Six limbs of surrender 3 – Understanding how God protects

[Bhagavatam class at Bhakti Sanga Japa conference, USA]

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
today I’ll focus on the theme of moving forward from the two conceptions the first session I talked about how surrender can be compared to healing how the relationship between the doctor and the patient is similar to a relationship between Krishna and His and Us and While surrendering Yesterday, I talked about Anukulya accepting the favourable and avoiding the unfavourable. But in that, I talked about primarily that when we are driving, say, we need a map. And then we need to drive according to the map.
So for both of these, we have to scripturally link the map. And the application of scripture is the driving. So in scripture, also, we need to focus on what is favourable and avoid what is unfavourable.
That means if certain things don’t make sense and they’re not central to the message of the scripture, then we don’t have to focus on them. And similarly, if certain things, say, in the association of devotees, we find certain things are not according to the way we feel they should be, we don’t get worked up by that, knowing that such things are inevitable in the material world. We talked about seeing the association and seeing the Krishna conscious movement at four levels, in ignorance, passion, goodness, and transcendence.
So now beyond that, I’ll today talk about how do we look at Krishna and how do we look at ourselves in a way that enables us to move forward in our devotion. So our actions are shaped by our conceptions. Not just conceptions, also our dispositions.
So I talked about instincts and impulses which comprise our disposition at a subconscious level and also our conscious contemplation and decision. So in terms of the conceptions that we have or that we can have, if we consider that there are three, we can have certain conceptions of God and we can have certain conceptions of ourselves. And based on those conceptions, we will decide whether we will be able to work properly or not.
Say, for example, going back to the medical metaphor, depending on how much confidence we have in the doctor’s capacity to heal us and to cure us, and depending on how much faith we have in our own curability. Sometimes some people get some cancer. And even if it is curable, they are so frightened by the word cancer that they stop taking the treatment thereafter.
Or they take it half-heartedly. They become pessimistic, thinking I am going to die now. Then so that they have to have the conception of the doctor and the treatment is important.
Conception towards oneself is also important. So I’ll talk this in terms of, so rakshishti ti vishwaso goptrutve varanam tatha. These two, I’ll talk about what our conception toward Krishna is to be.
And then in tomorrow’s session, I’ll talk about atmanikshevan karpanne, where I’ll talk about what should be our disposition toward ourselves so that we can wholeheartedly practise bhakti. So rakshishti ti vishwaso goptrutve varanam tatha. That Krishna is my protector.
To have faith that Krishna will protect me. Avasya rakshibe Krishna. Prabhupada would quote that in the context of the nectar of devotion, that Krishna will certainly protect me.
And goptrutve varanam tatha, that Krishna is my maintainer. But these two are two distinct concepts. So if you want to look at it from our perspective, you might say that, OK, we have security in our home, which is our protector.
Security in our home, security around our home in the locality. We have security in terms of the police. We have security at the level of the border and the defence forces.
So all this is security. And then security and maintenance are two different things. So for example, maintenance for that, we may have our job.
We may have certain resources by which, say, the government maintains those who can’t maintain themselves. So protection is more from danger. So protection is talked about when there is danger.
Maintenance is for the normal survival. We could say that even normal survival is characterised by danger constantly. But still, there’s a difference in the sense that normal survival, in the normal course of our life, even if danger is possible at every moment, it’s not that danger comes upon us at every moment.
So basically, when we live in the world, soon we recognise that, actually, there is me and there is the rest of the world. So in the rest of the world, like yesterday, I talked about there is adhipavitik, adhidevik, adhyatmik, our psychophysical, our social, and our environmental circles. And we could say all of this is ultimately under the control of Krishna.
Maya adhyakshena prakriti. Suyate saccharacharam hetunane nakam deya jagad viparivartate. So maya adhyakshena prakriti.
Krishna says that material nature works under my supervision, adhyakshata. Adhi aksha, aksha is eyes, adhi is from above. So adhyaksha is literally, it means one who sees from above, one who oversees or supervises.
So oversee and supervision, both of them have the same idea of seeing and from above or a higher perspective. Suyate saccharacharam, and all the moving and non-moving beings in this world, hetunane nakam deya. So by that cause, what is that cause? It is Krishna’s supervision under his supervision.
The world works according to its own order. Jagad viparivartate, going through constant change. So if we consider the constant change that happens in the world, it’s almost a two-step causation Krishna is talking about.
That Krishna, that then things happen in the world. Krishna says they happen under my supervision. But it is not just, it is, there’s a difference between supervision and intention.
That means that, for example, a supervisor watches, if there’s a factory and supervisor is watching how the workers are working. Now, everything that the workers are doing, the supervisor is not doing. And sometimes the workers may do something which is not right.
And then when the supervisor sees, the supervisor may correct. Sometimes the supervisor may let a person make a mistake so that they learn from the mistake also. So here there’s an important thing to understand this difference between Krishna’s supervision and Krishna’s intention.
Now, why is this difference important? Because if, as I said, at a basic existential level, we can divide reality, we, and the rest of reality. So if we are making that division, we and the rest of reality, then we may find that the rest of reality often works against us. And sometimes works very unfairly and brutally against us.
And if this rest of reality we consider to be just one unit, that, yes, the rest of reality is basically Krishna or God. And then if the rest of reality is hurting us in various ways, it might happen through various means. It might be some people might just get on our case and persecute us.
Sometimes the weather might get on us. Some disease might just hound us relentlessly. So if we see the rest of reality as one unit, and that is targeting us, that is attacking us, then it will be very difficult for us to surrender to that rest of reality.
Because I talked earlier about how the surrender is not like a defeated army general surrendering to the victorious army. It is more like a patient submitting to a doctor. And even more so, as we will discuss later, that it is more like a lover surrendering to the beloved.
I will do your will. Your wish is my command, people say when they’re in love with someone. So that is when Krishna and Arjuna says, ashto mohasmate labdha tatrasadan mayachuta sito smigatasandeha karishe vacanam tava.
So karishe vacanam tava. After hearing the Bhagavad Gita in 1873, that’s what Arjuna says. And here, essentially, he’s meaning that your wish is my command.
So when he’s saying this, it’s out of love. So it’s not so much out of fear or frustration. It’s not about disease and discomfort.
It’s out of love. So now, for us, we may progress through all three phases in connecting with Krishna. Sometimes we may connect with Krishna at the level of fear.
Oh, life is so much trouble. Krishna, please help me. Or it may be that, oh, the troubles in my life are because of my own misgivings, and I need to purify myself of my impurities.
So Krishna, please help me to purify myself. But the first is like a defeated military general. Second is like a patient going to a doctor.
And third is, Krishna, whatever the situation in my life, whatever, however I may be, you are my lord, and I am your servant. I simply want to serve you. It’s out of love.
So when we want to surrender to Krishna, we need to have a healthy conception of Krishna in relationship with us and in relationship with the rest of reality. In some cases, say, for example, when a doctor causes pain to a patient, the doctor’s purpose is not to cause pain. It is to cure pain.
So we know that at that particular point, the doctor is the source of the pain, that, OK, an injection is being given, a surgery is being done. But we could say the apparent cause of the pain is the cure for the actual pain. The apparent cause for the pain is the injection of a surgical instrument cutting into our body.
But that is only the apparent cause. It is actually the cure for the actual cause of the pain. The actual cause of the pain is the disease, the disorder in the body.
And that is cured by the doctor. So now in this case, in some cases, we understand that actually this is the disease I have, and this is the treatment for this. And as a part of the process of treatment, I am going through this.
So in this case, if we see reality in this way, that means in the rest of reality, I am going through some difficulties, and I want to surrender. But it is the rest of reality that is causing me suffering. Now, is all of the rest of reality Krishna? Well, we could say ultimately everything is controlled by him.
So it is, in one sense, non-different from him. But sometimes we can see that the pain that the rest of reality is causing us, that is ultimately for us to learn something. Say, somebody, we trust them, and they betray us bitterly.
That can shake our faith, not just in that person, and not just in humanity. Can people be like this? It can shake our faith in ourselves also. Am I such a bad reader of people that I couldn’t discern that this person would do like this? What does that say about my intelligence, my capacity to make decisions, trust, sound decisions? And it can be very, if we are betrayed, it can be very, very psychologically disorienting, depressing, even devastating.
And at that time, if we are to recover and move on, it’s very difficult to see this as Krishna performing a surgery. Normally, when some kind of surgery is happening, then we understand that, OK, this is a disease. This is the process for the treatment.
And this is how the treatment is happening. Many times when the suffering is going on in our life, sometimes we may be fortunate enough to know what is it that is the disease and how what we are going through is a cure. So for example, when Bharat Maharaj became attached to a deer, and therefore, in the next life, he had to take birth as a deer.
And then after that, he took birth as Janbharat. So in that case, he was given the remembrance of what he had done wrong. And thus, he was very cautious as a deer.
And he didn’t just frolic around like other deer. But he stayed near the sages and heard the sacred Vedic sounds from them. And next life, although he was born in a Brahmin family, he did not get involved in ritualism.
He focused on spirituality. And he was indifferent not only to rajas, but even to sattva, not only the passion and pleasure of the world, but even to the sattvic pleasure that might come by living a pious life. He was indifferent to that also because he thought, even that may entangle me.
In the past, it was sattvic virtue of kindness, of compassion that had entrapped him. Of course, after this, it had been compassion that it was not exactly compassion that entrapped him. It was compassion that was uncritical, that was not carefully thought out, that compassion soon degenerated into passion.
But the point was it started with something sattva, apparently sattvic, saving the life of someone else, of a deer, maybe a deer. But then after that, he started thinking of it as himself as the maintainer of that deer and became attached. So from sattva, it went to rajas.
So he was so careful that he decided that even something in goodness, I will not let myself get attracted by it. So here, he knew, OK, what was his mistake and why did he have to take some extra words? But in most of our lives, we don’t have that facility. The workings of karma are so complex that they can give even complex thinkers a complex.
Even complex thinkers, a complex. Complex means, if you get an inferiority complex, if we are with someone who is super fast at doing something, we are struggling to recollect the words, and they have also recollected and recited that word for the next words also. If, say, some people are fast at doing things.
And if somebody is fast and somebody else, then it is really faster than them. So if we just open our phone, and somebody else has not only opened their phone, but has typed the message and sent the message also, people start getting a complex. Am I good for nothing here? If we are not used to being a slower person in the world, just being with somebody faster can give us a complex.
Similarly, for those who are complex thinkers, to not understand something, that can give them a complex. How can I not figure this out? But karma is, gahana karmanogati, as Krishna says in 4.17. So the sentence, the complex sentence that I said about complex, that the workings of karma are so complex that as to give complex thinkers a complex. That is just a wordplay retelling of Gita 4.17. Anyway, the point is that in our lives, we can’t so easily know what is the disease and what is the cure.
Or what is the disease, and how what we are going through is a cure for that disease. We can pray, and sometimes the dhami buddhi yogam tam. We get the understanding of that.
We see with respect to Parshit Maharaj, it is a minor mistake and a major reaction for that. Now, was it for some other past karma? Did he himself know that it was the Lord’s plan? He did not get too caught in that. So for us to surrender to Krishna, all this might seem a little philosophical, but the point I’m making right now here is that when we are praying, say, and our prayers are not being answered, then how do we surrender? Normally, we may pray half-heartedly, and we may work also.
Sometimes we may stop working and just start praying. But if sometimes our prayers are not answered, then how do we surrender? How does this… We may say, I have the faith that Krishna is my protector and Krishna is my maintainer, but what if the protection doesn’t seem to be coming? What if my maintenance itself is under threat? So then how we understand that Krishna is our protector? So the faith that we require in Krishna has to be philosophically grounded. It cannot just be based on naive realism.
In bhakti, we take our perceptions seriously, but we don’t take them literally. We take our perceptions seriously. What does it mean? That means what we see with our eyes, what we see with our ears, we take it seriously.
For example, if we’re going on a road, if there’s a ditch, we need to step aside from it. We’ll fall and get injured. Similarly, if there’s something which is very attractive, or depending on what it is, we may have to keep a distance from it or we may go toward it.
So our actions are very much shaped by our perceptions. So in that sense, we take our perceptions seriously, but we don’t take them literally. Literally means we don’t think that what our eyes show us is the complete reality.
It is one part of the reality. So when we pray to Krishna and apparently there’s no protection coming, how do we stay surrendered at that time? That surrender requires us to understand Krishna better, to understand how Krishna works and how Krishna is our well-wisher at a better level. So that means that the rest of reality when we see, so let’s take this example now of Parikshit Maharaj continuing this.
At one level, we could say Parikshit Maharaj surrendered to Krishna when he was cursed to die in seven days. And he surrendered, he expressed his surrender by just determinedly hearing without getting distracted. And he did, what happened? I did, suppose there’s a movie starts with a hero being cursed to die in seven days.
And then at the end of the movie, that hero dies. Hey, what’s this? I thought it was an adventure movie, but this is a disaster movie. I thought adventure means the hero will escape somehow mystically, but the hero doesn’t escape.
So the same Vishnu or Krishna who protected Parikshit in his mother’s womb from the Brahmastra, was that Krishna not capable of protecting Parikshit from the curse of a Brahmin? Ashwathama was also a Brahmin. And you could say it was his weapon, which is also like a curse. Curses are also used, Kshatriyas use weapons and Brahmanas use curses.
So in this case, Ashwathama was a Brahmana who used a weapon, but Shringi was a Brahmana who used a curse. So the same Lord Vishnu who protected Parikshit in the mother’s womb, why did he not, why could he or why did he not protect Parikshit at the, when he was cursed? So Shringi’s curse apparently had its effect and Parikshit Maharaj died. So what’s going on over here? Was he not protected? He was protected.
The protection the Bhagavatam demonstrates is at the spiritual level, that his consciousness was protected, his consciousness by his continuous determination to hear and by his having the facility of Shukdev Goswami being there ready to speak about Krishna Katha in such a beautiful way, heart-enriching way, that he became absorbed in hearing about Krishna. And it is not that Takshak destroyed Parikshit Maharaj, or that the snake bird killed him. Rather, it was that the Krishna Katha and the absorption of Krishna Katha delivered Parikshit Maharaj.
His soul, he had entered into a trance and his soul left the body and went to Krishna Loka. And when Takshak came and bit him, it was just a body that was destroyed by Takshak. The soul had already become elevated and liberated.
So sometimes Krishna’s protection comes in a way that we can see at the material level, as happened to Parikshit at the start of his life. And sometimes the protection doesn’t come in a way that we can see at a physical level. So if we consider protection and maintenance only in terms of what we see at the physical level, then our faith in Krishna will be shaky.
And that’s why surrender is not just, yes, Krishna, I’m surrendering to you, I have faith in you. But that faith also requires a philosophical understanding that reality is bigger than how we perceive it. And therefore, whatever is happening, it may seem a particular way to me, but there is more to it.
There is more to it. So sometimes at the material level, things may be fixed by Krishna’s mercy. And sometimes by Krishna’s mercy, even if things are not fixed, we become fixed in him.
We become fixed in our devotion. And that is the ultimate fixing. Ultimately, no matter how well things are fixed in the world, they will break down.
So sometimes things are fixed by Krishna’s mercy. Sometimes they are not. If we consider Krishna’s protection only in terms of things getting fixed, then we cannot stay surrendered for very long.
So it’s like a patient has pain and the doctor’s treatment is ultimately meant to cure the pain. But sometimes, say, in some forms of treatment, the doctor’s treatment may increase the pain temporarily. And the patient needs to persevere through that.
So this pain, which is induced after the treatment starts, is actually maybe cleansing the person of something which is going to cause much greater pain. Like say somebody has some digestive problems. And then they go and do something like panchakarma.
And panchakarma, they have something like Virechan. Then you have pills and all the bowels are emptied by that. And that can be quite exhausting and stressing and disturbing experience.
And you say, actually, I came to this place to be healed and here what’s happening to me? My body seems to have become worse. But if you understand the overall purpose of the treatment, specifically which pill will react how to which patient, that entirely can’t be predicted by doctors. But they can direct the overall direction of the therapy.
And over time, things will heal and things will improve. So similarly for us, when we are practising bhakti, Krishna’s protection is not necessarily in terms of our immediate material well-being. It is, Krishna also cares for our immediate material well-being, no doubt.
But Krishna’s, if the immediate material well-being, if securing that will require losing our ultimate spiritual well-being, then Krishna will sometimes take that away. So we need to have the philosophical vision to see that even when things are going wrong, ultimately, Krishna will bring good even out of the bad. That means that now, how do we see this? That sometimes something very bad happens to us.
Now, if we are surrendered, does that mean that we see the bad itself as good? So now, all that I have spoken, I will talk about this in three distinct ways. Basically, how can we stay surrendered when we are having distress and despite our devotion, the distress doesn’t seem to be going away. So there are three distinct visions.
One is that Krishna, one vision is to see that Krishna is the cause of this distress. The other is that Krishna is the shield from this distress. Shield means the distress is coming, but Krishna can shield me from, the distress may stay, but Krishna will shield me from the distress.
And third is that Krishna is the cure of the distress. Now, in the second and third conception, the shield and the cure. A shield is not itself a cure.
Shield means it is there still, but I am protected from it. Cure is, okay, it is countered. Krishna is the ultimate cure of the distress.
So now all these three visions of Krishna are fine. Let me talk about some examples to illustrate these points. Say, for example, now, when we talk about Krishna as the, if we consider Krishna as the cause of our distress, then we may wonder why is Krishna causing the distress? Maybe Krishna has some particular purpose, but if you don’t see the purpose, then you might start thinking that, is God cruel? Does God even care for me? If God does something like this, why should we surrender to him? Why should I surrender to him? Why should I worship him at all? So it’s difficult to have this vision of Krishna, that Krishna is causing our distress.
Now, let’s, now we may say Krishna is the cause of all causes. Yes, but he is not the, he’s not the, there is a sanctioning cause and there is an intending cause. Let me give you an example to illustrate this.
That when Dushyasan was trying to disrobe Draupadi, now, is it Krishna doing that to Draupadi? Is it that Krishna in the heart is telling Dushyasan that do this to Draupadi? And do we expect Draupadi to see that it is actually Krishna who is doing this to me through Dushyasan? Obviously not. When Sita is being abducted by Ravan, is she, is it, I want to think, is she going to think that actually Ravan is sent by Ram and it is Ram who is abducting me? Is Krishna literally the cause of all causes? Not literally. So when something happens in this world, there can be three levels of causes for it.
There is God, this is a whole different subject, maybe in future I’ll talk about this separately, but it is for our context. See, there is God’s will, there is free will, and there is evil. I repeat, God’s will, free will, and evil.
God’s will is, is ultimate. It is a sanctioning authority. Without God’s will, nothing will happen.
So God’s will is like you could say the circumference within which somebody can do something. Like a child is, children are given a park in which to play. So the parents or their caregivers keep them in the park.
But within the park, if two children start fighting and beating each other, and they go and get a broken nose and a bleeding eye, then is that caused by the parents or the caregivers? No. That’s why we see, Bhutanam Yanmitha Kali. The Bhagavatam says, in the Kunti’s prayers, that in this world, the problems, the conflicts are caused because of animosity among people.
You, oh Lord, are not the cause of the conflicts. So there is, so God’s will sets the broad parameters within which human will acts. And, within, it sets the parameters, like the parents, they set the parameters within which children can play.
So, we all have free will, and based on the kind of karma we may have done in the past, we are given certain level of influence around us, certain level of capacity to control and do things. Now, that’s our free will. So we all have free will, but this area over which we exercise our free will, is, is varying, depending on our past karma.
So for example, if we get angry, we might just yell at someone. But, say the president of America gets angry, the president might, might send a nuclear bomb on some country. Kill thousands, even millions.
So based on one’s present position, which one has acquired by one’s past karma, one can have smaller or greater degrees of influence in the world. Now, while we have this circle of influence, in Sanskrit, the word used for this is Kshetra. Now, what we do in our Kshetra, depends on our free will.
And our free will is influenced, also by how we have acted in the past. So if someone has repeatedly done bad things, then those bad impressions get stored in their consciousness as evil. So evil is not like a diabolical entity, like Satan or Shaitan, that is imagined in Christianity and Islam.
Evil is simply the, accumulation of accumulated impressions coming from our past, small, our past misdeeds. So, those who are evil, normally, if we hurt someone, we immediately apologise. We immediately try to make up, make amends.
But if we repeatedly hurt someone, then immediately, after that we say, hey, it’s just the way it is. We don’t even make amends for that. We don’t even feel bad about it.
So, there are evil people, they hurt others, and not only do they not feel bad in hurting others, but they, they, sometimes get a sadistic joy, in hurting others. When that happens, you have to see that, so there is God’s will, there is free will, and there is evil. So when people using, abusing their free will, under the influence of evil, do something terrible to us, that is not God doing it.
That is not God doing it. That is that person doing it, being influenced by the evil within them. So, if we start seeing God as the cause of all our suffering, it may become very difficult for us to surrender to him.
So now my question, okay, but then why is God allowing this? Because that is a question which is very difficult to understand. Because we don’t know what kind of karma we have done. We don’t know what kind of, things we need to go through.
But what we can see is that, that whatever we go through, it is Krishna also goes through with us. Krishna is always there in our hearts. So now, when we see, see what did Draupadi do? When, Dushasan was disrobing her, she didn’t, okay, it is Dushasan’s evil which is making her do it.
So she turned toward Krishna and she absorbed herself in Krishna. So now, when she absorbed herself in Krishna, it was like calling out to Krishna and Krishna became the shield by which, whatever was, whatever humiliating, dehumanising thing was happening to her. She was not conscious.
She did not let her consciousness stay over there. And then Krishna came and Krishna also became the cure. And that situation was mitigated by providing her unlimited sari.
In the case of Parikshit Maharaj, if you consider what happened. So, Parikshit Maharaj, got that curse. And then, he, when, Shukdev Goswami came, all the sages came, Parikshit Maharaj says, he doesn’t tell them all how unfortunate I am that for a small mistake, I was given such a big punishment.
He says, how fortunate I am that at the time of death, all of you have come here. So rather than blaming why this happened, okay, this has happened. Now, what is the shield from it? What is the cure for it? And he saw that it’s Krishna who is blessing him by sending all these sages.
It is Krishna who is blessing him by sending the, by sending Shukdev Goswami. It is Krishna who is blessing him by giving him, by manifesting the Krishna Katha coming through Shukdev Goswami’s eyes into his heart. And in that case, there was no protection at the material level, but there was protection at the spiritual level.
So now, we could say Parikshit Maharaj also saw that actually this is, this curse is also coming from Krishna. We could say it that way, but the important thing over here is that he focused not on that the curse has come from Krishna, not on where it has come from, he focused on where it is taking that. So now sometimes seeing our suffering as coming from Krishna, if it helps us see, okay, I had done something wrong and I need to rectify it, that is good.
But sometimes if we don’t see what wrong have I done, why is this coming? Then we understand that sometimes in this world, evil just exists. Evil can be in the same, sometimes this natural calamity is caused, breakage of our lives. Sometimes human misdeeds cause a breakage in our life.
But whatever it is, these, why these happen, it’s very difficult to know. But beyond all these, Krishna is always there to help us. So the protection of Krishna that the Bhagavatam demonstrates is the protection primarily at the level of consciousness.
That he was always, his consciousness was protected. He did not become resentful. He did not become hopeless.
He did not become suicidal. He just took shelter of Krishna. So all this is not to say that all of us, when we have danger, that’s all we need to do.
Now, for all of us, it’s not that our material situation will always stay the way it is. We can make efforts and we should make efforts to rectify it. But we also needn’t, needn’t reduce Krishna’s protection just to the rectification of our material situation.
Something is wrong. And if Krishna, if Krishna can fix it, if Krishna fixes it, then my situation is rectified. But it’s not necessarily like that.
Krishna can help in many different ways. Recently, I was at the Chicago airport and I was waiting for the devotee who was going to pick me up. And I was talking on phone and there was one more devotee with me who was looking after my bag.
I had a check-in bag and a laptop bag. So I was talking on the phone and then I looked back and the devotee, it was two, three minutes, I looked down and it was two, three minutes, my laptop bag was stolen. And the devotee who was with me, I thought he was looking at the bags, but he thought I had, he was holding the check-in bag and he said he didn’t notice also that I had laptop bag.
So, and I never keep my passport in my laptop bag. I always keep it in my pocket, especially when I’m travelling. But on that day, I had kept it in my passport, passport in my laptop bag.
The passport was also lost, the laptop bag was also lost. And it’s just two, three, not even more than three minutes. And, so, it was completely disorienting.
What to do, how to move forward now? So, of course, I was praying that maybe somehow the bag will be found. At least if the passport is found, then I won’t have the issues. But, you know, we tried our best.
We registered a police complaint, we searched, we did what we could, we couldn’t find it. But then I found that, I realised, once that avenue didn’t work, okay, what is the avenue now? Now, okay, I have to arrange for another laptop, I have to arrange a passport. Now, I’m travelling constantly and I can’t travel internally without a passport.
So then I found, as somehow I gave up that resentment about why the passport was lost, and tried, I stopped being resentful and tried to become a little resourceful. Now, what can I do? How can I get a passport? And then so many devotees from so many different places helped me. We got some contacts.
Normally it takes three to five working days to get a Tadkal passport also. But devotees use their contacts from various places. We called the Consul General of New York and the Consul General of Chicago.
And through it all, within two days, I got my passport. So sometimes if, now, of course, it was my mistake in some ways that the laptop bag was lost. But the point is that sometimes some material situations cannot be rectified.
And if we think that Krishna’s help is going to come, has to come in terms of the rectification of that material situation, then we may be looking in the wrong direction. But then I was thinking that if something like this had happened to me and I had just been alone, maybe on a, if I had not been a practising sadhaka, and if I had been alone, maybe on some job or something like that, I would probably not have had such a big support of a community. So we need to be open to how Krishna’s help may come upon us.
Instead of Prabhupada’s life. So I was thinking at that time that Prabhupada came to America and the place where he was staying, apparently the janitor of that place, he stole Prabhupada’s dictaphone and typewriter. And that was the only position Prabhupada had.
And at least I had, I had a whole community of devotees across various cities who could help. Prabhupada had no associates over there. And that no, there were very, very few devotees.
There were practically no devotees, only a few well-wishers. And probably as important as my laptop was for me, Prabhupada’s dictaphone and Prabhupada’s typewriter was that important. Both of them were essential for his service.
And Krishna’s protection, how did it come to Prabhupada? At that time it came, Swamiji, this is not a good place for you to stay. You come and stay in another place. Other place, it was not necessarily any safer, but at that place, he was more accessible to the kind of people who would want to listen to him.
And that’s how, what was a disaster for Sri Prabhupada in India. Prabhupada writes in his diary that, in one of his entries that he, after that he felt, maybe I should just leave America and go back to India. But Prabhupada did not get discouraged.
So Krishna’s protection came in the form that through that, he was, he moved. So Prabhupada was earlier living in a high-rise, like a high-rise kind of place where professor, where that yoga teacher, Dr. Mishra, was teaching wealthy clients. And from there, Prabhupada moved to like a little lower level place, where, but still, where the wealthy people were not coming, but that was not, that was still not the place where the hippies would feel comfortable coming.
So it was a place which seemed safe, but was not safe. So Prabhupada was not getting anybody practically coming over there. But because of that robbery, Prabhupada moved from that place to another place.
And there, that’s how his preaching expanded. So everything that happens may not be good, but everything that happens can be for good. That means what is sometimes bad things happen, and they’re bad.
We don’t have to imagine that they are good. But sometimes from that bad, something good can emerge. So, that means that, that Krishna is my protector means that, yes, Krishna will protect me, but how he will protect me, that I cannot impose terms and conditions on Krishna.
So that protection cannot be tied to a particular expectation. That protection has to come with submission. It’s like we say, beggars are not choosers.
So protection has to come with submission. Krishna, what do you want me to do? How can I serve you in this situation? And, if we have that attitude, and we see what doors Krishna opens for us, and we walk through those doors, then we will find that Krishna will, even if we are in a very dark place, Krishna will take us to a brighter place. For me, I don’t know what brighter place the loss of the laptop and loss of the computer is going to take me, but at least one thing happened for me is that I developed so much appreciation for the association of devotees, and also for the importance of devotees, not just focussing on converting and preaching people, but also connecting with people who are influential.
So some people walk through the doors we open so that they come to Krishna. And some people open the doors for us so that we can take Krishna to different places. Even those people don’t come to Krishna.
So we need to connect with people at whatever level they are comfortable. So I think that’s one good that has come, but let’s see. So if we want, if we surrender, surrender also means surrender of our expectations.
Instead, we replace the expectation with submission. Krishna, whatever you want, I accept it. As Jesus said, let thy will be done.
Let thy will be done, O Lord. So that is actually submission to Krishna, and that is surrender. Now surrender has another aspect to it, which I’ll talk in tomorrow’s class, that is what Arjuna says at the end of the Bhagavad Gita, that I will do your will.
So that aspect of what we are meant to do as a part of surrender, what conception we have of ourselves and how we act, that I’ll talk in tomorrow’s session. So I’ll summarise what I spoke today. I spoke on the theme of the six limbs of surrender, understanding how to see Krishna, how to have the faith that Krishna is our protector and that Krishna is our maintainer.
So protection basically means that there are occasional big dangers, like say our home security or our police or our army protects us, and maintainer is the arrangement by which our life normally goes on. So for understanding how Krishna is our protector, I talked elaborately about causality and how things happen in the world. So when anything bad happens, is it Krishna doing everything? So Krishna is the ultimate cause of all causes, but he’s the sanctioning cause, not the intended cause.
So when things happen in the world, there is God’s will, there is free will and there is evil. So God is not that God is a supervisor. Supervisor means he oversees, not that he himself does everything.
So free will is what everyone of us has been given. And based on the kind of karma we have done in the past, the sphere over which the free will we can exercise varies from person to person. And if somebody abuses their free will to do evil, then what they are doing is not God’s doing.
It is what they are doing not because of God, but in spite of God. So basically when we are going through distress, we basically may divide the world into me and the rest of reality. And if the rest of reality is causing distress to us, then how can we pray to the rest of the reality itself if we consider Krishna as non-different from the rest of reality? So in one sense, he’s non-different, but in one sense, he’s different.
So how in that rest of reality, there is free will, there is evil, and there’s ultimately God and his will. That’s the differentiation we did. So sometimes we need to separate the two so that we don’t see God as the cause of our suffering, but the free will and evil is the cause of our suffering.
And God is the shield or the cure for the suffering. Sometimes we may see God as the cause of our suffering and the cure for our suffering. Just like a surgeon causes pain to cure pain.
So Bharat Maharaj had to go through two lives as a deer and then as a Brahmana because of his mistake. And he was given the memory by which he understood why he was going through it. But we don’t hear anything about Panishad Maharaj being given the memory like that.
And it is a minor mistake and is severe punishment. So if we can’t see, if trying to look at God as the cause of our suffering makes us just frustrated, bewildered, and disheartened, then better just see that the cause of suffering in this world is inconceivable. The working of karma is so complex as to give even complex thinkers a complex.
So therefore, just put aside, we don’t know why this happens, but what can I do now? So if we turn toward Krishna as a shield from our suffering, okay, the suffering is there, but even while it is there, Krishna will give me the strength to tolerate it. And sometimes Krishna will be the cure for our suffering. The suffering will go away.
So in the case of Draupadi, there was protection that manifested in the material level also. So Krishna acted as the cure for her suffering over there. Of course, the shield also, because she became absorbed in remembering Krishna and she was not aware of her humiliation.
But it is more of a cure because the humiliation didn’t actually happen. She could not be disrobed. That’s why sometimes the incident we call as disrobing of Draupadi, it is actually the attempted disrobing.
She was not disrobed. So, but in the case of Parikshit, initially he was protected in the mother’s womb, but at time of death, he was not protected. Or was he? He was at a spiritual level.
So Krishna was not a cure for the suffering at the material level, but he was a shield from the suffering. So Parikshit Maharaj was not in resentment or fear or agony. He was absorbed in Krishna.
Krishna’s protection came for his consciousness. And that is the protection that we always will get if we turn toward Krishna. So surrender means ultimately, surrender of our expectation also of how Krishna will protect us.
And I talked about my laptop theft and how Krishna’s help came, not in the recovery of the laptop, but in the recovery of the password of the laptop, but in the replacement of that. And the assistance, the resources that helped me do that. For Prabhupada, the loss of his dictaphone and his typewriter, the protection did not come in terms of regaining those specifically, but in redirecting him to a place that was more receptive for his outreach.
So when we have that openness toward Krishna, we surrender by saying, Krishna, I will do your will. And then we will replace expectation by submission. Then we’ll find that no matter how dark a place we may be in, Krishna, it’s not that Krishna is sending us to the dark place.
Krishna is going with us to the dark place and he will lead us to a brighter place. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
So are there any questions? I’m just calling on phone now. Okay, you can speak. If anybody has questions, I’m also calling here.
Hare Krishna Mataji? Yes, can you ask? Hare Krishna? Okay. Who is the devotee? The devotee is the victim? Okay. So if a devotee is victimised by someone, now, is it the devotee getting the reaction for their own past life, karma? Or is it the victimiser acting under the influence of evil and doing it? And what is Krishna’s role in this? It’s ultimately very difficult to know all this.
As devotees, we need to focus on seeing how best we can serve Krishna in the situation we are in. Sometimes we counter the situation. Now, ultimately, the focus should be on our dharma in this life, not on our karma from the previous life.
I repeat, our focus should be on our dharma in this life. That means, how best can I continue my service? My service is my direct devotional service. It might be my family responsibility.
It might be my professional obligations. But we are meant to be able to do that as well as is possible. And do what it takes to get the space to do that.
Now, say for example, if somebody has a very bad boss, maybe exploitative, abusive, manipulative, whatever. Now, should a devotee who’s working under such a boss see that, oh, this boss is there because of my past karma? Well, maybe. But if working under that boss is just making our life so miserable that we can’t chant and that we can’t, we can’t focus on chanting, we can’t practise bhakti, then it’s not that a devotee has to stay on in that job and think that by doing this job, I’ll be exhausting my bad karma.
That would be foolish. We don’t have to unnecessarily stay in abusive situations as if that’s the way to exhaust our past karma. Because we also have a responsibility to do our dharma.
And I’ll talk more about this tomorrow in the session. But the point is, if we can get some other job where the situations are better, then we should do that. Of course, we need to compare.
The mind always makes our suffering seems to be the worst. And we need to have some, maybe some friends, well-wishers who can actually help us objectively compare. Now, am I making too big an issue out of this? Or is it really a big issue? And we get a more objective picture based on that we can take some action.
So now, if somehow that is the only job we have and there’s not much possibility, at least in the immediate future, of getting another job, then if we have to stay there, then we stay there and say, okay, this is what I have to go through because of my karma. But let me try to focus on my dharma. And let me try to shield myself from the situation as much as I can.
It’s no, so rather than worrying about whether it’s my karma or this person’s evil, we focus on our own dharma. Now, if you have a facility to maybe report to somebody higher in the office, and you may want to try that. So these are practical things which we shouldn’t be blind to philosophy, philosophical perspective of them.
But the philosophical perspective shouldn’t blind us to the practical reality also. I’ll have to explain this more in detail in tomorrow’s class, but I’ll give one example and conclude this. And when the devotees in London performed a rathyatra, that they wanted to do a bigger rathyatra than what had been done in America.
And thus they got a huge cart with a huge tower on top of it. But somehow they kept the wheels of the same size. And then it was a much publicised event, but the cart went for maybe a few metres and it just crumbled, the wheels crumbled.
It was a disaster, a public relations fiasco. And the devotees were disheartened and they wrote to Prabhupada, that Prabhupada did this ratha cart collapse because of our poor devotion. And Prabhupada said, it was not your poor devotion, it was your poor engineering.
So poor engineering means that when you can find a practical cause and a practical solution at an immediate level, there is no need to escalate that to Krishna. And think, okay, maybe Krishna is displeased with our devotion, that’s why Krishna let this happen. No, so similarly, if there is a practical problem and it can be solved practically, there is no need to escalate it to the practical past life karma level also.
But sometimes the practical problem doesn’t seem to have any practical cause and doesn’t seem to have any practical solution. Then what do we do? We accept it as something based on a past karma and then we pray to Krishna that he give us the strength to tolerate it, to live with it. So for example, if we get some disease and doctors are not able to diagnose it, doctors are not able to cure it and we have to live with the disease.
Then you may say, okay, I did not do anything to anything, actually I would have got infected or got the disease, but somehow I got it and it’s not getting cured, so let me do the best I can. So sometimes we working on, for our service to Krishna, for our dharma, we may try to counter the situation and do what it takes to practically do that. But sometimes if it’s not possible to counter, then we may accept that situation and seek to surrender to Krishna in that situation.
So basically don’t get too caught in thinking what is whose karma, focus on what is our dharma and how we can best do that and how we can create the space for us to be able to do our dharma. Does this answer your question? If you have any follow up questions, we can discuss tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll keep my class a little shorter and we can have more time for question answers.
Is that okay? Thank you very much. And if any of you have questions, if you want to send them by WhatsApp or something like that to the conference leaders, I can take those questions in the last session in case you have for this or any of the previous sessions also. So tomorrow I’ll speak for about half an hour and we can have a half an hour question answers.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. Radha Shrimad Bhagavati Jai.
Padma Jai. Gaur Bhaktivinda Ki Jai. Targaon Manas.
