3 Seeking Karuna Amidst Corona seminar

[Princeton University Hindu Life Program]

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Today we’ll be discussing the concluding part of our discussion on Corona amid Corona. And I’ll do a quick background and then we’ll move forward.
So I discussed basically three broad things. One is look within, look up and look ahead. So look within we do from the Bhagavad Gita to understand our own indestructibility.
Then we look up to understand how when some things happen, what is the role of God in it. So there I talked about the acronym META and we talked about how we can mitigate, immigrate or elevate, tolerate and appreciate. The idea is that whenever something happens, there are three levels of causation, immediate cause, remote cause and ultimate cause.
And each cause has to be addressed at its particular level. And so today I’ll talk about look ahead. And this I’ll talk about broadly three things.
We’ll focus on one main theme. So to be able to pursue things properly, we need to have the proper consciousness. So now amid such a difficult situation as we are in, it is very difficult to be in a positive frame of mind.
So if our consciousness is dependent only on the situation, then it will be impossible for us to maintain the positive frame of mind. So we can’t be grateful for all situations, but we can be grateful in all situations. For all situations means that particular situation is difficult.
And we would much rather that the situation had not come in our life. But now that it has come in this situation, what can we do? So we can be grateful in all situations. And for that purpose, how can we go about doing this? I’ll talk about whatever background we have discussed till now.
So today’s session is theme is going to be, OK, how do we move forward? We got an understanding of ourselves. We got an understanding of God’s grace. But look ahead.
How do we move forward? So to move forward, we need to utilise whatever resources we have with us. And we can move ahead. I’ll talk about an acronym.
And a monic tool is. So. To be grateful in all situations, we can look for the good.
We look for the good around the bad, look for the good that helps to counter the bad and look for the good that may emerge from the bad. So look for the good around the bad. That when something bad happens, our mind tends to obsess on it.
And by that obsession, it seems to make things much worse. So if we can avoid that obsession, we can move forward positively. So we expand our consciousness.
Look for the good around the bad. Now, can we go to the next slide for around? So count your blessings and make your blessings count. How do we look for the good around the bad at a practical level? When something bad has happened, OK, this terrible thing is there.
But what are the what are the good things there in my life? Sometimes we get so caught in the bad things that we don’t even recognise what is right or what is good. So if you consider the history of humanity, we have had far greater catastrophes than the present. In terms of scale, how bad the present will turn out to be, we don’t know.
But we have had the Black Plague decimated about one third of humanity. One third of half of Europe, possibly one third of humanity. We don’t have one fifth to one third to one fifth.
We don’t know the statistics. We didn’t have census that reliably at that time. So like that, there have been many, many diseases.
In general, inside us, we have our mind and our intelligence. So our mind will always look at the problems. But we can look at the blessings.
So the blessings, we at least have a system of awareness by which we know what is the danger. And then awareness can lead to alertness. So what are the good things in our life? In the Bhagavad Gita, in the 17th chapter, Krishna talks about austerity or discipline.
And in that he says that the most, that the discipline of the mind begins with cheerfulness or satisfaction. So manah prasada. Manah prasada is a cheerful disposition or we could say satisfaction, positive attitude.
And the Bhagavad Gita says that this should be seen as a discipline of the mind. Discipline of the mind means or austerity of the mind, the word that is tapah. That means that austerity is not something that comes automatically to us.
In today’s world, we use the word austerity often in an economic sense. The government has imposed some austerity measures on the state. Traditionally, austerity was used in a more individual sense for some physical austerity, say fasting.
So our mind will go towards negative thoughts. And by spiritual knowledge, we can expand our consciousness and look at the positive. Looking at the positive is a important well-known principle.
Sometimes it might seem like cliched. But the idea is a spiritual knowledge expands our vision so that we can see what is positive. That if we are having largely a materialistic conception of reality, then our vision becomes like a narrow tunnel vision.
And in that tunnel, some train seems to be charging towards us and we feel this is the end of my life. But when our consciousness expands, we see that actually, yes, this disaster is there in my life, but I am an eternal being and there is a divine plan that is operational. So our consciousness expands.
