is a cowherd boy. So they added.
Texan cowboy, that stereotype was there. So, cowherd boy. He said, you are talking about a God who is black? He said, no.
The God is blue. He said, these are just Gods. Culturally psyched out and intellectually short circuited.
Couldn’t figure out anything. So, what Prabhupada was speaking was so utterly strange. And yet, there was those were the audience who were the most ripe for his message.
And they took it up, and they took it up, and they spread all over the world. So, from a material perspective, these were the unlikeliest of candidates for receiving spirituality. But they received it.
So, the point I am making is that, Krishna’s vision of the path ahead for us is much broader than our vision. I think, okay, if this doesn’t work out, my life is over. Everything is over.
No, life is much bigger. Krishna’s vision is much broader. So, even if one thing doesn’t work out, another thing can work out.
That thing doesn’t work out, something else can work out. So, Krishna will never abandon us. And that is the basis of our faith in Krishna.
That the Lord is always working in our lives. What happens is, we are here. This is our present.
And this is our vision of the future. So, from our present, this is the human plan. We look at the present and we plan the future.
But God’s vision is the opposite. God looks at the future and plans the present. So, that’s why sometimes the human plan and the divine plan are very different.
We look at the present and plan the future. God looks at the future and plans the present. So, anyway, we just hold on.
So, this what Krishna talks about is, if you just have that faith, we have that faith, we talk about shraddha and then we have a sevabha, and then Krishna will give us that perspective, that pratyakshu, that buddhi. Krishna says, I will give you buddhi yoga. The intelligence by which you can come to me.
The buddhi by which you can do yoga. So, for all of us, if you just maintain, Krishna, you are my lord. You must have some plan for me.
I am your servant. I want to serve you. Please guide me how I can serve you.
If we have that attitude, as Krishna promises in the tenth part of the Bhagavad Gita, I will show you the way. I will not only show you the way, I will lead you along the way, Krishna says. And, what Srila Prabhupada did, what Krishna did in Prabhupada’s life, what we see in Sukanya’s life, what we see in the lives of so many characters throughout our scripture, that truth holds true in our life also.
And, it is by studying the scriptures we get that confidence that Krishna’s plan is working in my life even now. And that’s how we become We can become peaceful wherever we are and will continue in our life’s journey from our place and present. So, I will summarise what we discussed today.
We firstly started by discussing Sugriva’s story and how in one sense what he learned in adversity that later enabled him to tap an opportunity. An opportunity for serving the Lord. So, it is not that literally the adversity transformed the opportunity but rather the adversity helped him to learn something which helped him in an opportunity in the future.
So, what happened to him was quite unjust and quite frustrating. He could just easily have found the compass or over point. Right in the beginning he would not have to run all over the universe.
So, he could have said that all that I went through was just a waste. All that searching and running and fleeing. But he learned what he could and that was for a purpose.
So, pain is something which is going to come to everyone’s life. So, we can see that pain can be transmitted or it can be, does anyone remember? Transformed. And we transform the pain by a purpose.
So, how do we have a purpose? That was where we discussed three things. The purpose that we can play that that comes through three things. First was just understanding that Krishna has a plan.
So, we have Shraddha that Krishna’s plan is always working in our life. And then we have a part in Krishna’s plan. That is our Seva.
That I will, no matter what happens, no matter what goes wrong or what I do wrong, I am still a part of Krishna I still have a part in Krishna’s plan. So, therefore we continue on. And the last part was? Perspective.
Perspective. So, perspective can be called as broadly Buddhi. Or Jakshu.
This Buddhi we can, now we cannot know exactly how Krishna’s plan is working. But the Buddhi can, we can get some indication of this by considering the length Ok, what seems bad now may work out to be much better, good for me in the future. Then we can look at the breadth.
What seems bad for me at one level. At a physical level or financial level this appears to be bad. At a social level it appears to be bad.
But at some other level it’s helping me to grow. Our existence is multi-level. Sometimes say when we are betrayed by someone in a relationship.
That’s what helps us to maybe grow internally. We may find shelter within ourselves. Then in future when we are in relationships we are not so needy and dependent on others.
Who knows how it works. Our existence is multi-level, the breadth. And the last is? Death and then breadth.
Good point. This mistake was Krishna’s plan. Not necessarily.
So depth and then our existence is multi-level. Breadth means that the paths ahead can be many. So it’s not just one lane.
It’s an whole express way. So Krishna can have many different ways in which he can take us ahead. So by understanding this we can all move forward with confidence that Krishna is there with us.
Krishna will not only show us the way but Krishna will lead us along the way. So show and lead us on the way. With this confidence we all look at how Shri Prabhupada’s path worked out in the unlikeliest of ways for him.
His original disciples were the unlikeliest candidates but they did extraordinarily advance how Krishna’s plan works in inconceivable ways. So we start with planning. So you can say hold our plan lightly.
Hold our Lord tightly. Did you forget anything else? Just remember this one point. Hold our plan lightly.