Om Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Jai. Thank you.

1hr mt merged 183
Apr 27, 2026, 5:21 AM
1hr mt merged 183
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Hare Krishna. So, today morning we will continue the discussion on the Shikshashtakam that I have been taking for several weeks, actually several years, because I have been coming in preventingly. And on a separate note I would like to thank all of you, because speaking on the Shikshashtakam like this gave me some confidence and in September I am going to America, so there at the Krishna institute they have arranged a course on the Shikshashtakam for me, so we have 8 such in course.
So, I spoke here and many of you gave some constructive feedback and I try to use that over there. So, thank you for that. So, today I am taking the 6th text of the Shikshashtakam and I will speak on the topic of differentiating between sentiments and sentimentality.
The 6th text is So, here there is a transition. Bhaktivinoda Thakura explains that the first 5 texts were prominently talking about sadhanama. Now, it transits to bhava bhakti and prema bhakti.
So, this verse marks the transition point. Sadhana bhakti is the stage of bhakti when the primary motivation for practising bhakti is coming largely from instructions of the elders. Technically speaking, sadhana bhakti has two parts, vaidhi bhakti and raganuga bhakti.
Both of them are a part of sadhana bhakti. But broadly speaking, Shri Prabhupada equates sadhana bhakti with vaidhi bhakti and raganuga bhakti he puts at a higher level. So, essentially in the previous verses the focus is more on glorification and intention.
Glorification of the holy names, how they are so, how they are so purifying, how they are so potent being non-different from Krishna. How that’s glorification, the other’s intention, you know, I want to cultivate humility, I want to cultivate renunciation and begging to the lord to elevate us. From this verse onwards we enter deeper into the realm of spiritual emotions.
And nayanam galadashuradharaya, that is, when will there be a shower of tears from my eyes? Vadanam gadgadarudayagira, when will my throat choke up because of divine emotion? Pulakair nichitambapokada, when will the hair on my body stand on end? Tavanaam grahane bhavishyati, bhavishyati, when will this happen in the future? Tavanaam grahane, when I chant your holy names. So, emotion is expressed, experienced and reinforced through action. Sometimes there are people, modern people, post-modern people, they criticise rituals.
There have been Bollywood movies which criticise rituals. They say these are just simply empty. But actually, in every activity that we do, there is a structure for expressing emotions.
Now, when we meet a new person, we shake hands. Now, what is shaking hands? It’s simply a ritual. Now, ritual is basically a structured way of expressing emotion.
We want to express warmth, cordiality, friendliness and we express that through shaking hands. So, ritual basically helps us to express emotion when it is present. It helps us to experience emotion when it is not present.
Now, if we smile at someone, then if we are trying to smile at you, we feel a little better also. We feel some warmth, some friendliness. And when emotion is there, it is also reinforced.
Now, when a mother sees a child, the child runs towards her and she embraces her. That’s an action. What does the action do? The action reinforces the maternal affection that the mother has for her.
So, emotions are expressed, experienced and reinforced by actions. And the actions which are specifically designed to have this relationship with emotions, they are rituals in the spiritual realm. Rituals are not empty.
They are purposeful. So, here in this particular verse, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is seeking, is praying for the expression, expressions of ecstasy. So, three primary expressions of ecstasy are talked about over here.
There is the visual, the verbal and the physical. The visual, the eyes stream with tears. The verbal, the throat chokes up.
And physical, the bodily hair stand up. Now, in Srila Prabhupada’s introduction to the Bhagavad Gita, explains that Arjuna also had these symptoms. But those symptoms were because of great apprehension, great fear.
He did not want to countenance, he did not want to contemplate or he found it very scary to contemplate the prospect of a fratricidal war which was right in front of him. So, intense emotions can come from various sources. And emotions have, they are not just things in the head.
Emotions have physical effect on the body. In fact, sometimes if the emotions are very intense, then the body does not have the capacity itself to experience those emotions. And then people faint.
Now, fainting can be because of great shock. Say, if a person hears the news that a loved one has passed away or some very disastrous thing has happened, then people may just stand there and effervesce. So, basically, emotions have such a traumatic effect, not just at the level of the mind but at the level of the body that they can bring about serious physical transformation such as even shifting a person from a conscious state to an unconscious state.
It’s not just physical pain that can cause this. It’s even emotional. Emotions can cause this.
There is also the possibility of fainting in ecstasy. And it is said that normally when we take darshan of the Lord, we go to the deities and take darshan. Actually, what should happen is when we take darshan of the Lord, we should faint in ecstasy and fall down.
But usually, there is no fainting, at least falling down should be there. That’s why we offer pranam to the Lord. But the idea is that when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is here, praying for the external manifestations of those emotions.
He is actually praying for the inner emotion which will lead to the external manifestations. Recently, we were discussing Shikshashtakam with some devotees. So, one devotee asked this question, should we also pray for these ecstatic symptoms? Should we also pray that let my eyes, let me have tears when I chant, let me have the hair standing on end.
Should I pray for these symptoms? So, I explained, yes, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has prayed, we can also pray. But quite often for us, at our stage, the tendency is to get caught in externals. Because of which we may well just think of these symptoms alone as important.
And we think that those who have these symptoms, they are spiritually successful, they are spiritually exalted. And those who don’t have those symptoms, they are not very spiritually advanced. So, rather than praying for the symptoms, we can pray for the emotions themselves.
And if the emotions come, the symptoms will naturally come. So, every culture has certain things which are markers of respect. In a materialistic culture, if a person has a big car, a big house, a person is wearing an expensive dress, then that person, oh, you are wealthy, you are successful.
So, then people try to acquire those trappings. Now, when a boy wants to impress a girl, if he wants to propose to her or have a date with her, he might just take a friend’s car, which is a big car and go to her. And the girl will think, oh, this boy is a very rich boy, maybe let me go with him.
So, what happens is, in materialist society, there is a tendency to just acquire the trappings of success without actually being successful. One pretends to be wealthy even if they are not wealthy. Similarly, in spiritual life also, there is a possibility that one may try to just show off this external symptoms of spiritual success without actually becoming spiritually successful.
And this is essentially what the deviant school of thought called Sahajiyaism is. The Sahajiyas, Sahajiya means easy. Sahajiyas are those people who take spiritual emotions very cheaply.
And they often make an appearance of having advanced spiritual emotions without actually being spiritually advanced. Now, Bhaktira Samrat Sandhu is a guidebook for the advanced stages of bhakti. And there, these Ashta, Sattvika, Vikaar, these eight transformations of spiritual ecstasy.
Ashta is eight, Vikaar is transformation. Sattvika, normally we use the word Sattvika to refer to sattva guna. I seek your blessings, Mayavasi, that I can speak something.
We are discussing a series of Shikshashtakam over here. So, right now I am in the sixth verse. So, the Ashta, Sattvika, Vikaar are the eight transformations of ecstasy which Rupa Goswami talks about in the Bhaktira Samrat Sandhu.
At the same time, he doesn’t describe these to be the only characteristics of ecstasy or characteristics of spiritual advancement. Along with these, he also talks about non-limitable characteristics. He talks about avyarthakalatvam, that a spiritually advanced person doesn’t waste time.
He talks about utkantha, about great eagerness to hear about Krishna. He talks about virakti, about detachment from material things. So, there are a whole list of symptoms which are given which are not so dramatically visible.
You know, tears coming from the eyes or voice choking up or hair standing on end. All these are dramatically visible symptoms. Whereas a person is busy, doesn’t waste time.
That’s not so. It is important quality, but it is not so dramatically visible. And that is why, whether we talk about Chaitanya Mahaprabhu or his associates, whenever the characteristics of ecstasy are talked about, primarily these, the, primarily the dramatic transformations of ecstasy that are there, they are talked about.
But those dramatic transformations of ecstasy are the highlights of a life that is totally devoted to the Lord. Unfortunately, the Sahajiyas, their life is not so devoted to the Lord. But they try to have these characteristics of ecstasy in an artificially imitated way.
And because of this, when people at one level pretend to be very spiritually advanced, at another level, they often engage in less than exemplary activities, sometimes even immoral activities, then that leads to a lot of bad reputation and that causes a lot of problems. Especially by the time when Bhaktivinod Thakur appeared, at that time, Gaudiya Vaishnavism was often thought of as immoral, as using some show of devotion to perpetuate immorality. And that’s why Bhaktivinod Thakur, Bhaktisandh Thakur and thereafter Sri Prabhupada have spoken strongly against Sahajiyas.
See, technically, the Sahajiyas, they didn’t just imitate the advanced symptoms of ecstasy, but they also mixed Vaishnavism with some peculiar strands of Shaktism. In Shaktism, Shaktism is the worship of Shakti, that is the goddess. So, there they have the idea that Shakti pervades nature.
And Shakti can enter into people. And so, sometimes, especially in the temples of the goddess, there are sometimes people who seem to go mad. Or just go, not exactly, mad is a strong word for it.
But they just seem to act in very strange ways. They will start dancing, they will start crying, they will start shouting. And people say that the goddess has possessed them.
In Marathi, it is called Anga Tale. So, now, there are, within the Shakta literature also, there are characteristics by which they decide whether it is actually a genuine possession or it is just an imitation. And the genuine possessions are very, very few.
But the thing is, there they have the idea that the goddess can enter into a person’s body. And certainly, the devatas have the power to do that. But that is not a very common thing and that is also imitated.
But what happened with the Sahajiyas is that they took this Shakta idea that the goddess can enter into the person and they brought it into Vaishnavism. So, for example, they would perform Raas Leela. So, the Shaktas, men and women, they would perform Raas Leela.
And not only would they perform Raas Leela, rather than saying that this is actually imitating Krishna for mundane pleasure, they would actually claim that Radha and Krishna are entering into us. And when we are uniting, Radha and Krishna are enjoying through us. So, this was a horrendous distortion of the Bhakti understanding.
We are meant to assist the divine couple in their Leela. It is not that we can say that they are entering into us and we are imitating. So, we imitate them and then what happens is the immoral becomes conflated with the transcendent.
And that leads to not only deviations within Vaishnavism but a lot of loss of reputation outside Vaishnavism. And because of this, the Acharyas, the recent Acharyas especially, have strongly cautioned against Sahajiyaism. Bhaktisiddhanta Thakur would quote the biblical saying, fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
And he would use this to say that actually the advanced symptoms of Bhakti, foolish people, they pretend that they have them. And by this, they rush into advanced areas of devotion which actually even the exalted sages have been very careful in addressing. So, there is this caution which is very much required because of, as I said, two reasons.
One is the normal human tendency to try to show off the markers of success without acquiring success. So, people in spiritual circles want to be advanced, want to appear advanced without actually becoming advanced. And one way of dramatically appearing to be advanced is to show the symptoms of ecstasy.
The other problem is there is also a whole tradition which tries to give intellectual rationalisation for this by mixing Shaktism with Vaishnavism and coming up with an immoral deviation. So, these are some of the reasons why our acharyas have been very strong in cautioning premature exhibition of emotions, spiritual emotions. At the same time, these emotions are indeed the goal on the spiritual path.
And it is not that we have to be suspicious of emotions all the time. The transcendental is beyond the sentimental and beyond the judgemental. So, one extreme is sentimental means, you know, we just, sentimental has two basic characteristics.
One is that sentiments are considered to be the sole characteristic of spiritual advancement. If I have sentiments, I am spiritually advanced. My sentiments are just the effusive upflow of emotions.
That’s all. So, and the other characteristic is that the practise of bhakti is made dependent on sentiments. That means if I feel good, I will practise bhakti.
If I don’t feel good, I will give it up. So, when this happens, so, emotions alone are the fuel. Especially in Vaidhi Sadhana Bhakti, it is the instruction of the spiritual master.
It is our own intelligence which is equipped with the guidance of the spiritual master. That is meant to be the steady fuel. Because emotions will come, emotions will go.
Sometimes while chanting we feel good, sometimes we may not feel good. But bhakti has to be done consistently. So, sentimentality means emotions are the sole fuel for bhakti.
If I don’t feel good, I just give up the practise of bhakti. Another aspect of sentimentality is emotions alone are considered to be the goal of bhakti. And if somebody shows emotions, they are successful.
So, now this is sentimentality which is a pitfall. But the other extreme is judgmentality where any show of emotions or any manifestation of emotions is treated with extreme suspicion. And by treating with such extreme suspicion, it is as if anybody who exhibits any emotions is branded as a surgeon.
No, that is also not desirable. Because bhakti is a path of growing emotions. And growing emotions means even at our stage, we can and should experience some spiritual emotions.
Not necessarily we will experience them all the time. And not necessarily that their presence alone should be the fuel for our bhakti. But we do experience spiritual emotions.
So, here Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is aspiring for this exalted spiritual emotions. This visual, verbal and physical transformations. The essential point is that he is asking for that inner devotion to Krishna which will naturally manifest as these outer symptoms.
And that inner devotion to Krishna is what is developed gradually by the steady practise of bhakti. Emotions are an extremely powerful force in human life. People can completely change the course of their life if they experience certain emotions.
The two people may be very close friends and somehow some altercation happens, one person feel that I was insulted by the other person and to the extent they were close to each other, that extent they may just go to the opposite extreme. In the Mahabharata, there is an example of Drupada and Drona, when they were very close friends. But then eventually because of one unpleasant interaction where Drona was dishonoured, they became almost like mortal enemies.
So, these emotions are extremely powerful driving force. Now suppose say a car were moving in a very fast pace in a particular direction. And then suddenly we saw that the car is moving in the opposite direction in the same pace.
You would wonder what made it move like this. Now to stop a car from moving forward, that itself requires a lot of energy because the car has momentum. But if the car which is moving forward suddenly starts moving backwards, that means the force which brought about that transformation, that force must be extremely powerful.
So, emotions are that kind of force. Emotions can make us move forward very fast in a particular direction. But if something changes, then the same direction towards which we are moving, we may move away from that with the same force.
It’s a similar force in the opposite direction, similar velocity in the opposite direction. And what brings us change is emotions. So, sometimes, you know, people who are, say a man and woman who are attracted to each other, they may say, I can’t live without you.
And then they live together for a few months or a few years and afterwards they say, I can’t live with you. So, what has happened? The same force of emotion that brought them together is now ripping them apart. So, the problem here is in any field, if emotions are the sole determiner of our actions, then there is no sustainability.
There is no sustainability if emotions are the sole determiners of action. So, in many romantic novels or movies, it is shown a man and a woman see each other and then there is love at first sight. Now, yes, sometimes it may happen that people may feel some attraction to each other when they see each other for the first time.
But whether it is love or not, that will depend on what people feel after many sights. It is not only at the first sight. So, that consistency in a relationship, that is possible when there is not an exclusive reliance on emotions or even a over dependence on emotions.
Relationship requires not just emotions, it also requires commitment. Actually bhakti, there is this polarity or a duality. The path of karma is the path of attachment.
The path of jnana is the path of detachment. Bhakti takes us beyond both this. Bhakti is the path of neither attachment nor detachment.
It is the path of commitment. Path of commitment. We ultimately want to develop attachment to Krishna, but that attachment to Krishna doesn’t come automatically.
For developing that attachment, what we need is commitment. And if we are in the 11th canto, naati sattva naati nirvannam, in the Uddhava Gita, it is said that one should not be too attached or too detached. If one is too attached, one will be caught in just, okay, how will I get this object of attachment? How will I get this? How will I get this? And one will not be able to think of Krishna.
And one is too detached, then also one will be thinking of the same object. How can I avoid this? How can I avoid this? How can I avoid this? So, in either attachment or detachment, the focus of consciousness is on a particular object. Either getting it or avoiding it.
Whereas bhakti focusses on commitment. We connect ourselves with Krishna and in a disciplined way, we strive to practise the process of bhakti. And by such practise, we move steadily and gradually the spiritual emotions awaken.
So, I’ll conclude with two examples of spiritual emotions and whether they can be authentic on the path of bhakti in our stage as sadhakas. So, sometimes some devotees, they may say that, okay, Krishna came in my dream. Now, if Krishna comes in a particular devotee’s dream, is it possible? Who are we to say what Krishna can’t do? For Krishna, anything is possible.
So, Krishna can come in the dream of a sadhaka also. We cannot stop Krishna from coming and we cannot make a legislation. You are a sadhaka, you cannot have Krishna coming in your dream.
So, Krishna can come in the dream of sadhakas also. The important thing is that our consciousness goes through different stages. Right now, we are in the stage of jagruti.
Hopefully. Love at first may be the stage of sapna also. So, jagruti, basically, the soul is here.
Around the soul, there is a subtle body. Around the subtle body, there is a gross body. So, when the soul’s consciousness comes to the subtle body, through the subtle body, to the gross body and to the outer world, that is the state of jagruti.
When the soul’s consciousness comes only to the subtle body, but not to the gross body, that is the stage of sapna. When the soul’s consciousness stays within itself, not coming even to the subtle body, that is sushupti. Sushupti is the dream state.
And when the soul’s consciousness focusses on spiritual reality, that is the stage of samadhi. Samadhi means, it is also called as turya. When the soul’s consciousness is spiritually focused.
Now, in the path of yoga, ashtang yoga, this path of this samadhi is achieved through the disconnection of consciousness with the physical and the mental realms. So, yoga’s chitta vritti nirodha. That means the consciousness is withdrawn from matter and mind, from physical matter and mind.
And then it is focused within on spiritual reality. On the path of bhakti, the consciousness is directed through the mind and through the body. That is directed towards Krishna.
So, a devotee doesn’t have to be in a closed eyes to be in a spiritual trance, to be in samadhi. A devotee can be with open eyes beholding the form of Krishna and the devotee can be in samadhi. So, the point is samadhi is not just withdrawal of consciousness from the physical and the mental levels.
It is direction of consciousness to the spiritual level. So, the reason I am talking about all this is that in swapna stage, the consciousness comes to the level of the subtle body. It doesn’t come to the level of the gross body.
And Baldevidya Bhushan, in his Govinda Bhashya commentary on the Vedanta Sutra, he analyses the swapna stage elaborately. And normally, whenever we say, oh, this world is like a dream. Sometimes people compare like that.
Even spiritualists compare like that. The idea is, just as dreams are unreal, this world is also unreal. But Baldevidya Bhushan turns his argument around and he says, yes, this world is like a dream.
And just as this world is real, dreams are also real. What do you mean by dreams are real? Dreams are real means, not that everything that we see in a dream is happening somewhere in some realm of reality. But rather dreams are happening in the subtle level of consciousness.
And in subtle level of consciousness, we are either, when we see dreams, in some dreams we are observers, in some dreams we are participants. But in no dream are we the sole controllers. Even in a dream, everything doesn’t happen entirely according to our plan.
OK, this person does like that, that person does like that. So he says that even in the dream, Ishwara is in control. So, what happens in our dreams? Baldevidya Bhushan says, this is a whole elaborate subject of dreams.
I’ll focus on my point here. But the point he says is, dreams are the means by which Ishwara gives us reactions to our minor karmas. Like some people, as soon as they go to sleep, they get nightmares.
They are afraid of sleeping. Why like that? Other people can just sleep peacefully. So, they are getting those nightmares because those nightmares are a reaction to some minor karmas.
If the major karmas were there, then they would have nightmarish situations in their real life. But minor karmas, so there are nightmares in their dream state. But the point is, the dream world is also real, in the sense that there are reactions that come and it is also under the control of the Supreme.
But he says, the main difference between the Swapna state and the Jagruti state is the Sveksha of the Jiva. Now, we can consciously use our free will in the Jagruti state, in the awake state. We cannot consciously deliberate and choose in the dream state.
We may decide, okay, I am driving a car and I come to a fork. And I go here and I go there. And I choose that in a dream.
But it’s not that I am consciously contemplating and choosing. These are the dreams that happen. So, spiritual growth depends primarily on changing our choices.
Right now, we are choosing the world, we are choosing worldly objects for our enjoyment. And spiritual growth happens when we learn to choose Krishna. And that is why spiritual growth primarily happens in the Jagruti stage, not in the Swapna stage.
Because our Sveksha, our free will, we use consciously in our awakened state, not in the dream state. And all this, the point of this discussion is, in dreams Krishna may come. That is Krishna’s great mercy if he comes.
But just Krishna coming in our dream will not make us spiritually advanced. After Krishna comes in our dream, when we wake up, what do we do after waking up? That is what will make us spiritually advanced. Because we use our free will in the Jagruti stage, not in the Swapna stage.
Yes, it is Krishna’s great mercy if Krishna comes in the dream. But if I think that Krishna has come in my dream, so I become advanced devotee. And that’s why I don’t need to practise Bhakti.
Then we are unfortunately deluding ourselves. So, if a devotee says that Krishna has come in my dream, yes, it’s possible. We don’t have to say, don’t be a sahajiya.
Krishna has come in the dream, fine, Krishna has come in the dream. We don’t have to, from the devotee’s point, from the other’s point of view, others don’t have to be judgemental and say that you are sahajiya. But from that devotee’s point of view, that devotee doesn’t have to claim that, oh, I am so spiritually advanced, Krishna came in my dream.
No, actually, Krishna came in the dream, that’s wonderful. But what do we do after waking up? If Krishna has come in our dream, we see that as the great mercy of Krishna. And we see that as Krishna’s impetus, Krishna’s encouragement for us to practise Bhakti in a more committed way.
So, that’s one example of how dreams about Krishna can be appreciated without sentimentality. The other is, sometimes we may ourselves experience some spiritual emotions. And, you know, in kirtans you may feel very good, sometimes in darshan you may feel very good, sometimes, you know, some little tears may come out of the eyes or whatever.
Now, when these emotions come, again, we can be grateful to Krishna for those emotions. But we don’t have to see those emotions alone as a sign of spiritual advancement. So, Gaur Kishoras Babaji says that actually symptoms of ecstasy are meant to be the result of ecstasy.
They are not meant to be the substitutes of ecstasy. So, he used the example for that. That when a woman is pregnant and then she has labour pains, at that time she may cry out.
And that crying out due to the labour pains, actually that attracts relatives, friends to come and they all help. And then through those labour pains, through those cries, you know, a child is born. New life springs into this world.
But if a woman is not pregnant, she says, Oh, this woman when she cries, it’s with so much attention. Child also cries. She may cry, but if she is not pregnant, all her cries, there is going to be no delivery of a child happening to her.
So, he says the authentic devotees, they are like the pregnant woman. They have by sustained contact with Krishna, Sukhena Brahma Samsparsham, Atyantam Sukha Mashnute. By sustained contact with Krishna, you know, the spiritual emotion has grown within them and now it is manifesting.
And in such a case, when the advanced devotees express spiritual ecstasy, there is further development of emotion, further deepening of the devotion that happens to this. But when somebody doesn’t have that authentic devotion and then they start exhibiting these symptoms, then that is a show like a non-pregnant woman crying as if she has labour pains. So, there may appear to be, externally one can make a very good show of labour pains also.
But there is going to be no delivery. So, sahajiyas can do like that. But there will be no spiritual advancement through that.
So, that’s why sadhakas, if we have spiritual emotions, if sometimes we experience emotions in relationship with some devotional stimuli, we can be grateful for them. But we don’t have to make a show of them. We don’t have to tell the world about it.
You know, last time I had kirtan, I felt tears in my eyes or this or that. We can, to some close friends we may mention them, but we don’t have to parade that around. This is Krishna’s gift to us.
And more importantly, it is a gift that is meant to inspire us to practise bhakti in a more committed way. And then we will move onwards, steady towards Krishna, when we will come to the level of water. Bhakti Sambhut Sindhu calls this Thaibhav.
Thaibhav means steady spiritual emotion. And that steady spiritual emotion comes by purification. When the heart is not so much focused on the world, but is focused on the lord of the world, then that steady focus on the lord naturally brings spiritual emotions.
And that is the purpose towards which steady bhakti practise takes us. So, somebody came to Srila Prabhupada and he said, Swamiji, Krishna came in my dream yesterday night, yesterday. So, Prabhupada just said, OK, serve him today.
So, Prabhupada did not deny it. Prabhupada did not glamorise it. He said, serve him today.
Focus is on, not whether Krishna came in the dream or not. How much are we committed to the service of Krishna? And when we stay committed to the service of Krishna, by the mercy of Krishna, by the mercy of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, by the mercy of Srila Prabhupada and Acharyas, gradually purification will happen, spiritual emotion will awaken. And eventually, by Krishnaveling, the spiritual symptoms of ecstasy may also manifest.
So, I’ll summarise. I talked about how this verse takes us from the level of sadhana bhakti to the level of higher levels of devotion, bhava bhakti and prema bhakti. This is transition.
And then we talked about how emotions are not just things in the head. Emotions bring about physical transformations. They may cause even a person to fade when the emotions are unbearable physically.
So, there can be intense emotions. These transformations of tears, choking up of the throat and hair rising, visual, verbal and physical transformations, they can happen because of fear as happened with Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita. Or they can happen because of ecstasy as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is aspiring for.
Now, intense spiritual emotions and spiritual advancement that can express itself in a dramatic way through the symptoms of ecstasy, but it can also express itself in a less dramatic, but in a more reliable, less immutable way in the form of dedication. Not wasting time, being detached from material things, being constantly enthusiastic to chant Krishna’s name, being eager for Krishna. And those are the symptoms of ecstasy that our acharyas have traditionally focused on.
And the reason for that, I explained twofold. One is that there is a normal human tendency to try to get the external markers of success without being successful. People pretend to be wealthy without being wealthy.
Similarly, sahajiyas pretend to be spiritually advanced by showing the symptoms of ecstasy without actually being spiritually advanced. And secondly, the sahajiyas mixed Vaishnavism with Shaktism. And when they were imitating Radha Krishna, they claimed that Radha Krishna are entering into them.
And in that way, they try to rationalise their immoral dalliances. That’s why our acharyas have always been very cautious about venturing prematurely into advanced emotions. So, that sort of advance, that sort of premature adventuring is sentimentality.
And that is to be avoided. But sentiments are the goal of bhakti. The primary difference between sentiment and sentimentality is that in sentimentality, sentiments are the sole fuel for bhakti.
If I feel good, I will practise, otherwise I will not practise. And sentiments are considered the sole marker of success of bhakti. People are not concerned about dedication, commitment.
They are simply concerned about whether emotions are there or not. Bhakti is not the path of either attachment or detachment, but commitment. Discussed in any relationship, if emotions are the sole definer of the relationship, then emotions may bring person to people very close to each other very fast and they may drag people far away also very fast.
So, sustainability comes not by emotions but by commitment. And then, at our stage, can we experience spiritual emotions? Yes, we can. And I discussed how we can see them in a non-judgemental way.
Don’t have any suspicious about anyone who claims to have spiritual emotions. But at the same time, we don’t have to become sentimental also. So, with respect to dreams, I took a little detour.
Can Krishna come in our dreams? Discussed, yes. Krishna can come in the dreams, but in the dreams, we can’t express our sveksha very effectively. And spiritual growth primarily is based on moulding our free will in a proper direction.
That happens in the jagoti stage. So, if Krishna comes in someone’s dream, that is Krishna’s mercy on them. But their spiritual advancement will depend primarily on what they do with their free will.
And that they can do when they wake up. So, if Krishna comes in someone’s dream, they don’t have to broadcast it. They can see it as a symptom for, as an encouragement by Krishna so that they can become more committed in the practise of bhakti.
And other times also, if we experience some spiritual emotions, we can be grateful for that. But we don’t make a show of that. Just as we shouldn’t be like a non-pregnant woman who pretends to have labour pain.
No delivery will take place. So, by staying committed to the process of bhakti, gradually as the heart becomes redirected towards Krishna, then the advance into the spiritual ecstasy will also manifest when the spiritual connectedness with Krishna is there. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. Any comments, corrections Maharaj? Thank you Maharaj. Any questions, comments? Ok.
Yes, answer. So, how can we increase our commitment to Krishna? Actually there are two broad aspects. One is the quantity and other is the quality.
Often when we think of commitment, we only think of the quantity. Maybe if I am chanting this many rounds, I will chant more rounds. I am reading this much shastra, I will read this much more shastra.
That is good to some extent to have some quantity so that there is some steadiness in the connection. But ultimately we have only 24 hours in a day. And we have many things to do.
So, in terms of quantity, we cannot always increase the quantity too much. So, it’s important to also look at quality. That means, if there is some aspect of bhakti which enables us to strongly connect with Krishna.
So, for example, some devotees may feel very strongly connected with Krishna through bhajans, singing bhajans, reciting bhajans. Some others may feel very strongly connected by reading a particular book, maybe Chetan Charitam or Bhagavatam or whatever. Other devotees may feel very connected with Krishna by hearing classes.
So, whatever it is that enables us to strongly connect with Krishna, to become deeply infused with Krishna consciousness, we can commit to doing that regularly. Actually that commitment is relatively easier because we like doing it and we feel strengthened by doing it. But by doing it regularly, we will get more spiritualised in our consciousness.
And the more spiritualised we become in our consciousness, then we will be able to carry that spiritual consciousness to other things also. So, certainly we would like to increase our commitment as much as possible. But our human limitations make it impossible to increase the quantity.
So, if we can have something where the quality of our connectedness with Krishna increases and then we make a commitment to quantity within that. Then that helps us to spiritualise our consciousness in a powerful way. Another thing is that when we talk about the quality of our commitment, it also means that we learn to see not just externally spiritual activities as spiritual, but we learn to see every situation as an opportunity to serve Krishna.
So, even our profession, even our family, we do need this differentiation between material and spiritual so that we give some due time for directly spiritual activities. But even what we call as material, that can also be spiritualised if we are doing with a spiritual intention. So, Hari Shaurya Prabhu gives the example in his Transcendental Diary that actually whether Prabhupada was speaking to a thousand people or just speaking to one or two people during a darshan in his room, Prabhupada would be equally enthusiastic.
So, because for him, he was speaking Krishna’s message. Now, how many people were there to receive Krishna’s message? That did not make so much difference. Of course, naturally if a large number of people would be there, Prabhupada would be happy because more people are hearing Krishna’s message.
But he would be enthusiastic. So, like that, if we see our life as an opportunity to serve, then we can be preached through our, if we are directly doing some preaching, giving some classes or telling people about Krishna, that is very good and we will attract people to Krishna through our preaching. But then through our actions also we attract people.
So, if we learn to see our family life, our professional life, they also have the opportunity to serve Krishna. Because Krishna is present everywhere. In the 7th chapter, Bhagavad Gita, Prabhupada writes that the jurisdiction of Krishna consciousness extends everywhere.
So, if we see that also as an opportunity to serve and then we are in one sense, because it’s a professional obligation, it’s a family obligation, we are naturally committed to it. But we may not have spiritual consciousness in it. So, if we can infuse spiritual consciousness in it, then that can also give us more realisations and increase our connection with Krishna.
Broadly speaking, for commitment, for long-term sustainability in commitment, we have to find out something which we feel inspired to do. See, there is a circle of bhakti and there is a circle of our interests, our inspirations. So, we have to find out some intersection point between the two.
And if we situate ourselves in that intersection point, then we can go on steadily. We can go on in a self-motivated way. Because otherwise we will always have some, will you do this, do this, do this and then that becomes difficult for other people also to keep doing that.
And we also don’t feel good when others are prodding us all the time. So, yes, if the community requires some service, we can do that. But for long-term sustainability, we have to find out something which inspires us and something which is also within the circle of bhakti.
And we situate ourselves in that. Occasionally, we may be required to do things which are not so much, which we don’t feel inspired to do. And that is a part of our duty, part of our surrender.
But that is not what we should be doing all the time. Varanashram essentially helps people get situated in that circle. Now, what a brahmana likes to do, brahminical activities.
And Varanashram gives a facility by which they can do brahminical activities, Daivi Varanashram basically, do brahminical activities in devotional service. So, that’s how if we find this circle, this intersection between the two circles, then we can become situated in a very committed way. Is that answer to your question? Thank you.
Last question. Mahaji, would you like to add something? Thank you very much. Yes, Kripa Singh.
Please speak out. I’ll debate. So, in the initial stages of bhakti, there is lot of enthusiasm and there are emotions also.
But over time those emotions don’t seem to stay. So, how are they related exactly? There are two aspects to this. First is that in the initial stages, there is, things are new even from the material perspective.
And in general, the human mind is always looking for something new. And is enthusiastic about new things. So, that’s one aspect.
Because of which you may feel enthusiasm, you may feel newness. And you may feel emotions at that time. Because we are exploring something new externally.
And as we keep practising bhakti, then the newness goes away. And that’s why those emotions and enthusiasms may wane. The other aspect is that in the initial stages, Krishna may also give some free samples, some characteristics, some experiences of the advancings of bhakti for us to be inspired to move onwards.
On my website I answer questions. Recently one devotee asked a question, when we go for yatra, you know, we experience such wonderful spiritual emotions. But then I come back and I feel I have come back to square one now.
So, what has happened? Is it that we advanced spiritually and then we fell back again? So, I explained it’s not like that that we fall back. Rather, in the yatra, the whole cumulative energy of the sangha of devotees that takes us much forward than what we are presently. So, the spiritual momentum of the association of devotees, it gives us temporary glimpses of what lies ahead on the path of bhakti.
And then after the yatra gets over, that momentum is not there. So, we come back where we are. It is not that we go back.
It is not that we have gone ahead and we have come back. Rather, we just got glimpses of what lies ahead. And those glimpses, we can see them as inspirations for moving onwards steadily and reaching there.
So, Krishna may give us the experience of advanced bhakti occasionally. In the initial stages or sometimes in the association of devotees. And also in the initial stages, if some of us may have practised bhakti in a previous life, practised spirituality in a previous life, then purvabhyasena tenaiva riyate yavasopisah.
Krishna says that because of the previous practise, one is helplessly attracted towards Krishna. Suppose somebody has practised bhakti till 30% in a previous life. And then they are born in a pious but non-demotional family so much.
And then they start practising bhakti. In the initial days, it is that uncovering from 0 to 30% is happening. The 30% was always there, but it was not manifested.
That uncovering from 0 to 30% happens. And because that spiritual advancement was already there, so there is not much effort required to do that. It’s just quickly uncovering.
But from 30 to 31%, there is all a steady purificatory of an effortful growth. So what happens? There are emotions, but when there is effort required for getting those emotions, and when you don’t put in the effort, then the emotions don’t come. Initially, the effort, if we have already done some spiritual advancement, then the effort is minimal and the result is dramatic.
We feel so much spiritual growth. It’s not actually spiritual growth. It’s more of spiritual recovery of what we had.
But then afterwards when we have to spiritually grow, at that time we have to put in the effort and it’s slow and steady growth. So that’s why because more efforts are required for actually growing rather than just uncovering. So that’s why later on we may not feel those spiritual emotions.
And that’s why we need the association of devotees, especially association of like-minded devotees who can inspire us to move onwards in the path of bhakti when we have our ups and downs. So when we have our downs, others lift us up. When others have their downs, we lift them up.
So we need good association. We need encouraging association, at the same time cautioning association, which helps us move onwards. And that association of devotees will help us to move onwards even when we do not feel the spiritual emotions.
And as I said earlier also, if we can find out something which we can be committed to in the service to Krishna, then that will also give us some, maybe not a very high level of emotion, but some steady emotional connection, steady connection of some level of emotional fulfilment will be there if we are doing some activity which is within the realm of bhakti and which also inspires us. And that way we can move onwards towards steady spiritual growth. Guruji, as you have said that we have a long time, we have a long service, we have a college, we have kids and we have children.
But I want to say one thing, that as we progress, we need to basically, I want to emphasise, we need to basically, we need to actually have emotions in ourselves. As we go further, other than, we don’t go back anywhere, that’s for sure. How do we invest emotions in whatever we do? Yes, in the Bhakti Sama Chandu, there is a word that is used, Uddipan.
Uddipan is spiritual stimulus. Bhakti Sama Chandu is quite a technical text. And Uddipan has a specific meaning within that text.
But I will simply say, Uddipan means that which evokes emotion. So, the example can be given. Now, mother naturally has affection for her child.
But say when the child comes back home and comes running towards the mother. Now, the mother sees the child, that sight of the child increases her maternal affection. So, when say Yashodamayi sees Krishna coming back, she already has affection in her heart.
But when she sees Krishna coming back and Krishna runs towards her into her embrace, the emotion increases further. So, there is already emotion but the Uddipan causes the heightening of the emotion. So, in this case, for mother Yashoda, the sight of Krishna coming towards her, that is the Uddipan.
So, for all of us, even at our sadhaka stage, we do have some Uddipans. So, when spiritual emotion is lacking within us, we can use those Uddipans to trigger some level of spiritual emotion. So, for example, if we are doing japa and japa, we are very distracted, we are feeling totally unconnected.
So, at that time if there is some, maybe one or two lines from some Vaishnava song which we like very much. You know, we have that, because at that time it’s difficult to remember. Maybe have that ready somewhere as a card or as some note or somewhere.
And just recite that a few times. That just, the mind is taking a, going on a ride everywhere and taking us. But when the mind finds something which it can connect with at an emotional level also, then that brings us back.
So, or it might be some philosophical point also, which we find very convincing. It might be the darshan of the deities, some deities darshan which we feel very attracted to. Or it might be the photo of our initiation when we committed to chanting our japa, whatever.
So, when there is not, when we feel there is a lack of emotion in our practise of bhakti, we have to find out what are our sources of spiritual emotion. What are our uddhipan? And we keep them accessible. And then through that we can invest emotion.