The Bhagavad Gita gives the example of an ocean and that can be contrasted with a puddle. Now when there is a puddle and suppose a stream of water, there is a small puddle and a river is flowing along that way. If a river comes into a puddle, it will get completely overrun, over flooded and the surroundings will all get devastated.
But instead of a puddle, there is a large ocean and a river flows into it. Nothing will happen to that ocean. Ocean will just absorb it.
So spiritual knowledge can help us to expand our consciousness so that instead of it being like a puddle, it expands to become like an ocean. When that happens, now how does our consciousness expand? What do we mean by expansion of consciousness? It simply means that the size of what is present in our consciousness. If we are focussing on small things, obsessing over small things, then our consciousness becomes shrunk and small.
When we focus on large things, then the size of the object of our primary attachment determines the size of our consciousness. So spirituality expands our consciousness and enables us to perceive the eternal, to perceive that which is unchanging within us and above us, look within and look up as we discussed. So this expansion of consciousness is what can help us to look for the positive.
And so right now, look for the good around the bad. Yes, this problem is there. But we need to not, we need to definitely be aware of what is going on.
But if you just let ourselves be bombarded by the negativity, Oh, this is happening over there. That is happening over there. That is happening over there.
Then over a period of time, we’ll get exhausted. We’ll get drained. So our spirituality can act as a resource by which you can expand our consciousness.
And thus we find that, OK, this thing is a problem, but there are many things which are still right in my life. And when we do this, that gives us some sense of confidence and sense of resourcefulness. In such times, the biggest danger, we could say at one level, one danger can also be complacency.
We think this is not going to happen to me. But other danger can be panic, paranoia. So often when we feel powerless, Oh, life is so terrible, things are so terribly wrong.
So what do I do? We look for the good around the bad. Look for the good around the bad. And each one of us, we affect each other.
Now we have social distancing, which is important to protect ourselves. Simultaneously, we need to know that whether we are physically close or far from each other, we affect everyone else. Not everyone in the sense that everyone in the world, but everyone in our particular circle that are there.
Our consciousness affects others. So this is look for the good around the bad. Now I talk about two things over here that within us our mind is like a child, the childish, impulsive part.
And the intelligence is meant to be like the adult or the reflective part. So the world externally with the media will report so many problems, our mind will obsess on the problems. We need to make sure that we focus our intelligence and look for the positives, look for the blessings.
So count your blessings and then make your blessings count. Make your blessings count means dwell on those blessings. Dwell on the positives.
So what could be the positives? Not just related with this particular problem, but overall, what are the positives in our life? And we look at those, we may have overall good health, we may have good education, we have good financial situation, we may have a good family, good community, whatever it is that we value in our life, whatever is of value in our life, we list that and then we dwell on that. The way we make our blessings count is by keeping our consciousness focused on those things. Now this is, you say, OK, all these things are good in my life, but I still have this problem.
How do I deal with it? That brings us to next part. Look for the good to counter the bad. Can you go to the next slide? Look for the good to counter the bad.
Now counter means, like I said that our satisfaction, I mentioned the austerity of the mind, the Bhagavad Gita 17-16 says. So now for countering, we have to look at what we have, not what we don’t have. So, for example, this disease doesn’t have any cure, this doesn’t have any vaccine.
Yeah, that’s true. But what do we focus on? We need to focus on what we have, not what we don’t have. That gives us a sense of agency, sense of initiative of what can I do? What is it within my power to do? So basically, when we talk about spirituality, the Bhagavad Gita strongly endorses, it outlines various forms of spirituality and talks about bhakti spirituality quite elaborately.
So bhakti has two distinct aspects. That there is, in the first session itself, we started talking about how there are things in our control and things not in our control. And we human beings exist within nature, also slightly above nature in the sense that we have free will by which we choose our responses.
Significantly our free will is much more developed than of the rest of creation. So by that what happens is that we can choose not just our actions but also our thoughts. We can observe our thoughts and decide which thought to focus on.
And among all the resources that we have, the most fundamental resource for us is our own consciousness. If our consciousness is filled with negativity or fear or resentment, frustration, hopelessness, then that foundational resource is lost for us. So if we learn to look at what we have rather than what we don’t have.