Hold our Lord tightly. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
Are there any questions or comments? We should start learning about life in a way whether it’s financially or even about our life career. I didn’t say that. I was saying that we should not plan in a way of controllership.
We should not think that I am the controller and I am going to bend the world to my will. Krishna I want to serve you and I want to use everything that I have in your service. So my buddhi my intelligence which can be used for various things including for planning which can also be used in your service.
But if our plan becomes more important than Krishna that is where the problem comes through. A plan is a means to Krishna. Sometimes what happens is Krishna is the means to the plan.
Krishna you have to help me put this plan. No. This plan is meant to take us towards Krishna.
It’s not that we should give up a plan. Not at all. Thank you Prabhuji.
The breath part. The breath. What I meant is that for us in our life I started by saying we have a particular vision of how we will move ahead in our life.
And sometimes that vision just doesn’t work out. But this way my life is not going forward. This way my life is not going forward.
But does that mean my life will never move forward? There is some other way. The way is for moving forward are many. Sometimes you may seek a career in a particular area.
You may try to become friends with a particular person. Trying and trying and trying and that’s just not working. But then it may be that that particular friendship doesn’t work.
But that doesn’t mean that no particular friendship or no particular thing is going to work in our life. I have written a book on reincarnation. Once I was asked this question that a boy asked me this question.
I have a relationship with this girl but our parents are not agreeing. So we just tried everything but it’s not working. So I want to know what can I do by which in my next life I can have a relationship with her.
So now from this point of view it’s a very serious question. But the point is that yes, we all have a need for relationships. And we may feel strongly attracted towards one person.
And sometimes things work out and sometimes things don’t work out. But that doesn’t mean that just because one relationship doesn’t work out, doesn’t mean our whole life nothing will ever work out now. Ultimately it is not just that person we are loving and that person is loving us.
It is Krishna who is the source of all love. And Krishna can show, reveal his love to us through many pathways or many agents, many instruments. So with respect to career, with respect to relationship, with respect to talents.
Sometimes somebody may say, okay I want to pursue a particular career. And that just doesn’t work out. But that doesn’t mean that nothing will work out.
So in that sense, there are multiple multiple leads on the express way of life. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for your time. It was very wonderful. And also you explained today, it’s like we all can relate in our life how exactly Krishna is there in everyone’s life.
So I have a question here, like as you were mentioning that Krishna has a plan for everything, whatever happens in our life. So sometimes we devotees, you know, we commit some mistakes or we just, you know, wantedly or like, you know, with our laziness or whatever, like we sometimes you know, not follow some some things what we need to be as a devotee, like maybe we don’t trace pictures everyday or we don’t follow the things what we need to do, right? So do you think that we consider as a Krishna’s plan, right? You know, for us to show the path by Krishna or how can one discriminate that our own faults and, you know, making ourselves relax like, you know, or how exactly one can discriminate us. Thank you.
Good question. There’s a difference between saying everything is Krishna’s plan versus everything is within Krishna’s plan. Vishwapitama says to Yudhishthira Maharaj, it’s interesting, Prabhupada translate that as everything is within a lord’s plan.
See, what that means is if you consider a school, now, in a school there is an ideal trajectory. The trajectory is that okay, from one grade you move to the next grade. Now, if some student doesn’t move from one grade to another grade, say the student doesn’t get the required number of marks, doesn’t clear the required number of subjects, there is a plan for such students also.
Okay, you give this example. You know, if there are too many subjects you won’t clear, you do this year again. So, now on, there is a plan for those students also.
But that is not the ideal plan of the school. So, the ideal plan of the school is you just move with the flow and every year you keep moving ahead. So, now if students don’t study, they are not immediately expelled from the school.
But there are consequences for actions. So, similarly for us, there is certain things which we are not able to do. And, when we do something which we know we shouldn’t be doing, so does that throw us out of Krishna’s plan? Certainly not.
But are our mistakes or our misdeeds, so mistakes are more unintentional, misdeeds are more intentional. We know what we are doing to some extent. Are they Krishna’s plan? Certainly not.
The whole purpose of the Bhagavad Gita at one level is to help us to choose wisely. It is that that’s why Krishna says, do this and do this. There are two different choices, two different consequences.
So, basically what it is? Mistakes or misdeeds. These will not throw us out of Krishna’s plan. It’s like say, if this is the broad express way.
Let’s say I am here. Now, if I am doing that, if I have a seva bhava, we talk about shraddha seva, all that, we can move forward, straight moving along this way. But from here, we could move this way, we could move this way, we could just go in the opposite direction completely.
Now, in one sense, all of this, this whole thing is within Krishna’s plan. This is visible colour. All of this is in Krishna’s plan.
But, in another sense, you could say, Krishna’s plan is that we all move in this particular direction. So, we will never go out of Krishna’s plan means that within that express way, within that broad framework, like in a school, somebody might just finally get expelled. But, we will never be expelled from the universe as a university and we are always there in that university.