And then as we invest emotion, emotion grows. So, even small things make a difference. That means, if I am sitting and chanting, if I lean against the wall physically, then what is happening? Then I am letting my body relax a little bit.
And that may not be very positive. But that may cause the emotion of lethargy or sleep. So, like that a small reorientation, if I am sitting in a room, I look here and there and I look at a picture of Krishna.
So, a small adjustment may help in stimulating spiritual emotions. So, we have to find out, you know, what is it that stimulates spiritual emotions within us? And then try to invest that emotion. So, initially we may not feel any emotion when I decide to recite a particular verse or sing a particular song.
Or it may be a simple, during japa we stop and sing the Hare Krishna Maha Mantra in a sweet musical tune one or two times. That itself may orient the mind. So, we have to see that if the mind is going here and there, it is not just I am helpless.
So, bringing the mind back and investing it with some spiritual emotion is my responsibility. And how I can do that? If we take inventory of our spiritual life, we will find out our uddhipan. And then we can do that.
Thank you very much. Maharaj, you want to add something to this? Yes. Thank you very much, Prabhupada.
Wonderful. Thank you very much. Shikshaashtakam ki.
Tauranga Mahaprabhu ki. Shukla Prabhupada ki. So, I go to Prema.
So, let’s start with tolerance. So, Prabhupada famously talks about tolerance in the Krishna book. One’s greatness is estimated by one’s ability to tolerate provoking situations.
Now, I’ll try to unpack the statement in a few ways. So, one practical way is this. Tolerance means to call off our war with reality.
Our war with reality means that there is a particular situation that has come in our life. And that situation itself is unavoidable. And then if I am going to resent the situation, I am going to seethe about the situation, I am going to wave my fists at the heaven, whatever, none of that is going to change the reality if the situation is there right now.
So, say for example, say I have to go from here to Gainesville and somehow I have to go for a programme. I take a wrong turn and instead of Gainesville I end up somewhere 20 miles away. Now, the reality is that I am at a wrong place.
If I just get angry with the reality, I can’t do anything to rectify the reality. At least I have to accept, OK, I am at the wrong place right now. Afterwards, I can make the necessary changes to come to the right place.
But whatever is the reality right now, if I keep resenting it, then I waste a lot of my energy in that. So, for example, if we have to, we are in a particular situation or a particular relationship where the other person is say disagreeable or irritable or whatever. Now, the reality is I am in that situation right now.
Now, I can do things to improve it. I can do things to change things. But first is this is the reality that I am in right now.
And once we call off our war with reality, that helps us to focus our energies. So, a related point is when we are in a war with reality, that means we are resenting the reality. Why is this person acting like this? Why did this happen like this? Why? When we are resenting reality, quite often resentment of reality hurts more than reality.
Resentment of reality hurts more than reality. So, for example, say we were to go for a yatra somewhere. We have been looking forward to it.
And then just before the yatra, say I get a flu and I fall sick. Now, my whole plan for going for the yatra has to be abandoned. Now, if I consider the flu itself, yes, there is trouble because of that.
But it’s basically some weakness is there and I have to just lie on the bed. The flu itself does not cause so much pain. There is just weakness is there and I have to rest.
But then in the mind, why did this happen? Why can’t I? Why couldn’t I go? All my friends have gone. Everybody is enjoying and I’m lying over here. So, all that mental beating oneself up, that hurts much more than the flu.
So, resentment of reality often hurts more than reality. So, another example is, let’s say, if there is a porter and the porter is being hired and he is lifting up, say, 20 kg weight. And then he will be paid to lift up 20 kg.
But if that porter puts up 10 more kgs or 20 more kgs, then they are not going to be paid for 40 kg. They are going to be paid for 20 kg only while lift up 40 kg. So, what happens when we resent a problem? The problem is like 20 kg and our resentment is like 20 kg more.
So, it becomes a double burden and then we hurt ourselves more. So, tolerance means, it’s a provoking situation out there. That person is behaving in a particular way or something has gone wrong or even I have done something wrong.
It’s a provoking situation. But if I get provoked, I make the situation worse. So, once I accept, okay, this is what has happened, now let me see how to deal with it.
So, now tolerance is not passivity. It is not that anybody can do anything to me and I am like a wet cloth rag which anybody tramples. That is not tolerance.
Tolerance is not passivity, but it is the ability to keep small things small and focus on big things. To keep small things small and focus on big things. So, for example, now in the Bhagavad Gita, there is a famous verse about tolerance.
That is 2.14. matra sparshastu kaunteya shito shni sukha dukkha daha aagam apayino ityas tam siddhikshya svabharata O Arjuna, tolerate, tam siddhikshya svabharata Tolerate the pleasures and pains which come just as summer and winter comes. You can tolerate it like that, tolerate this. Now, at the same time, the same Bhagavad Gita, in 11.233 also tells Arjuna, arise and fight.
tasmātmuktiṣṭha yeśo labhasva jitvāśatruṁ bhaṁśvarājyaṁ samrūpnaṁ mayai vaite nihata pūrvameva nivitta mātraṁ bhavasau nisāci So, Krishna is telling, arise and fight. And we look at the whole context of the Mahabharata. He is fighting because in the Kauravas there are atrocities to you.
Kauravas have dishonoured your wife. Kauravas have stolen your kingdom. Kauravas are adharmic rulers and you have to take action against them.
So, when it comes to dealing with the Kauravas, Krishna is not telling Arjuna, tam siddhikshya svabharata. Just tolerate whatever you have done. So, that means, tolerance is not passivity.
That anything and everything that is happening, we are simply meant to passively accept it all. No, in this case, Krishna is telling Arjuna that that’s a very big adharma that is done. And as a Kshatriya, you have to counter it.
Then what is it that he is told to tolerate? Yes, while fighting, while fighting in the cause of dharma, if you have to fight against your relatives, if you have to fight against your teacher, fight against your grandsire, that is distressing. But that is what your duty requires, tolerating. So, as compared to the cause of dharma, this is a small thing.
So, tolerance means, it is not passivity. It is not that everything that anyone is doing, I simply have to accept it. But there are, in a relative context, the things which are small and the things which are big.
And if we don’t have this well-developed tolerance muscle, then we let small things provoke us in a very big way. And when small things provoke us, then our energy goes too much into that. Now, suppose we come to a meeting and then we are there for some purpose, and then somebody, they snub us.
That snub may happen within 15 seconds. But then, in the next 6 hours, you know, I am thinking of revenge fantasies. Next time in public, you know, I will snub them.
So, what is happening? That event has happened. Okay, now, actually it may not even be a snub. They might just be busy and not have noticed us.
Or even if it is a snub, there is no need for me to seethe over it for hours and hours. It is a small thing. Maybe I can clarify it.
Maybe I have to do something about it. But all that is, if I have come for an important meeting, where there are many things to be discussed and finalised, and I am burning behind because of that one snub, then the small thing has prevented me from focussing on the big thing. So, tolerance helps us to keep small things small, so that we can focus on big things.
If we let everything that happens matter, we don’t let what matters happen. If everything that matters, everything that happens, if we take it all very seriously, every small, small thing, if we start taking it very seriously, then our mental energy gets consumed by all those small, small things. And then, the really important things that are there, we can’t do them.
So, tolerance in that sense is, it is not passivity at all. It is the capacity to focus, to have a sense of perspective. What is more important? What is less important? And to keep small things small.
So, if you see Srila Prabhupada, he tolerated so much when he came to the West. The devotees over here, the young hippies over here, they did not know how to properly deal with a sannyasi, how to respect a sannyasi. But Prabhupada tolerated all.
Now, if we see when Sumathi Murari ji, she was Prabhupada’s patron, who gave him a ticket to come across to America on the Jal Doota. Initially, when Prabhupada insisted that, you give me passage on the Jal Doota, she told Prabhupada, Prabhupada, if you want to speak Bhagavatam, you come to my house. Every day I will hear Bhagavatam from you.
So, Prabhupada was not interested in that kind of simple ritual recitation of the Bhagavatam. He wanted people to transform their lives by hearing the Bhagavatam. So, for Prabhupada, tolerance didn’t mean, okay, everybody is just living materialistically, people don’t care for Krishna, so I’ll tolerate it.
Not like that. He wanted to make a change. He wanted to go around and find people who would be seriously interested in him.
So, certainly, nobody can call Prabhupada as passive. He was very, very active, even at a very advanced age. But while he was being active, at that time there were many irritants that came up and he tolerated them.
So, we keep small things small so that we can focus on big things. And that capacity is developed by tolerance. Taror pi sahishnana, especially when we are chanting, quite often the mind starts thinking about, basically the mind, when we chant, it just searches for excuses to not think about Krishna.
It just searches. And then, okay, 15 years ago, that person had taken $5 from me. Did not return to me.
15 years I didn’t remember that and then I was chanting, I remember that. And then I started, why? I have to get this $5 back. It is like so small things the mind brings up and then it makes them big.
So, this tolerance enables us to keep things small. Okay, everything in this world is not going to go according to my plan. So, usually what happens with respect to tolerance, you know, there are, we sometimes try to plan our life very systematically.
You know, okay, morning I’ll do this, afternoon I’ll do this, evening I’ll do this, night I’ll do this. And then we try to micro plan our life. Then we find that life comes in the way.
That means, somebody comes and calls and this goes wrong, that goes wrong. And quite often when we find that the plans don’t work, we just go to the other extreme. We say, I won’t plan only.
So, often we, now to some extent our profession, our job, there is some amount of, some amount of structure that comes in our life. But apart from that, especially in our sadhana, either we go to one extreme where we want to plan everything in a very micro way or otherwise we say, yes, okay, every day I will read for one hour. But then we find it not possible then, okay, whenever I’ll get time I’ll read.
And whenever I get time, it means practically I never get time. It becomes like that. So, now tolerance, what would it mean? Tolerance here doesn’t mean that, okay, if I don’t get time, what can I do? I will not read only.
No. In general, plans may not work, but planning works. What is the difference? Plans means specific.
Okay, I’ll do this, I’ll do this, I’ll do this, I’ll do this. But planning means, it’s basically an overall sense of direction. That this is the way in which I want to move forward in my life.
So, if I decide that, okay, every day I want to read one hour Bhagavatam. But then so many things keep coming. So, one hour I may not be able to read every day, but I can make it, in a week I can read seven hours.
Or in a month I can read a particular amount of time, whatever is, 30 hours or whatever. So, sometimes we may be able to read more, sometimes we may be able to read less, sometimes we may not be able to read at all. That’s all fine.
Just like if we are travelling in a particular direction, if there is a lot of traffic, we’ll go slowly. If the traffic is less, we’ll move fast. So, like that, in our spiritual life, in our view towards Krishna, sometimes the traffic of our other activities in our life, that becomes high.
And that time we just have to slow down. Just because we slow down, that doesn’t mean we have to stop. So, the way, if we don’t have tolerance, it can work out in both ways.
That if I don’t have time for my spiritual life, then I get frustrated. I have so many things to do, I don’t get time for my spiritual life. And then the same mind which makes us half-hearted, oh I have to do this also, I have to do this also, I have to do this also, it makes us half-hearted and disenthused about whatever material responsibility we have to do.
Once we are given to that mind’s tendency to resent, I have this job, I have so much work to do, I have so many family responsibilities, this, that. Once we start letting the mind go off track, then the same mind which distracted us from our material responsibilities by making us think about Krishna, making us think, I can’t read, I can’t go to the temple, I can’t do that. That same mind, what it does? Once the mind, we let it become uncontrolled, when we are actually doing devotional activities, it makes us think of material things.
Chanting, you have that work to do, you have to do that, when will you do that, when will you do that? So that way, the mind neither allows us to do material things properly nor allows us to do spiritual things properly. So tolerance means, okay, right now I’m in a situation where my worldly responsibilities are more. Fine, I’ll accept it, I’ll do those responsibilities.
And then eventually, if at that time I’m at one level, we should long for, we always long for wanting to do more and more for Krishna. But that longing is positive, whereas resentment is negative. In longing, the focus is on Krishna.
Oh, when can I go to temple? When can I study Bhagavatam? When can I do some seva? Whereas in resentment, the focus is on why do I have to do this? Why is this taking so much time? Why, why, why? So when we are resenting, we are not Krishna conscious. When we are longing, we are Krishna conscious. So longing to have the time to serve Krishna more, that is wonderful.
But resenting is actually quite unfavourable to bhakti. And we see, Sri Prabhupada himself exhibited so much patience. In 1922, Prabhupada received the instruction to preach.
And actually he was able to focus full time in preaching only in 1958 roughly. So it took him, how much, 36 years. So he was trying to do whatever he could during those years also.
But he was doing his material responsibilities and he was doing whatever he could. And then eventually when he had the opportunity, he focused entirely on Krishna. So this resentment is the, in one sense, the opposite of tolerance.
So normally, we may think of tolerance, the opposite of it is aggressive behaviour. But that is a different conception of tolerance. When we are talking about tolerance here means, OK, I accept reality, this is what it is.
And rather than resenting reality, I accept it and then I try to move forward. I’ll do this. Now this is what I have to do more.
OK, this is fine. I accept it. I move forward and then eventually when things change, I will do more of my devotional activities.
So in one sense, when we usually use the word tolerating, there is the negative connotation that I don’t really like this, but I have to tolerate this. So that’s where we use the word tolerance. There may be some things in our life which may be not so likeable also.
But the principle is that in every situation, we can actually continue serving Krishna. How is that? At the very least, if I have to, if I’m in a situation which I don’t like, then if I can still push myself to do as well as I can in that situation, through that, I am developing an ethos of discipline. I’m developing an ethos of self-control.
And that will help me later in my spiritual life also. I do some outreach to college students. So many times when students, when exams come, suddenly they will develop some love for Ramayana, Mahabharata, Nila Amrit.
Our studies, you know, they are all mundane. Ultimately, I have to become a devotee. Why should I study? You know, that love for Ramayana and Mahabharata doesn’t come throughout the semester.
It comes just before the exams, when the preparatory leave is there. Because the mind simply wants an escape. And that love is also not for philosophical books.
It is for some pastimes. So what is happening? It is not really attraction to Krishna. It can be, but it is basically the mind wanting an easy way out.
The mind wanting a shortcut to avoid difficult things. And Krishna says this kind of renunciation is actually in the mode of passion. In 18.4, 18.5, 18.6, 18.7, he talks about renunciation in three modes.
So he says, So he says, In this world, there is so much misery. And this is my body, my mind. They suffer so much inconvenience.
Therefore, I will not do this. He says, This is in Rajoguna. And he says, This will not lead to the phala.
Phala is the fruit. The fruit of renunciation is spiritual advancement, spiritual realisation. That will not come by that.
So sometimes in our life, we do have to go through situations which are unpalatable. But if we see them, not just as, oh, why am I put in this situation? But okay, this is an unpalatable situation. But by applying myself in this, I can learn mind control.
I can learn self-discipline. And that mind control and self-discipline can help me in my practise of bhakti later also. So that way, if we see, even the materially distasteful situations that we go through, we can see them as opportunities for spiritual growth.
And that way, we can move onwards in our lives. So I’ll summarise. We can have question answers.
Talk about tolerance, as Prabhupada says. It means one should be able to endure provoking situations without exploding. So how do we do that? That is, he says, we call off our war with reality.
And I’ll give some examples. Say if I have gone by wrong road somewhere, then I have to accept that I’m at the wrong place and then I can start thinking, how can I come to the right place? Otherwise, if I’m just resenting reality, then the resentment of reality hurts more than reality. Let’s do another example.
That resentment becomes like a porter increasing the weight that they are carrying. We have the problem which is a weight and the resentment is a further weight on the problem. Or it’s like, if I have flu, there is inconvenience of the flu, but I’m resenting, oh, my plans are upset, that hurts me more.
And then discussed about how tolerance is not just passivity. Anybody and anyone can do anything and I just have to endure it. Krishna tells Arjuna, fight against the Kauravas.
So he’s not telling tolerance over there. But tolerance means we keep small things small. Yes, while fighting, you may have to fight against your relatives.
For the cause of dharma, which is very big, you tolerate that. So keep small things small so that we can focus on big things. And we discussed how Prabhupada tolerated when he had his purpose of sharing Krishna’s mercy and for that purpose, whatever inconveniences he got, whatever, he tolerated that and he kept preaching.
And if we let everything that happens matter, then we don’t let what matters happen. We discussed that in our life, sometimes plans don’t work because unexpected, untoward things happen. But then we don’t have to become frustrated and give up planning itself.
Planning will give us a sense of direction. And if you have that direction, sometimes we move faster. Like when the traffic is less, we move faster.
Sometimes we move slower. But we will keep moving forward. And even in our material life, if we get some distasteful situations, if we start resenting them, then the mind will develop a habit of basically being absent-minded.
So when we are doing material responsibilities, it will make us think about spiritual things. And when we are doing spiritual things, it will make us think of material things. And we will become unproductive in both.
But if we see even the material distasteful situations as opportunities for developing mind control, for developing self-mastery, then that can help us even in our spiritual life. So any questions, comments? Yes, please. Question from the audience.
So sometimes we have a tendency to not chant more than 16 rounds. So is that desirable? See there are two different aspects over here. One is the process of chanting and the second is the purpose of absorbing ourselves in Krishna.
Chanting is the primary means for absorbing ourselves in Krishna. At the same time that is not the only means. So in this there has to be some amount of individuality.
I have to find out how I can absorb myself in Krishna the best. And some devotees may find studying Shastra is a very good way to absorb ourselves in Krishna. Some devotees may find deity worship as a way to absorb themselves in Krishna.
Some devotees may find preaching as a way to absorb themselves in Krishna. And some devotees may find chanting as a way to absorb themselves in Krishna. So the important thing is that bhakti, there is austerity in bhakti.
But it is not that austerity becomes the only thing in bhakti. So if we make it that oh all serious devotees should chant 64 rounds. But then not everybody will find that so absorbing.
We may just be counting and sometimes what happens if we decide that oh I will chant 64 rounds. And then afterwards we find I am not getting any taste in this. Then we chant and chant and internally actually we are resenting why do I have to chant so much.
Then that is not that is not that is not that is not joyfully done bhakti. So if we feel inspired to chant more then definitely we should chant more. But it is not that chanting more is the only way to absorb ourselves in Krishna.
Nor is it that chanting more is the only sign of seriousness. So chanting more is one way in which we can absorb ourselves in Krishna. At the same time there are different ways.
And as far as the tendency to not chant anything more after 16 rounds. Yes there is that tendency because at our stage we don’t get so much taste in chanting. That’s why quite often we feel as if what is the next thing I can do.
I feel the next thing is more important. That’s why to some extent while chanting also or along with chanting it is good to hear hear the holy name sorry hear the glories of the holy name regularly. That gives us some inspiration for absorbing ourselves in chanting.
In one of my books there is a whole article about I find chanting boring. So what should I do? So explain many three four metaphors again. But one metaphor I said is now suppose somebody goes for weight lifting and then they have made it a ritual that every day for one minute I am going for weight training.
But then after that what happens if I am walking this lifting this weight is very difficult. And after that I have to go here. I have to go to this meeting.
I have to go to this party. I have to go here. So while they are doing the weight lifting they are thinking when will I just finish this and go out.
And after sometime they think they are so eager to do the next thing that they go through the motions. They have the dumbbells but they don’t put any weight in the dumbbell only. So all that is happening is just hands are moving up and down.
Now if I just keep the hands moving up and down that is also exercise. But that is not really exercise. So then I will not get any benefit from that.
And then I feel why am I spending one hour just moving my hands up and down. So when the whole thing begins by first is I am eager to do something next after the weight lifting. Second is I try to do it as shortcut as possible and then I stop lifting the weight only.
When I stop lifting the weight then I don’t get any benefit from weight lifting. Then I think why am I doing this at all. So like that when we are chanting we are meant to remember Krishna.
And if we don’t remember Krishna and we are just uttering the holy names that is like moving the hands up and down without putting any weight on the dumbbell. So then it doesn’t serve much purpose. Certainly any kind of chanting is good.
But when we are not actually connecting with Krishna then we start feeling why am I wasting my time like this. And then we may stop chanting or just rush through the chanting. So what has to be done is if we hear the glory of the holy name then we are able to absorb ourselves.
Why is this important? Now it’s not just that I had to come one hour for doing weight lifting. There is a purpose why I am chanting. Why I am doing this exercise.
Similarly if we remind ourselves of the glory of the holy name then when our consciousness contacts with Krishna while chanting that when the contact comes then we feel strengthened, we feel purified. We feel a higher satisfaction. And then we feel inspired to chant.
Now it may not be possible to do this for all 16 rounds. But at least some rounds we need to make a determination. I am going to be attentive.
And at least that contact will give us conviction. Okay I don’t have the capacity to concentrate attentively on all 16 rounds. But this process has power.
And this process purifies, this process gives me strength and it’s worth it. It’s like in weight lifting I have to exert to get the benefit of strengthened muscles. Similarly in chanting we have to exert to put in concentration.
Then we get the benefit of purification. So to the extent we do that, to that extent we absorb ourselves in chanting and feel the fruit of chanting in terms of purification and spiritual strength. To that extent we will become eager to chant more.
So without this experience if we just make it a mandate that as you chant more often we may just be counting the beads but we may not be absorbing ourselves. So we have to see individually. Yesterday I talked about uddhipaninam, what inspires, what is the spiritual stimulus that takes us towards Krishna.
So if chanting is the spiritual stimulus that takes us towards Krishna that’s wonderful. If something else is there, we have to find out whatever it is and do that. Any other questions? Yes, Dimash.
We’re covering also humility. Yeah, please. So when you spoke about Ammani Plum and Adamdi Plum, is that coming from the contraries of the Acharyas? I’ve often wondered about that and that’s the first explanation I’ve heard.
How I have some honourable qualities but I don’t raise them to get respect. I mean Ammani Plum, Adamdi Plum, one doesn’t have good qualities but it makes a good sense of having them for the recognition. Where does that come from? I think it is from Chakravarthi Paths or maybe not Chakravarthi Paths commentary.
Either it is here or it is in that 16th chapter, Dambho Darpo Abhimanascha Krodha Parvashyamevacham. So there it differentiates between Dambha, Darpa and Abhimana. Which chapter? 16th chapter? 16.4. Either it is here or it is there.
I remember reading the difference between Dambha and Mana. So Dambha is basically when I make a show to get honour when I don’t have these qualities. So Mana, that’s the difference.
I think that is either here or there in 16.4. Any other questions? Yes. What makes a son able to apply the higher understanding in provoking situations? And if you say it is helpful to be self-analytical after the situation occurs, do you realise it will be helpful? So when the provoking situations come, how can we tolerate it or is it helpful to analyse after the situation? Yes, both are true. First is that all of us, if we observe ourselves, we will know that we all have certain triggers, certain things which just cause us to explore.
Now once we know those things, we can prepare in advance. Like you say, I suppose in America we don’t have that issue. In India, often the roads have potholes.
So if I am going on a road in a vehicle and I know there is a pothole over here, then in advance itself, I know I have to go on the side. So I prepare, there is a pothole, I prepare to go by the side. So like that, in our life journey also, we can know that there are certain situations where I get provoked.
So when we know that this is a situation where I tend to get provoked, we try to plan in advance. What can I do to avoid that? Like I just go around the way. So like that, if too many people make too many demands for me, then I just snap.
Then what should I do? Then, okay, I know this is the time of the weekend or this is the time of the month or this is the time when too many people are going to come to me. So I plan in advance. Maybe I’ll have to say no to some people, but I’ll have a planned answer, how I can politely but firmly say no.
Otherwise, you know, we say yes, yes, yes to 6, 7, 8 people and then the 9th person comes. And all the resentment of the previous yes, it comes as one violent no. So if we know that what our triggers are, then we can plan in advance to how I can best deal with this.
And overall, it is not that maya attacks us in very new ways all the time. The situations themselves may be new, but overall, the circumstances, the patterns are similar. So once we know our triggers, then we can put in some thought.
How can I deal with this? And that we have to plan in advance. That’s the first thing. Second is that we can try to have, try to develop something like our own pause button.
That means when I feel an impulse to snap at someone or impulse to do something suddenly, and I make a pause. I won’t do this, but not now. Not now.
So, you know, I correspond a lot with people by emails. And because I’m a writer, I can play around with words well. But this also works negatively that if I want to cut someone, I can cut very ruthlessly.
So I find that actually I don’t really want to speak like that. But in the heat of the moment, it comes out. So what I decided is that if I’m going to write any, any strong email to someone, then I made a policy that I’ll write that email.
But for 24 hours, I will not send the email. So now what happens if I don’t write the email? All that resentment is there within me. So it will all be inside me.
But once I have written it down, to a large extent, things calm down. Things cool down. Yeah, I went in myself.
But then after 24 hours, and I come back and look at this. The mental pressure has gone down quite a bit. Yeah, this is a sensible point.
This is too harsh. This I really don’t know the situation. I am not I’m making a premature judgement.
So you can evaluate it at that time. The pause button is that just 24 hours. Don’t do anything about it.
Not don’t do anything in terms of don’t express itself, express, but don’t communicate to that person. So I found that this is a very practical way because if we don’t express at all, then that that becomes like a pressure cooker in the heart, which will explode afterwards. So there is some expression that is required, but that expression doesn’t have to be a communication.
So I get it out of myself, but it doesn’t have to reach the other person in that form. And that I find journaling also very helpful. Now that basically journaling is the same thing.
If I’m upset about something, if I’m angry about something, then just get it out. So getting it out is good for me, but getting it to them is not good for them. So I get it somewhere in the middle.
And then after that, when we evaluate it again, then you find, OK, this, as I said, again, you can evaluate it calmly. So actually, I’m writing a book on the yoga of journaling. So the subtitle I gave it is that training our intelligence to become the counsellor of our mind.
So training our intelligence to become the counsellor of our mind. What that means is first time when I’m angry with someone, I’m provoked by something. I just vent myself out.
That time it is my mind speaking. You know, he’s like this, she’s like that, they are like that. So much resentment is there.
And it is there, you know, when we have certain feelings, we cannot wish them away. Those feelings are real things within us. So we express them.
And then that, at that time, largely it is the mind speaking. So the mind needs some vent, give it some vent by writing down. And after maybe, as I said, 24 hours or something, then I come back and see it again.
At that time I calm down. Now it is my intelligence reading it out. OK, I wrote this, I wrote this, I wrote this.
And then I make whatever changes I require. And then I communicate to others. So this journaling or writing or expressing, but not communicating, that is one way in which I found a pause button helpful for myself.
But all of us can have different pause buttons. Some of us, when we get very angry, we just hear some very nice kirtan or ourselves sing something. Or in some cases we may chant, take a straw and just pick up the pace and start chanting.
That can also act as a pause button. But again, the point of it is not just a specific activity. It should cause the pause rather than just chanting, chanting.
But then I’m thinking, I’m just making plans how I’m going to get back at that person. We have to have something which can just draw us out of that situation. And what that will be, that will vary from person to person.
So if we find that and we do that, that pause button in the provoking situation also, we can avoid getting provoked. So it’s not that we can, when the feeling of anger is there, when the feeling of frustration is there, that we can’t just repress it. We repress it, it will express itself later.
We have to, we can’t repress it, we have to process it. So there is repression, there is expression and there is processing. So what happens is if I repress it, it comes up and explodes afterwards.
If I express it at that time itself, then also it’s trouble because it’s not properly filtered at that time. So if I can process it, then I can actually, that’s the middle medium between expressing as well as repressing. So after processing when I express, then actually it is in a reasonable way, in an intelligible way, in a way that it gives vent to what I am feeling at the same time.
It doesn’t come off as too aggressive or insulting or demeaning for the other person. And then we can take things forward. So we can find out what is a pause button for us.
That is the second thing. And third thing is, yes, as you rightly said, after a particular situation happens, then we look back and learn. Okay, this time I did this and this didn’t work.
Maybe I should not have done this at this time. So in this also, there are two things. There is learning from the past and there is lamenting about the past.
And the two are very different. The difference is primarily in, is in which mood I am situated. When I am in Tamoguna, when I think about the past, I simply lament.
Oh, you know, why did he speak like that? Why did I speak like that? You know, I am always so, I am always so uncontrollable. I just keep doing the same mistake. And I am just beating myself up.
I am not doing anything constructive by that. So if I am in Tamoguna, at that time thinking about what has gone wrong, that doesn’t help in any way. That only makes the wrong aggravated.
So even when we have to look back, it has to be when we are in Satmoguna. When we have done some sadhana, studied some shastra, we are in a peaceful frame of mind. Then in Satmoguna we look back.
Okay, this happened and this happened. Probably I could have done this way. Probably I could have done this way.
And then we can learn from the past and use it for our future. So that means another way of understanding the difference between learning from the past and lamenting about the past is when we are lamenting, the mind is forcibly taking our thoughts to the past. Whereas when we are learning, we are consciously taking our mind.
I am in control of my mind and I am taking my mind. Okay, let me think about this situation. Okay, this is what has happened.
This is how I reacted. This is how I could have reacted. And we are in control.
But when we are lamenting, the mind is in control and it’s taking us here, taking us there, taking us there. And essentially we don’t learn much from it. So by knowing what are our triggers and planning in advance to deal with them when they come, by having our own pause button, which enables us to process our emotions, either repress them or express them or express them in unbalanced.
And by learning from the past, we can actually become more tolerant in provoking situations. Does that answer your question? Thank you. Any other questions? Yes, welcome to you.
There are four ways of living. There are different means in different areas. So Kali Yuga is said that chanting is the way to go.
So chanting is the way to go? Is it in statistics that mostly it is the way to go and by any other means it is equally powerful? Or is the chanting especially more powerful? Or is it that Lord Krishna is saying that chanting is recommended? So what is the position of chanting? Okay. So when we say chanting is the Yugadharma, does that mean chanting is the recommended process or chanting is the best process or is chanting the only process? Yeah. See chanting is definitely essential.
But the whole point is that we have to develop a relationship with Krishna. So chanting is the primary way in which we can develop that relationship. At the same time, it’s a relationship.
And that’s why there are nine limbs of Bhakti. If it was only chanting, then Rupa Goswami didn’t have to write a book of Bhakti Rasamal Sindhu where he talks about 64 items of devotional service. He could have just chanted and everything will happen.
Prabhupada, he gives so much philosophy in his books. He could have just chanted. He has given us philosophy.
He has given us so much Shastra commentary. So there are two extremes. One is that I make chanting only everything and neglect everything else.
If I can truly become absorbed in chanting, that’s wonderful. But for most of us, it is difficult to be constantly absorbed fully in chanting. So there is no need to reduce the whole process of Bhakti only to chanting.
Because the process of Bhakti is a process of developing a relationship with Krishna. And chanting is important within that. And because it is Yuga Dharma, we do definitely need to chant.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean that that is the only thing we need to do. If we can, from the chanting, everything will come. But for most of us, it is difficult to chant constantly.
So there are other processes also involved in Bhakti. So when it is said that this is Yuga Dharma, that means this is a vital process. But that doesn’t mean that is the only process.
By only process means certainly anybody who wants to develop Bhakti, they have to chant. But along with chanting, there are other ways also in which you can connect with Krishna. Not only does Bhakti Rasaam also talk about 64 items of Bhakti, it also talks about 5 potent forms of devotional service within that.
So that way we see the process of spiritual advancement as a process of developing a relationship with Krishna. And while chanting the central, primary importance, we also observe to see what are the ways in which I can develop a relationship with Krishna in a sustainable way. My question is about humility.
I kind of feel a conflict in personality when it comes to humility. Being in healthcare, if I am trying to be humble, I sincerely want to be humble and tolerant. Because I have been hearing about it quite long.
But if you see there in work situation that we have to carry over everywhere, it is not appreciated because people take you for a ride or they make you overworked. In the second situation here, in devotees also, devotees, sometimes we sincerely try to be humble because I am still not humble yet. And when a service comes and with my limited time and capacity I am not able to do, I politely say no, it turns against saying that he is pretending, he is not humble as such.
So I am facing this conflict. Could you explain like how to balance, how to be humble? So in our professional life as well as in devotional life, if we try to be humble, then either people take us for a ride or if we have to say no, then people turn against us. So how do we deal with it? See, first of all, as I said, humility, we may have certain stereotypes of what humility means.
And they may not be necessarily the right understanding of humility. So does humility mean that we have to say yes to everyone? Basically it’s impossible for us. We are finite human beings.
We cannot say yes to everyone. The easiest way to make yourself miserable is to try to please everyone. So we just can’t.
We are limited people. So in some cases we do have to say no. Whether it is devotional life or it is in professional life, whatever it is.
So humility is not so much whether I say yes or no, it is more a mode of how I say yes or no. So it is like in Duryodhana when Krishna went as Shanti Duta and Krishna actually is very humble in that situation. He is God himself but he is going on the emissary.
And then he is so accommodating. He says just give five villages to the Pandavas. Now there are ways of saying no.
And Duryodhana was so insolent. What was his reply? He said I will not give enough land to even pass the tip of a needle through. This is not just no, this is an arrogant no.
In fact we could say this is the most arrogant way of saying no. So we can say no to a request without saying no to the person. But here the way it is said is not only I am saying no to this particular thing but I am just rejecting the person itself.
So humility means sometimes we have to say no to some people. But we learn the way to do it in a respectful, sensitive way. Maybe explain our situation a little bit.
And some people don’t understand what can we do. We just have to know that we cannot please everyone. So that’s with respect to saying no.
The principle is that we have to say no. And if we displease someone by that, that’s okay. That is just a part of being human.
Our condition is that we are limited beings and we cannot please everyone. Now in a professional setting also if we have this stereotype of humility again that anybody says anything I just accept it. Then that is not exactly right.
Again as I said humility means to not let our ego interfere with our purpose. So I will give two examples in a professional setting of how humility might work, might be helpful. Let somebody say a boss in a company and there is some subordinate who has come up and the subordinate has come up with a very good suggestion.
And in the meeting the subordinate gives the suggestion. The boss thinks, I own this company, I have been in this business for 20 years and this upstart is just 6 months here and he has the audacity to give a suggestion to me. I just pat it down on that person.
Well, if the suggestion had been good, I could have benefited from it. So if we say in a professional setting also, humility means openness to suggestions by others. That is an advantage.
And in team play, team leaders listen to others. Listening to others itself is in one way humility. Listen does not mean we have to accept and do everything that they are saying.
Just be open to hear about it. So that way even in a professional setting humility can be appreciated. Another thing is that, say, if you work in a team, suppose there is a cricket match or any team sports and there is one star player, either captain or some star player and the star player plays the most important role in winning.
But then when the credits are offered, when the man of the match or whatever award is given, the team player may say, I am such a great player. Or that star player may say, actually it is a team effort. And even in sports, somebody acknowledges it is a team effort.
Everybody appreciates that. So it is not that humility is anathema in worldly life. It is not something which is always frowned upon.
We may have certain stereotypes which may not be applicable. So if we think of humility means not being assertive, then that is not the point. Humility means that basically I am not absorbing myself.
So I have certain things to do. And by doing those things, whether I am honoured or dishonoured, I don’t bother about it. I focus on other things.
So again, the second part is to not let our ego interfere with our purpose. We consider it that way. Then humility can be practical even in professional life.
Does that address your question? Yeah. Do you have a question? Okay. When it arises, tolerance is a by-product.
It should not be separately handled. But from your explanation, what I am understanding is there are two types of tolerance. One is for self-correction, how I am going to handle.
And another is perhaps if it is offensive or abusive towards the other person, Lord or some conditions and other, how to handle. Am I correct on that? Or should we really develop? Even though it goes on that Krishna being rich is 28 qualities in Bhagavatam, but Krishna Das Govinda is 26. And Krishna being rich is the intensive of all other qualities, where the humility and tolerance is also there.
Otherwise tendency will go like I want to just chant and develop all of this. Okay. So the question is that should we chant purely simply for pleasing Krishna, for developing a love for Krishna and from that all qualities will come automatically such as humility or tolerance or should we also make some efforts for developing these qualities separately.
Essentially bhakti, at least the way I understand it is, the most important practical, from the practical perspective, the principle is anukulyasya sankalpa kuthikulyasya varchini. Now I accept what is favourable and I put aside what is unfavourable. And interestingly you see, these two are called as limbs of surrender.
So among the Shadvidha Sharanangati, if there are six things, anukulyasya sankalpa kuthikulyasya varchini, rakshi, siddhi, dvishwasu, goptu tvayi varanam, tatha atma nikshepa karak manne, Shadvidha Sharanangati. So it is a protection that Krishna will protect, the confidence that Krishna will protect that I am dependent on Krishna. Like this there are six elements.
Significant is that among these six, the next four are emotions. These first two are actions. You could say emotions or dispositions.
Krishna will protect me. Krishna is my maintainer. I am nothing without Krishna, atma nikshepa.
Now all these are dispositions, they cannot come automatically. They will take time to develop. So it’s significant that along with these dispositions and surrender, the definition of surrender also includes practical actions.
Anukulyasya sankalpa kuthikulyasya varchini. Accepting that which is favourable and putting aside that is unfavourable. This is very, in one sense, if we have the concept of surrender like Draupadi raising her hand and surrendering.
This is quite opposite to that. This is quite resourceful. This is quite active.
Okay, this is favourable and accept it. This is unfavourable and I will avoid it. So surrender in that sense is not just passive dependence.
Here surrender is active choosing. I understand, okay, this is favourable, this is not favourable. I actively choose things.