Okay, I mean the previous look for the blessings in our life and among those blessings, what are the blessings that I can use to counter this particular challenge that I am facing. So once we look at that, we feel to some extent at least empowered by that. So within bhakti, there are two distinct aspects.
In the practise of bhakti we could say there is dependence on God and there is diligence for God. Dependence on God and diligence for God. That means that I said that there are certain things not in our control and certain things in our control.
So for the things that are not in our control, there has to be dependence. And for the things that are in our control, there is diligence. So what are the resources available for us to counter this particular challenge? We look at those resources and we use those resources to counter the difficulty that we are facing right now.
And the word counter also has another literal meaning. Counter as a verb means to challenge or to fight back, to curb. Counter as a noun means that which we count, that which counts.
We may have a counter on our phone to keep track of certain things. So, you know, we use the counter to counter. We use the counter, we count our blessings and then we use those blessings that we have counted to counter the challenges that we are facing.
Now I talk about this dependence and diligence. So now if we consider traditionally when we talk about devotion to God, it’s often thought of in terms of prayer and surrender. That is important, no doubt.
So often we may have the example of the Queen Draupadi, who surrendered to Krishna by raising her hands in helplessness. She was in a situation where she tried her best, but it was beyond her to do anything at that time. So she surrendered.
That is dependence. And then there is the example of Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita. Arjuna was told by Krishna to surrender.
Arjuna said, yes, I’ll surrender. Arjuna’s surrender, however, was not by lifting up, raising up his hands. It was by lifting up his bow.
That lifting up his bow was in readiness to do his duty. His duty at that time as a martial guardian of society was to fight. So he did that duty.
And what it means is that there were both aspects. Both are forms of surrender. For what is in our control, there is diligence.
For what is not in our control, there is dependence. And this is devotion is a dynamic combination of diligence and dependence. When with this understanding we move forward, diligence and dependence.
So we use what we have, the resources that we have to counter. And that brings us to the third part, that is E, that is emerge. Look for the good that may emerge from the bad.
We don’t know what the future holds, but we know who holds the future. The universe ultimately moves purposefully. It moves purposefully means that when we are going through difficulties, those difficulties at one level may seem to be arbitrary, random, but there is a purpose.
And that purpose is our own spiritual evolution. It’s like we are spiritual beings who are on a multi-life journey of spiritual evolution. And the present situation that we are in is like one scene within one act of that play.
And in one scene, it might appear as if the hero is being beaten, pounded by the villain again and again and again. You think what kind of picture is this? But actually it’s not that simple. Although the hero might be being pounded, but it’s just one scene.
If you move forward, the plan will emerge. So there is a purpose by which according to which things move forward in reality. So one example to illustrate this.
Suppose there is a bird. The bird is sitting on a branch and this bird sitting on the branch certainly notices the branch starts shaking. Now when the branch starts shaking, it seems that the branch might break.
So the bird is concerned, but the bird doesn’t feel threatened. The bird doesn’t get petrified. Why? Because the bird knows I have wings.
And even if the branch under it breaks, its wings will flap and it will fly into the sky. So we are all like that bird. We are all on our particular branches.
The branches in the world, the branches are like our various shelters and comforts in the world. The branches may be our health, our financial security, our job, our family. And these are important for us.
They are what we are resting on, what we are situated on. At the same time, we all have wings. The wings are our spiritual potential, our capacity to understand life’s ultimate meaning and purpose and to pursue that, to grow in our spiritual understanding.
And whatever happens in our life, it’s ultimately meant for our spiritual evolution. Spiritual evolution means expansion in our capacity to learn and our capacity to love. We look at the outer world and we learn from it and then we express our actions with a mood of service, the mood of devotion, the mood of contribution, with a mood of love.
So this, the capacity to evolve is laited within us. So we have wings, but we don’t flap those wings once. We don’t exercise them or use them to fly.
So sometimes when the branch under us starts getting shaken, that’s the time when we need to start flapping our wings. And sometimes the bird doesn’t recognise that, oh, I have the wings with which I can fly. But when the branch comes and branch starts getting shaken, that’s when it starts using it worse.
And then it discovers I can fly. So for each one of us, this is an opportunity. Look for the good that may emerge from the bad.