But, if we take wrong turns, then every choice will have its consequences. Going back to GK’s example also, if we take a wrong turn, we will be led out at a point and be taken to the right destination. But every wrong turn means more time, more trouble, more delays.
So, there are consequences for actions. So, for us, we definitely have to try to choose wisely. Now, so, let’s look at this a little bit more.
So, when we make a wrong choice, so, at the most negative level, it could be because of defiance. We think we know better than God. So, this is where we just then there could be irresponsibility.
We are just not taking things seriously. Now, on the more positive side, it could be because of inability. We just can’t do it.
So, now, if we are unable to do something, does that mean that God wants us to do something we can’t do? Well, it just means that what we can’t do right now, we might be able to do in the future. So, it means it might be an incremental approach. So, if wrong choice is because of inability, then gradually learn from it.
Learn and grow. Then it’s not really exactly a wrong choice. But it is it’s just that we that was too big a leap for us.
We gradually move forward. So, we have to honestly evaluate for ourselves what is when we are not able to do something. So, is it So, when we say inability, I can’t do something.
So, is that an explanation that I can’t do this? Or is that an excuse? We all have to decide it and for that we require honesty. Some of you may notice that I need crutches for walking. So, when I was one, I got polio.
And my mother took me to various doctors and various therapies to try to help me. I have some mobility now. So, she told me that all doctors would say, do some exercise, this, that.
And sometimes I would say, it’s too painful, I can’t walk, I can’t move around. So, my mother told me, how much pain you are in, I don’t know that. So, if you say that the pain is unbearable, I’m not going to force you.
But, she said that if you don’t do the exercise, it is that you won’t be able to walk in the future. So, you have to be honest with yourself about what your capacity is. For all of us, we have to decide that when I’m not able to do something, is it an excuse for not doing it? Or is it an explanation? And it’s not that every time it’s an excuse and not that every time it’s an explanation.
We don’t have to be too harsh on ourselves also. Sometimes, some things might just be within our particular physical situation, psychological situation, familial situation, social situation. Some things might just not be possible for us.
So, Krishna doesn’t want us to stretch ourselves so much right now that we collapse for the rest of our life. So, we have to sustainably practise bhakti also. So, rather than thinking simply in the terms of, oh, I can’t do this, I can’t do this, we can think more in terms of our relationship with Krishna.
That I have a relationship with Krishna and in that relationship, what all can I do right now? Is that answer your question? Thank you. Thank you so much. Any last question before we stop? One more here.
Do you have a question? I can take your question first. Hi. This is a very eye-opening lecture.
So, I have a question. You explained what to do when there’s pain, the two pathways that can happen and if there’s a purpose, using the fourth, the three Ps. And previously, you had described when there’s anger, you can either go cold or calm.
So, do you have an example of how to change anger? In the same way you described how pain can be like, you can use Krishna Conscious in a way to deflect that. Is there a same way, do you have a way for anger? Okay, so, do I have a way? Well, there’s no one magic way, but I’ll talk about the principle. I’d say that generally when there is anger, there is a need to restrain ourselves.
The other person is very angry with us. Then, if we try to reason with them, we try to talk with them, we try to explain, they just get even angry with us. But sometimes it’s best to just go away from that place.
Before, you know, either of us does something, we go beyond the boundary which neither of us will be able to cross back again. Go away from that place. It’s fair enough.
But, it is a little tricky to know when the distance is constructive and when the distance starts becoming destructive. It’s like, say, if I fracture my hand, then it’s important that initially my hand be put, say, in a sling or a cast so that I don’t move my hand. Now, that is vital for recovery.
But, and during that time the doctor would say, don’t move your hand. The sling is there, but even with the sling, don’t move your hand. But after that, it’s equally vital that the sling or the cast be removed and then I start moving my hand.
Now, moving may be difficult and at that time I have to be a little tested. I have to keep testing myself. How much can I move? How much weight can I lift? But that movement is also required.
And if the cast is kept for too long, then the hand can start atrophying. And then, the very process that was meant to help the hand recover can cause the hand to decay. So, like that, in recovery, there are two distinct phases and both of them are opposite.
Like, one is inactivity, almost enforced inactivity. The second is, again you could say, almost forced activity. You may not feel, oh, it’s too difficult to move.
No, you have to move it. So, same way, when there is anger, then it’s good to initially have some distance from that person. But after some time, especially that relationship is important and there are a lot of stakes involved in that relationship, then it’s best to try to make some effort to bend the bridges.
Now, of course, sometimes the other person may just not be responsive. And then we really can’t do much about it. Sometimes things just go down a particular trajectory.
then, in Sugriv’s case, he tried, but Vali was just not reconciling. But just understand that distance alone always is not the guarantee. We also need to make some efforts.
Okay? Thank you. So, thank you very much. Ramachandra Bhagwan ki Jai! Prabhupada ki Jai! Gaur Bhakta Vrinda ki Jai! Gaur Pramana ki Jai! So, Krishna