This aspect of surrender is also very important. And it is not just, he is not talking, Bhaktivinoda Thakur elaborates on this also. He is not talking just about some preliminary stages.
He is talking about surrender which is a very advanced stage. So now in our practical practise of bhakti, we have to see how things work. The aspiration is for pure devotion.
But at the same time we have to connect with Krishna. So that means that, I think yesterday I mentioned that we cannot become pure devotees without becoming devotees. What that means is, okay, I will give a couple of examples for this.
Say if there is some big problem in my material life, some huge problem is burdening me and I think that, oh, I want to practise pure devotion service. So I will not pray to Krishna anything about this. And whatever happens, Krishna knows everything, Krishna will take care of everything and I will pray only to increase my chanting, increase my hearing and I will not even mention to Krishna about my material problem.
Now, okay, I may think I am aspiring for pure devotion but that particular problem is actually occupying a huge place in my consciousness. It is a big burden on my heart. And basically bhakti is the connection of heart to heart.
We want to connect our heart with Krishna. So something which is anyway having a big place in my heart, if I decide that I will not talk about it to Krishna, I will not pray about it to Krishna, then what is going to happen is, a large part of my heart will stay disconnected from Krishna. In our present condition stage, material things do affect our consciousness.
If I get some big disease, if I have a major financial problem, if I have big relationship upheaval, these things consume our consciousness. So if my conception of pure devotion is that, I will not talk anything about my material life with Krishna, I will only focus on bhakti, then a large part of that which is in our heart will stay away from Krishna. So if you focus on the point, I have to develop a relationship with Krishna.
So if there is something which is burdening my heart, then I offer that in prayer to Krishna. And then, in this case, the surrender can be that, Krishna, this is what I feel is the solution to the problem. But whatever is the solution, whatever is your will, let thy will be done.
Please give me the strength to surrender. So just speaking it out, or praying to Krishna about it, that can quite often unburden the heart and then we can connect better with Krishna. So what I am saying over here is, that pure devotion is our aspiration.
But sometimes, in trying to stick to the ideal of pure devotion, even devotion doesn’t remain in our heart. Because what happens is, the material things do take a lot of consciousness of mind. And if I think I am not going to think about anything material with Krishna, then practically I feel I have nothing to connect with Krishna.
So the problem, it can be a problem if I am only asking Krishna for material, this problem, Krishna solve this, Krishna solve this, Krishna solve this, and I am not doing any sadhana, I am not praying for the increase of my bhakti at all. I am only praying for material things. But so far as in our life, we don’t have to, once we have dedicated our life to Krishna, we don’t have to make a rigid separation between the material and the spiritual.
Because even the material affects the spiritual. And even the material can be used in the service of the spiritual. So we definitely need some time for directly spiritual activities.
But even the material activities can be spiritualised. So that way, this is slightly different from your answer, but I am giving this as an example to illustrate. Sometimes talking to Krishna or praying to Krishna about material things, with a surrender eventually, whatever is your will, I will accept it.
But this is what I feel, that surrendered mood can come at the end, but we can express our concern to Krishna. And that way we authentically connect with Krishna. Otherwise it is just ethereal.
I am thinking of pure devotion, but then my whole consciousness is consumed with just practical problems and I don’t know how to deal with them. So similarly, rather than seeing any efforts to develop humility or tolerance as something separate from bhakti, we can see them also as activities which are anukul to bhakti. And we accept them.
So that way if we do it, it is quite helpful. Now for some of us, we may find that just by chanting, it happens that, ok, all wonderful qualities blossom. But in many cases, it doesn’t happen.
Sometimes, unfortunately what happens is, our chanting and our practise of bhakti, it makes us more judgemental instead of more understanding. I follow my standards, I am following strictly, and actually if I am really going spiritually, I should become more empathic towards others. But I become more judgemental towards others.
This person is like that, this person is like that, this person is like that. So what is happening is because of our past conditionings, we are not able to chant purely. We are not able to practise bhakti purely.
So then we are chanting, but we are more becoming judgemental towards others. We are not really becoming compassionate towards others. So then because of our conditionings, we may not be able to access pure bhakti right now.
So at that time, doing those things which are anukul for the practise of our bhakti, that is fine. Prabhupada would say that, one time, I don’t remember who now, one of Prabhupada’s servants said that one day after they came back from a programme, he heard Prabhupada hearing his own lecture. And then he asked Prabhupada, Prabhupada, are you hearing our lecture? Prabhupada says, yes, I was checking what I spoke.
I want to, I also learn and I improve. So now we must say Prabhupada is a pure devotee. Krishna is speaking through him.
Why does Prabhupada have to improve? No, but Prabhupada is also seeing from his perspective, what can I do? So one of my friends has done his PhD in Bhakti Siddhanta Sri Thakur. So he showed me a book. Now that was Bhakti Siddhanta Sri Thakur’s English vocabulary book.
Like the students learn for GRE or SAT, they learn English words. So Bhakti Siddhanta Sri Thakur, he wanted to preach in English. So he was learning English words.
He was writing down words and their meanings. So even an Acharya may have to do what is required for gaining the skills for serving Krishna. So for Prabhupada also, you know, his father had him trained for learning Mridanga.
So now what happens is, when it comes to relatively grosser skills like this, say learning English or learning Mridanga, we understand that it is not just by pure devotion these will come. You know, sometimes somebody may be singing with great devotion. They may be playing all the Mridanga steps wrong.
It is not necessary that their pure devotion will automatically manifest as right Mridanga beats. So when it comes to things which are little more physical, when things are little more physical, we understand that pure devotion won’t automatically develop this. I have to put in some efforts to do this.
And we don’t say, why are you doing this? Mridanga learning, that is an activity which is anukul to Bhakti. So we put in the time for learning Mridanga. So when it comes to qualities, things become a little hazy.
There is the body, there is the mind and there is the soul. So when something has to be done for the body, we understand it. That it is what is required, I will have to do it.
But when it comes to the mind, does everything at the level of the mind automatically develop by the practise of Bhakti? Means say, as tolerance or humility or whatever qualities we are talking about, which are subtler, they can be of the soul, they can be of the mind, I won’t go into that right now. But is it that they will develop automatically? They may or they may not if our practise is not pure. But we have to see what is anukul to Bhakti.
So in some cases, if we learn some principles about how to practise tolerance or how to practise forgiveness, how to practise patience and those can help us in our practise of Bhakti. Then we see that as anukul to Bhakti and we do that. So these sort of things, they are not substitutes for Bhakti.
If I start thinking, oh, you know, all that I have to do to improve my relationships is just, you know, I learn these tips for developing tolerance or I learn these tips for, say, public speaking or whatever, for influential speaking. So that is not going to work. But while we are in a devotee community and we have to work with others, if certain things can help us in minimising conflict or maximising our productivity, then we can see it as anukul to Bhakti and we can use that in our practise of Bhakti.
Is that okay? So should we stop? It’s almost 3.45 now. Yeah, one last question, then we’ll take a break, then we’ll have a short session afterwards. It’s cool.
Hey, Mr. Evan Kemper. I’m afraid to look a little bit at that. Please, up here in our hearts, I’m not exactly at peace with your desires.
So that’s like a theatrical thing, I think. So you can explain that a little more. He’s asking to get rid of these negative thoughts So it’s not just like putting it aside and continuing to devote.
He’s directly asking for your strength and get rid of your desires. So the question is that, is this not pure devotion or what is the question? Can you explain that a little more? You know, you’ve been talking about, okay, you know, you may have material desires or you may have contemplations. So then you’re not suggesting that we just suppress them.
But here, through devotion to Pralaya Maharaj, he’s directly asking. It’s like a valid example of what you’re saying. He’s directly asking to appear in our hearts and get rid of these desires.
Okay. Yeah. So Pralaya Maharaj asks, I think that prays in the fifth canto, where he says, you know, that please, O Lord, appear in my heart and rip apart my material desires.
Yeah, that one. So how do we understand this prayer? Yes. Actually, yeah, the question is that Pralaya Maharaj is asking for the Lord to appear in the heart and remove all material, remove the material desires.
So he is basically here stating that he’s asking the Lord for something for, I think, for himself. Please remove my desires. He is.
So what is your question? Why is he asking like this? Okay, why is he asking that the material desires be removed? Material desires are obstacles in the path of bhakti. So he’s asking for them to be removed so that he can serve Krishna better. So his devotees, as I said that if the desires are there in our heart, now if you want to see Pralaya Maharaj is a pure devotee, he has no desires, then we see that as he’s just setting an example for us.
But even if he’s setting an example, what we see is that there are desires within our heart and we want to get rid of them. So that is something which is because it is anukul to bhakti, it is also limbo bhakti. So when we say that, Oh Lord, please free me from lust, please free me from greed, please free me from anger.
Now that is, if it is, if you’re asking it so that I can portray to the world how self-controlled I am, how pure I am, then that is not favourable. But if you’re thinking that, okay, when I want to serve Krishna, the lust, the anger, the greed, they interrupt me in my service. They obstruct my service.
Therefore, I want to be free from these so that I can serve you better. So then that is very much favourable. So that means we are identifying the obstacles that this is the obstacle for my practise of bhakti and I’m praying to Krishna to remove that.
Even in astrology that principle is there that at one level it is said you can just depend on Krishna, pray to Krishna and Krishna takes care of things. But if you can’t do that, if you find there are too many problems in our life and then some astrologer tells us, okay, you have this kriha issue or that is the issue, then it is said that rather than going to a mundane astrologer who will tell us to do some worship of the devatas, some devotional astrologer may tell us to worship some specific manifestations of the Lord for dealing with specific issues. That is also within the limbo of bhakti.
We see from 12.8 to 12, in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna gives various levels. Always think of me. If you can’t think of me, then strive to think of me.
If you can’t do that, then just work for me. If you can’t work for me, give in charity to me. Like that he gives various levels.
So the highest level we could say is just, Krishna, I want to just sing your glories. I want to absorb myself in you. But these are the obstacles for me in doing that.
So please remove these obstacles. There is also a prayer which is in the realm of advanced devotion. Does that address your question? Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. So we will start at 4 o’clock. What I was suggesting was… The Mahaprabhu is praying that, O son of Nanda, Tanuja kingkara, the word kingkara means, king karoti iti kingkara.
What should I do? Kingkara is a word for servant. So I am your servant, O Lord. Patitama vishame bhavam budhau.
In this world, somehow I have fallen. In this terrible material world. Vishame bhavam budhau.
Vishama is distress. It is a stress filled world. Krupaya tava pada pankaja.
That, I have turned to your lotus feet. Sita dhuli sadrusham vichintaya. Please situate me at your lotus feet.
This is a petition to the Lord, a call for mercy. So in this talk, I’ll discuss about the relationship of endeavour and mercy in the process of bhakti. How do we start this? This one? A new one it is.
So endeavour and prayer. So prayer is the means by which we primarily get grace. This verse is a prayer.
So on the paths of karma and jnana, the endeavour is primary. There also, there might be some element of mercy or grace involved, but it is considered secondary. Whereas on the path of bhakti, grace, kripa, that is primary.
So in karma also there is some idea of mercy because say when somebody does some tapasya to invoke some devata. So Hiranyakashipu does some tapasya to please Brahma. Then eventually Brahma comes and Brahma gives power.
So that power we could say it is mercy. But if we see in those situations, quite often the devatas are obliged to come if the appropriate rituals are done. So in that sense, the endeavour is there, that is primary.
If the endeavour is there, then whatever blessings are there, they will automatically come. So in the path of jnana, sometimes the jnanis also, they adopt some elements of bhakti. For them bhakti is simply a tool to mukti.
So in Bengal there is a saying, which people have, Chaitanya path, Shankara math. That means Chaitanya path means follow the path of Lord Chaitanya and Shankara math and go to the destination Shankaracharya has given. So the idea is, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s path of bhakti is very joyful.
But they have the idea that the impersonal absolute, that is the highest realisation. And I think bhakti is a means to mukti. So Chaitanya path, Shankara math, they have the idea.
So sometimes impersonalists also practise bhakti. But they, for them God is not the ultimate reality. God is a transitional reality.
That means I worship God till I come to the level of goodness or transcendence and then I go beyond God. So they have the idea that we can worship God, but till we come to a higher level and then we will go beyond God. So in that case also, they may also impersonally sometimes sing devotional songs.
They may also do bhajans and kirtans and that can be uplifting. But their goal is ultimately that we have this personal form that is that I have to go beyond that. So in that sense, they think, how will I go beyond that? It is not by that personal form’s grace.
Because even that personal form is ultimately illusion. So in their case, again, their endeavour is what is primary. And that’s why they do a lot of Vedantic analysis, you know, naiti, naiti.
Vedanta vakesh sadarmanthar, it is said that. You should actually delight in the analysis of Vedanta. Trying to find out new meanings of the sutras.
So there also the endeavour is primary. Now on the path of bhakti, it is grace that is primary. So the standard example for this is like a person who is fallen in a well.
Person who has fallen in the well, somebody outside wants to rescue that person. The person outside sends a rope inside. Now when the rope is sent inside, without the rope for the person to come out is very difficult.
Now try to find out some finger holes, foot holes, try to climb up the side of the well, that is very difficult. Now the rope is there. After the rope is there, the person from outside will pull out.
And the person inside has to hold on. The person inside holds on. Now in this case, if the person outside does not pull out, no matter how long the person inside holds, the person outside will not, the person will not be able to come out.
So the person outside’s pulling is primary. So although the person outside’s pulling is primary, pulling is like Krishna lifting us up. That is Krishna’s mercy.
That is primary. But at the same time, the person inside, that person also has to hold on. If the person does not hold on, then they will not be pulled out.
So in that sense, in maths, they have something called a necessary but not sufficient condition. So in most cases, our endeavour is necessary. Although our endeavour is not sufficient, but our endeavour is necessary.
So when we say grace is primary and endeavour is secondary, that does not mean endeavour is unimportant. It’s like the person inside has to hold on to the rope firmly. Without that, they will not be pulled out.
Actually, Prabhupada says this in a Srisri Parpod that if we are not determined, even the Supreme Personality of Godhead can’t help us. So that means that the person outside, they pull out. The person outside pulls, but if the person inside is not holding, just the rope will come out.
The person will stay inside only. So like that, if we don’t have some determination, then even Krishna cannot help us. And Prabhupada talks about this in connection with the pastime of Kaalakrishna Das.
Kaalakrishna Das was right with Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. But although he was with Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, still when he got allured and he gave into that temptation, he went away. Of course, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu rescued him and brought him back.
But still, he did have a lapse over there. So how did that happen? Because all the Supreme Personality of Godhead was personally with him. But still, because he became lax, he did not endeavour.
So he was pulled away by maya. So that means our determination is also important. So the role of determination is primarily to, it is to, it is to access the mercy.
It is just like the rope is there. To hold on to the rope, I need determination. Now the determination can also be of different types.
And some determination is favourable to bhakti. Some determination can actually be unfavourable to bhakti. So if the determination is an expression of devotion or it can be an expression of willpower.
Expression of willpower means, you know, I show the world how sense controlled I am. I let the whole world see how much sense control I have. And that is my primary purpose in actually controlling my senses.
So say if I fast nirjano nikadashi, and then when I fast nirjano nikadashi, I go to the kitchen and see who all is eating what all. And yeah, all sense gratifiers. So then my body is fasting, but my ego is feasting.
So that sort of determination is not very favourable to bhakti. That sort of determination actually ends up making me proud. And when I become proud, I don’t feel the need for Krishna.
So the whole process of bhakti is that we feel a very strong need for Krishna. And pride makes us actually no longer feel a need for Krishna. So if the determination is simply an expression of our willpower, how formally I can stick to my resolutions, then that determination can sometimes, although we may be practising the principles of bhakti strictly, but we may not be going closer to Krishna.
So the principles of bhakti are meant to take us closer to Krishna. But we go closer to Krishna when we have an open, humble, receptive heart. But if our heart is filled with just the idea of how sense controlled I am, how great I am, then it becomes difficult for Krishna to find a place over there.
Now, in general, if we look at the six opulences, fame, wealth, power, strength, knowledge and renunciation, among these, the last two, that is knowledge and renunciation, they are often seen as signs of spiritual advancement. If somebody is wealthy, somebody is good looking, now we won’t automatically think this person is very spiritually advanced. We know wealth is a result of past karma.
If they are wealthy, they can use their wealth in Krishna’s service. We may give some special attention to them if they are wealthy. But we don’t equate wealth with spiritual advancement.
We don’t equate good looks, not just good in terms of passionate good looks, even a sattvic, peaceful look, we don’t necessarily equate that with spiritual advancement. But quite often, jnana and vairagya, these we equate with spiritual advancement. If somebody is very renounced, we tend to think that, oh, this person must be spiritually advanced.
Or if I am very renounced, it’s easy to think that I am very spiritually advanced. But here, an important thing to recognise is that just as the wealth, beauty, these are results of past karma. Some people can have them more, some people can have them less.
Similarly, the capacity for renunciation is also a result of past karma. And some people may have it more, some people may have it less. A simple example of this is, say, with fasting.
Now, if you look at it from the perspective of Ayurveda, those who have a kapha prakriti, for them fasting is relatively easy. For those who have a pitta prakriti, fasting is extremely difficult. Even fasting till noon, it starts causing so much acidity and it causes burning of the stomach.
And people just can’t tolerate it. Now, a person who is having kapha prakriti, they can fast nirjala also. Now, this itself is not the sign of spiritual advancement.
By their past karma, they have got that bodily type in which fasting is relatively easy. And that can be used for spiritual advancement. When one fasts more, one can focus on Krishna more and one can go spiritually.
But that itself is not necessarily a sign of spiritual advancement. So different people may have different capacities for renunciation. And just like how much wealth I have doesn’t determine how spiritually advanced I am.
What determines how spiritually advanced I am is how I use my wealth. Just as if a person has a lot of wealth, they can do a lot of service. But the wealth will lead to spiritual advancement when it is used for service.
The presence of wealth automatically does not equate with spiritual advancement. It is when wealth is used for serving Krishna that there is spiritual advancement. So just as wealth is a result of past karma and that can be used in Krishna’s service, similarly renunciation that is also to some extent result of past karma, the capacity for renunciation.
And just as the presence of wealth alone does not equate with spiritual advancement, similarly the presence of renunciation alone doesn’t equate with spiritual advancement. It is just as our spiritual advancement depends on not how much wealth I have but what I do with my wealth. Similarly our spiritual advancement depends not on how much renunciation I have but what I do with the renunciation that I have.
So if somebody has a capacity for renunciation and if they use that capacity of renunciation, capacity for renunciation to serve Krishna, those who can be renounced, they can avoid a lot of material entanglement, a lot of material things which dissipate a lot of our time and energy. And they can do a lot of service for Krishna. But just as wealth can be misused, similarly renunciation can be misused.
So usually wealth is misused for gross sense gratification. And renunciation is misused for subtle sense gratification. So the misuse of renunciation for subtle sense gratification means that I let the renunciation feed my ego.
Subtle sense gratification is puja laal pratishtha. As we say that name, fame, glory, same old story. Life after life, that is what we have been doing, chasing after name, fame, glory.
So if I use my renunciation to gain name, fame, glory, then actually it is subtle sense gratification. So on the path of bhakti, when there is determination, so here I am saying determination, I am equating roughly with renunciation, or the capacity for renunciation. That is good, but if that is simply a product of my will power, see how renounced I can be, then that can feed our ego.
Whereas if we have renunciation, we have the capacity for renunciation, we have the capacity for determination, and we use it to focus on Krishna. We use it to become more absorbed in service of Krishna, to push aside distractions in our service to Krishna, then that determination is a very very powerful tool on the path of bhakti. So when we practise bhakti, our capacity for determination may vary.
And that capacity for determination comes from our capacity for renunciation. And that comes from our past karma. So now what does this mean? This means that just because somebody is necessarily more renounced, that does not mean that they are more advanced.
They can become more advanced if they use their renunciation in Krishna’s service. So now of course, all renunciation is not necessarily a result of past karma. Because bhakti itself also produces renunciation.
vāsudeve bhagvati bhakti-yoga-prayojitaḥ janayaty āśu vairāgyaṁ jñānaṁ ca yadaheto kam So, in the second chapter of the first canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, it is said that when there is bhakti, bhakti also leads to jñāna and vairāgya. So that’s why I’ll talk a little bit later about judgmentality. We shouldn’t be judgemental.
So if somebody has renunciation, it’s not for us to judge whether their renunciation is a product of their devotion or whether renunciation is coming from past karma. If somebody is renounced, the traditional Vedic culture is, the renounced order is respected. But that alone is not the sign of spiritual advancement.
So the renunciation can also be a result of bhakti. And to some extent we see this, that initially we may have been attached to some indulgences, we might have had some undesirable habits and we start chanting Hare Krishna, practising bhakti, and then we are just able to give up so many things. The things which we were quite attached to earlier, when we are able to give it up, that is actually a result of vāsudeve bhagavati.
Because of bhakti, we get the higher taste, we get the higher wisdom, and we are able to give up many things. So, say now, if we consider hypothetically, there are levels of determination or levels of renunciation. Somebody is at this level.
Somebody is at this level. All of them have to move towards Krishna. So within Varanashram, say a person who is at a more renounced level, they are considered higher than a person who is at a less renounced level.
But that is the Varanashram way of looking at things. The Vaishnava way of looking at things is, not how much renounced from the world I am, but how much attached to Krishna I am. And that’s why we have the whole Varanashram hierarchy inverted in the discussion between Ramanandaraya and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
So Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is a… So Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is a brāhmaṇa and a sannyāsī. Ramanandaraya is…so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is at the top of the Varanashram hierarchy in both ways. In varana and āśrama.
Brāhmaṇa and sannyāsī. And Ramanandaraya is a gṛhastha and a śūdra. And yet Chaitanya Mahaprabhu hears from him.
So our point in discussing this is that we want determination practise of bhakti, but even if different devotees are capable of different levels of determination, still they all are on the progressive path. So it is not necessary that just some devotee who has greater determination is necessarily more spiritually advanced. The determination may be a result of past karma, but that greater determination can be used in Krishna’s service.
So once we understand this aspect, we can avoid a lot of insecurity that comes when we see this devotee is doing so much, this devotee is doing so much, this devotee is doing so much, I can’t do anything. In spiritual life, our spiritual advancement is not a percentile score that we have to crack. Percentile score means that how much marks I get, that depends on how much marks everyone else is getting.
It’s not like that. Krishna sees our heart, Krishna sees our endeavour, Krishna knows our capacity and Krishna sees how much we are exerting according to our capacity. So whatever endeavour we are capable of, if we do it, then gradually our capacity will increase by Krishna’s grace.
So we endeavour according to our capacity. So rather than thinking of an absolute standard of endeavour, we look at our level presently and take steps forward. Take steps forward and we’ll move on.
And maya can be very subtle in this connection. Sometimes, you know, we may win over temptation and go away from Krishna. And sometimes we may lose against temptation and go closer to Krishna.
How is that? I may win over temptation and if that makes me proud, I am so sense-controlled. The temptation came and I resisted it. So by winning over temptation, I become proud and then I go away from Krishna.
On the other hand, if I lose against temptation and that makes me feel humble, that makes me feel, without Krishna, I cannot do anything. So when I realise that, then actually that may increase my dependence on Krishna. And that dependence on Krishna can actually enable me to go closer to Krishna, seek Krishna’s shelter more.
So in bhakti, our strengths can be our weaknesses. And our weaknesses can be our strengths. As I said this, we may win against temptation and go and not go close to Krishna.
Or we may lose and go close to Krishna. So what does this first part mean that our strengths can be our weaknesses? That is basically 1.8.27 I think. Kunti Maharaj says, janmaishwarasutashritye, edhaman madhah puman, naivarathya vidhātukvaito āmākiñcana bhoja.
So if my strength makes me feel that I don’t need Krishna, then that becomes an impediment on the spiritual path. Thus my strength can become a weakness. On the other hand, my weakness, my inability to do certain things, if that makes me more humble, that makes me feel the need for Krishna, then my weakness can become my strength.
That can make me feel more urgently the need for Krishna and that can make us take us closer to Krishna. So we may win against temptation and not go close to Krishna or we may lose and go close to Krishna. So the endeavour is important, but there is no, rather than looking at endeavour in an absolute standard, we can see what is my level and endeavour to the best of my capacity.
So our grace is primary, but endeavour, although secondary, it is not unimportant. Endeavour is also necessary. And then we discuss elaborately about what the role of endeavour is.
So the last point I conclude and we can have some question answers here. So we are unqualified, but we are never disqualified. So what this means is unqualified means we actually have no qualification to receive Krishna’s mercy.
But disqualified means you are not allowed to participate only. Like say some, listen to the Olympics, some athletes were found that they had taken some drugs. So if they are accused in doping, then they are not allowed to participate, they are disqualified.
So in bhakti, we are never disqualified. We are unqualified, but we are never disqualified. Always Krishna keeps the doors to him open for us.
From wherever we are, no matter how much we fall, the path to Krishna is always open. And in that sense, no matter what happens, even if we fail in our endeavours repeatedly, still, if we keep focused in trying to go towards Krishna, we will eventually move towards him and we will attain him. And this is actually the mood of 9.30 and 9.31 where Krishna says, apichet sudracharo bhajate imam nanya bhag sadhur eva samantavya samyak bevasito saha Even if somebody commits terrible wrong activities, if they are devoted to me, then they are well situated.
Krishna says they are to be considered saintly. What this means is, yesterday I talked about spikes. Sometimes the spikes come and that time they are just overpowered.
So what Krishna is saying here, basically in terms of the spike metaphor, that when there are spikes, we may do something wrong, sudracharo. But after that, bhajate imam nanya bhag. One is determined to continue practising bhakti.
One doesn’t think because I fell down, so I will give up bhakti only. Continues on. Then eventually, we will become purified by the practise of bhakti.
So this is the first point. We are never disqualified. No matter how low level our endeavour may be, we can always receive Krishna’s mercy.
We are not disqualified. And then our endeavour doesn’t generate mercy. But our endeavour attracts mercy.
What is the difference between generating and attracting? Generating means, say, if I go to some food booth and then I put some money and in the food booth some food pops out. So I have put in the money and the food has come out. So we can say the money input has generated that food.
That is generation. But endeavour means what? There is a beggar on the street. And then that beggar begs to the passer-by, please give me some food, please give me some money.
Now, if the beggar begs very fervently, a passer-by may feel more inspired to give. But the begging itself does not entitle the beggar to get the charity. So the more fervently the beggar begs, the likelihood of the person giving charity is more.
Giving alms is more, but it’s not necessary. So Prabhupada gave the example that once he was going on a morning walk and there were some ducks who were being fed by a man. And Prabhupada was observing and the man was giving some food to all the different ducks.
And there was one duck that was quacking especially loudly. Very loudly it was quacking, quacking, quacking. And then this man was giving more morsels to that duck.
So Prabhupada said it like that. He says, we call out to Krishna for mercy more and more. The rest, man could give the morsels to anyone.
But this duck was calling out more and the man was giving more food. So like that he says, our mercy, the mercy, we call out to Krishna more. Our endeavour doesn’t generate, it can’t force Krishna to give mercy.
But our endeavour attracts Krishna’s mercy. The more we endeavour, the more Krishna will give mercy to us. So it is not a linear proportion.
There is a whole concept of Kripa Siddha also. Some people may get elevated and become perfect just by mercy. But general process is Sadhana Siddha.
We do Sadhana and then Krishna gives Kripa. And that’s how we move onwards in our spiritual journey. So this prayer is a prayer for mercy.
Kripaya tava pada pankaja, sthita dhuli sadrusham vichintaya. Please situate me at your lotus feet. So now, what does it mean to be situated on Krishna’s lotus feet? Basically, if you look at the context, this verse is saying that please lift me out of mortal existence.
I have fallen in this vishame bhavam budhau. Terrible mortal existence I have fallen. Please lift me out of this.
And it can also, at our level it can mean, lift me out of material consciousness and lift me to spiritual consciousness. And all the previous verses, if we see the flow that is going, first it describes how powerful the holy name is. The second verse talks about, oh yes, further the expression of the power of the holy name and the misfortune in not being attracted to the holy name.
The third verse talks about how to become attracted to the holy name. And the fourth verse talks about the aspiration. Now I don’t want anything of this world.
I want only Krishna. And the fifth verse says, I am in this world where all these things are, dhanajana, sundari, kavita, all these are there. But I don’t want these things.
So please lift me out of this world. Lift me out of this world and please situate me at your lotus feet. Being situated at Krishna’s lotus feet means being situated in devotional consciousness.
Absorbed in devotional consciousness. And 6th, 7th, 8th texts will actually talk about that devotional consciousness. The deep spiritual emotions that come in this devotional consciousness, the transformations of ecstasy, that all will be talked about in the subsequent verses.
That’s how I said the first five verses are talking about are talking about the sammandha in one sense. The whole is prayojan. But now later on it will talk, the whole is abhidheya.
And the last three verses will be about prayojan. So the sammandha jnana. Actually Krishna is my only desirable object.
And Krishna is so potent that he can elevate me. So what I want is, I want to be elevated. So that means, I just want to give another way of analysing this.
Is that, when a person goes for begging, begging is essentially a relationship of asymmetry. Nowadays people want symmetrical relations. Both of us are equals.
But begging is inherently a relationship of asymmetry. The beggar doesn’t have anything. And the donor has so much.
And the donor gives to the beggar. If a beggar goes in a suit and pant and has suitcases and has a wallet filled with money, and the beggar says, give me some money. And where do you need money? You already have it.
Why should I give it to you? So begging is a relationship of asymmetry. In begging, what would a beggar normally do? Beggar will glorify the donor about how wealthy they are, how charitable they are. And then the beggar will talk about, oh what a fallen condition I am in.
I am so poor. I have not eaten for so long. I am dying of starvation.
Or my relatives are very sick and whatever it is. They will talk about their destitute condition. And then say, please give me some alms.
So basically, if you analyse, begging will have these three parts. Not necessarily a linear sense. But how great the donor is.
That means how wealthy and how charitable the donor is. How destitute I am. And please, therefore, help me.
So if you look at it that way, these verses, the first two verses are glorifying how great Krishna’s holy name is. How great Krishna’s holy name is. First verse talks literally about the various ways in which it is filled with nectar, it frees from material existence and all that.
Second verse also talks this further. That actually all of Krishna’s power is there in the holy name. So there the glorification of Krishna, the praising of the donor is happening.
Then he talks about his own disqualification in that same verse. Unfortunately, I have no taste for the holy name. I have no taste for the holy name.
And then this, what he is saying is, okay, then how does one develop taste? That is, humility and tolerance, by that one can develop taste. And by trying to reject material desires and select spiritual desires. But all this, you know, cultivating humility and tolerance, cultivating rejection of worldly desires, all that is actually very difficult to sustain when we are in material consciousness.
So therefore, this verse has a prayer, please raise me to spiritual consciousness. I am a spiritual being, I am your eternal part. Please lift me up.
So in that way, expressing the glory of the holy name, expressing one’s destitute condition, and then begging to be elevated up. That’s how the Shikshashtakam is flowing forward. And the last three verses will describe that once one is elevated, what are the emotions that the soul in spiritual consciousness experiences.
So, any comments or questions? Yes, sir. You were describing Krishna’s, you know, like, extending mercy by how much you call out. Let’s say from a devil’s advocate point of view, one can say, well, okay, Krishna is like partial.
Unless you call out, he doesn’t extend. What if someone may have a good intention, but they are just not the type of person to call out? Then maybe Krishna would extend mercy. Can you explain how, from Krishna’s point of view, how that works? Okay.
So is Krishna partial? Because only when we call out, he responds. And if somebody doesn’t have the nature to call out, then will Krishna not respond? Firstly, Krishna is impartially partial. What that means is, he is definitely partial.
He says, no doubt, he says, I give so much mercy to my devotees. muktiṁ dadhāti karhicitaṁ sa sunasma-bhakti-yogam I give liberation to my devotees, not to others. So Krishna’s partiality is definitely there.
But then he is impartial because he opens the doors for devotion to everyone. So I’ll explain this. What I mean by this, that Krishna is impartially partial.
So Krishna is partial in the sense that he favours his devotees. And there’s no denying, the scriptures talk so much about how he favours his devotees. But he’s impartial in the sense that he opens the doors of devotion to everyone.
So I’ll give two examples to illustrate this. Going back to the earlier example of how a beggar is there and a donor is there. So now, suppose that donor, they want to give charity to everyone.
Like what Prabhupada said, you know, we would like that around our temples, ten miles around, no one should go hungry. So now the donor may give charity to everyone, but it may be that in near their own home, that donor may be especially charitable. I’ll give money to everyone, but in this area, I want to make sure at least in this area, I want to have around my home, I want to have a hunger-free zone.
So now, if that donor also makes it clear, anybody can come and stay here. If you stay here, I’ll take care of your food. So he’s partial in the sense that he’s not giving so much charity to everyone.
But he’s impartial in the sense that he’s allowing everyone to come and stay there. So similarly, Krishna, he is partial to his devotees, but he’s impartial in the sense that he opens the doors of devotion to everyone. So now, coming specifically to the point of somebody may not have the nature to call out.
So calling out is not just a matter of literally raising our hands and calling out. Yes, that is also calling out, but that is not the only reason. We can call out through our endeavours also.
That means that if somebody is very diligently doing some service, then that also is a way we can attract Krishna’s attention. So calling out doesn’t depend on the volume with which I’m chanting. Calling out is actually more a call of the heart than the call of the tongue.
So for some people, it may be true that some people are maybe a little more introvert. So for them, loud Kirtans, they can’t relate with it so much. They feel a little shy to do that.
Now, of course, Sankirtan is our process and we follow that. But sometimes people who are too conscious of others, they cannot express their heart too much among many people. So it may be that kind.
Then they may pray to Krishna when the crowds are less. They may go in front of deities and pray. The point I’m making is there is always room for individuality in Bhakti.
There is a standard process, but within the standard process, there is room for adaptation. If we look at the five Pandavas, all of them are singular individuals. Each of them is so different.
They are all serving Krishna, but they are different. So that individuality is there. So in terms of being very expressive, if you think of calling out simply as being very expressive in calling out, that may not be in the nature for everyone.
But calling out in terms of a call of the heart, which different people may express in different ways, that is fine. So for some people, I’ll talk a little bit more about this in the next verse when we talk about sentimentality. For some people, I’ll elaborate it later on, but quickly I’ll just mention that for some people, the emotions may not come very quickly.
They may be a little more reserved. So those emotions, just because for some people emotions come very quickly, that does not mean that they are calling out to Krishna more earnestly. It may not be like that.
It can be like that, it may not be like that. So we’ll talk about emotions a little bit later. But the important thing is Bhakti is inclusive.
Now whatever be our psychophysical nature, within that we can connect with Krishna. So our calling out to Krishna may not be all that expressive in terms of external gestures. But if we at least recognise that I need Krishna’s mercy and I will strive for Krishna’s mercy, then that is what we need to do.
Does it answer your question? I really like this quote of we are unqualified but we are never disqualified. You also mentioned about Kala Krishnadas who was Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s servant. He did mistake only once.
He was attracted to a better race. But Mahaprabhu actually took him away from his service. So when I said we are never disqualified, but Chaitanya Mahaprabhu almost like rejected Kala Krishnadas when he committed just one mistake.
See, when we say we are never disqualified, that does not mean that we are qualified for any and every form of service. Certain services may require certain standards. And if the standards are not followed, then it may not be appropriate for somebody to take up that service.
So, if you see, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu rejected him to set an example. He wanted somebody who is with him to be exemplary. But what happened is, the devotees engaged him.
Nityanand Prabhu and practically all the devotees had a, in today’s language you call it, they had an emergency meeting. You know, they called everyone, even Parvanand Puri came over there. Parvanand Puri, they all talked and they decided to engage him in some other way.
And they told that you have been travelling with Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. You know, please go to Mayapur and tell the devotees what all Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did. And then he got that service.
And then they told Chaitanya Mahaprabhu that we are sending him. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did not forbid that. He just heard it and he left it over there.
So, it is true that if somebody is in a major leadership position and then they have some fall, then it’s not that the fall is inconsequential. From the ultimate perspective of practising bhakti, the fall is inconsequential. They can always rise and start practising bhakti again.
But from the social perspective in this world, if there is a fall, there are consequences of that. And the consequences mean that we have to actually… certain people may not be… it may not be appropriate for them to do certain services. So that is understood.
Our decisions or our situations, they may disqualify us for certain services, certain specific services. But the principle of connecting with Krishna, that is something which no one can stop us. Does that answer the question? Any other questions? Yes, ma’am.
Yesterday you had mentioned, related to today, when I was trying to put together, that you said when the wrongdoing things happen in the religion, in place, then guilt should not come between you and Krishna. It should come between the wrongdoing and you, so then the wall will protect you. So, and then you explained that if you don’t have guilt between Krishna, then you can appeal.
Like Bhaktivinoda Thakur’s song that you showed us. So now I’m putting together today that it seems like a lot of householders, or people, those who are not in a position, to be honest, to pray that na dhanam na dhanam na sundarim, that I really don’t feel like everybody feels to genuinely pray that I want only you. So maybe my understanding is that the attraction for those things, separately from Krishna consciousness is what we are addressing there.
Okay, yeah, very good question. Very good point also, actually. See, is it that this na dhanam na dhanam na sundarim, can it be applied to everyone? Especially those in householder life, they are going to have these things.