And whatever difficulty we face, it is at that particular time when the difficulty is there, it seems like a catastrophe. Why is this happening? But that very difficulty, if it becomes an impetus for us to grow spiritually, then it can bring positivity out of it for us. So if you look at our own lives, we’ll find that this principle applies, that what appears at one stage to be a bad thing over a period of time turns out to be positive.
I have seen this happening many times in my life. And one example I’d like to share. When I was about one at that time, I was just learning my first steps to walk.
I suddenly fell down. And I just couldn’t walk after that. So when I was taken to a doctor, I found that I had got polio.
Now, my parents had given me a vaccine, but the vaccine had not been preserved by the doctor properly. And the vaccine ended up giving me the disease, which it was supposed to protect me from. So my parents were devastated.
I don’t remember any of this. I was too small. But as I started growing up, one of my earliest memories is some of my relatives or acquaintances, neighbours had come to console my parents.
And my mother spoke that whatever he lacks in physical ability, God has provided in intellectual ability. So that time I used to wonder who is this being that has such absolute authority over my life, can take anything or give anything. But that point stuck with me.
And I started, I started focussing on, I naturally had an intellectual inclination. I like to read a lot, contemplate. And as I started doing that more and more, it soon became clear to me that this was what I love to do.
And over a period in my engineering times, I that was the time I always had an intellectual nature, but the intellectual along with the philosophical and spiritual. That was the time when I discovered that. So now when I look back at my life, I see that, that whatever happened to me in my childhood, some of you might, if you have seen me, you might see that I need crutches for walking.
And that’s what most people notice the first thing when they see me. But for me, I hardly ever notice the crutches. There is something which I need for walking.
And they are like the glasses that I use on my eyes. I can’t see very well without them. So I need them.
Similarly, I can’t walk very well without the crutches. I need them. But OK, just put on the glasses, pick up the crutches and move on.
It doesn’t occupy much consciousness within me. It’s something which I’m aware of, but I’m not, it doesn’t consume me. It’s like in the first session I had talked about, we may have to live with fear, but we don’t have to live in fear.
So when our consciousness expands, then the problems that are there for us, the problems will remain. But those problems don’t keep our consciousness in a stranglehold. So overall, the way I see it now is that a physical inability or disability made me more interested in intellectual things.
And for me, the way to the spiritual was through the intellectual, through reading books, trying to understand things more and more. So gradually I came at a point when I was, I became very interested in spirituality. And it was the philosophy that attracted me primarily.
And that’s what sustains me now also. So for all of us, whatever are the challenges that we are facing now, we need patience. So what is the good that we may emerge from the challenge that the world is facing right now? We don’t know the future, but broadly speaking, we can say two, three things.
One is that we have been living very, we have been exploiting nature very indiscriminately. And that we need to become a little more harmonious with nature. And there has been a significant increase in environmental consciousness in the last decade or so.
But this could accelerate our need for not just in a vague sense, but recognising that we need to live in harmony with nature. That our actions do have consequences. And if we disrupt nature, we exploit nature, that will have its results.
Then the second that could be one, an increased environmental consciousness could be a result that might come in the broad world. Another thing that might happen is that we all, we don’t just relax. I talked about the branches and the wings that to some extent when life becomes comfortable, when the branch seems sturdy, we may not even ever exercise our wings.
I don’t need these wings. The branch is good enough. But when we are exposed to the reality of how fragile the branch is, then we focus on making sure that we activate and exercise our wings.
So this can serve as an impetus for increase in spiritual consciousness, not just for those who are already interested in practising, but for others also. There is, in the first session I talked about this four square. We are moving from inner power and outer power.
So we have moved a lot in terms of outer power in today’s world. But that alone is not enough. We need inner power also.
So that could also be something positive that emerges. There could be many positives. We don’t want to speculate over here, but we need to be open and receptive.
So faith at one level means the commitment, the diligence for doing what is in our power. At the same time, it also means openness and receptivity. One definition of faith is that we take one step forward even when the full path is not clear for us.
We take one step forward even when the full path is not clear. Can you go to next slide? This is a concluding message I would like to give. If you forget everything else, you can take this one message with you.
S.S.S. This is small, simple steps. We can’t light the world, but we can light one corner of the world. One corner of the world is our own heart, spiritual at the very least.
And from their heart, we don’t know how far that light can radiate. God, in the times of crisis like this, there are times when there are some miraculous interventions by God by which problems are addressed. But more often than not, God acts in this world not so much by disrupting natural laws or natural phenomena, but by acting through those phenomena.
So God’s compassion manifests through human beings. We are all parts of God. Mamai Vamsho Jeevaloke, the Bhagavad Gita says.
Each one of us is a part of the Lord and being a part means we can play a part. We can play a part in the plan of the Lord. God is never the cause of anyone’s suffering.
We discussed about immediate, remote and ultimate causes. But God can be the cure for everyone’s suffering. And he can make us as his instruments.
So at one level, we try to be as compassionate, as kind as possible, as composed, as positive as possible. And that’s important for us to do at our level. However, there is the light of the divine who is present in our heart.
That light of the divine can manifest from our heart into the world. And then when that happens, it’s not just our light, it’s the light of the divine. And that light can be far, far bigger than what we may imagine.
If we look at our own lives, probably we can easily think about, think of maybe one or two or three things, which if we, three negative things, if we stop doing that, we could become a more purposeful, more productive, more positive human being. And we could think of three things which if we did, we could become more positive. So we are not talking about three big, life-changing kind of things, small, simple steps.
Maybe one thing is, say, if we tend to complain about the problem, about, say, the imposed inactivity, the inconvenience, say, OK, if I find that I complained 20 times in a day about it, for the next one hour, I’ll not speak, I’ll not complain. Can I do that for the next one hour? Can I be positive? If I see somebody is bored, somebody is irritated, instead of letting them get to my nerves, can I try to respond calmly, maturely for the next one hour? Yeah, I think one hour I can do it. So let me try to do it for one hour.
And then when you do it for one hour, it’s like we don’t see the, full path ahead, but we can see one step ahead. So if we see that one step ahead, we can take that one step ahead and we can move on based on that. If we do that, what happens by it? We move one step forward and then if we pull our act together, if we use the spiritual principles to pull our act together and we all can do better, more than what we are doing right now.
Now, how much more? That we don’t know. In fact, discovering how much good we can do, that can become an exciting experience in our life. In fact, the most exciting experience of our life.
If we become channels or if we make our heart ready to become a channel for God’s compassion, to become a instrument for the divine Karuna, then how much of an influence we can have, that discovery is something which beckons all of us. That can make our life exciting even now. So that means that we, rather than thinking I am one tiny being trying to face this global catastrophe, trying to struggle to maybe adjust my thoughts and think positive, find out scrambling for resources so that I can move on.
We, if we turn towards Krishna and take shelter of him, then we can become instruments of the divine and to experience God’s light, God’s love, God’s compassion flowing through us to benefit others and of course benefit us also. That is life’s most enriching experience. So where is the Karuna to be found amidst the Karuna? It is to be found in our own hearts.
By turning to the Lord who is present in the heart, connecting with him and then becoming a channel for him. If we do that, we can light our one corner of the world. And each of us decide to light one corner of the world, we can make the world a much more brighter place.
So the world can hurt us in many ways, but greater than the world’s power to hurt is God’s power to heal. Rather than obsessing over the hurts that are coming upon us, we turn inward, we turn upward and then we look forward. Look forward and we will find that we will get the strength to face whatever situation comes in our life.
So to summarise, we discussed how to find Karuna amidst the Karuna. Look within to understand our own spirituality, our own indestructible core and by that get some calmness and clarity. Then we just look up to understand that there is a higher plan that is working in life and that whatever happens, God is not the immediate cause for it.
God is the ultimate cause. And by God’s grace, whatever happens, it all can be orchestrated for our ultimate good. And today if you look ahead, we discussed about primarily seeing the positive, that is how to be grateful.
Even if you can’t be grateful for all situations, you can be grateful in all situations. And we discussed the acronym ACE. Look for the good around the bad, the good that may can help us to counter the bad and the good that may emerge from the bad.
To look for the good around the bad, that means that we expand our consciousness from the materialistic tunnel vision to take in the whole of reality. And then we are aware of the problem, but we are not obsessed with the problem. Count your blessings and make your blessings count.