Wealth is especially required and other things are also part of householder life. Yeah, so there is the aspiration for pure devotion. But there is also a process towards going to that level of pure devotion.
And what we need to do is follow the process. So just like an example, once I was giving a class, one devotee gave a class. And then this devotee was saying, you know, we should think that we can die at any moment.
Today might be my last day. This moment might be my last moment. The roof may fall and I may die.
Now the devotee’s whole class was, you know, basically all imaginative ways of describing how we will die at the next moment. Then one devotee, he asked a question, if I think that I am going to die today, I will think, why should I go to my office? Let me just stay in the temple and chant. So can I do it for the rest of my life? What does it mean practically? See, sometimes one aspect may be too overemphasised.
Okay, it’s possible that I may die today. But the point is that what can I do if I am going to die today? I have to absorb myself in Krishna. And there is a process for absorbing oneself in Krishna.
And the process is the process of Bhakti Yoga. Bhakti Yoga involves various ashrams. And in whatever ashram I am in, I do my duties according to that ashram and I will move onwards.
So it is not that just because I am going to die, that means I give up all activities and just start focussing only on Krishna. That’s not what I should be doing if I am in the Granth Ashram or whatever situation I am in. So, the important thing is, whenever we hear any such, like the idea that death may come any time or when we hear of nadhanam na janam sundarim, this is a principle.
So in the case of death, it is talking about how in this world everything can be destroyed. Therefore, we should go towards Krishna. In the case of nadhanam na janam sundarim, the idea is that, oh, I just don’t want anything else, I want only Krishna, which is an advanced state of devotion, towards which we want to go.
But irrespective of whether we want to go away from the material world or go towards Krishna, there is a process to be followed. And it is only by following that process that we can get there. So, we accept the principle of selfless devotion, of desiring only Krishna, but at our present level, we are not at that level.
So, as you rightly said, as devotees, what we should be doing is, Krishna should be our strongest desire. We cannot be at the level where Krishna is our only desire. But Krishna should be our strongest desire.
That means it becomes a competition between Krishna and wealth. Then it is not that I will give up Krishna and go after wealth. So, I may need the other things and I may have to get the other things also.
But I will not give up Krishna for these things. And as much as possible, I will try to integrate my journey towards Krishna with the pursuit of these things. And that is actually the Vedic path, dharma, artha, kama and moksha.
So, artha and kama, basically that means, these are purusha arthas which are on the way towards ultimately getting moksha. Now, of course, bhakti is higher than moksha. But I am talking about the progression that is there.
So, in artha and kama, dhana and yana sundari, all these are included. So, it’s not that we, when we have an aspiration, we aspire for something, that does not mean that we can immediately act on that level. So, the practical thing that we can do is, we can make Krishna our foremost desire.
Just like, I may say, I am not the body. But I cannot stop acting at the bodily level right now. So, and that is not what Krishna also expects.
If you see Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, 2.13 says that you are not the body. But right in the next verse, 2.14, Krishna refers to Arjuna using two bodily designations. Matras, Parshastu, Kaunteya, son of Kunti.
If I am not the body, then how am I the son of Kunti? He will ask, you know. Siddhavastu, sukha, dukkha, daha, agama, apayeno nityas, tam sthitikshasva bharata. Well, if I am not the body, how am I a descendant of the Bharata dynasty? So, Prabhupada explains there in the parpot, that actually these indicate that he is connected with exalted people.
And therefore, exalted lineage brings with it a responsibility to act properly. So, in principle, I accept that I am not the body. But in practise, I have to live in my relationship with my body.
So, then, these bodily relationships, they can inspire us to practise dharma. So, Arjuna, yes, to act at the spiritual level or to act in a way by which you can get spiritual realisation, that is not easy. But, you know, you are coming in a great dynasty.
Therefore, you can do this great thing. So, basically, our bodily designations, whichever they may be, they can be used to inspire us to go towards Krishna. We cannot suddenly reject all bodily designations.
So, similarly, bodily needs, bodily desires, they can be accommodated within the frame of bhakti. Does it answer your question? Yes, Madhu. Yeah.
I don’t think I have heard anything like that about those levels. The question is that whether the stages of bhakti, shraddha, sadhu-samga, bhajana-kriya, are they related with the verses of Shikshashtakam? I have not seen anything like that. And in one sense, this is more of an individual meditation.
It’s more of an individual meditation. So, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is in his own trance, he is absorbed in Krishna. So, that is more of an overall process with specific limbs within it.
So, it’s like Shikshashtakam, you are not going to talk about, say, you should drink Charanamrit, or you should worship the deity. Those are limbs of bhakti. But this is more of an evolution in terms of the evolution of consciousness.
So, it is not talking so much about specific aspects of bhakti. It’s talking more about the evolution of consciousness. You wanted to add something? Yeah, I heard Sri Bhakti Siddhanta Guru on Bhaktivedanta Maharaj also said that when someone, in the gradual progression, after Krishna vowed, that he started tasting it, then this Naradhanam Naradhanam is replicated, because he actually feels disgusted, this taste of his involvement with Naradhanam.
He regrets. And that can be correlated, yes. Naradhanam Naradhanam Sundarim will be, at that level we can say, is connected with the Nishtit Bhajan Kriya.
So, Shaddha, Sadhu Sangha, Bhajan Kriya, Anartha Nivrutti and Nishta. So, basically, when there is Anartha Nivrutti, then one can actually be at the level of Naradhanam Naradhanam Sundarim. So, that we can say is the Nishtit Bhajan Kriya, which is also called as Nishta.
And then from there onwards, you can go to the higher stages. Thank you. Yes.
You explained about Sadhana, Kshidra and Kripa Kshidra. To me, it seems like everything is Kripa Kshidra. How much Sadhana one can do to get Krishna’s blessings? The story of Ramanujacharya travelling with his followers, he washed his hands in a river and then one fish got 400 forms and went away.
So, that’s another follower complaint that we have been with you so long, we are not getting that form. I did not fully understand the explanation for that. Can you answer that? Okay.
So, ultimately, isn’t everything a matter of Kripa only? Now, when we talk about differentiating between Kripa Siddha and Sadhana Siddha. Yeah, I am repeating the question. So, there is Ramanujacharya’s story where he just washed his hands and some fish, they got the water which is filled with Mahaprasad and they took that and they got Vaikuntha forms.
They were liberated and his disciples, they said, we have been serving you and still we are in the material world. So, is it that Sadhana at all matters or is it simply Kripa that matters? Yeah, there are in different contexts, different things that are emphasised and we cannot take one particular pastime or one particular quote from scripture and make that an absolute principle. So, like yesterday I gave the example, the Bhagavad Gita is focussing more on engaged Bhakti, engaging in this world because that is what is required for Krishna’s cause of establishing Dharma.
That’s what Krishna wants Arjuna to do. On the other hand, the Bhagavatam talks more about renounced Bhakti because Parishad Maharaj is at the end of his life and it just focusses on wholehearted absorption in Krishna. So, the context determines quite a lot.
And certain pastimes may stress one aspect, other pastimes may stress another aspect. So, what is stressed in one particular pastime, we can look at the principle of that, not make that an absolute in itself. So, if we see that way, we could say ultimately it’s all mercy, that it’s only by mercy that we get elevated, we get liberated.
But then we see even the Acharyas themselves and their followers, they have worked very hard and it is appreciated. Prabhupada was once asked that, do you love all your disciples equally? And Prabhupada said, yes. But if someone comes forward to take responsibility, I reciprocate.
Someone comes forward to take responsibility, I reciprocate. So, that is natural. It’s like, say, there is a father who has a lot of property and the father has several children.
The father wants to give the property to all the children. But there might be some one child who is just like a loafer, just wasting money and going out here and there. The other son may be helping the father in the business.
Now, naturally, the father wants to give everything to his children. But a son who is assisting the father practically in the management of the business, management of the home, taking responsibility, naturally the father will have more affection. So, we have to recognise that Krishna has a mission in this world also.
That Krishna wants to have his message broadcast. Krishna wants to have people attracted in this world. And that requires endeavour.
So, now we see also Krishna says that those who broadcast this message, they are very near to me. So, our endeavour is something which is pleasing to Krishna. Because when we are willing to endeavour, then we become more usable instruments in Krishna’s hands.
Because if I am not ready to endeavour, then Krishna cannot use me much. So, if I want to become a teacher or I want to become a preacher, Krishna has to bless me. But at the same time I have to study scripture.
I have to understand the concepts. And then I can be used by Krishna. So, we cannot just neglect the role of endeavour in pleasing Krishna and in enabling us to become instruments in his hands.
So, and that if Krishna is pleased, if he assists him, naturally Krishna will reciprocate and bless us. So, in certain situations, certain pastimes are often given to highlight certain things. So, that particular pastime of Ramavacharya, just taking his Mahaprasad, fish taking his Mahaprasad and getting elevated.
What that indicates is the extraordinary potency of an Acharya’s mercy. Now, the association of Acharya, the mercy of Acharya, how extraordinarily potent that is. But yesterday also, I think day before yesterday I mentioned that we should not see the extraordinary as a substitute for the ordinary.
Because like Ajamil chanted once and got liberated, therefore I will also chant once and I will expect liberation. Now, we see the extraordinary not as a substitute for the ordinary process of bhakti, but rather as an inspirer for practising the ordinary process with greater devotion. So, in some extraordinary situations, mercy can elevate and liberate.
But what we see is when we see the potency of mercy over there, we become more inspired to practise the standard process of bhakti. By which we can become, we can actually assist Krishna in his mission and Krishna will grant his mercy to us. Does it answer your question? To a good extent.
I see that every statement in Krishna must be true. It is true, it is just that we have to find the right explanation to connect them. Correct.
So, here it is not fully understandable that how Krishna is impartial also. At the same time, there is Kripa Siddha phenomena happening, there is Samana Siddha phenomena happening. And there must be something more tying them together.
Is the Kripa Siddha an advertisement for the Sadhana Siddha? That it is the last stage, that somebody has followed the enough Sadhana and this is the last stage that we are seeing in that event? Okay, I got it, Krishna. So, how is Krishna impartial if he offers Kripa Siddhi to some and then he asks others to do Sadhana to get Siddhi? See, at one level, if we are going to talk about Krishna’s partiality, then we can talk about in the spiritual world also. There is one, in India, there is a spiritual teacher who gave a big talk that does God have favourites? Basically, the idea is that politicians have favouritism.
They have their own favourites. So, God has no favourites. God is impartial to all.
That is true for Krishna as the Paramatma. That is not true for Krishna as Bhagawan. For Krishna, Radharani is his favourite Gopi.
So, God also has his favourites. Krishna loves all flowers. Krishna loves all of nature but he puts a peacock feather on his face.
Krishna likes all instruments but he plays the flute. So, God has his personal nature and personal nature will also mean personal preferences. So, there is no meaning to personal nature if there are no personal preferences involved.
So, if we try to superimpose on Krishna the conception of impartiality in this world, then basically Krishna will be left with no personality. Isn’t it? Because every personal choice is a preference for something and preference for one thing means not preferring the other thing. Isn’t it? So, here how is this possible that Krishna is a person with his own preferences and at the same time he is impartial, he is universally accessible? That is by Krishna’s omnipotence.
That means that, say there are different Gopis and some Gopis are very intimately connected with Krishna. Some Gopis are serving Krishna from a distance. So, in our tradition, we follow the Manjaris.
So, the Gopis perform Leela with Krishna and the Manjaris observe Krishna perform Leela with the Gopis and the Manjaris get ecstasy. Now, Acharya has described that actually by observing the Leela of Krishna with the Gopis, the Manjaris get not the same amount of ecstasy but the Manjaris sometimes get more ecstasy also. So, how is that? That is Krishna’s omnipotence.
So, at the level of God as a person, he will have his preferences. And that’s what makes his personality concrete, real. But if we think of God only as a person, God is a person but he is an omnipotent person.
So, Krishna can be performing Leela with Radharani but he can be manifesting at the same time in the heart of another Gopi who is not in the Leela so close to Krishna. And that way that Gopi also gets enriched by Krishna’s presence. So, in that sense, we cannot impose material conceptions of partiality on Krishna.
So, what we understand is that in some exceptional cases Krishna may give Kripa Siddhi to some people. But the important thing is Krishna remains accessible to everyone. And if we practise Bhakti, he will also give us his mercy.
Does that answer your question? Yes, Guruji. Anyone else who has not asked? Yes, Guruji. Can we see in the same example of Ramanujacharya, can we see it from a different angle that, OK, his disciples actually get more mercy because they get the opportunity to serve.
Just like Lord Ramachandra, when he left, he left Hanuman to be thanked for service. So, in a sense, we can understand that Hanuman gets more mercy than all the other Ayurvedic ascetics who went back with him. And we see things in that way.
Yeah, that’s also a nice way of looking at it. So, can I say that Ramanujacharya’s associates, they are getting the opportunity to serve and the fish are not getting that opportunity. So, in that sense, they are also getting the, they are also getting special mercy.
Yes, there is that very beautiful pastime of Prabhupada with one of his servants. I don’t know who it was. Basically, you know, wherever Prabhupada would go, the devotees would be receiving at the airport, dancing in kirtans and many of them would have tears.
And Prabhupada would arrive, they would be in tears. When Prabhupada would be leaving, they would be in tears. One servant of Prabhupada, he asked Prabhupada, you know, all these devotees, they have so much bhakti for you that they are in tears just by seeing you.
Prabhupada, I am always with you, but I am never in tears. I don’t get any tears at all. Prabhupada just smiled and he said, but you are serving me.
So, you are serving me. So, tears are nice. We will talk about sentiments in the next talk.
But the important thing is our relationship with Krishna is based on service. So, if you think of liberation only as, the essence of liberation is not just a relocation. It is not that somehow if somebody gets into the spiritual world, they are liberated.
If somebody is not having the disposition to serve, in the spiritual world they will be miserable. What to do? Everybody is serving Krishna, everybody is talking about Krishna. Suppose say now the soccer season is going on and suddenly we find ourselves in a soccer stadium.
Everybody is talking about soccer and we have no interest in soccer. We will feel bored over there. What to do here, isn’t it? So, like that, if somehow we are taken to the spiritual world, but if we have not developed attraction to Krishna, we will be out of place over there.
But if you have developed a disposition to serve Krishna, then even in this world also we can experience Krishna. And then as we go back to the spiritual world, so basically liberation is more a change of disposition than a change of location. It is not just going from here to there.
It is actually turning our heart from this world to Krishna. More a change of disposition than a change of location. And that change of disposition is what happens by our practise of bhakti.
So thank you very much. We’ll meet at 11.30, 11.35, in 20 minutes. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna, Guruji. Welcome back to the Monks Podcast. Hare Krishna.
Good to be back always in good kitha with you, Chaitanya Charanjeevi. You have helped me to appreciate how expansive the understanding of katha can be. How expansive, how inclusive it can be.
You’re a good katha partner, Chaitanya Charanjeevi. So you do the same for me. I’m grateful to your service and to Religious Association.
So you could say today’s episode is by popular demand or by popular request. Very good. I thought today we could discuss on the topic of vaccination.
Now, what would be a Gita perspective on that? And broadly, there are some devotees who are opposed to it in a quite strong way with various kinds of concerns. And there are others who are supportive of it. And like in every issue, we have the whole spectrum.
Some are having genuine concerns from both sides. Some are having their extremist shrill voices. So it is somewhat of a polarising topic.
So I thought broadly of a three part framework. You can suggest also how we could go at it. First is that does spirituality or spiritual wisdom provide us instructions on every issue or does it provide us insights for us to decide various issues? That is one aspect of it.
That means can different devotees have different opinions on the same issue and still be devotees of faithfully following scripture? So that was one topic we could discuss broadly. Then we could discuss specifically about vaccines. And then we can talk about how overall we can have a respectful difference of opinion on issues.
So that was a broad framework, I thought. If you have something else in mind, I’m happy to take it that way also. Sounds good to me.
Yes. So regarding the first point, I’ll start with the experience where generally, when we start off in the practise of bhakti, it’s almost as if you’re told, stop thinking for yourself because you are speculating and just follow scripture. And there is also the understanding, maybe the articulated or not articulated, but the understanding that scripture speaks in one voice on all issues.
And there is one true understanding and others are wrong understandings. So I was with one senior Vaishnava and he told me something very striking. This was about 15 years ago.
He said, I’ll be happier if there are more honest disagreements in our movement. More honest and express disagreements. I said, I’m surprised.
But then aren’t we to cooperate? Shouldn’t we be working together? He says, yes, we have to work together, but we can’t work together unless we are honest with each other. And we have to, we can have different opinions. So then he gave me a simple example that.
So at that time, the issue was, actually, the background was that this particular Vaishnava, the senior Vaishnava in our movement, he, so at that time, India was going to go through elections and there was a lot of concerns about protecting Indian national Indian culture and other things. So there was this question, should devotees vote or not? So I had made a video saying that devotees can see voting as a social responsibility. It is not a spiritual responsibility in the sense that chanting Hare Krishna is a spiritual responsibility.
We have to do it. Social responsibility means that, yes, it is a part of our aparadharma and every devotee can use their intelligence and decide how to do it. And then this devotee had made a video saying that elections, voting in elections is not a social responsibility.
Actually, establishing Varanashram is a social responsibility. And to think that we will be fulfilling our responsibilities by social responsibility by participating in elections, this just indicates that one doesn’t understand Shastra at all. So at that time, then some of that spiritual leader’s followers started criticising me, saying that, you know, you are, why are you talking about dabbling in mundane politics? I said, no, I am not dabbling in mundane politics.
I am just giving an informed scriptural vision for devotees to take decisions. So then I wrote to him and he said that, some of your followers are almost haranguing me, saying that you are offending a senior spiritual master and you are… I said, no, I am not opposing him because I spoke first and then he spoke something after that. And that time I found he was remarkably broad-minded.
So then he even made a video about it and he said that, you know, if somebody says tomorrow that meat-eating is alright, then I will say that that is wrong. Meat-eating, especially somebody, devotee practising Bhakti, they say that is wrong. But there are various issues on which different devotees can come from different perspectives.
So even after that video was made, still the idea was that somebody so senior is taking one position, what right do you have to take some other position? So you should just accept that. But I was very appreciative that in one sense, sometimes the followers become more narrow-minded than the leader. And they may think of as normative something which the leader himself may not take as normative.
So that was my first experience. And then as I started travelling abroad and I started meeting devotees from various parts of the world, I just realised it’s one of the adventures to discover how much diversity is there in Krishna Consciousness. So that’s just my contextualisation.
You can share your thoughts. Yes, I appreciate your observations and your remarks. And as usual, I’m getting from you, I think, a very balanced view and appreciative of the very gatedness of views you can get from devotees.
Now, I think there are certain things to consider here. So the Gita, if we start with the Bhagavad Gita, one of the tacit but most powerful teachings of the Gita is that the outer world will always pose conflicts, forms of suffering and painful kinds of situations. I mean, there’s no getting around it.
This is what the outer world is designed to do. There will never be a perfect solution to any social and ethical issues. Never.
Now, and of course, that’s what Arjuna found out. Now, Arjuna himself became so distracted by the painful situation in front of him, he forgot who Krishna was. Oh, beautiful.
Now, this is my concern. In the process of engaging in Shastra Shastra, weaponising Shastra. That’s a beautiful way of putting it, weaponising.
Shastra Shastra. Okay. The weapon of Shastra, the weapon of scripture.
That’s not what scripture is for. We’re not supposed to use it against each other. But rather, we’re here to share different understandings.
And this is what you were saying earlier, too, to share, to come together and explore diverse views, not to use Shastra to alienate one another from each other, to alienate each other. This is not what Shastra is for. And as far as understanding Shastra.
You know, this depends on whether we take to Shastra in a Kanishka approach or a Madhyama approach or Uttama approach. Now, you know, you don’t have to be an Uttama Adhikari to take to Shastra in an Uttama approach, just like when you do deity worship. You’re performing that deity worship as an Uttama.
These are the Uttama actions in relation to a deity. Now, whether you, your person is able to rise to that fully or not, well, that will vary. But we don’t, we’re uncompromising when we do deity worship.
We should be just as uncompromising when we go to Shastra. And we should help one another, just like a more elderly Pujari will help a younger Pujari, you know, rise to the occasion more and take to the practise of deity worship more profoundly, more thoroughly and more accurately. So also older Vaishnavas, more experienced and realised Vaishnavas should lend their own visions and help younger devotees, less experienced devotees to rise to an Uttama understanding.
So don’t think you have to wait till you’re an Uttama Adhikari to have an Uttama approach to Shastra. That’s beautiful. So in a sense, we can go beyond our Adhikar by our association or our guidance.
Yes. And even with our intelligence. So let’s say I come to you, Chaitanya Charan, and I say, you know, no one should, you know, according to Shastra, the way I see it is no one should sit in front of a curtain.
This is very dangerous. It’s very dangerous. OK, you will attract all kinds of pretas and bhutas and paschachas and so on.
And, you know, and this now, let’s say I and then I start judging you. Chaitanya Charan is mixing with the bhutas and the pretas and the paschachas. OK, and then I just go, I just go crazy.
Because I’m very insecure about it. Now, if I can exercise the intelligence and say, look, Garuda, you’re you’re relating to Chaitanya Charan as a Kanishka. You’re very narrow.
So enquire from him why he has a curtain behind. He might have a good reason. You know, so in other words, there’s if something sparks dialogue and enquiry and respect, then this is Madhyama.
This is Madhyama. OK, so then and then beyond that, one can hope for an understanding and and not stop until and keep seeking until one understands something. In in full, as much as possible in totality.
So maybe I need to talk to other people about curtains and the value of curtains and so on. Now, forgive me for the example. OK, but but the idea is that we should be training devotees.
Educating devotees doesn’t mean that we have to understand everything that Shastra says, because that’s impossible anyway. But rather how to approach Shastra, not not give it giving the impression that we now are understanding Shastra at a certain level, not go to another level, but rather it’s how to approach Shastra. It’s a little it’s subtle.
It’s different than knowing Shastra. It’s how to approach Shastra in many ways is more valuable than how much you know of Shastra. In a sense, it is sometimes said that the questions we are asking are more important than the answers we are having.
That’s right. In fact, answers sounds very finite. You know, it’s been answered.
Something’s been answered. But rather there’s something infinite about what we get from Shastra and it’s it’s never ending. And ultimately, this is a sign of prema where it never ends.
The mystery of the other, the mystery of divinity. We are endlessly plunging into that because we’re drawn and attracted endlessly. Now, that’s a very high level.
But but we should be open to that. We should be taught to be open to that, even if we’re not there. Education.
So now just allow this point that in a sense, when you say I have the answer, it is the end of curiosity, whereas questions keep us in the learning mood. But aren’t there some some level of limits, say, for example, that if I consider that Krishna is God. Now, there can be a question of how Krishna is God, how Krishna is so wonderful as God.
But aren’t some questions, don’t some questions have settled answers for one to be to have a to have commitment to one’s spiritual path or to commitment to one’s own social roles and responsibilities? Yes. Yes. Very good.
You see, enquiry. Put a pressure, put a pressure, not just pressure, put a pressure. All kinds of enquiry.
Is an extension of Shravanam. If you’re not asking questions, you’re not hearing deeply enough. A symptom of.
Of of. Lesser Shravanam is that you’re not is you’re not asking questions. That’s amazing.
So by way of extension, Shravanam, even though you’re speaking Shravanam, the extension of Shravanam is to enquire, as in the verse, you know, 434. Pariprasna. Pariprasna.
It’s absolutely necessary. So you’re saying that even if there are settled answers to some issues, but still our process is hearing, say, even if you accept Krishna as God, our process is to keep hearing about Krishna. And if you’re hearing, then naturally questions will come.
Right. And if the questions are not coming, then we are not really hearing. If all you’re doing is chanting, if all you’re doing is preaching and you’re not hearing, something’s very off.
Every bit of preaching has to be counterbalanced with hearing. If your hearing has stopped, if your enquiring has stopped and all you’re doing is preaching. Be careful.
That’s so true. And even in a practical sense, actually, I have found that after that, if I give a class before the class or after the class, when I hear from the organisers and the audience, then I understand how well I did my service or how I can do my service better. So even if I’m not learning philosophy from them, but hearing from them actually helps me.
And if I say I’ll only speak, then I really may not be able to do my service better, improve my service. That’s right. So now this, this is beautiful and we discussed this to some extent in an earlier talk, when we mentioned that how the enlightened keep enlightening each other in that Chatur Shloki, Mudha and Bodhayantaha.
That’s right. Going on. Now, this is, it’s clear to understand that this is about spiritual subject matters about Krishna and about devotion and Krishna Tattva, Krishna Leela.
Now, when we talk about more matters connected with the world, so how do we approach this? Because in one sense, these issues are quite, at one level, every issue can be very complex. We may say that a particular issue is, this is an easy answer, but like say for some people, they may say vaccines. Yeah, if you have a vaccine, take it.
You will be protected from the disease. But if you go deeper into it, then there are many issues. So even every subject in the material world, once you start studying it, it becomes more and more complex.
And as devotees, we have finite time and energy. How much do we get involved in issues like this? Say, for example, if there are elections is coming up, then which party should we vote for? Now, we want to enquire about that. But then there is a whole universe of politics which can become like a black hole and consumers.
The black hole is what I was referring to earlier by Arjuna’s quandary. In the second half of the first chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna shows how complex that issue was. He talks about what will happen if we win the war, what will happen if we lose the war.
Maybe I should die. I’m not sure I want to live. Maybe I’ll let them kill me.
What use is there a kingdom? He went into all the complexities in light of Western philosophical categories. He suddenly went through and wore out the four major positions, ethical positions in Western philosophy of ethics, which is the utilitarian ethics, virtue ethics, intuitionist ethics, and deontological ethics. All four types of ethical positions were worn out.
And this is the point, Chaitanya Charanjee. This world will never have perfect answers. That’s the whole teaching of the Gita.
Arjuna, I’m going to translate in a few words the whole teaching of Krishna to Arjuna in this regard, though, on this level. Arjuna, you’re trying to figure out a perfect solution right here in this battlefield, this battlefield of the outer world. There are no perfect solutions.
Be a yogi. Go inside. Address the outer world issues with what you most sincerely and truly and deeply understand is the right thing for you to do.
Notice that Arjuna didn’t go to the rest of the Pandavas and say, oh, you know what? Here, you should do it this way because I realised that I should that I should do it this way. He wasn’t he wasn’t imposing his own yogic exploration into himself on others. It was what was the right thing for him to do.
So that’s what we devotees do. I love this idea of, you said, go deep within to explore what you truly understand. What you deeply, sincerely, truly understand is the right thing to do.
And then do that. That’s quite, we could say, a very attractive reading of 1863, where Krishna tells Arjuna, deliberate and do as you desire. Yes, but notice going up a note, Chaitanya Sharma noticed that it was it took Krishna all the way to the 18th chapter to tell him, now you choose.
Because he was extremely well informed for 16 other chapters. He was in a place of knowledge, but he was in a place of realisation. But here you are referring to Arjuna.
Yes. So, in other words, Arjuna received 16 chapters of teachings first. And then Krishna could say, now you choose.
You see, you can’t choose if you’re ignorant. You will be forced to act according to your conditioning. You’ll be forced to act according to the gunas.
But now you can choose. Let’s say, you know, I’m drinking alcohol. And I’m drunk.
How much choice do I have of even how to walk? When we get drunk with outer world events. So drunk and intoxicated by outer world events to the point where we lose our inner world of devotion. We don’t have any choice in the matter.
We’re acting according to or by the force of the gunas here. And a sign of that force is by judging others, being forceful, being insistent and not engaging any kind of real spiritual knowledge. That’s beautiful.
You know, I never thought of the Gita in this perspective. So. If I may just re-articulate what you said.
So Arjuna, he analysed how complex the situation is and he got lost in the complexity. So when that happened, Krishna helped him figure things out by giving him, not just specifically addressing the issue, but by giving him resources to go deep within, understand himself, understand what really matters in life, what really matters for him. And then after providing him those resources, he told him, now you can make a decision yourself.
Yes. Two hours, two hours of teaching from the Lord himself. Beautiful.
I mean, Arjuna even forgot who Krishna was. He fell into a stupor. Yes.
I love it. On his chariot. He sat on his chariot, threw his bow down.
And then, you know, in the beginning of the second chapter, he began to consider, oh, you know, I mean, I’ve been, you know, Krishna’s been a dear friend. He’s been my confidant, hearing the contents of my shattered heart. Maybe he can guide me.
And then it’s not until the fourth chapter. That Krishna says, by the way, you know, you do know that, by the way, let’s. He didn’t start by saying, oh, by the way, I’m the Supreme Lord and you do what I say to do.
No. Krishna’s not a dictator. He wants to bring out of us what what our true hearts desires are.
Beautiful. So he didn’t write, you know, the Chaitanya Charanjee, you know, the Gita up and down. Chapter four is where he really starts talk declaring himself as the divinity.
The very divinity about whom he’s speaking. And the different levels at which divinity works, the Ishwara level, the Paramatman level, the Brahman level and so on. So Krishna is reminding Arjuna of these higher states.
Of his inner world and innermost world of the heart. Now you make a decision. Now that you’re no longer distracted by the two armies assembled.
On the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Now you make a decision. It’s significant to know that to make a decision about the issue, in a sense, Krishna took Arjuna away from the issue.
Because that’s right. Very little discussion about the ethics of the war directly. That’s right.
So the decision is not just based on a situation, but decision is based more on self-understanding. That’s right. The Gita focusses on that.
That’s right. And there’s a reason why Christians didn’t dwell on the outer world situation in which they found themselves. Is because that situation repeats itself over and over and over and over and over and over and over.
It never stops, Chaitanya Charanjee. This is we’re always left with irresolvable ethical dilemmas in everything we do in the outer world. There are always, you know, you know, disadvantages and advantages.
There are always pros and cons. It’s never perfect. Krishna says it’s either, you know, like fire covered by a little smoke as beautiful as fire is.
There’s a little bit of smoke there, right? And then, of course, dust on a mirror or, you know, of course, it can get very dark as an embryo in a womb. So, I mean, just that’s the way things are in this world. Different levels of light and darkness.
And that’s always going to be the case. But the one thing we can do, apart from the shades of light and darkness, is go inside. Find the purity.
Know ourselves. Work from a place of knowledge. Act from knowledge.
And I mean not just knowledge in general, but I mean self-knowledge and divine self-knowledge. Beautiful. So, now, quite often within the way Bhakti is understood, the Gita is understood, the focus is more on seeking outer instruction and less on seeking, say, our innermost core.
Although we say we have to go to the, we want to realise our soul, but we also understand that in between them is our mind. And our mind is untrustworthy. It is the enemy.
So, often the idea is that you just follow instructions. You will become purified and then eventually you will be able to connect with yourself. That’s right.
But that eventually sometimes gets postponed almost to a level where it never comes. But that has to, ultimately we all have to live our own lives. We can’t have guidance from somebody else all the time.
So, yeah. Well, there is the Guru. There is Guru.
There is the external, the Bahir Guru. And then, of course, the Antar Guru, the Chaita Guru. So, in one sense, a Bhakta is different than other people because there is guidance all the time.
It’s a question of whether we take it or not. When we leave that guidance, it’s like Sita. When we step over the line like Sita did in Lakshman’s circle, then we’re going to be, we’re going to be fooled.
We’re going to have the Ravana’s come in disguise. Yeah. And you can say that actually when stepping over the line, one aspect of it could be also just discontinuing the process that connects us with ourselves.
So, staying within the line just doesn’t mean external conformity. We could say staying inside the line means more of, we could say, inner connectivity. We are connecting with ourselves.
Beautifully put. Yes. With our true selves.
And the reason why the mind can be an enemy is because it’s the repository of all this conditioning that we’ve had. The stuff that you had and I had before we became committed devotees. All the stuff, the conditioning of society, the conditioning of brothers and sisters, of parents, conditioning of schools, conditioning of the social norms in which we found ourselves within a culture and all this stuff.
But who are we as bhaktas? Who are we with purified hearts? Who are we when we feel the love and desire of Krishna for our hearts? Who are we when we actually respond to Krishna’s embrace? That’s the person that needs to move out into the world and make a decision from that, rather than from the mind’s thick walls of conditioning. That’s beautiful. And to some extent, till we get there, we need guidance.
Yes. But simultaneously, we should be striving to think for ourselves. Yes.
Can you just differentiate roughly between the thinking for ourselves and what is called speculating? Right. Right. Yeah.
So speculating is to work from a place of a conditioned understanding and to suppose things from it, to work out of, to act out of realisation and to act from true guidance, means that you’ve gone through the very process through which Arjuna himself went. Arjuna did this for all of us, not just for him. He did it for all of us.
So before you tell me, take the vaccine, don’t take the vaccine, read all 16 chapters of instruction or 16 and a half, 17, whatever, however you count all the verses, read all 575 verses of Krishna. OK, read all 575 verses of Krishna and then come back to me and tell me what you really, really think. And if after that two people come with opposing opinions, that is fine.
But without that, then it’s just and it’s just going to be increasing acrimony. Well, you see, they won’t have opposing opinions. If they are.
As you said at the beginning of our session, if they are truly being honest, now part of honest discussion is asserting things that you can truly assert with certainty and not and without exaggeration and hyperbole. And and, you know, when this this expression that Prabhupada used puffed up. Well, you know, I don’t know exactly how that expression came into being, but let me tell you how I interpret it.
When an animal like a cat is in a corner and the cat is feeling fear and like anticipating attack. The fur of the cat. Stands on end at a fear and puff.
It gets puffed up and makes you think that it’s a much bigger animal than it really is. The devotees do this with the philosophy. He’s a demon.
He’s trying to destroy that. I’ve heard devotees say this, but other devotees. He’s a demon.
He’s come to destroy the movement. He’s a Ravana in the guise of a mendicant. You know now you see that that’s that’s puffed up.
You see, first of all, somehow they have this incredible knowledge of who exactly this devotee is and what his secret mission is and how, you know, demonic forces have sent him. Wow, that’s an incredible vision that he does not have. It’s out of fear and that’s the puffed up.
The cat is not actually that big. But he wants to appear that big out of fear. That’s puffed up.
Beautiful. I never thought of it that way. Puffed up.
I think there is a vivid image. There are some things which we hear and we struggle to remember. And there are some things which we hear and then we can never forget them.
So this image of a cat expanding. That’s amazing. So Chaitanya Charanjee, you know that whenever you agree to talk with me in your forum here, that you’re going to hear things that are going to be a little new and challenging, but hopefully helpful and illuminating.
And, you know, again, devotees have to be concerned that we don’t get puffed up out of fear and then try to make grandiose statements that are frankly dishonest. Chaitanya Charanjee, they’re dishonest. Even in appreciation, there can be dishonest statements.
Rather, an honest statement is, I have such affection for Chaitanya Charanjee. I experience such pure dealings with Chaitanya Charanjee. Now, that’s honest.
That to say that Chaitanya Charanjee is, you know, a pure devotee, you know, should have bucked up or to say that he’s a demon because I don’t like his views. He is a demon. This is puffed up.
I am saying more than I can actually say. I’m trying to expand myself like that cat. Beautiful.
Making my enemy think that I’m bigger than I am to scare them away as a defence. Puffed up. Actually, it’s a paradigm altering understanding of puffed up.
So you are saying it need not be just out of ego. It could also be out of fear. So usually puffed up is associated with ego.
And if there is an ego in it, certainly that I think I know more than what I do. But why am I claiming like that? It is because of fear. That’s right.
And I have seen this that for some devotees that if there is something which is the foundation of their faith and that may not be exactly the core of the faith in an objective sense, but when that is questioned, they just can’t deal with it. And so we can, I think there is a quote attributed to Bhakti Sahasrathi Thakur, which I have not seen it till now. It’s something like aggressive intellectualism even in the service of Shastra is a form of atheism.
So that means if somebody is like just out to dismiss everyone, it’s echoing what you’re saying, what you said in the beginning Shastra Shastra, weaponising scripture. That’s exactly what he’s saying. So now going back when you said that if somebody actually studies the Bhagavad Gita and then approaches the issue of vaccine, so are you saying that two devotees may not have different opinions or those different opinions will not lead to them attacking each other? Because they won’t be making unwarranted claims.
That’s right. If they’re honest, they will say, well, I’ve come to the decision that not getting the vaccine is my most sincere move in relation to this issue. But I cannot honestly say what is best for you.
Oh, for me, I know what is best that you cannot speak absolutely in a non absolute realm. That’s that’s a fallacy. You can’t you can’t speak absolutely.
And I absolutely mean this. So you absolutely cannot speak absolutely about things that are in a non absolute realm. OK, I’ll just summarise it that way.
So, OK, let’s put it this way, two ways. So I I can make a decision and maybe I can communicate my decision to others also. And I can explain how I have arrived at this decision.
Yes. If somebody asks, what is the reasoning I have used? But I don’t have the right to insist that this is the only understanding. That’s what I mean by absolute.
That’s right. And then I can also oppose if somebody claims that their understanding is the absolute understanding. But if somebody if they just take this is what I am going to do and this is what you are going to do.
That is that is fine. This is my reasoning. That is their reasoning.
And we may even question each other’s reasonings. So we may question each other’s reasoning, but in one sense, we want to avoid, say, ad hominem attacks over here. That’s what happens when you said earlier about this devotee is Ravana in the garb of its.
We’re not actually dealing with the argument. We’re just demonising the person. That’s right.