If our mind goes towards the problems, then we use our intelligence to focus on the blessings and look for the good to counter the bad. Devotion has two aspects. One is dependence and the other is diligence.
What is not in our control, we use it to, what is not in our control, we use it. We depend on the Lord for that. What is in our control, we diligently do what we can.
So look for whatever resources we have and use them to move forward. And then for what is the good that may emerge from the bad. I discussed about how we are all sitting like baby birds sitting on branches.
We are not aware of the wings that we have and the way we can fly with those wings. But when the branch starts shaking, that’s when we are jolted out of our complacence and we are forced to raise our wings, spread our wings and fly. So our material shelters are like the branches, our spiritual potential is our wing.
And this can help us grow spiritually. And in that sense, rather than getting caught in the present negativity, we look forward towards the overall opportunity that life presents us. And if we take up that opportunity to not just ourselves think positive, but try to connect ourselves devotionally with the Lord and we become a channel for His Karuna to manifest through us.
Even if we can’t light the whole world, we can light our corner of the world. How much that divine light may manifest through us and how much of the world it can illumine, discovering that can be our life’s greatest exciting experience. And although the world can hurt us in many ways, greater than the world’s power to hurt is God’s power to heal.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. Are there any questions? Hare Krishna Prabhuji, Shilpi here.
Yes. Hare Krishna. I have one question.
So as we all know this Corona pandemic, it has brought all seven continents, almost all countries to a screeching halt right now. And of course, this is not the first outbreak like this, due to a virus. There had been outbreaks like this, like with SARS, MERS, Ebola and numerous other viruses.
So my question is that, why, I mean, what does it, why humans don’t learn from mistakes? Like why we always forget the lessons that we have to learn? And because I have a feeling, I’m sure that all of us know that this outbreak can happen again in future, maybe through virus, maybe through something else. So why do humans don’t learn our lessons? Or even if they do, why they don’t stay with us for a longer time? And why don’t we learn our lessons? What lesson are you talking about in this context, that be more cautious about the infections? Or what is the lesson that you’re talking about? When we say we don’t learn? So, I mean, with respect to this outbreak, we all know that, like the most plausible reason why it happened was due to the ill practises of wildlife for farming. Yeah, correct.
Yes. So, it does not happen in only one country, it happens all over the world. Yeah, that’s true.
It’s just that the other countries are not able to connect the dots. Yeah. So, you know, we don’t have, we have swine flu, we have, we have, but we don’t have, say, potato flu or we don’t have brinjal flu or we don’t have pandemics arising from, largely from food that is more in harmony with what we as human beings are meant to live.
So, broadly speaking, when we face problems, as an eminent historian, he said that the one lesson we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history. That was, Will Durant also said something similar. The idea here is that there are certain weaknesses to which we human beings are universally culpable.
So, each generation sometimes has to learn its own lessons. And rather than thinking that why don’t we learn, we have to learn that by the default tendency of humanity is to gravitate toward ignorance. And just like if I have an object, this is my hard discovery, if I leave, let it go, it will fall.
So, sakaleneha mahata yogo nashtiha parantapa. Krishna says, by the power of time, knowledge goes down toward ignorance. Or rather we go down from the state of knowledge towards the state of ignorance.
This is gravity pulls physical objects down. Similarly, in the material world, there is a gravity which pulls us down from a state of learning, knowledge to a state of ignorance. So, this is just the way the world is.
So, this doesn’t mean that this is the way it is always going to be and we become pessimistic. But we need to have our basic understanding clear. There will be the default tendency to gravitate toward ignorance, to gravitate toward repeating the mistakes that have been done in the past.
And that’s why there has to be a conscious effort to spread spiritual awareness internally within us and externally to others. Just to the extent that this is done, to the extent that we consciously spread spiritual awareness, to that extent, we can move, there is a possibility to make a positive difference. So, it’s not just informational knowledge.
The information is important to have. And for many people, the information also is not available. As you said, some people are not even able to connect the dots.
So, information is definitely important to have. But the information has to be applied and it has to lead to transformation. And often that requires some amount of purification.