That’s right. So when a person arrives at this position, there is at a particular position by one’s understanding. So are there some demarcations about if we are a part of a movement? Now the movement can mean many things.
It can be referred to an institution specifically. It can also refer to a broader tradition that we are a part of, whatever we want to be. Then what all things can we expect it to tell us if I am an individual member of a devotee, in the devotee community? So the GBC past, GBCEC made a statement where they were, where it is more or less non-committal.
They said, Prabhupada asked us to take care of our health and everybody can deliberate and decide what to do. And we asked devotees to be well informed about it. And there is no injunction from the GBC in this regard.
So before this had happened, the GBC SPT, the strategic planning team, they had hosted a couple of devotees, and I know both of them very well, who were pro-vaccine. And they said, we are not pro-vaccine, I am only telling the facts. So, which is fine, but then there are always arguments on the other side.
So now, I would say that, that seemed to create the perception that the GBC was saying that we have to take vaccines. But then the GBC qualified that, GBCEC made that statement. And overall, it’s ultimately up to a devotee to decide.
So, but in general, are there some decisions that are more or less given for us? Say for example, if I go to a place where meat is being served, I’ll say, no, I won’t take that. That’s my decision. But more or less, you can say, I don’t even have to think much about the decision.
It’s something that is given to me. But where do these boundaries lie? And does each individual decide those boundaries? Or how does one move ahead? Is it too vague a question? No, we can take it a bit at a time. Of course, in practical ways, each devotee will want to be as knowledgeable as possible on a practical level.
When you purchase a car, you know, you want it to work. I mean, no one purchases a car, no matter whether it works or not. Now, for a car to work, we’re, of course, trusting, well, science.
Science has found a way to make, in my case, I have an electric car. I’ve gotten away from gasoline cars, electric. So, you know, I’m riding in the car from here, point A to point B. I’m trusting science that it will carry my body safely from point A to point B. We do this when we get into a plane.
That is true. Now, Prabhupada would often tap the microphone. See this microphone? This is spiritual.
Because we’re using it in Krishna’s service. This is spiritual. You turn the material into the spiritual.
This kind of spiritual alchemical process, so to speak, so to speak, right? So it’s a transformational process. We turn things in this world into something that is spiritualised by virtue of the fact that we have chosen to use it in the service of Krishna. If someone doesn’t believe that they can make use of a vaccine in the service of Krishna, then they’re not qualified to even get it in the first place.
Or they’re just not. I mean, look, Chaitanya Charanjee, there are things in this world that I don’t know how to use in Krishna’s service. But there are things, so I use them.
If you have a house. Okay. You know, it’s possible for a homeowner to experience termites.
Termites, okay, yes. Now, termites can literally eat away at the foundation of a house where the whole house collapses. Now, I either have an option to ignore the termite problem.
And say, that’s not so bad. The termites will get, you know, discouraged or turn away. Or I can address the termite situation and say, I’m going to have to get rid of the termites.
Because it will destroy my whole home. And believe me, they do destroy all homes. Well, the vaccine is like a termite problem.
You can either hope that you won’t get termites, so you can do without the inspections. And you may never get termites. Or you can prevent termites from coming, which could be devastating to your house.
And be secure in the idea that the house will never be destroyed by the termites. You might have a little termite problem, but nothing much. So it’s a gamble either way.
You know, you can go ahead and say, look, I’m not going to do anything for termite prevention. Or I’m going to do some things for termite prevention. Because I can see how prevalent termites are in homes.
So, you know, you can either, you see, it’s a choice. And if you never get termites, well, fantastic. So I’m trying to understand.
So the two things you said, one is the principle of Yukta Vairagya that we need to have enough knowledge at least to know how to use something in Krishna’s service. And then you’re talking with example of termites to say about how, you know, our actions do have consequences and we need to be informed. So you deal with the problem of termites or you can just presume that it won’t be there.
And if you’re lucky, good. If you’re not, then it’ll be a big trouble. Yes.
So here’s the problem, Chetan and Charanji. To pretend that termites don’t exist. Now, that’s a problem.
Now, that’s a problem. See, now you’re not in the real world. Okay.
So how are you relating this with vaccines or are you just laying a background? So in other words, if you pretend that, like, for example, I’ve heard one devotee’s characterisation of the pandemic as scam-demic. It’s a scam. The whole thing is fake.
There is no virus. That’s like saying there are no termites, but there are termites. Darn it.
There are termites and there are houses that have been destroyed by termites. Now, if you understand realistically that there are termites and they are dangerous. And they can literally topple your home.
Or in the case of vaccine, you know, take your body away from you. If you understand that and you understand that, well, maybe if I build my house in an area where there are less termites. Or that I could do certain things that would prevent exposure to termites.
Like put, you know, salt around the house or like wear a mask for the vaccine. One has to be real about what is there. The fact is hospitals are overflowing with COVID patients.
I mean, that’s a fact. Now, you know, if you don’t believe it, then go visit some of these hospitals. And go see the makeshift, you know, tents that they have for sick patients.
I mean, go see it for yourself. Now, if you want to just pretend that now the whole thing is fake and I’m not going to check it out. See, but that’s ignorance.
You are literally ignoring reality. So, Prabhu, I appreciate the reasoning. If you will allow me, I’ll play the purvapaksha over here a little bit.
Please, please be the purvapaksha. That if you say go and see the hospitals, see the extent, well, ultimately we are trained that prateksha pramana is not reliable. And there could be an elaborate conspiracy to deceive us.
So the very idea that you’re saying go and see that indicates deviation from scriptural norm. So, now, of course, I can myself argue against it. It might seem ridiculous.
But nobody lives like that. We do rely on scripture, rely on our eyes also, at least for the basic function of surviving. So my understanding is that prateksha pramana is not reliable for getting transcendental knowledge.
But for basic survival and functioning in the world, it is essential. Yes. I had an argument with a devotee.
If you don’t, if you say your senses are not reliable, then just make yourself blind. There you go. That’s right.
So that is that is not true, of course. But the point is that. So what you are saying is, OK, let me put it this way.
That sometimes when we turn toward Krishna and we, in a sense, reject the world, the rejects the world’s promises, the world’s pleasures. So that can lead to overreaction in terms of not just rejecting the anti-spiritual parts of the world, but rejecting almost everything in the world. And we may think of that rejection, that aggressive rejection, condemnation, demonization as a sign of our faith in Krishna.
You know, I don’t believe in the scientists. I don’t believe in these people. I don’t believe in this.
I believe only in Krishna. So it is in one sense, it might be seen as a sign of it might be a person. I think it is a sign of my firm faith in Krishna.
But isn’t there something else going on psychologically over here? Yes. Yes. See, this is puffed up.
What’s happening is they are puffing up their level of faith. Because they’re lacking it. Oh, OK.
So lacking faith in what in this context? They’re overcompensating. You know, there are there are some churches in the Appalachian Mountains here in the US. There’s some, you know, these are very, you know, old time mountain folk that are kind of out of touch with reality.
And they have these Christian churches and they go through these these frenzied services and they take poisonous snakes. And the priest takes a poisonous snake and but allows it to bite one of the the congregants. And if the congregant survives the poisonous snake, that means they had faith.
And if they died. And that means they didn’t have enough faith. Is this legal? My God, it’s in the country.
You know, who’s going to follow up on it? You know, my God, that’s. Yeah. Yeah.
So, you know, I say if you have faith, I say run in the middle of a busy four lane traffic. The street and see if you get hit. If you have faith.
That surely you will not get hit. You see the. You see, you see, this is.
You’re using the outer world. As something that starts pushing toward an impersonalistic conception of divinity. Let me put it this way.
Shankerites ignore the validity of the physical world, the phenomenal world. They say it doesn’t exist. Oh, OK.
So to to to to sort of discount. The outer world of any kind of veracity of this is simply hypocritical because on the one hand, they are they are driving in vehicles. They are flying in planes and they are making sure they don’t have termites in their house.
Yeah. No one wants to live in a house of termites. Believe me.
So when when there’s a bug attacking this house, this is a house. This is a temple. Oh, now I’m getting the example.
Beautiful example. This is the temple. So the Corona virus is a termite for the temple.
Not the temple. That’s beautiful. That’s right.
So obviously we want to sustain the temple as much as possible, even though it’s it’s in the phenomenal world. So, you know, you need to decide. But with practical and realistic understanding of what’s going on out there.
Science. The fact is, we live with science all over the place. Right now, I’m talking to you through science.
True. So you know what? Chaitanya Charanji, I don’t actually believe you’re at the other end of this. I think this is a hoax.
I think science has intervened and put something over there that looks like Chaitanya Charan, responds like Chaitanya Charan. But it ain’t Chaitanya Charan. But this is not.
Come on. Science has, you know, Prabhupada says, you know, kick boot on science. He does only with regard to the scientific worldview that thinks that everything is material.
But we’re making the same mistake when we say everything is spiritual. This is ridiculous. This these material concerns don’t exist.
We’re doing exactly what science is doing. In the bad sense. OK, yes.
So I appreciate what you’re saying in principle. So certainly I just try to flesh it out a little bit. We can say in principle that there are scamsters and we could say going back to the pandemic as a scamdemic.
Yeah, there can always be self-interested people who will be trying to make money out of the pandemic. They may be trying to grab power out of it. So that there might be scams associated with the pandemic.
It’s almost inevitable because in this world there will always be exploitative people. And the scams can happen even in good things, what to speak of in disasters. That’s right.
So maybe there could be some questions about the extent of it, some questions about the right approach to deal with it. So one thing. So, OK, whether vaccine is the best way to deal with the pandemic, that’s a valid question.
But to say that the pandemic itself is not there, the whole thing is a scam. That is just, you could say, almost putting the blinders on oneself. That’s right.
It’s like saying General Motors doesn’t really make cars. It’s interesting. And they’re making money on those cars.
Darn it. You buy into the car thing, you’re going to be charged all kinds of money. Look at that scam.
It’s they make cars just to get your money. Oh, yeah. It’s called business.
Of course, they’re going to make money. But you do get a car to suddenly when it comes to covid and the vaccine, suddenly that’s not real. Suddenly it’s a huge rip off.
So let’s try to put it to say if we consider the issue of covid and ways to deal with it. So one extreme is to say that it is the whole thing is a scam. It’s a whole rip off.
I think that is something which doesn’t really deserve much intellectual analysis because I don’t think thoughtful people are going to accept that. And those who accept that are not going to listen to anybody else. That’s right.
So beyond that, often there is a tendency. And I think this is like an intellectual, it is an intellectual shortcut to simplify or even to caricature the opposing position to the most, to the weakest position or to the weakest limb in their position. So, for example, right now, say, if overall our tenor is that, yeah, science does work in its own ways.
And if there is a vaccine, there are means to treat termites and so there are means to treat the virus and we take it. Now, this can very easily be characterised or caricatured as an uncritical endorsement of science. So somebody says, I saw a cartoon on Facebook where somebody says, you know that Prabhupada said that scientists are XYZ.
But these devotees are saying that scientists will save you. So follow the scientists. So we are not saying that, isn’t it? We are not recommending an uncritical acceptance of scientific authority also.
Right. And ultimately, I like the point also that everything is material if we say, everything is illusion. If Krishna acts, if Krishna’s jurisdiction is everywhere, can’t Krishna act through the scientists? Can’t the Paramatma give the scientists some insights about how to cure people? Krishna also says in the Bhagavad Gita, I am the healing herb.
Yeah. So in a sense, so two points I made. One is that we are not uncritically endorsing scientists.
At the same time, it is not that to say that, to take one statement of Prabhupada and use that to absolutise condemnation of science, that is actually not just misrepresenting Prabhupada but also that indicates the absence of Krishna consciousness, to not see Krishna’s jurisdiction. Yes. Yes.
It’s contradictory and even hypocritical to go on the web and say that science is demonic. Because you’re using science to say that. Prabhupada did not criticise science in its creative material facilitating.
In fact, he said, we can use these things. Fine. It’s only when science claims to know God, claims to make or makes claims on consciousness, the nature of life and consciousness, it’s only when they reduce everything to the material realm.
That’s when he criticises science. Not other, in no other ways does he criticise science. He criticises science for trying to usurp the job of theology.
Beautiful. So in a sense, he’s criticising scientism, not exactly science. That’s right.
You got it. We use science all the time. Like I said, right now, you know how much science we’re using right now to talk to one another? It’s unbelievable amount of science.
And if the whole of science were a scam, this wouldn’t work. And despite all the moral failings and other problems that we have, we do have a world that works. We do have a civilisation that works and works in remarkably efficient ways.
Oh, but science is letting you and I talk to one another, you know, and they’re making money because they charged us for the computers. They charge us for the Internet service. They’re just they’re making money.
That’s all they want. This is not real. No, it’s real.
It’s called business. You’re paying for a service. I mean, you know, I worry about devotees when they get so out of touch with reality.
And even we Bhaktas say that this phenomenal world is real, relatively speaking. It’s only the Advaitins or what is commonly called the Maya bodies in the movement. That say that this world is actually not real.
Brahma Satyam Jagan Mithya. Mithya doesn’t say Jagan Maya. We are actually the Maya bodies.
We’re the school of Maya. We accept that there’s Maya, Mahamaya and Yogamaya. But they are Mithya bodies.
Mithya means false. So how are you between Mithya and Maya? Maya means illusory. Illusory means it is not what it appears to be.
That’s right. But something is there. But something is there.
Mithya means it is not there. Mithya means there is nothing there. Oh, OK.
Very profound. Actually, they’re Mithya bodies. We’re actually the Maya bodies.
You just flipped the script around here. I flipped it around. But, you know, I’m a scholar.
That’s what we’re here to do. We’re here to give fresh understanding so everything doesn’t stay rote. Devotees are so used to throwing out formulas.
We have to think about what we’re saying. Mithya means false. Illusion, it comes from the Latin word Illudo, which means to play.
It’s the play between the object and what we think the object is. What we mistake the object to be. The rope and the snake is the classic example, of course.
Beautiful. But you know what? But you know what? The snake has qualities of the rope. And the rope has qualities of the snake.
They both can kind of, you know, curve around. They’re both long and thin. So it’s not absolutely false.
It’s illusory. I’m mistaking one thing to be another. But as you said, the object is there.
That is mistaken. Mithya, the Mithyavadis, if I could call them that. The Mithyavadis say the object didn’t exist in the first place.
It’s delusional, not illusional. Oh, OK. Delusion versus illusion.
Yeah. So using delusion to characterise Mithya and illusion Maya. Yeah.
If you see me jump over an electric cord, say, oh, my God. Chaitanya Chandra, I thought that was a snake. You’re not going to say, Garuda, you’re crazy.
But if I say, Chaitanya Chandra, above your head, right, don’t move, don’t move. There are snakes right above your head. Don’t move and you may not get bit.
Just keep looking straight ahead of me. Don’t move. Don’t even move your mouth.
OK, good. OK, they’re gone. They’re gone.
You’re safe now. You might want to end the interview early. I mean, you really may want to just say and then write me a private email.
Dear Garuda Prabhu, I think you may need some help. Now, the thing is this, we as devotees must be careful that when dealing with the outer world. That we’re not falling into a place of delusion.
And really imagining things to be there when they’re not. And to know the difference between that and mistaking something, not having enough knowledge about something, suspending judgement until we have enough knowledge. Anyway, this is a sign of maturity, period, and maturity in devotional service itself.
OK, so I think what I hear you saying is that a complete rejection of the world in the name of devotion or the name of faith is actually more impersonalistic than devotional. And as devotional, as devotees, we understand the world is real. Now, when we say the world is real, of course, we also say it is illusory.
We misperceive it. So again, when we say misperceive it, there’s accommodation. That we are not recommending, say, uncritical faith in science, uncritical endorsement of everything that science does.
That’s right. So, yes, for example, somebody says science is good, but the whole big pharma has commercialised everything. Well, yes, as you said, there is business over there, no doubt.
That’s right. Just because there is business. Greedy people.
There are greedy people in there. That’s right. Yeah.
So, but I like the example of the car is they’re making money out of it, but that doesn’t mean they’re not delivering a car. So, yes, there are greedy people out there to make money, to profit from people’s suffering also, people’s misery. But there is something being delivered over there.
That’s right. Now, we could debate about how well a particular medicine will work and maybe some other form of medicine will work better. There could be various debates about that.
But one thing we can say that complete condemnation or rejection. So condemnation of the pandemic itself as a scam or condemnation of the whole medical approach to solving it as just a business, money making endeavour. That is something which we can, going back to our, we can say that is almost acknowledging the mode of ignorance or its ignorance itself.
So now beyond that, there could be ethical concerns. There could be health concerns. Somebody may feel that, that, no, this is a hastily made vaccine.
We don’t know what its effects will be. And maybe the media is media is media is furthering a particular narrative. So even if there are side effects, side effects are not being reported.
So I don’t want to take this vaccine. So in one sense, this is a personal decision. And that is not something which as our spirituality provides us the room to arrive at such a decision without necessarily imposing it on anyone else.
Is that right? Understanding this case? Yes. Yes. I like the way you’re summarising things.
I think it’s very, very sound. So, so we can say there are medical concerns. Now, there is no, I won’t get too many technicalities.
There’s some ethical concerns that say some aborted foetuses, their cells, their cells were preserved and they were used. And that’s how all vaccines are made. So, yes, that is there.
But then as we say that there is, you quoted earlier was everything in this world is covered by fault. So there is smoke, smoke around fire. So as devotees, there is no, it is not a sign of faith to reject.
It is not a sign of faith in scripture or God to reject vaccine. And it is not a sign of lack of faith in Krishna to take a vaccine or to accept the authority of science. Because in a sense, even the capacity of scientists to do things that also comes from Krishna.
Isn’t it? That’s right. Yes. The ability to prevent termites in my home comes from science, but which comes from Krishna.
Yeah. I mean, how often do you go to a doctor and they say, look, you know, you could, you know, use a little more potassium, you know, so take some potassium pills. And then, you know, I start, I get up and I start accusing him of just trying to make money off of me.
He’s, he’s paid to do a job. You know, I mean, OK, medical doctors make a good bit of money in this country. No question about it.
Devotees have accused me of making money off of Krishna to teach Krishna Bhakti in the university. You’re just trying to make money. You know, you could just accuse everyone.
You know, you’re a devotee because you’re, you know, you want an easy life and you want to just live off the fat of the temples. And, you know, you don’t want to do anything in society. So you’re a lazy bum.
Is that what you is that what all devotees are? No. Some maybe, OK, be hiding out in devotees. Hey, devotees have used the movement for criminal activities.
They’ve abused other devotees. Oh, yeah, that has to be condemned for sure. But, you know, if you start, you start questioning the motives and intentions of everyone, you’re going to live a very paranoid life.
Assume the goodness of people until they show you otherwise. Assume the good intentions. I know that that person who the company that made my car wants to make money.
I know that. Does that mean, OK, I’m not going to buy a car. I’m never going to buy a car because they’re all making money.
It’s a scam. This is a you can’t live that way. No, we use things.
We use things in Krishna’s service. Prabhupada, when tapping on the microphone. He didn’t say, where did you get this microphone? How much did you pay for it? So this is a good point.
So there is intrinsically nothing wrong with using vaccines. Contextually, we can make a decision ourselves about how particularly effective it is. Now, I like this point which you made that assume good intentions of people unless we get evidence to the contrary.
And what I have seen is that sometimes when we start becoming devotees, then it’s like we are here and that is a big bad material world. And often that’s Kanishka. Oh, that’s Kanishka.
Yeah, that’s good. So we against the world. Yeah, that’s right.
So they don’t see how Krishna’s working through the world, but they haven’t read seriously. Chapters seven, nine and ten in the Gita. The I am declarations.
Yeah. The Virata Rupa, the Vishwa Rupa. Krishna is not absent from this world.
He’s there in the extraordinary things of this world. But here’s the thing, Chaitanya Charanjee, there is nothing absolutely perfect in a non absolute world. But this phenomenal world is one fourth of creation.
You know, a cup of Vibhuti, right? A cup of Vibhuti is part of Krishna. So, yes, there’s a lot of darkness in this world, but there’s also light. There’s also light in this world.
If anyone thinks that the vaccine is going to be an absolute problem to a problem in this world, they’re absolutely wrong. I love the way you’re playing with the word absolute throughout. Yes, it’s characterising the word while using the word in a valid way.
Yeah, because everything in this world is imperfect. It has its imperfections. The point is, we do the best we can.
When a devotee complains about the material world and how bad it is and I don’t want anything to do with it. So I asked the devotee, so do you have a bank account? They said, yeah. I said, do you know what the bank’s doing with your money? Well, no, I mean, I just put my money there for them to hold on to it.
I said, they’re not holding on to your money. They’re lending money to other people like pig farmers and slaughterhouse builders. There’s a fraction of your money that’s going to extremely sinful stuff.
Do you like that? Well, no, but I mean, I have to have a checking. Well, you know what? Welcome to this world. Nothing is perfect.
Now we do. That doesn’t mean we don’t do the best we can. We try to do the best we can.
I have my house is solar energised. The whole house, I’m talking to you right now on solar energy. Oh, and it’s it works.
It’s reliable, consistent. Yeah. Oh, that’s remarkable.
So right now, in fact, when there’s a blackout in my neighbourhood, I don’t black out. Because I’m getting light from the sun. When I drive my car, I’m riding on sunshine.
It’s electric car. I plug it into the garage. Now, is this a perfect form of technology? Is this the solution to all the world’s problems in terms of, you know, the fossil fuel problem and so on? Well, it’s better.
It’s in the right direction. And that’s one of my expressions, Chaitanya Charanjee. It’s direction, not perfection.
Beautiful. You know, one way I really like this example of direction, but perfection. And you could flip it around.
If we say this world is terrible and we can’t do anything about it. We can never make anything better than this. That’s right.
That is the attitude. Can we make things worse? Yes. Maybe we can make them much, much worse.
And that’s a bad direction. So we can be in the direction of perfection, but don’t expect perfection. So now, being in the direction of perfection, that means whatever problems we are facing in particular context, we try to find the best solutions.
And don’t expect perfect solutions. I think Prabhupada said, make the best of a bad bargain. That’s right.
And the Gita implicitly teaches that. It never solves the problem of the war on an external level. It never produces an ethical solution.
Because in ethics, there is no perfect solution. That’s the nature of this world. It’s absolutely not perfect.
So we have to look inside. The world is designed to have us take shelter of what truly is perfect. That’s beautifully put.
So even we could say the whole controversy around vaccines. Ultimately, the way to resolve it is by taking shelter of the perfect Lord and then we will get guidance from within. That’s right.
Instead, devotees can be, not always, but can be too quick to jump to the outer world and make decisions there and forget about, just like Arjuna. Arjuna was trying to figure out. In the second half of the first chapter, what can I do here? What can I do? Well, if I kill them, if I win this war, then what will I be left with? Well, oh my gosh, that doesn’t work.
Well, you know what? Maybe I should let them kill me. Well, wait, but that doesn’t work. Then evil will prevail.
My gosh, I don’t know what to do. I mean, you know what? Just forget it. Hopelessness.
Sometimes, Chaitanya Charanjee, human beings need to reach this state of hopelessness and despair. And that itself can become a yoga. If that takes us to Krishna.
Arjuna Vishadha Yoga is the chapter title. The Yoga of Arjuna’s Despair. Now, notice it wasn’t called Vishadha Yoga.
The Yoga of Despair. Because not all despair will get you to union. So it’s Arjuna.
The modifying word here is Arjuna’s despair. It’s his own particular journey. But we, that conversation was for all of us.
Beautiful. So Arjuna’s, you know, the teaching that Arjuna received is the teaching that we all need. But the outcome will be personal and will be individual.
And I’m going to respect that from a thoughtful, considerate devotee who’s not puffed up. If I come across a devotee working from a place of fear and having to make grandiose statements and grandiose claims and dishonest, you know, sort of statements. Then I’m going to try to help that devotee get to a more honest place.
If I can’t, then I back off. But if I can, then I’ll try and say realistically, what is your problem with the vaccine? Or what is your problem with not taking the vaccine? Or whatever the issue is. Why are you speaking so extremely about this? And why is this preoccupying you for like forever? Do you have enough engagement in Krishna Bhakti? Maybe you’re not engaged enough.
Maybe you don’t have enough seva. Maybe this is preoccupying you because you have nothing else to do. What I say, the devotee says, you know, when I was a child, I lost a sibling because the vaccine went wrong.
And nobody empathised with me. The medical company didn’t provide insurance. They all blamed us.
So from that time, I have, you know, I have extreme scepticism about all this. Yes. So you can use that scepticism to sharpen your intellect and your buddhi to be discerning.
And yes, that bad experience could influence you. That’s part of your conditioning. But go beyond your conditioning.
And be thorough. And the outer world is possible. But go to the inner world, which is the most important thing.
The outer world, you don’t take with you. The vaccine or no vaccine at the time of death doesn’t matter anymore. I’m on my deathbed.
Okay. And you come visit me. I’m dying of COVID.
And you say, Garuda Prabhu, would you like the vaccine? It’s too late. I mean, yeah. In other words, you wouldn’t do that.
You would sing to me. You would read from Shastra. You’d read, you know, from the Rasa Panchayati, perhaps.
You’d read from the Chaitanya Charita. That’s what you would do. You wouldn’t say, would you like the vaccine now? Or, you know, no.
So now what am I trying to say here? What I’m trying to say is that we have to live with our decisions, whether they were wrong or right on an external level. We have to make those decisions, ideally, from within. Because whatever the result, we can take with us.
The result. Because it comes from the heart. If we ignore that, then we will not leave this world in a happy way.
The devotee leaves this world because his or her heart becomes so abundantly filled with Prema that they can’t stay in this physical form anymore. It’s like being in a home, whether they’re termites or not. If you’ve outgrown the home because you’re filling it with so much Krishna Bhakti, so many books, so much Shastra, so much celebration, and so many Bhaktas come and you have no more room anymore, then you get rid of the house.
That’s death for a Bhakta. We don’t die because of COVID or not COVID. Because of the vaccine or not the vaccine.
If we do, that’s sad. That’s very, very sad. We leave this body because it no longer can contain everything that’s in our heart.
That’s why we leave the body. That’s an amazing understanding. The devotee’s desire to serve Krishna becomes so strong and the body is no longer an adequate instrument for that.
That’s right. Krishna will give them a spiritual body then. I’ve worn out the possibilities here.
Vicharu Swami, my dear and beloved friend, whom I miss terribly, by the way. He apparently died of COVID. But you know what? He was doing so much to expand Krishna Bhakti here and so much to accommodate his loving heart in so many different ways and save us.
I easily can see, easily can see how he just needed a different body. So externally it was one way, but internally it’s another way. That’s an amazing way of looking at that.
Especially it’s, so the external cause or external setting in which a devotee may depart doesn’t matter so much. Ultimately we are all a process of Krishna consciousness. We are trying to develop that.
That’s right. And for devotees to get into debates about COVID and vaccines is just an extraordinary waste of time. That’s amazing.
So it’s a personal decision. Take it and focus on serving Krishna. Take whatever decision we want.
And when you said we have to live with our decisions. That’s right. So then what you are saying is that if we have taken the decision after due consideration from a place of self-understanding, then we won’t be filled with regrets or resentment about our decisions.
That we did it in a mode of service to Krishna. And yeah, external world sometimes the consequences may be positive, they may be negative. But because our attitude was to serve Krishna, we will move on.
Yeah, so there are three levels, Chaitanya Charanji. Three levels. There’s the outer world and hopefully we will use the tools of discernment, buddhi, and the gunas.
Are we actually in the dark about what’s happening in the external world? Or is there a little light or is there much light? You know, tamasa, rajasa, and sattvika. So we are given that tool. If you don’t use that, well, I mean, Krishna spends a whole chapter and other parts of chapters explaining the efficacy of the gunas and discerning things through the gunas.
And so on the one level, that’s the one level. So we should be as discerning as possible on the external level. On the internal level, we should know what is truly in our hearts.
We should know ourselves. Use this outer world to even motivate us to be even more internally absorbed as ultimately Arjuna was. And that’s the second level.
The third level is our relationship with Krishna and his embrace. How are you differentiating the two? Inner means you are talking about the mental level. That’s right.
Well, there’s the inner and the outer. So the inner level is the faculty of discernment for the outer level, right? And then there’s the innermost, which is our hearts. And we must know our true hearts and our true heart’s desires in bhakti.
And then our relationship with Krishna, who is even beyond our innermost heart. And he’s beyond it and within it. So we have to connect and we have to align these elements.
We have to align them. When there’s a disalignment or when things are unaligned, then all kinds of imbalances will show. Too much attention to the external level.
Too much absorption. Too much fighting and debating on an external level. Tulsi Gabbard, you know, is a devotee.
She could be the next president. No, she’s a demon. She accepts abortion.
She allows abortion. No, she doesn’t allow abortion. She just says that we shouldn’t interfere with it.
Back and forth, back and forth. And you know what? You and I could take up a whole afternoon doing that. Why would we, Chaitanya Charanjee? If I know you well enough, you and I are going to dive into Bhagavad Gita.
That’s what you and I would do. We’d show each other things that we each didn’t see in the Bhagavad Gita. We would enjoy giving those gifts to one another.
And frankly, it wouldn’t be just for an afternoon. It would not stop. Unending, unendingly.
And it would be extremely satisfying and very pleasurable. That’s what we would be doing. We would sit here and argue about Tulsi Gabbard, whether she should be president or not.
My God. I mean, it could be an interesting discussion for a certain amount of time, and that’s it. To vote or not to vote.
Again, what happens in the external world is really something that should be more, I don’t know, it should be a private decision. To plaster it all over the place and to make this a big campaign is anathema to Bhakti. The big campaign is sankirtana, not sanjalpana.
Sanjalpana, okay. I come up with these neologisms, you know. Yeah, I realise that.
So, I love this three level. So, ultimately all of us at the innermost level, all devotees are united in their aspiration to love Krishna, to serve Krishna, to attain Krishna. And we could say we all have gone, we have all faced different situations in the world before our coming to Krishna and even in our life in Krishna consciousness.
And accordingly, so that is the outer world, and then accordingly we may have developed discernment in particular ways. Some of us may have developed more, some of us may have developed it less. But based on our discernment, so you could put it this way, the innermost world, based on the interaction between our inner and outer world, using our discernment, we can arrive at our own decisions about these issues.
And there is no real focus. It is not that these issues are not important. They have their importance and we deliberate duly, as you said, we use our discerning faculty.
But we arrive at the decision and there is no need to make that into a philosophical issue. Or not make it into an issue for confrontation among devotees. You arrive at your understanding and move forward based on that.
So it’s more like a functional approach to the world, where we all can use our intelligence to understand and act accordingly. Yes. So, for example, if somebody prefers Ayurveda to Allopathy, that’s okay, if that’s what works for you, that’s wonderful.
But does that mean that say somebody who is taking Ayurveda is a better devotee than somebody who is taking Allopathy? I think that is some, which is where we may be extending the limits too much. So rejecting the world is not a sign of faith. Accepting some of these other world is not a sign of lack of faith.
So our relationship with Krishna transcends these things. That’s right. And just maybe one or two last questions before we finish.
So we didn’t get too much into technicalities of, say, the specifics of some medical or ethical concerns about vaccines. And I also didn’t want to because our purpose is like Arjuna, like in the Gita metaphor, Krishna’s purpose was not to give Arjuna a decision for that situation. Krishna’s purpose was to give Arjuna a worldview, a self-understanding that could help him take that decision and take other decisions.
And that can help us also to take decisions. So I think we are also doing something similar. We are taking vaccination more as a departure point to have a discussion about how we approach such issues.
So I had started by talking about, earlier I mentioned, are there boundaries? Do we get certain straight do’s and don’ts from the tradition? And do we, there are some areas where it’s up to us. So we could say the core limbs of bhakti, they are something which we get from the tradition. And of course, even they are voluntary, we have to practise it by our free will.
But if we want to stay connected with the tradition, we have to follow those. Otherwise, we are not really connected. So is there a demarcating line which is well defined between what the tradition gives and what we use our discernment to decide? Or even that demarcating line will be not one line, but it will be a zone which will vary from person to person.
Right. It’s subtle stuff. The more we take shelter of Guru, the more we take shelter of Shastra, and the more we take shelter of other guiding voices in our lives.
Sadhu. The more we will have the strength of a decision to be made, the more realisation we will have in the kinds of ways that we decide to act in this world. Ultimately, the real test is whether we are acting out of love.
If getting the vaccine is simply an action of fear and not an action of love, then it’s mundane. If not getting the vaccine is an action merely of fear, but not an act out of love, then it’s mundane. The idea is that everything we do as bhaktas needs to be tethered to our heart’s true desires in relation to divinity.
When that disconnection is there, then there’s a kind of cognitive dissonance in devotees. They’ve got their devotional world, they’re chanting their japa, and then they go out and they argue about COVID. It doesn’t make sense.
This is not the devotional life. The Goswamis didn’t go into their bhajan kutirs, write transcendental literature, and then argue about the various Muslim leaders. They didn’t do that.
They acted in ways in the outer world that would be conducive to their devotional service. Whatever is conducive to our devotional service, whatever helps us remember Krishna and never to forget him, these are the bases on which we make decisions. Not whether something’s a scam or whether something isn’t.
That’s irrelevant. And too often what we accuse of being a scam starts getting really paranoid and you become a mundane person again. Really mundane.
Okay, this is profound. So, in one sense you are shifting the focus from what the reality is to what our motive is in interacting with whatever the reality is. Yes.
So, it is that when you say that if, oh, I don’t want to get sick, I don’t want to suffer, and that’s why I’ll take the vaccine. Or I don’t want to get sick, I don’t want to suffer, that’s why I will not take the vaccine. Both are acting out of fear.
But if my purpose is to serve Krishna and I’m acting, this body as you say is a temple or a vehicle for me to serve Krishna, and with that motive I may decide, okay, taking this vaccine will help me to serve Krishna better. Or not taking this vaccine will keep my body, I’m taking otherwise care of my body, that will help me to serve Krishna better. So, if we act out of love, then that is where we are in Krishna consciousness.
That’s right. If we lose our Krishna consciousness over this issue, then what is the point? Then either person might as well die of COVID. What life is worth living if we’re simply bickering about a topic? That ultimately both sides are frankly ignorant about.
The only way you can be knowledgeable of it is by aligning your own, your best level of discernment with the help of Guru, Sadhu and Shastra, right? And then find out what’s in your heart and connect with Krishna. Okay, so first offer your heart to Krishna. It starts there.
Why did Krishna start off that verse with machitta? Because that’s the first thing we are supposed to do. He didn’t go, No, he didn’t give that in reverse. We can’t enlighten one another.
We can’t cause each other to be enlightened if there is no offering of our hearts first to Krishna without giving our life breath. You realise that our hearts, our biological hearts, is the most vital organ in the body, more than even breathing. Because you can hold your breath for two or even three or four minutes.
Some people can’t. But the body cannot afford to skip one beat. Even the physical heart.
So in the same way, the spiritual heart, that has to be attended to first. It is the most vital organ of the spiritual life. Machitta, machitta, then madgata prana, then our life breath.
That’s the second most important function in the physical body. Well, our breath, our breathing in devotional service is the second most important thing. So these things have to take place first.
Then I can come and, ah, my dear brother in bhakti, Chaitanya Charanjee. Beautiful, beautiful. I’m not so big on the uncle and the nephew thing and all that.
You’re a brother to me. I don’t like hierarchies. We’re all here as children of Srila Prabhupada and his movement.
We’re here to serve the bhakti movement, the Sankirtan movement. And this is where we have the true shelter. So machitta, madgata, prana, and then bodhiyata paraspada.
Then we might be able to enlighten one another. Beautiful. So to the extent, if our heart is placed on Krishna, then these issues, we won’t make them over important.
And if you are making them over important to the extent that we are criticising each other and fighting with each other, that could be a fair indication that our heart is not placed on Krishna. So fix the heart first and then you can address this issue. It’s a beautiful thing.
The verse is not, you know, covid chitta, covid madgata, prana. It’s not that stuff, but that’s what devotees are doing, I fear. They’re going there.
They’re preoccupied with that. And they’re using science to condemn science. That is true.
So, you know, the last point about this probably, using science to condemn science. In the Bhagavatam, there is an example of using a thorn to remove a thorn. I think that’s Chanakya.
But the Bhagavatam also says that a bird makes a hole in the tree and then the snake goes inside that hole and then eats the birds. So there is that argument used that we can use the tools of scientists to defeat them. But then when you say defeat them, what? It is not defeating science, but it is using those tools to defeat the atheism that is propagated in the name of science.
That’s right. Our battle, we have to define the targets of our battle. And we can use the resources of science even to counter some truth claims of science, which are actually outside the jurisdiction of science.
That’s right. That’s right. And you were saying earlier, Pratyaksha Pramana, you know, being, you know, somehow not respected, Shabda Pramana as primary.
But, you know, Pratyaksha Pramana is used all the time by the Goswamis, but not independently of a foundation of Shabda Pramana. Philosophy, this is what distinguishes philosophy from theology. Philosophy is that it only has Pratyaksha Pramana.
In the West, I should say philosophy. They don’t work with a theological foundation of Shabda Pramana. The reason why Indian philosophy is called philosophy is because it’s so rational, it’s so reasonable, and it’s based and grounded, based on and grounded in Shabda Pramana.