So, as we provide resources for spiritual understanding to people, to more and more of humanity, we provide the resources, some people take it up. Many people don’t. But if you look at the history of humanity, whenever there has been any significant raising of human consciousness through say the rising of any spiritual movement, broadly how it happens is through the combination of Brahmanas and Kshatriyas.
There are some wise spiritual intellectuals and then there are spiritually minded administrators heads of state. Buddhism was just a small, Buddha was charismatic, but he was just a small group. It was when Ashoka took it up, that’s when he used all the state’s resources to spread.
So, the idea here is that we keep sharing spiritual wisdom as much as we can. And as I said, when we share the knowledge, sometimes how far the light may go through us, we don’t know. So, if we keep providing the resources for spiritual understanding, sometimes they might reach a person who is very influential and that person can spread far and then certain lessons are learned through that.
So, we do our best knowing that the world has a particular nature. And still, although we could talk about negativity, there is a certain rise in sattva guna at least, in sattvic consciousness through an increased inclination towards vegetarianism, environmental awareness, yoga, mindfulness. So, all these, if you consider, they are not just gross physical interventions.
We are thinking of subtler principles and these can all be tapped to raise consciousness towards a more directly spiritual and devotional understanding of reality. Does it address your question? Thank you for your thoughtful question. Any other questions? Yes.
My question is that, one level, certain people are responsible for this pandemic which is going on. Now, at other level, devotees like you, who are very chaste and following at all levels, they are also suffering. I mean, it could be a grassland devotee, they are also suffering.
So, please understand that, if they dare to bring this karma to suffer, in spite of, they have found new celebrations of their life, So, when we are facing some difficulties, even when we are trying to live purely, these difficulties are caused by certain people who have done certain things. But how do you understand that those who are living purely also have to suffer? A specific cause of suffering is very difficult to understand. The Bhagavad Gita says, gahana karmanogati, the Bhagavatam says that, even when great people, Bhishma Pitamah says that even the greatest of sages, when they try to understand that it’s not possible to understand exactly why something happens.
So, now, karma is one potential source of understanding. Our focus should always be not on what is whose karma, but on what is our dharma. That means that if somebody is in difficulty, then say somebody gets infected by this disease.
Now, is it their karma? No, if say we are in a position to help them in whatever way, if we are in the medical profession, we can directly help them, other way we can help them, say some practical assistance or at least some emotional support. We shouldn’t be thinking what is whose karma. I talked about this multiple levels of causation, immediate cause, remote cause, ultimate cause in the second session.
So, now we, when we interact with people, we are not meant to, we don’t know what is the remote cause of anything that has happened. So, we are not meant to presume that there is a remote cause. If from the immediate cause perspective, there is no immediate cause at all, then we see that this is something which shouldn’t have happened and let me see what I can do to help.
So, trying to trace back to understand why something has happened, that’s very difficult to do at a specific level. See, we live in a complex interconnected society. So, if I’m studying for an exam and I’m staying in a hostel, say, and somebody carelessly maybe uses a very high voltage device and that causes the whole power connection in the hostel to trip.
So, now, and I had to study for the exam, but I can’t study. Now, I did not cause it to trip, but it happened. Well, rather than focussing on if we have the power to address that, we definitely address at the practical level.
But if not, then we have to, means, we try to fix the power issue. But if we can’t, then rather than trying to analyse too much, whether this is my karma or not. See, there is, if you are there for the second session, you may remember that there is God’s will, there is free will and there is evil.
But sometimes when something bad happens, it could be that a new cycle of karma is starting and we happen to be there and we are victimised by that. So, rather than bothering too much, is every suffering that is coming upon anyone, is it, if some suffering is coming upon someone, is it their karma? Suffering is coming upon me, is it my karma? More than focussing on what is anyone’s karma, we should focus on what is our dharma. What dharma means, what is the right thing for me to do, what is the responsible thing for me to do in this situation.
Sometimes the understanding that this is my own karma may help us increase our acceptance. Philosophy is ultimately meant to be a resource for helping us grapple with reality. I’ll repeat, this philosophy is ultimately a tool to help us grapple with reality.