So Pratyaksha Pramana is one of the three primary modes of cognition, along with Anumana Pramana and Pratyaksha Pramana. But those are based on Shabda Pramana. They’re grounded in Shabda Pramana.
But the reason we could say Indian philosophy is because so much of it is rational. But it adds a foundation. Instead of floating in a possibility here and a possibility there.
So it’s very rational. So you’re saying it is rational because it is in a sense linking Pratyaksha and Shabda. It is experience with scripture.
Whereas if you’re drawing only from Pratyaksha and trying to philosophise, then it’s just a domain of floating in possibility. How can you build a house without a foundation? You can’t. But philosophy in the West tries to do that.
It explores all the different ways that you can build houses in the air. Who lives in a house in the air? That’s a beautiful thought. So although we are.
Well, we have a beautiful philosophy. That’s the point. You know this.
You live and breathe this philosophy every day. I know that about you. I’m trying to.
But I associate with devotees like you. I hope to do it at least a little more than what I’m doing. We’re all hoping that we can get more absorbed.
This is what we are here to do and not to distract one another from that. Beautiful. So that’s amazing.
Should I try to summarise through? Yes, let’s do that. So we talked today about, we took the vaccination issue as a departure point for discussing. Firstly, can devotees have different opinions? Yes, we can.
And the idea is that the scripture gives us broad insights to deal with issues. So he’s talking about how the ethical issue confronting Arjuna at the start of the Gita was so complex and Arjuna analysed it from different perspectives and yet he came to no decision. And Arjuna even at that point he forgot who Krishna was.
And then Krishna gave him almost 17, 16, 17 chapters of instruction. And then he called him to make a decision. So the idea is that the Gita, in this context you can say the Gita’s summary is go within and understand and arrive at what is your truest understanding of the right thing to do.
And then act accordingly. So that is not simply freedom to choose, it is informed freedom to choose. The ignorant person can’t choose.
So similarly, in this world one consistent theme was there are no perfect solutions. So we have to, later you said that we can strive in the direction of perfection even though we will never have perfection. Then we discussed about the various ways in which we approach issues.
So there is the Kanishta, Madhyama, Uttama. So Kanishta issues are, so we just observe something. You have the example of a curtain behind me and start criticising.
But as we move to Madhyama and Uttama, we try to understand and we appreciate. So we don’t have to necessarily be ourselves at the Uttama level to try to act at the Uttama level. Because if we are guided and if we are guided by those who are at the Uttama level, like a devotee might be able to worship deities aided by a senior pujari, even if that devotee is themselves not at that level.
So with guidance and using our intelligence, we can do that. Then we moved on to this discussion of how you made this part of pandemic and scamdemic. So there is this idea that to have faith in Krishna means to reject the whole world as terrible.
But that is this beautiful difference between Mithya and Maya. So actually in a sense we are the Mayavadis because we accept that the world is real, but there is a distorted perception of that. That also that illusion is ludio, that is beautiful, that the play between the object and our perception of the object.
So for us, we don’t discount the world, we accept that the world is real and Krishna’s jurisdiction also extends in this world. So there could be reasonable questions about the magnitude of the pandemic, the utility or the potency, effectiveness of particular approaches to deal with it. But to dismiss the whole thing is not a sign of faith.
It is the example of puffed up, that a cat in fear tries to appear enlarged in size by extending its fur so that it can appear more fearful, but it is actually itself more fearful. So like that when we become puffed up, then we try to Shastra Shastra, we weaponise scripture to try to appear more faithful than what we actually are. So the claim of strong faith may actually be a concealment of weak faith or posturing about strong faith.
And when we talk about faith, what we meant by that is that if a devotee is making aggressive statements based on what they don’t know. So honesty means to, we can only make assertions about things which we know enough about. So we can’t know what other people’s motives are.
And if we make judgments about their heart, then say we are almost claiming omniscience. If I say that a particular devotee is out here to destroy the movement, devotee is like Ravana. So that would be terrible.
That is puffed up. So puffing up can be out of ego, but it can also be out of fear. And when that happens, then we start making unwarranted claims about unimportant issues or relatively less important issues.
So you get the example of a termite. The termites are really there and there is a real danger and you have to deal with it. So for the body, the virus is like a termite and we have to deal with it.
Now exactly how one deals with it, that’s a personal decision. There are various ways to deal with it. But deny the existence of the termite, that is something which is extreme.
And we are not endorsing everything that science says. That there are people with greed, that people are making money, that is definitely true. But it’s not that they are only making money and giving no product.
We condemn science, but then we use science to condemn science. So that is hypocritical. So that is self-contradictory.
You played several times with the word absolute that we can’t make absolute statements in a non-absolute world. And that is the absolute statement we can make. So basically with respect to scriptures, you talked about these three levels of say, the outer world, the inner world and the innermost world.
So the outer world is complex and there are no perfect ethical solutions. The problem of war at the external level is not dealt with by Krishna. It cannot be.
So we use our faculty of discernment, which is at the inner world level, the subtle body at the inner level. And then we act appropriately with respect to the outer world. And with this approach, different devotees may decide different approaches.
But even if they differ, they won’t degenerate into violent disagreements or violent conflicts if their focus is Krishna. So that is the innermost level is, it is our heart’s longing for Krishna, our longing to serve Krishna. And with that longing when we serve, then that is what is the centre of the life of a devotee.
We offer our very consciousness, our heart to Krishna. Then we offer our breath to Krishna. So you said that we can live without breath but not without heartbeat.
So the heart is the innermost core of our being. It’s a beautiful thought. So we offer our innermost being to Krishna and then act appropriately outward.
So with respect, the essential message of the Bhagavad Gita is not so much to debate about the ethics of the outer reality as the motives with which we act. So if we are acting out of fear in taking the vaccine or not taking the vaccine, then we have already lost our connection with the Gita. If we are acting out of love, then this body I want to use in Krishna’s service, I want to protect it.
Then each devotee can arrive at a decision how best they want to protect their body and move ahead. And when you talk about when a devotee departs from the world, it is because their heart is so filled with Krishna that the limited body can no longer accommodate it. So it’s like the body is no longer an adequate instrument, adequate vehicle for serving Krishna.
And thus they get a better body. Yes. Certainly whatever the cause might be of a particular devotee’s demise, but internally Krishna has taken them to a place where they can do more of the service that their heart longs to do.
Yes. And for us to arrive at this discernment about how to act in the external world, the first thing is we offer our heart to Krishna. We take shelter of the guiding lights, the Guru Sadhu Shastra and then that will give us the basis for making a decision.
And when we make the decision this way, we all may make our particular decisions and there can be respectful difference of opinion. But as I said the Goswamis were not arguing about which Islamic ruler is better or worse. They had to deal with it practically.
They did that. But they focused on glorifying Krishna. At the time of death, whether we take a vaccine or not is not a big issue.
It is whether we are remembering Krishna or not. So there is one point which you made towards the end. I had talked about how can we, because we have faith in Shastra, do we dismiss Pratyaksha Brahma entirely? No.
We don’t, if we try to live without eyes, extremely difficult. We need for survival and functioning. And then you made the point about how Indian philosophy is rational because it grounds our analysis of empirical experience in scriptural foundation.
Without that, Western philosophy which is only analysing empirical experience, it is just floating around like a house without foundation. So when we have this grounding in scripture and then we analyse particular issues, say with vaccine or whatever, then with that foundation, our analysis will help us to arrive at understanding that can be anukul to our bhakti, be favourable to our devotion. Yes.
Any concluding points you want to add? Yes. Let’s make sure that we don’t turn the Sankirtan movement into the Sanjalpanam. Sanjalpanam.
That is a new neologism for the talk today. That’s right. Thank you.
Thank you. It was wonderful talking with you as usual. Thank you.
Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna. Thank you to everyone for coming today afternoon.
And I am honoured to be here in Dallas, so close to Radha Kalachand ji. Today I was asked to speak on the Chatur Shloki Bhagavad Gita. So I will speak in this in three parts.
I will basically speak on the significance of the four verses of the Bhagavad Gita in terms of first their location, how they are very significantly placed in the Bhagavad Gita. Then we will analyse their content, what these four verses are. And then we will talk about their import.
What is the implication of the statement of those verses. The Bhagavad Gita has 700 verses. And it is a concise book.
It is spoken in a war field. And naturally at that time there is not much time. So it is as compared to Bhagavatam which has thousands of verses, Ramayana has thousands of verses.
The Mahabharata has hundreds of thousands of verses. So the Bhagavad Gita is relatively very small. But at the same time it has had a big, big impact.
And that is because its message goes over a vast scope. The Gita begins with Arjuna unable to decide. When he is faced with the prospect of fighting a fratricidal war against his relatives.
Especially his own grandsire and his martial teacher. He feels overwhelmed. In 2.6 he says If I kill them, then my own loved ones will be dead.
And if I don’t kill them, they will kill me. Or they will kill my loved ones. So what should I do? I don’t know.
Now if after this Arjuna had followed this up with a simple question. Should I fight or should I not fight? Then the Gita would have been relevant only as a document for historians. How one warrior decided whether to fight or not to fight.
The next verse where Arjuna asks the question reveals the scope of the Gita. He asks He says I ask you what is Dharma? He doesn’t simply ask for a decision should I fight or should I not fight. He asks what is Dharma? And Dharma is of universal relevance.
Dharma is nowadays translated as religion. But Dharma actually means nature. It is the activity that restores us to our nature.
Dharma basically implies that there is an order in nature. And when we act properly, we harmonise with the order of nature. So what is the activity that one should do by which one can harmonise with the natural order of things? That is Dharma.
And then in response Krishna answers at various levels. And in the second chapter Krishna focusses primarily on how before you can understand, before we can understand our activity, we have to understand our identity. If I go into office and I don’t know what is my role in the office.
And I’ll just fool around. I’ll just make a mess of myself and come in the way of others. So Krishna talks about the identity first.
And he talks about how you are not the body or the soul. And from there he talks about how first he talks about Nishkama Karma Yoga. Act with detachment.
That’s more or less second chapter. And third chapter Arjuna is a little confused. He says you are saying Arjuna you should fight.
Krishna you are telling me to fight. But you are also telling me that I’ll become peaceful. But right now fighting means it will be violence.
So you are telling me to do my duty but my duty is to fight. You are telling me by my duty I’ll become peaceful. By doing my duty I’ll become peaceful.
How does this work? Because my duty involves violence. Then Krishna talks about, third chapter he elaborates how there is inner dimension and outer dimension. And then the Bhagavata goes into inner dynamics.
What are our desires? He says the cause of disturbance, the cause of lack of peace is not the outer situation. It is the inner disposition. As long as we are filled with selfish desires we can never have peace.
No matter what all other things that we do. And then the way to achieve peace, fourth chapter Krishna talks about transcendental knowledge. The various ways of acquiring knowledge and he says go to a spiritual master and acquire that knowledge.
In the fifth chapter Arjuna is still confused. And he says okay but should I act or should I not act? Because again Krishna says by knowledge you’ll gain peace. But he says if I had to fight how will I have peace? And Krishna says actually that yes there are many ways to grow spiritually but in your case it is best for you to act and do your duty.
But then what about detachment? Isn’t it that those who are to grow spiritually they need to become detached, they need to renounce the world. Krishna says that is a later stage. First one has to become purified by doing one’s duty then one can become detached.
So from karma yoga later on one can practise dhyana yoga. That is the sixth chapter of the Gita. Where Krishna talks about going out in the jungle and practising yoga.
And then he says the perfection of this yoga is attachment to Krishna, is absorption in Krishna. 6.47 is 6.47 All yogis, the topmost yogi is one who becomes fixed in me, always remembering me. And from the seventh chapter of the Gita the mood and the tone of the Gita change substantially.
From the second chapter, sixth chapter Krishna is primarily talking about detachment. We detach from the fruits of the work, attachment is the cause of bondage. The more you become detached, the more you will become peaceful.
But the very first line of the first verse of the seventh chapter signifies the shift of the mood. Krishna says It is not so much a detachment from the world but attachment to the source of the world, Krishna. So till the first six chapters Krishna doesn’t talk about bhakti so much.
But from the seventh chapter onwards the focus is a lot on bhakti. So in a sense if you consider that there is a gradual process. Like we have a staircase or a lamp which takes us up gradually up the stairs.
So second chapter to sixth chapter, it’s like that staircase. And Krishna says if you come here, actually you know there is another way to come here also. The other way is the elevator.
So by first detaching oneself from doing work with detachment, then detaching oneself from work also, then detaching oneself from the mind. Then finding what exists beyond the mind, the soul. And finding out the source of the soul, that is God.
And then becoming attached to God. That is one process that the Gita talks about. But then afterwards the Gita says this is like a ramp by which gradually you will climb up.
But to get there, there is an elevator. And that elevator is right from the beginning focus on Krishna. So that is bhakti yoga.
Among all the verses that Krishna Prabhupada gave talks on in the Bhagavad Gita. In 7.1 he has given the maximum talks. So from here Krishna talks about how by practising bhakti we can become attached to him.
7.1 talks about how from the bhakti worldview different people can be seen. Those who are godless, those who are godly but are devoted to other gods, those who are impersonalists. So whole devotional worldview is talked about.
Then in the 8.1 Krishna has talked about yoga, ashtang yoga in the Dhyan yoga, meditating. In the 8.1 Krishna compares bhakti yoga and ashtang yoga. And he says that actually it is bhakti that is easy.
In 8.40 he says by bhakti I can be easily attained. And by the end of the 8th chapter Krishna is in ecstasy. And Krishna just continues speaking.
In the 9th chapter he elaborates the glory of bhakti, the topmost knowledge. So what is given in the 7th chapter, Krishna elaborates with more depth and analysis in the 9th chapter. And by the time the 10th chapter comes, Krishna is giving the conclusion.
Krishna tells how he is the source of everything and how he is the ultimate goal of everything. So 10.8 to 10.11 is the Chatur Shloki Bhagavad Gita. These four verses are called by Sripad Ramanacharya as the four central verses of the Gita.
And in a sense after hearing this, the Gita is over. Because we see in Arjuna’s response, Arjuna says Krishna I accept what you are saying. That you are the absolute truth and knowing you is life’s perfection.
I accept this. So after this when Arjuna asks, it is for Lok Gita Nranaam. It is for other people.
So what Krishna has taught, how to explain, how can others understand this? Krishna says always remember me. Then he says how can common people, how can they always think of God? So they can look at this world and try to see the manifestation of God. So that’s how the 10th chapter talks about Vibhuti Yoga.
In the 11th chapter of the Gita, some people may think it is Krishna, he is just another person on a chariot. There are so many warriors, Krishna is one of them. So how can he be God? The 11th chapter reveals Krishna’s Virata Rupa.
Arjuna asks, please show me. And he is asking for others. So even when Krishna is in the universe, the universe is in Krishna.
That is the inconceivability of Krishna. He seems to be one person in the universe, but actually he can show the whole universal form. And in the 12th chapter Arjuna asks, there are people who worship you in a person manifestation.
There are those who worship in person manifestation. So who is better? And like that if we see all subsequent chapters are triggered by Arjuna’s questions. So Krishna’s message in a sense gets over by 10.8 to 10.11. And Arjuna accepts and he further enquires for other people’s understanding.
Sometimes we have a class and there are some new people who have come for a class. And say we are helping them to come to Krishna and they have some questions. But they may be a little shy to ask those questions.
Sometimes we ask those questions to some speaker on their behalf. So that when we ask, they will get the answer. So Arjuna is doing like that.
He is asking questions for the sake of others. And from 10.8 to 10.11 in that sense, in terms of location of the Gita, it is the message with which Krishna concludes himself. And now what is significant about this? What are the content? So I have given titles for each of these verses.
So the 10.8 gives the definition of God. 10.9 gives the relation with God. How is the relationship with God developed? 10.10 talks about the direction of God.
How God directs us. And 10.11 talks about the benediction of God. What is this ultimate benediction? Definition, relation, direction and benediction.
Let’s look at these one by one. So 10.8 is अहम् सर्वस्य प्रभवो मद्धः सर्वं प्रवर्तते इतिमत्वा भजन्तेमाम् उधाभावसं अन्विताः अहम् सर्वस्य प्रभवो That I am the source of everything. मद्धः सर्वं प्रवर्तते Everything comes from me.
Everything is maintained by me. इतिमत्वा, those who know this, भजन्तेमाम्, they worship me. उधाभावसं अन्विताः They are wise, they are intelligent, they are उधाभावसं अन्विताः They worship me wholeheartedly with all the emotions of their heart.
Now many times people ask if God created everything, who created God? Who created God? In fact, the prominent atheist, he said that this is the ultimate question that brings down theism. You know this question, theists have no answer to that. Actually, this question reveals that the questioner doesn’t understand what God is.
Because if we understand the definition of God, then we will not have this question. Asking does God exist, it’s a valid question. Who made God is like asking who made a circle circular? Who made a circle circular? A circle by definition is circular.
It’s not that someone has to make a circle circular. Circle is circular. We cannot have a triangular circle.
We cannot have a trapezoidal circle. Circle by definition is circular. So, when we talk about God, there is depiction and there is definition.
Depiction means when we go to a temple and we say God depicted in a particular way. Now, if we focus on that aspect only, then we will think, okay, you know, the world is so big and in that this temple is one small thing and in that one place this image is there. Okay, where did this come from? Yeah, that seems a valid question.
But if you understand what God means, everything comes from something. And wherever this causal chain stops, that, okay, B came from A, A came from Z, Z came from Y, whatever it is. If we go backwards, wherever this causal chain stops, that point is God.
So, if we say that who created God, then that means if God had a creator, then the creator of God would be God. Wherever the causal chain stops, that is the place where God would exist. Now, somebody may say, why does this causal chain have to stop? Maybe it just goes on infinitely.
But we see that everything in this world is temporary. Everything is temporary. So, a chain of temporary things cannot go on infinitely.
It has to have some foundation in something that is non-temporary. Just like if we see a very tall skyscraper building. You know, you say we are looking at the top.
We see this floor, this floor, this floor, this floor. You can have a large number of floors. But all those levels, all those floors, all those stories, they have to have some ground.
If there were no ground, the skyscraper would not exist. So, God is the ground of all being. He is the being without whom no being would be possible.
Krishna says that everything is sustained by me. Without me, nothing could exist. This is the definition of God.
From the point of view of pure logic, the cause of everything cannot have a cause. Isn’t it? The cause of everything cannot have a cause. The cause of everything has to be the beginning of everything.
So, wherever that point begins, that is God. Now, again continuing with logic, we can say there are two possibilities. Everything came from something or everything came from nothing.
There are only two possibilities. Everything came from something or everything came from nothing. Now, if we, sometimes atheists, they like to ridicule, you know, people, you believe in this, you believe in that, you believe in that, they try to take some aspects of religious belief which seem very irrational.
How do you believe in such stuff? But actually, if we turn that same strategy on atheism and we write the atheistic story of the universe, so what would be that story? Nothing existed because of nothing. Nothing exploded because of nothing. And gave rise to everything.
Now, does that make any sense? Nothing existed because of nothing, nothing exploded because of nothing and gave rise to everything. We don’t see anywhere in the world something coming out of nothing. So, we see if anything exists, it has come from something.
So, everything coming from nothing is irrational. Everything coming from something, that is far more rational. Now, what that something is, that will have to have the potential to produce everything.
Otherwise, how would everything come about? And that, that thing which has the potential to produce everything, that is actually God. So, the Gita talks about Krishna is God but then it gives a definition of God. The one who is the source of everything.
The one by whom everything is maintained. And from this understanding, if one understands Krishna to be God this way, if one understands Him, then in all of us, there is the head and there is the heart. The head refers to the intellectual, the rational faculty.
The heart refers to the emotional faculty. And Krishna says, when we understand Him this way, then such a person becomes Buddha and also bhajate mam bhava samanvitaha. Such a person becomes wise.
The head and the heart come together. So, bhakti is not just a matter of sentiment. Oh, I like to worship this God, so I will worship this God.
Bhakti, it can be because of sentiment. But bhakti is actually the conclusion of the intellectual faculty. When we truly understand what Krishna is, who God is and why He is God.
Krishna has talked about this earlier also, that bahunam janmanamante gyanavan mam prapadyate vasudeva sarvamiti samatmasudurlabham 7.19 he has said that, after many lifetimes, when people surrender unto me, when people understand that I am the source of everything, I am the essence of everything, and then they surrender to me. They are gyanavan. So, surrender is not something which is done by people who have no intelligence.
That’s also possible. They may also do it. But here, Krishna doesn’t bhakti as the summit of the intelligence.
When you understand God as the source of everything, you surrender to Him. Now, okay, somebody surrenders. This is the definition of God.
After you surrender to Him, then what happens? What does it imply practically? In the second verse, that’s 10.9, it talks about the relation. How do those who have surrendered their lives to God, how do they live? How do they relate? machitta madgata prana Do we have the Gita here? So, we can recite after me. machitta madgata prana bodhayanta parasparam kathayantashyamam nityam dushyanticharam anticham So, here, Krishna talks about the way in which those who have devoted themselves, they relate.
They relate with Him, they relate with others, and they relate with their own faculty, their own body, mind, intelligence. machitta Their consciousness is fixed in me. Srila Prabhupada translated this as the thoughts of my pure devotees dwell in me.
That means he’s saying that it’s not just that they think about Krishna, rather Krishna becomes their home. Krishna becomes the home for their thoughts. See, all of us have a physical home and along with that we have a home for our thoughts.
Just like a home means we have our work for which we go out to various places. But once the work is done, we come back home. So, like that, we all can observe what is the home for our thoughts.
When we have nothing to do, what do we do at that time? When we have nothing to think about, where do our thoughts go? Some of us, it may go for cricket. Some of us, it may go for money. Some of us, it may go for say, our children, our family members, whatever it is.
It’s not necessarily bad or good. We’re not making a value judgement here. We’re just making an observation that all of us have a home for our thoughts.
Now, this home, whatever it is, ideally speaking, the home should be a place of comfort and shelter. We get troubled when we go outside and we come back home, if we say. That’s why they say, I’m at home here.
That means, we’re comfortable over here. But unfortunately, whatever is the home for our thoughts doesn’t make us feel at home. That means, we have something that we are attached to.
By default, our thoughts go to that object. But then, it doesn’t make us peaceful. Somebody is attached to cricket and then, they’re attached to cricket.
And sometimes, their favourite team wins and sometimes, it loses. And when it wins, they’re happy. But when it loses, they’re so agitated.
Why? Why? He could have played the shot like this. Why did he play like that? People just get so agitated. In fact, there are cases when a team has lost an important match and there are fans who have committed suicide.
It’s extreme. So, the very thing which is meant to be the shelter for our thoughts, that leaves us shelterless. If by default, our thought is money, then money brings some security with it.
Money is a necessity for functioning. But then, what happens is the thought of money causes enormous anxiety. And the problem is that money is something which we live with.
But often, money becomes something which we live for. Instead of being a means for living, it becomes a purpose for living. And then, when it displaces other things in our consciousness, then it becomes a big problem.
So, we can think about whatever is the home for our thoughts, that is the very thing which agitates us. Maybe we’re attached to some family member, but then often, they behave in very irritating ways. And then, when we think about them, a scowl comes on our face, a frown comes or at least a grimace comes on our face.
Whatever it is, actually, it will agitate us. But Krishna is the person who, if we make Him the home of our thoughts, we will become peaceful. bhajahure mana shri nandananda na abhayacharanaravindare abhayacharanaravindare The mind will become peaceful.
So, that’s how we are practising bhakti right now. We chant Hare Krishna, we hear Krishna Katha. The purpose of this is not just to do these activities.
The purpose is actually to make Krishna our inner home. When we have nothing to think about, automatically our thoughts will gravitate towards Krishna. That is what has happened to the pure devotees.
This is what Krishna says, For those devotees, their life is dedicated to me. madgata prana They live for my sake. And then, when they meet with each other, Krishna has earlier talked about the yogis.
The yogis leave home and go to the jungle. suchaudeshe patishthapya tiramahasinamatmana They go out in the jungle and sit and meditate. But Krishna says, no.
What do my devotees do? They come and discuss Krishna Katha. bodhayanta parasparam kathayantasyamam They constantly discuss about this. tushyanticharam anticharam They delight in discussing this.
That is interesting. Krishna uses the word bodhayanta. Bodhayanta actually means, Prabhupada translates this as enlightenment.
They enlighten each other. Now, the previous verse has said, 10.8 says, that they are already enlightened. They are budha.
Budha means enlightened. The word budha is cognate with buddha. The word buddha has now come to refer to Siddhartha Gautam Buddha, the founder of Buddhism.
But originally the word buddha simply meant an enlightened one. And when Siddhartha was considered to be enlightened, he got the title buddha. So budha is cognate with that.
Cognate means coming from the same root. So, now Krishna has already said that these people are enlightened. If they are already enlightened, then what does it mean that they enlighten each other? Actually, Krishna is infinite.
Krishna’s glories are infinite. And one devotee can release Krishna in another way, another devotee can release Krishna in another way. And that’s how the glories of Krishna can be released unlimitedly.
So, Krishna’s glories, in this way, Krishna keeps, devotees keep enlightening each other about Krishna. And now you may say, all this is very wonderful, but you know, I am far away from this stage. How does all this apply for me in my life? Then Krishna says in the next two verses, that for those who aspire to become devoted like this, for them, He provides direction.
So, let’s recite 10.10. So, here the key verse is, Krishna says, for those who are devoted to Me, He says, I give them buddhi, the dhami. I give them buddhi, but what kind of buddhi? Yoga. So, buddhi yoga is a compound word.
There are two words which come together to form this word, it’s called a compound word. And this word can be understood in two ways. The buddhi to do yoga, that is buddhi yoga.
And buddhi yoga can also refer to yoga, the yoga that gives buddhi. So, that means, it works both in symbiotic. We get the intelligence by which to make right choices.
And ultimately, the best choice for us is to do yoga, to connect with Krishna. And also by connecting with Krishna, we get intelligence. So, there are many aspects of intelligence.
There is verbal intelligence, there is visual intelligence. Some people, they just see something and they just remember, oh, this colour was like this, this colour was like this, this was shaped like this. Some other people have very good musical intelligence.
They hear some music and they immediately can write down the tones of that. Some other people have very good geographical intelligence. Whenever they just travel to one place, next time when they come, hey, you have to go left, go right.
Other people, you know, they have come to the same place ten times, they search, where do I go now? How do I go there? So, there are different kinds of intelligences. And Krishna says, dadami buddhi yogam tam. He is saying that, okay, if a child is not able to do mathematics, he starts practising bhakti or he will become a mathematical genius, I will give you the intelligence.
He is not talking about that. He is talking about the foundational intelligence. See, the most foundational intelligence is the intelligence to know what to do with our intelligence.
The intelligence to know what to do with our intelligence. Actually, see that, most of the problems in this world, the big problems that are there, are caused by intelligent people. Now, there are, that means, say consider, if you consider the ecological problems that are there in the world.
Now, the whole ecology, it is, exploiting the ecology, it actually is done through high-end scientific and technological advancement. And all that was developed using intelligence. So science, or science and, because the technology is a product of intelligence.
But the products of technology are not used intelligently. In technology, it is resulting from intelligence, but then it is not used intelligently, it is used destructively. So, we have tremendous technology today, but then for what purpose is it being used? More often than not, it is being used for destructive purposes, for damaging purposes.
So, the most foundational intelligence is the intelligence to know what to do with one’s intelligence. Whatever intelligence we have, some of us may have a lot of intelligence, some of us may have little intelligence, but whatever intelligence we have, what to do with that? That fundamental intelligence Krishna gives to us. Dadami buddhi yogam tam.
What are we meant to do with what we are? One of the big problems in materialistic society is that people often compare. Oh, you know, this person looks better than me. This person, this child is, you know, my child does not have as much memory as their child has.
We can have so many comparisons, and by that comparison, often we become disheartened. Now, when we start practising bhakti, we understand that, actually, Krishna has all given us different gifts. And if God had wanted us to be someone else, He would have made someone else.
He has made us, and because He has made us, we are meant to be me. We are not meant to be someone else. Of course, I am meant to be the best me, not the worst me, but I am simply meant to be me.
We don’t have to become anyone else. That intelligence, to know what to do with our intelligence, that is what we get by bhakti. So, our other aspects may or may not improve by the practise of bhakti, but whatever resources we have, we will be able to use them much better.
Just before this programme, say, we had prasad. Now, suppose it was a feast, and suppose it was a special feast, where everybody has special items, distinct items. So, what is in your plate is different from what is in my plate, is different from what is in his plate, is different from what is in her plate.
And now, all of us have got a feast, all of us have got delicacies, but I have a feast in front of me, but I am looking, what is in his plate? What is in her plate? What is in their plate? Now, what will happen by that? Although I have a feast, and I can delight in that feast, but instead of delighting, I will be dissatisfied. I will be dissatisfied because I am looking at what others have, instead of what we have. So, when we understand that all of us are made by God the way we are for a purpose, we don’t have to become someone else.
Now, I have got a feast right now with me. I just have to enjoy this feast which I have. That intelligence to know what to do with our intelligence, that is what comes by the practise of bhakti.
So, some of us may have a lot and we may use that lot constructively and we will be happy. Some of us may have a little and we will use the little constructively and we will be happy. But some of us may have a lot and if we don’t use it constructively, we will make a lot of trouble for ourselves and for others.
And that’s why the fundamental change that the practise of bhakti does for us is that it guides us to put to good use what we have. The whole of modern materialistic civilisation is that happiness lies out there in getting what you don’t have. Get that, get that new phone, get that new car, get that new house.
Nowadays, get that new spouse. So, what happens is that happiness lies out there in the things which we don’t have. That is the materialistic way of thinking.
And yes, it is true that sometimes there are things out there which we will be able to use better. If we have an old model of phone, there might be some good functionality in the new phone which we can use. If we have a small house, a bigger house might be of help.
But we should know that these things are for functional purposes. They may help us to function better. But it is not that they will provide satisfaction.
If we need them for functioning better, we can acquire them. But the mistake is, again I said, what we live with and what we live for. So, improving things externally, that may help us to function better.
But that won’t make us happier. Happiness comes by better realising who we are within ourselves. And putting to better use whatever we have.
And that redirection of our energy, that is what bhakti does. Intelligence for that. Krishna says, I will give the intelligence and ultimately, by which you will come to me.
The source of the supreme happiness is Krishna. When we attain Krishna, we attain the ultimate happiness. So, when we attain Krishna, how to attain Krishna, what choices to make by which we can attain Krishna.
Those wise choices we will be able to make by the practise of bhakti. So, if we see in the Bhagavad Gita, the Bhagavad Gita is a part of the Mahabharata. And it is spoken right at the start of the Kurukshetra War.
And in the beginning, in the first chapter of the Gita, when Duryodhana is assessing the two forces, he says, he says, okay, there are so many great soldiers on their side. Bhima, Arjuna, Samayuja, there are many who are like Bhima and Arjuna. And he says, anye cha bhava ashura, there are many on my side also.
He basically compares the forces on the opposite side and forces on his own side. And while doing all this, Duryodhana actually names all the important warriors on both sides. But he misses out one person.
Who is that? Krishna. He just completely misses him out. You know, because he, he just, he thinks Krishna is a non-combatant.
So, because he thinks Krishna is a non-combatant, so he thinks Krishna is a non-entity. You know, whack out him. He is not going to fight.
So, if we look at the Kurukshetra War, Krishna did not fight. But Krishna determined the result of the fight. How? Because at all critical times, Krishna gave guidance to Arjuna.
And that guidance proved decisive. So, if we are always looking simply from the materialistic perspective, you chant Hare Krishna, you do bhakti, what do you get out of it? If we look at things purely from the gross material terms, okay, you chant Hare Krishna every day for one and a half hours. What do you get out of it? What does someone pay you for it? What do you get out of it? If we try to quantify the results of bhakti in material terms, we will not be able to quantify it.
So, just like that, but trying to quantify everything materially is actually the Duryodhana mentality. Duryodhana tried to count. What is the value of Krishna? He said, no value.
So, Albert Einstein said that all that counts, all that is countable is not worth, all that is countable does not count and all that counts is not countable. All that is countable means you can put in terms of numbers. All that is countable, it is not necessary that it counts.
Sometimes, you can have a huge pile of currency notes. Recently, there was demonetisation in India. So, there is so many notes which you could count, but it did not count at all.
Suddenly, in one moment, it did not count at all. So, all that is countable does not necessarily count and all that counts is not countable. Leave alone from a spiritual perspective, from a material perspective, also, when we are with those whom we love, those who love us, the joy, the fulfilment that we experience in close relationships, we cannot put any mathematical, numerical, financial value on that.
So, there are things which are not countable, but still they count a lot. So, this whole counting mentality was Duryodhana’s mentality and he thought Krishna is a non-entity. And at several points in the Kurukshetra war, if you look at the 18 days war, almost every day, Krishna did something vital to help Arjuna specifically or the Pandavas generally.
And we know the most dramatic help was when Arjuna had taken a vow to kill Jayadratha. So, at that time, actually, on that day, again, Krishna did not shoot a single arrow. If you think simply in terms of what did Krishna do, Krishna did nothing.
And yet, Krishna did everything. Because Krishna guided those and empowered those who were doing things to make the right choices. So, that day, as Arjuna was racing, racing, racing, he knew there is a race against time to reach Jayadratha and the Kauravas had thought that if you can just stop Arjuna from reaching Jayadratha, Arjuna will die.
And if he dies, then it’s like almost the war is won for us. Arjuna is their key player. So, just like sometimes in an Indian cricket team, there is one batsman who is considered key.
You get him out, then everybody else collapses like a pack of cars. So, they thought that, you know, we just get Arjuna out. And how to get him out? You know, just don’t let him reach Jayadratha.
So, they arranged the whole army in such a way that he just could not reach Jayadratha. And still Arjuna fought gallantly. He broke through the Kaurava forces and he reached Jayadratha.
So, Jayadratha, all warriors had their chariots with their flag on top of it. And he could see Jayadratha’s flag. And Duryodhana was devastated.
He said, how could he have reached so far? And what had happened? First Arjuna had penetrated and then to help Arjuna, Yudhishthira sent Satyaki behind him. And then Satyaki was also very young, almost of the age of Abhimanyu. And Yudhishthira said, yesterday I sent Abhimanyu inside, today I sent Satyaki inside.
So, then he looked around. He said, I want to send somebody else. And there was one person who was itching to fight.
And that was Bhima. So, he sent Bhima inside. And then Bhima just, just total havoc he created.
You know, that day in one hour, Bhima killed 30 of Duryodhana’s brothers. I think after two minutes he was killing one person. So, Duryodhana was just devastated.
He was holding his head in his hands. What happened? What is this? At that time he started thinking, Yes, my whole army is not able to stop Arjuna. And my brother is just falling at the power of Bhima.
How is this happening? Maybe Krishna really is God. Krishna really is God. But then, it is said that, believers need no reasons.
Disbelievers accept no reasons. Those who have faith, they don’t necessarily need reason to accept it. But those who do not want to, those who are disbelievers, no matter what reason they get, they will not be able to accept it.
They just find some way around it. Like if you look at the whole mechanism of rains, how it comes. You see that, it’s so complex.
From the ocean, the water is evaporated. As water vapour, clouds are formed. Cloud comes on the surface of the land.
And then they melt. Now, when scientists try to simulate it, it’s very very difficult to do it in a small quantity. It’s a very complex mechanism.
And if this whole mechanism of rainfall had not been there, you know, we would not be able to live. So, it’s such a complicated, intricate mechanism. And the clouds are like a mobile airborne water tank made of aircraft proof technology.
You know, the twin towers were not made of aircraft proof technology. So, it’s such a powerful technology. And still, atheists will see this and say, if God made rains, God arranged for clouds to give us rains, then why does it rain on the oceans? And it rains on the oceans so that atheists can ask this question.
The point is that, actually, there is enough reason in this world for those who want to believe to believe. And for those who want to disbelieve, they will also find reasons. So, for Duryodhana, the sheer power of Arjuna, unstoppable power of Arjuna, that he felt, yes, Krishna must be God.
But then he started thinking, no, if Krishna would have been God, and Arjuna is so dear to Krishna, and Abhimanyu is so dear to Arjuna, how are we able to kill Abhimanyu? We are able to kill Abhimanyu. That means Krishna is not God. So, he came to his uncle, and he looked up, and he got a surge of evil energy within himself.
He said, no. He looked at the sun, it was just rapidly sinking towards the horizon. Just a little time remaining.
He thought, maybe this one last effort will be able to stop Arjuna. So, he thought that yesterday we had got six warriors to stop Abhimanyu. Arjuna is Abhimanyu’s father, so we’ll get eight warriors to attack him.
Suddenly, right, I told him, Karna and Shalya, I told him, Karna and Ashwathama, attack Arjuna from the front. Drona and Kripa, attack Arjuna from the left. I told two other warriors to attack from the right.
Dushyasana and I, I’ll attack him from behind. They all suddenly pounced on Arjuna from all sides. Arjuna was charging ahead, and was surrounded by a cloud of arrows.
Arjuna was swinging around, whirling round and round, and holding back the attack of arrows. He just couldn’t move forward. And the sun was inexorably going down towards the horizon.
Arjuna started despairing. So close, yet so far. And then at that time, Krishna saw Arjuna’s predicament.
And Krishna decided to do something. Again, he did not use a weapon. Or he did not use a weapon for fighting.