That reality is complex and if the philosophical understanding of karma can help us come to better terms with the situation that we are in, then we can take that as a resource. But if the philosophy of karma simply raises questions and what karma did I do? When did I do it? And why is this reaction coming to me now? If that is the kind of questions our mind is going in that direction, then we understand that the world is a complicated place and we are a part of a world in which there are lots of terrible things being done, even if we are not doing them. So because we are a part of the society, we will be implicated by it.
Just like say if we are living in a city which is very highly polluted, we may not be causing the pollution, but just by living in that city, we will get that toxic air to some extent. So similarly, we live in a world where there is a lot of toxic karma happening and the results come to us just by being a part of that system. So is it our individual karma? Could be.
But the important thing is not what our karma is, but what our dharma is. Generally, we have to see philosophy as a tool for empowering ourselves to grapple with reality more effectively. Does that answer your question? Yes, sir.
Thank you. Thank you. Any one last question? Ram Prabhu? Yes.
Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna. This is Sri Radhika.
This is Seema Deshpande. Oh, Hare Krishna. Thank you so much for your lecture.
I also was inspired to remember something from your book on lessons of Ramayana. You were describing how Ramachandra behaved in difficulties. Right before his coronation, he was sentenced to 14 years in exile.
So this example came to my mind, how he showed, even Lord Krishna himself was put in that difficulty. When he showed to the world how to actually behave when destiny comes, something out of our control. Yes.
Material elements, or by some evil negligence, or even somebody purposely trying to hurt you. How he addressed Saikeya and how he addressed everyone in Ayodhya and pacified everyone. Yes, beautiful.
Thank you for sharing that. And look, some people are being positive, some people are being negative. Yes.
And he said, there is no disturbance at all. I can go to forest and I can learn wisdom from the, you know, the sages. So, he showed the example, how to behave in difficulties.
Although he went to forest, and forest is also a dangerous place, you know, when danger can come anytime. So we can kind of do the analogy to our situation. Due to circumstances we are forced to be at home.
But we can look positively and see, now we have a time to eat and chant and deepen our relationship with Krishna and surrender to Krishna. And now look at us, we are like Ramachandra taking example and listening from you sadhus, all these lectures, virtual lectures. So I thought how wonderful, you are speaking on this matter and I remember this from your room, you know, lectures.
Yes. Thank you for sharing that. It’s a beautiful example.
That basically Lord Ram’s mood is that there is distress. Let me act in a way that minimises the distress. That minimises the distress.
So the way Ram deals with Lakshman, with his Dashrath Maharaj, with Kaikeyi, with Kaushalya. I have written the book Wisdom from Ramayana, in which there is a whole chapter on this. Ram basically tries to minimise everyone’s distress.
So that’s the same thing that focus on your dharma, not on what is whose karma. In fact, a similar theme comes in the Mahabharata also, that when Abhimanyu is killed, at that time Arjuna is devastated and he starts lashing out even at his own brothers. He says that are all your weapons just like bangles? Are they just for show? Couldn’t any of you protect my son? So at that time Krishna says to Arjuna that, Oh Arjuna, your brothers are just as distressed as you are.
In this world distress comes upon everyone. The difference between the wise and the foolish is that the wise act in a way to minimise the distress and the foolish act in ways that maximises the distress, that increases the distress. So if the philosophy of karma can help us to approach reality in a way that we can minimise the distress, that is positive.
So Krishna doesn’t go so much into philosophy. Krishna doesn’t tell Arjuna that this is your karma or Abhimanyu’s karma or whatever. He doesn’t go over there.
He focusses on encouraging Arjuna to respond in a way that minimises the distress. So each one of us, now we can’t physically go outside much. We can’t go outside, but we can always go inside.
We can go inward through our devotional practises. Not just do the practises as a ritual, but do those practises as a means for connecting with the Lord inside us. Pray more devotionally.
Contemplate. I didn’t mention about journaling in today’s session, but this ACE, you could make a list of what is good. The good that is always with you.
Good around the bad. Good to help counter the bad. Good that may emerge from the bad.
And this way we at a personal level connect with the Lord. And we can take this opportunity where physical mobility has been restricted. We can use that to increase our spiritual mobility.
We can’t always go outside, but we can always go inside. So thank you very much for your attention and participation. Thank you.