He got his Sudarshan Chakra, but he used it to cover the sun. And suddenly the sun got covered. And then, suddenly twilight came over there.
All the, all the Kauravas started cheering. And Jayadratha had been hiding behind there, cowering. In fact, the previous night when Jayadratha had come to know that Arjuna has taken a vow to kill, so Jayadratha had come running to Duryodhana and he said, You know, that son of Prutha, he has taken a vow to kill me.
I decided to run to the Himalayas right now. So he had been fearful, but now, he started jeering at Arjuna. You are going to kill me? Should I light your funeral pyre? And then Arjuna was exasperated.
He started lowering his bow down. And at that time, Krishna told Arjuna and Arjuna told Arjuna, Arjuna, there is still time. Put the Brahmastra on your bow.
And now, Arjuna knew that there is a time to ask questions and there is a time to defer questions. Now it’s a, what is it? It’s a race against time. Krishna must be having something.
Normally, Kshatriya code is once the sun is set, you cannot fight. And he had taken a vow. So he says, if Krishna is telling me to put an arrow, let me put the arrow.
Sometimes, you know, we say, when we surrender, do we surrender with intelligence or do we surrender the intelligence? What do we do? Do we use our intelligence and surrender? Or do we just surrender our intelligence to Krishna? Actually, both are true. Normally, we use our intelligence, understand properly and then we surrender. But there are times when our intelligence does not work.
So at that time, surrender the intelligence. Krishna, whatever you tell me, I will do. So Arjuna put the bow on, put the paramastra on his bow.
And Krishna told Arjuna that there is, shoot the arrow in such a way that it lops off the head of Jaidrath. But Jaidrath’s head should not fall on the ground. Far away from here, a short distance from here, there is Simandh Panchak, where Jaidrath’s father, Udakshatra, is performing austerities.
And his head should fall, Jaidrath’s head should fall on the lap of Udakshatra. you know, it’s like Arjuna placed the arrow and then immediately Krishna removed the sun. And then he told Arjuna, there is the sun and there is Jaidrath.
Shoot! Arjuna shot. And all the Kauravas were just just jubilant. And then suddenly right in front of their eyes, arrow just went straight and just lopped off the head.
Lopped off the head, you know. It’s like, sometimes in a cricket match, the last ball, you need, the opposite team, the batting team needs the boundary and then the bowler bowls and they think ball is missed. We won the match.
And they start celebrating. And then after celebrating, stop, it was a no ball. And they get one more chance and it is hit for a sixer.
So they thought, the Kauravas thought the match is over. But the match was not yet over. So right in front of their eyes, Krishna shot, Arjuna shot the arrow.
And actually, Jaidrath had been an evil person and his father Vidhakshatra knew that Jaidrath’s animosity towards the Pandavas and ultimately towards Krishna would be very dangerous for him. So he had tried to, in his own fatherly way, protect his son. So he had prayed to Shiva and he got a benediction that whoever causes Jaidrath’s head to fall on the ground, that person’s head will shatter into a thousand pieces.
Now, what Krishna did was, Krishna arranged for Arjuna to shoot the arrow and the arrow was shot in such a way that it went and fell on Vidhakshatra’s lap. Vidhakshatra was in meditation and suddenly he felt something falling on his lap. He opened his eyes.
Skull! Just got up. As soon as he got up, the skull fell on the ground. And because he caused the head of his son to fall on the ground, his own head exploded.
So, Krishna Krishna gave the intelligence. Krishna did not shoot one arrow in the Purushetra war. But, he determined the result.
He gave the intelligence by which the odds swung decisively in favour of his devotees. So that’s what, if we are practising bhakti and if we retain too much of a materially calculative mentality. Okay, if I do this, this will happen.
If I do this, this will happen. If I do this, this will happen. And when we start feeling, what does bhakti actually do? It doesn’t do anything.
We can have material calculation, but we should know that when we are practising bhakti, it is Krishna who is involved who is beyond all calculation. So, we just depend on Krishna. Do what Krishna wants us to do.
Now, we may say, how do I know what Krishna wants me to do? That is his benediction. The last verse, 10.11 So, I have gone through a lot of pain in my life. What is my realisation through it all? Well, I can’t say that there is any one realisation and I can’t even say really that it is a realisation.
Because every time that I think I have a realisation, soon Krishna gives me the realisation that I don’t really have that realisation. I think I have realised something and the next time the problem comes, I realise I have not realised it actually. So, life is, we cannot really say that we have realised, but we can all learn something through whatever we have gone through.
And I feel three main things that first is that when things go wrong, at that time to try to figure them out is just too messy. Don’t try to figure it out. Get out.
Get out means not that we run away from the problem, but get our consciousness out of that problem. Because if you are just too caught in it, then it just doesn’t work. You know, since my childhood I had polio in my left leg and in 2011 I had gone to the Juhu temple once for doing some programmes and morning I was chanting in the temple hall and there somebody had spilled some water.
Just slipped on that and just fell down very badly. So, it was a small fall but because my leg was already very weak, I had osteoporosis. So, it was literally the the thigh came out of the leg.
It was a very bad fracture. So, at that time it was so painful. And I just it was in the morning in the temple hall.
So, after that what happened one of my atheist friends he wrote a letter to me. He says, you know, your God could not protect you in his own temple when you were chanting his names. Yes.
So, why are you worshipping such a God? Do you still believe in God? So, then there is an article on my website also. Do you still believe in God? That’s the title of the article. So, I explained, yes.
Rather than seeing that God is not the cause of everything. He has given people free will and people misuse their free will. Bad things happen.
It is not that Krishna caused that water to spill over there. Somebody was careless and they spilled the water over there. Krishna allowed it to happen.
Now, why he allowed it to happen, I don’t know that. But, even at that time I was sleeping and I had fallen and it was so painful. Somehow, you know, I love the Bhagavad Gita.
I love Bhagavad Gita verses. So, I just started reciting the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita at that time. Almost as if, like, I was lifted out of my body.
Body was painful but I just stopped feeling that pain. It was not that and as soon as I stopped chanting the Gita, all the worst pain came back. So, it was not that I was chanting the Gita out of devotion.
I was chanting the Gita for simply protection. But, from that time, almost in 3-4 hours, I was taken to a hospital and then we did x-ray and the surgery was done. Just continuously chanting the Gita and even I was even till now, every Gita Jayanti, we recite Gita verses.
But on no Gita Jayanti, have I chanted with so much absorption as I chanted as I chanted on that day. So, it was I got a very strong experience that by the remembrance of Krishna, we can actually rise above suffering. So, I felt that was a big gain for me.
So, suffering will come to everyone in life. Ultimately, we we have to live life the way life occurs. I faced a fracture.
Somebody else will face something else. Everybody will get suffering in some way or the other. So, how can we best deal with suffering? So, God is not the cause of our suffering.
He is the cure for our suffering. So, sometimes the cause, it is just impossible to find it out. But from Shastra, we know that Krishna is not a cruel God.
Krishna loves us. So, He is not causing our suffering. He is the cure for our suffering.
And if we turn towards Him amidst our suffering, we take shelter of Him, we do get relief. So, after that, in the hospital, the doctor told me that since 2011 that you cannot travel anymore. At that time, I was travelling quite a bit in India especially to do with preaching.
He said, you cannot travel anymore. And I was thinking, what will I do then? So, at that time, I was in the hospital for 2-3 months. Once I was giving on Skype a class to some devotees.
It was called audio class. I was speaking about the 6 opulences of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. And I was lost.
I just started closing my eyes and started getting absorbed in speaking. And I kept speaking for 15 minutes. And I just opened my eyes and I saw the Skype connection had gone off.
And I saw on my phone, I had to keep the phone silent because I was giving a class. I saw that almost 15 calls and 15 missed calls had come. And for a moment, I just felt irritated that what is this? I was just wasted my time speaking so long.
But then it struck me actually while I was speaking about Krishna, I was so happy. I was so absorbed. I was blissful.
So, then it registered on me that for speaking about Krishna, I don’t need an audience. Even without an audience also I can speak about Krishna. And that’s how I got this whole idea of doing online preaching.
I started asking questions. Then I started doing online recorded courses. So, otherwise for many devotees, they feel that just to speak through a camera, how can I speak? I need somebody or an audience to speak.
But somehow I got that experience and then a whole new vista for outreach opened for me. So, I feel that if we just maintain that desire to serve Krishna, then even when like one door closes bang in our face in our life, some other door will open somewhere. But often what happens is we are so angrily glaring and staring at that closed door as if by staring and glaring at it, it will burn down.
But that is not going to happen. That door is closed. It’s closed now.
So, we accept that it is closed and we open ourselves to Krishna. We find that Krishna opens some other door. Not just another door, it’s a better door.
So, if we just keep practising bhakti, then we may not always understand why things happen the way they do. But eventually we see that Krishna can bring good out of it. So, it is not that everything that happens is good.
But everything that happens can be for good. Some things are really bad. They happen and they are bad things.
The loved one passes away or some other things like that happen. Somebody gets a terrible disease. It’s bad.
But Krishna is so expert that he can bring good out of the bad also. But he can bring the good out of bad only if we cooperate. If we choke ourselves with resentment and frustration and negativity, then Krishna cannot bring the good out of it.
So, we have to try to be as devotional as possible and even if bad things happen, Krishna will bring good out of it. That’s my small experience which I dare not call a realisation because we all have to keep realising it again and again to remember it. Do we have time? Okay.
Why do Hindus have so many scriptures, so many things? How do we understand that? Because we have Bhagavad Gita, we have Bhagavad Gita, we have other Puranas, Vedas and all that. Okay. So, for other religions like say Christianity or Islam, they have only one book but for us we have so many books.
Isn’t it confusing? Not necessarily. First of all, the Bible, if you see, it’s one Bible but there are literally hundreds of translations. There is, if you just go to bible.cc for each verse, you will see that there are hundred translations and there is there are different authors, different Christian teachers who accept different translations and what to speak of that, what we call as Bible.
See, there are different Christian groups which actually decide which books are to be included in the Bible. That means the Bible, we get it as one book but within the Bible there are Gospels, there is Ecclesiastes, there are various other sections and different sects say this book is included in the Bible, they say this book is not included in the Bible, this book is included in the Bible. So, with respect to textual things, there is always going to be variance.
It is not that there is only one thing but more importantly we have to understand the principle. See, the Vedas are inclusive. That means whatever level we are at, the Vedas offer us steps from moving there to one step up, to one step up, to one step up.
So, the idea is that the Vedas don’t say for anyone that you are unqualified. You have, you cannot be Dharmic. Whatever level you are, if you want to eat meat, you eat meat but you offer it to Kali.
Do a proper sacrifice to Kali, offer meat to Namavasya and eat it. By that also you will be Dharmic. If somebody is very much in Tamoguna, from Tamoguna they can rise one step higher.
Somebody is Rajoguna, from Rajoguna they can rise one step higher. So, the Vedic texts are such that whatever level one is at, from that level they can rise one step upward, they can rise one step upwards. So, in that sense, the Vedas offer us user friendly spirituality.
You know, okay, it’s user friendly. Whatever level the user is at, from there rise one step upwards. On the other hand, when you talk about the Bible or the Quran, they offer a very exclusive form of religion.
That means, you accept this, you are elevated. Otherwise, you are going to go to hell. And there are some extremist versions of these religions, especially Islam, say not only are you going to go to hell, we will help you get there fast.
So, the idea is that actually these offer like one zero kind of religion. Either you are inside or you are outside. But, what about those people who can’t be inside for whatever reason? Do they have to be outside and they have to go to hell? It’s not necessary.
Now Krishna, the Bible offers, ultimately there is only one God. But the conception of God that is offered in different religions is not identical. The Bible offers a vision of a jealous God.
One of the commandments of the Bible is, and that comes in the Quran also, because they all come from the same root texts. Thou shall not worship any other God except me. So they said, your God is a jealous God.
But the Bhagavad Gita, it does not offer Krishna as a jealous God. Krishna is a zealous God. He is zealous for the elevation of everyone.
In 7.20 to 23, Krishna says that if you can’t worship me, you worship the devatas. When you worship the devatas, I will give you the faith to worship them and I will give you the devatas the power by which they can fulfil your prayers. His purpose is simply our elevation.
From wherever we are, if you can’t worship me, okay, you worship somebody else, but you do worship someone and become elevated by that. So in that sense, Krishna offers user friendly spirituality and the whole mood of the Vedic literature is that no one should be rejected. From wherever they are, let them take one step up.
Let them take one step up. And the advantage of this is everyone is included. But the disadvantage is that everyone can keep fighting on who is right and who is not right.
Just like, most of us may have heard the example of say, the Bible and Quran are like a pocket dictionary. The Vedas are like an unabridged dictionary. And one of my Hindu friends, he read one of my articles and said this is very good, the Vedas are like the unabridged dictionary.
They are like the pocket dictionary. But this is actually, it is not necessarily a matter of religious arrogance for us. If somebody is using an unabridged dictionary, it is not an easy job to do that.
Because sometimes for one word, you may have 25 meanings. And then you are reading a paragraph, which of those 25 meanings applies in that paragraph? It requires energy to understand it. Words can have very different meanings.
For example, the word wicked. Wicked usually means cruel. But nowadays in contemporary usage, wicked, the word means great, wonderful.
It is a wicked party. It is a wonderful party. So the words can actually acquire quite opposite meanings to what they were.
For example, the word epithet, for example, it means a title. One meaning is title. Another meaning is insult.
Same word, opposite meanings. So when something is an unabridged dictionary, one oneself has to be an expert user, or one needs to be in connection with an expert user, expert English user, to know which to use. So that way, that’s why in the Vedic tradition, the Guru is very important.
So the Guru tells us where we are and what we should follow. So, nothing in this world is a pure blessing. And that which is a blessing in one way can also become a curse in another.
So the Vedic literature are a blessing in the sense that they offer something for everyone whichever level they are at. It is a big blessing. It means whatever level they are, people can be elevated from there.
But the disadvantage of that is that people can just find something to justify where they are and stay with that place only. And they may not rise higher. So, how it is, say, you know, a father has two children, two sons.
And one of them just gets barely 40, passes and gets 40% marks. The other is a topper, gets say 90% marks. And both of them have come with results.
And both of them have got 65%. The person who came with 40% says, shabash, well done, I am proud of you. Father will say, other child comes, badmash, what have you done? The second son says, both of us got 65%, you are praising him and justifying me? Why is that? Because from 90%, 65% is a step down.
From 40%, 65% is a step up. That way, if you consider the worship of the devatas, for a person who is godless, who is materialistic, for that person to start worshipping the devatas, it is very punyavan to do that. It is very virtuous for a person to rise from godlessness to some level of religiosity.
That is coming from 40% to 65%. Very good, you have become a religious person now. But Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita is speaking to Arjuna who is at 90%.
And then he says, somebody worship the devata, less intelligent people worship the devatas. So it is not that Krishna is condemning demigod worship. Rather, Krishna is saying, for you at this level, that is a step down.
You don’t have to step down. So there can be confusion. But simplicity is not always a virtue.
But the simplicity of the Quran and the Bible, that can lead to exclusivity. And exclusivity means, this is the only way, you are not following this way, you are going to go to hell. At least a very narrow minded approach to religion.
The complexity of the Vedic literature is essential for their inclusivity. They are inclusive for everyone. But that same complexity can also lead to confusion if you don’t have proper guidance.
If you have proper guidance, then you understand that the Vedic literature manifests God’s compassion in the greatest way, in an unparalleled way. That same God, out of compassion, has given the Bible, has given the Quran, has given the Vedas. His compassion is manifest most in the Vedic literature, in the multiple level, or multiple ways in which he has allowed people to become elevated.
Does that answer your question? Okay, yeah. So, in Krishna Consciousness, we follow so many rules and regulations, like say no meat eating, but in other religions people do all these things. Will they still be elevated and go back to Krishna? There are two different things over here.
One is becoming elevated. Second is getting liberated. The two are not the same.
From wherever we are, we can be elevated by practising any path that God has given. The extent of elevation will depend on how much purified we become. So, it is not that just by being say affiliated with this God, there is no guarantee that we are all going back to Krishna.
It is, the Krishna Consciousness movement is a facility for us to become Krishna Conscious. If we become Krishna Conscious, if we learn to love Krishna, we will attain Krishna. So, attaining God or attaining Krishna is not a matter of affiliation with any particular religious group.
It is a matter of purification. It is a matter of attraction to the Lord. So, if by following some other path, people develop love for God, they will attain God.
It is not that they can’t attain love for God by following other paths. The important thing is are they becoming purified. So, from the level that they are at, whatever regulations they follow, they will become elevated by that.
The extent of their elevation is not just dependent on their affiliation, their affiliation or lack of affiliation. The extent of elevation depends on their purification. So, there are many Christians who are also vegetarians.
In fact, there are Muslims also who are vegetarians. It is not that they all necessarily eat meat and they rationalise the eating of meat all the time. It is just that they practise.
There are people within their religions also who have recognised this is violence against animals, this is not good. But we should not get too caught in the specifics. The principle is that we have to develop love for God and we will see for ourselves that by showing kindness to all the creatures of God, love for God can be more easily developed.
If we are not showing that level of kindness, then we may still develop love for God, but we are actually making it more difficult. We are lighting a fire and putting some water on the fire. More effort will be required, more labour will be required.
So it is not so much of what we are giving up or what path we are joining. The important thing is what consciousness we are achieving. We are developing love for Krishna, we are taking Krishna.
So thank you very much. Thank you very much. very important.
Whatever you did that day, sit and watch it all day. We will get bored in 15 minutes. Fast forward it.
Our life is not sufficiently interesting to even hold our own attention. Not to speak of other people’s attention. Our life is not so interesting that we can even take care of ourselves.
So whatever happened in the past, we can never remember it. There is no meaning in it. So we remember the important things in it.
And this is history. We have a personal history. Our nation has a national history.
Our family has a family history. Our soul has a spiritual history. Yes, when we come into devotion, we come into a community.
That community has a history. So now, whatever has happened in history, many things are in such a memory, which we do not need to keep in memory. He said this to me, he said that to me, this happened, that happened.
It is better to remove those things from memory. In English, it is called gossip. What is the Hindi word for gossip? What does gossip mean? When we hear something we like about someone we don’t like.
When we don’t like a person, and we hear something we like about him. We don’t like him, he did this, he did that. We remember it immediately.
So many things are in our memory, which we don’t need to keep in memory. But there are many things in our history, which we need to bring into our memory. So when there are important days in the calendar of our community, what do we have to do at that time? We have to bring the important events of our history into our memory.
And that can make our memory more spiritual. When we bring our spiritual history into our memory, then our memory becomes our treasure. When we remember the spiritual things that happened in our history, then our memory becomes our treasure.
So if someone has a lot of treasure, can we get a lot of happiness from that treasure? In that way, if our memory is full of divine, blissful things, then we get happiness from that. So that’s why, when we listen, chant, remember, serve, when we listen, chant, then our aim is to remember. So the Gaudiya Vaishnava community, on one hand, its history is 500 years old, and on the other hand, it has been going on for centuries.
The devotion to God is eternal, but its manifestation happens in different ways, at different times. So this festival of Jagannath Yatra, this festival of Jagannath Yatra, is very important in our community, because of three main reasons. First of all, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, who is the founder of our community, Prabhupada Krishnabhau Nama Tantra’s founder, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is the founder of the Gaudiya Vaishnava community.
So he used to live in Jagannath Puri, and the festival of Jagannath Yatra is very important there. So this is the first reason, where he used to live. The second is, what was his motive? And his motive was the same as that of the Yatra.
And the third is, what was his work? His special work was, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu used to dance. So the whole world was astonished by that, and was astonished, and Jagannath Ji was also astonished. So Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, was told that he was the dancing God.
So he expanded the method of dancing in the Yatra. And Nagar Sankirtan has become a very important part of our community. So in this way, the place, the purpose, and the process.
Because of these three things, the Yatra is very important in the Gaudiya community. So we will see these three things slowly. Now, how many years was Chaitanya Mahaprabhu with us in this world? Sorry? Yes, 48 years.
Thank you. So how many years was he in Mayapur? 24 years. After that, where did he come? He came to Puri.
So for 24 to 48 years, his base was Puri. So for the next 6 years, he travelled. But still, wherever he used to go, he used to come to Puri.
So almost, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu can say, that for 23 to 24 years, he travelled. So now, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, now we will see, that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu after exhibiting his devotion, the place where he used to spend most of his time is Jagannath Puri. And why Jagannath Puri? Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, now when Bhagwan does some work, there are different reasons for that.
So there is an external reason and an internal reason. So there is an external reason, when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu gave Sanyas, so he had a wish, where did he want to go? Vrindavan. And he was very eager, when will I go to Vrindavan? But his mother said, that now you will go to Vrindavan, so Vrindavan is so far away, I will not get any information about you, you will not get any information.
So please you stay in Jagannath Puri, because the same Bhagwan, who is Krishna, is in the form of Jagannath in Puri. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, after listening to his mother, came to Puri. But, when he came to Puri, so the enthusiasm, the eagerness, that he wanted to go to Vrindavan, with that same enthusiasm and eagerness, he came to Puri.
So for him, there was no difference between Puri and Vrindavan. So when he came to Puri, he saw Darshan of Jagannath Ji, immediately he became unconscious. He became unconscious, because, when do we become unconscious? When, our body, cannot bear our consciousness and feelings.
Sometimes, when there is a lot of pain in the body, then also we become unconscious. Or sometimes, when there is so much happiness or sorrow on the head, then also our body, cannot feel it. And then our consciousness switches off.
In Anandam Vrindavan Champu, it is said that, when in Raas Leela, Krishna left Radha Rani, then Radha Rani became so emotional, so distressed, that, as if Krishna is her life, so Krishna left her, so along with that, her life also left her. So, because her life did not leave her, there, Kavi Karnapur says in Anandam Vrindavan Champu, that, to save her life, there, his Yoga Maya, made a plan, that her consciousness should leave her, and that is why she became unconscious. So, in this way, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu came to Jagannath Puri, and he was seeing Krishna directly.
And, Ratha Yatra is an ancient festival, it has been going on for a long time. But, when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu became a part of it, he used to accompany her in such a divine way, he used to perform such divine rituals, he used to be in that very place, and the whole, if we have the Krishnabhavnagar organisation, then our biggest festival is, which one is ours? Janmahashtami, in a way. So, the whole year, around Janmahashtami, there is a cycle.
So, in Jagannath Puri, Jagannath Ratha Yatra, there is a cycle around it. So, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, who was residing there, whenever he had to go somewhere, the devotees used to say, Jagannath Ji’s festival is coming, this festival is coming, don’t go now, don’t go now. So, in this way, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, because he used to accompany her in that Ratha Yatra, that is why, the whole atmosphere got complete.
And then, along with Ratha Yatra, what happened was, the devotees of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, who used to live in Mayapur, they used to feel very lonely. Anyway, they used to feel very happy to see Jagannath Ji, but especially, they used to see Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, they used to worship Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. That is why, a whole travel party used to come.
In a large number, many devotees used to come from all over Bengal to Orissa. And all of them used to feel happy to see Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. The biggest question was, how does Chaitanya Mahaprabhu meet in Ratha Yatra? So, now, if we have to travel somewhere, then it is very easy.
If you want to travel, you can book it on the internet. There is no need to take a printout. Just show the ticket on the phone.
So, it is very easy to travel now. But, for that also, they have to do management. Where to go, which flight to book, which train to book, how to do all this.
I had calculated, two days ago, I had come from Australia. I had gone to Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand. So, I had gone for five months.
And in a week, I take ten classes. One class is one and a half hour. So, in five months, I spoke for two hundred hours.
Sorry. Anyway, how much will it be? Fifty hours per week, per month. So, approximately, two and a half hours.
So, I spoke for two and a half hours. So, I was calculating that it takes approximately one and a half hours to plan travel logistics. That means, half of the travel time goes into travel logistics planning.
Where to go, there is a festival here, there is time for retreat here, there are guests coming here, everything has to be adjusted. So, now, you can imagine, five hundred years ago, when there were very few facilities, how difficult it was to plan there. And who was responsible for planning that? Shivanan Sen.
So, any devotee who does service, the importance of service is understood only when it goes into context. Everything is easy till you yourself start doing it. Everything seems easy till you start doing it yourself.
If you start doing it yourself, then it is not an easy task. You have to do this, you have to do this, you have to do this. So, that is why, Shivanan Sen, what happens is, when we are going on a devotional journey, when we are going on a devotional journey, then we feel that we have to remember God, we have to remember God’s miracles, we have to have a strong feeling about God.
But, when we are going on a journey, we say to someone, look at the management. I am doing all this to get rid of management. So, to avoid all the tensions of management, we have to remember God.
But, what happens is, when everyone else is remembering God, and we feel, is this Prasad or not, is there a place to stay here or not, then what happens is, it can easily lead to resentment. Resentment means, grudging. Why do I have to do all this? But, what is Shivanan Sen’s feeling? He is always selfless.
And at that time, it was even more difficult to go. Why was it difficult? Because, Bengal was under Muslim rule, there was a Muslim king there, and in Orissa, there was a Hindu king. So, there was tension.
And because of that, going from one place to another, especially in Tolna, there, if someone is going there for religious reasons, then, there is a feeling that if we help them, then we will get merit. That is a religious feeling. But, what is a business feeling? If they are going for religious reasons, it means that they will definitely donate something there.
Donating means, they have money. So, instead of donating, we will take money from them. So, what happens is, when we used to go to Orissa, then, there were a lot of problems.
And despite that, Shivanand Sen, used to do everything very well. And sometimes, the most difficult thing is, when we serve someone, and if we make a mistake, then someone else scolds us. Even then, we feel bad.
But, if we have made a good effort, and the situation itself is against us, and because of that, if something does not go well, and that is when we get scolded, then it becomes very difficult to bear that. So, Shivanand Sen gives this Darshan, how to work in such a situation. So, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu used to stay in Puri, and his Prime Minister, who used to come from Bengal to Puri, who was he? Dityanand Prabhu, yes.
When Dityanand Prabhu used to come, then, Dityanand Prabhu used to stay in his divine abode, and once, Shivanand Sen told me that he got stuck, that there was a conversation going on, he was asking for too much. And then, he did not know where to sit, where to eat, so he got angry. And when he got angry, when Shivanand Sen came in front of him, then he started scolding him.
And, when he started scolding him, what did he do? He kicked him with his feet. Now, here, it was normal, but, there was a big insult. But, what happens is that, our Krishna Bhavna, only then, there is a test, there is a manifestation, when there is a provocation.
When everything is alright, anybody can be Krishna conscious. When everything starts going wrong, no, when everything is alright, everybody can be Krishna conscious. And when everything is all wrong, then also everyone can be Krishna conscious.
But, when it is in the middle, when everything is going well, then yes, it is easy to remember God. When everything is going wrong, then what should I do? Then there is no other way to remember God. But, when it is in the middle, that some things are going right, some things are going wrong, when somebody scolds you, it is very difficult for you to bear it.
I am trying. So, when we are provoked, when we are provoked, then how do we react? It is seen from that, that how much Krishna Bhavna has gone inside us. I was in America, and there, there was a person, he had become a devotee.
He, earlier, when the USSR was there, Soviet Russia was there, he was a spy of America in Soviet Russia. So, now, he has become a devotee. So, he used to say, what happens then is, he used to be trained, he used to be trained, that if you are sleeping, and when you are sleeping, somebody kicks you hard and lifts you up, then only, then only, if somebody lifts you up from sleep, then you get angry, if somebody kicks you and lifts you up, then you get angry.
Then only, people curse. So, his training was, that if you wake up from sleep, and somebody kicks you, if you curse, in bad words, you are saying it in Russian, or you are saying it in English. When you wake up from sleep, and when somebody kicks you, then only you are able to become a spy.
So, we have done something so different, when do we know that, when we are provoked, then our spontaneous reaction, what is spontaneous reaction? So, Shivanand Singh, in such a situation, he was also tired, he was also hungry, he was also talking to the troll, he must have also got tired, he must have also got tired, then suddenly, his eyes turned red. Then, what does he do? He says, that your lotus feet, to get this, great sages, not Narada, Brahmaji, do his abhilasha, and you gave me this lotus feet. So, this feeling, is very difficult.
We can pray to Shivanand Singh, that, if he comes in our life, then, in our life, in devotion, we can walk with more stability. So, Shivanand Singh Ki Jai. So, in this way, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and all his devotees, specially the devotees of Bengal, used to come to Puri.
When they used to come to Puri, I told them that, we will see, what is the importance of this, what is the importance of Gaudiya Sampradaya. So, where was Chaitanya Mahaprabhu present? The second thing is, what was the feeling of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu? So, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, is an avatar, typical of God. Radha Bhava Jyoti Suvalitam Navami Krishna Swarupam It is told that, Radha Bhava Jyoti Suvalitam Chaitanya Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Krishna Swarupam, when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu came, he took Radha Rani’s Bhava, and his Jyoti, his colour, his skin.
Jyoti Suvalitam Navami I salute him. Who is he in reality? Krishna Swarupam He is Krishna himself, but he is in Radha Rani’s Bhava. Radha Rani’s Bhava and Radha Rani’s skin.
But now, that is why he is called Gauranga. So, what is his Bhava? Krishna’s memory is at its peak when Krishna leaves. And when he is coming, we do not know.
So, when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu ayi dina daya dranath hai, mathura nath kadav loke se, hrdayam tada loka ka taram, daite dhramani kim karo mya ham. Voh jo bhav hai, ayi dina daya dranath hai. Hey Prabho, aap to deen jo aatmaye hain, unke prati aap daya karte hai.
Main, Radharani ka bhaav hai ki main, aap ke virah mein badi deen avastha mein hoon, par mujh pe daya karne ke jagah pe kya ho gaya hai, mathura nath hai. Aap to mathura ke nath ban gaye hoon, aap mujhe chhod ke chale gaye hoon. ayi dina daya dranath hai, mathura nath kadav loke se.
Hey mathura nath, main aap to kab deekh paun? Kaun bhi, kadav ava loke se. Kabhi, kab mere aakhon ke path pe aap ka darshan ho bhai. hrdayam tada loka ka taram.
Jo aap ko na dekhni karan, aloka. Lok lochin, aakhen hain. Aloka matlab na dekhna, hrdayam tada loka ka taram.
Mera hruday ghayal ho gaya hai, kat gaya hai. Aap ko na dekhni karan. Mera mann abhi brahmit ho gaya hai.
Aap main kya karun? Yeh jo bhaav hai, Shri Krishna se bahut bhi teevr virah ka bhaav jo hai. Wah bhaav mein ek divya prakaar ka anand hai. Yad vipi, wo virah hai, aur virah ek tarah se dukh hai, par wo dukh mein ek divya anand hai.
Kaise hai? Ki Krishna ki smriti yeh ek amrut hai. Aur agar Krishna ki smriti unke sanyog mein hoti hai, toh woh ek madhur amrut hai. Aur Krishna ki smriti unke virah mein hoti hai, toh woh ek katu amrut hai.
Ab yeh karwa amrut kaise ho sakta hai? Par yeh amrut toh amrut hi hai, par uska swaad jo hota hai, usmein karwa aata hai. Toh uska udhaaran mein, Krishna Prem jo hai, woh bahut garam ganne ke ras ke samaan hai. Toh woh ganne ka ras se swaadisht hai, meetha hai, isnein chahiye.
Par garam hai, jal raha, isnein nahi chahiye. Toh chaitanya maha, bhagwan ki smriti toh chahiye, par bhagwan se virah nahi chahiye. Par us samay jo virah hota hai, toh smriti aur badh jati hai.
Aur badh jati hai. Yeh kya hai? Yeh jo material psychology hai, uska transcendental bhaave hai. Hamara jo mann hai, waha kya hamesha, the mind undervalues what we have, and overvalues what we don’t have.
Jo hamare paas hai, waha hum dekhte nahi hai. Usko zyada gante nahi hai. Aur jo hamare paas nahi hai, wo gante hai.
Agar koi prasad serving kar raha hai, aur maan liye, koi prasad aisa hai, ki har ek ke plate mein, alag alag sweet item hai. Kisi ke paas gulab jamun hai, kisi ke paas jalebi hai, kisi ke paas malpua hai, kisi ke paas barfi hai. Toh hamare plate mein jo hai, wo swaadisht hai.
Par hamare plate mein hai, jo hamara dhyan uske unhe jayega, baaki ke plate mein kya kya hai, uske baad dhyan jayega. Aur is tarah se ham asantush terkhte hai. Par kya hai, yeh kehne ka matlab kya hai, ki jo hamare paas nahi hai, uske baare mein ham adhik utawale hote hai.
Uske baare mein hamare jo ichcha hoti hai, wo aur badh jaate hai. Toh theek usse tarah se, Bhagwan ka jo sanyog hota hai, toh bada anand hota hai. Par Bhagwan ka jo virah ho jata hai, toh unke baare mein, unki surti, unki baare mein utkantha jo hai, aur badh jaate hai.
Toh wo jo bhaav hai, ussi bhaav mein, ki Radharani hai, aur ussi bhaav mein, ussi bhaav ko mehsoos karne ke liye, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu mein, Radharani ka roop aur unka bhaav swikar kiya hai. Aur abhi Jagannath ji jo hai, wo kis bhaav mein hai? Jagannath ji ki jo hai, Jagannath ji, Jagannath Bhagwan jo hai, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu yeh hai, wo Krishna, Radha ke virah mein. Aur, Yes.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu kaun hai? Radha, Krishna ke virah mein. Jagannath kaun hai? Krishna, Radha ke virah mein. Toh jab, kya hota hai, hum kahani jaante hai, wo jaise, jo Rohini, Dwarka waasiyon ko, Krishna ke leelaon ke baarein bata rahe hoti hai, Krishna jo waha pe nahi hai.
Toh Krishna sunte hai, aur jab sunte hai, toh bhi kya hota hai, wo itne ekadra ho jaate hai usmein, ki, wo koi bhi distraction nahi chahiye, kuch bhi mujhe aur nahi dekhna hai. Jaise, koi log movie dekhna jaate hai, be aaj kal koi bhi movie hai, wo aap internet pe dekh sakte hai, aapne ghar mein dekh sakte hai, par phir bhi log kaafi paisa kharch karke theatre mein jaate hai. Theatre mein kya hota hai? No distraction from illusion.
Ki, moh me jaane mein koi webte nahi aata hai. Ki, see, even to enjoy illusion, you need absorption. Then what to speak of to enjoy devotion? Ki agar moh ka bhi bhog kar raha hai, to aapko usmein lean hona hai, chetna ko aapne lagana hai.
To usmein, bhagwan ke bhi smriti ko anand dekhna hai, to uske liye absorption jo hai, usmein ekagra hona bahut zaruri hai. Kehne ka bhaav kyaan pe kya hai? Ki, jab hum theatre mein jaate hai, toh do cheezein hoti hai. Ek hai, ek light band ho jata hai, aur doosra light chalo ho jata hai.
Baaju ka light hai, sab band ho jata hai. Toh baaki, kuch bhi nahi dekhta hai. Aur phir, ek light chalo ho jata hai.
So, saari chetna aage chalo jata hai. Toh jab hum, kisi cheez mein poora ekagra hona chahate hai, toh phir kya hota hai, jo bhi cheez, humein, humein, humare dhyan ko door le jaa rahi hai, toh phir hum usse, door rahe hai. Toh hum, usse, hum, we turn away from this, usko turn off kar dete hain.
Main New Zealand mein tha, toh wahan pe ek bhakta hai, woh abhi mujhe batata hai ki, woh body language mein Ph.D. kar raha hai. Par, alag alag cheez mein Ph.D. hota hai, achi baat hai. Toh batata hai ki, agar, abhi toh phone booth hote nahi hai, pehle phone booth hota karte the, abhi sab ke aas mobile hota hai, par agar koi mobile pe baat kar raha hai, toh agar, woh abhi, yahan pe traffic chal raha hai, aur, agar apne kamar pe haath rakhe hai, phone pe baat kar raha hai, toh sari traffic ko dekhte bhi baat kar raha hai.
Aur phir woh, agar, koi diwaar hai, traffic hai yahan pe, woh poora traffic se mudh ke, diwaar pe dhyan bhakte baat kar raha hai. Toh batata raha hai ki, if, agar woh, diwaar ki aur rahe ke, baat kar raha hai, toh aap samajh sakte hai ki, probably, woh apne girlfriend se baat kar raha hai. Aur duniya ke aur dekh ke baat kar raha hai, toh apne patni se baat kar raha hai.
Isme kya hota hai ki, of course, aisa zaruri nahi hai, par, point yaha pe yeh hai, ki, jab hum distraction nahi chahate hai, toh kya hota hai, hum duniya se poora mudh jate hai. Toh hum jo hai, shariq star pe kuch karte hai, jaise, kya hum, duniya se diwaar ke aur dekhege, ya hum theatre me chale jaayenge. Par bhagwaan, agar cheez me poora ekag raha jate hai, toh kya hota hai, bhagwaan, ke sharir hi parivartit ho jata hai.
Toh kya hota hai, jo bhi unko distract karega, kabhi kabhi, kuch log hota hai, woh fidget karte rahete hai, na haath, pehar uthate rahete hai. Toh, poora, unka haath, pehar hi, poora andar se raha jata hai. Aur abhi, kya kar raha hai, woh apne aankhon se, unke aankhen bade ho jate hai.
Taaki kya ho sake, woh jo, la keval woh sun rahe hai, par apne antarang aankhon se, woh usko kalpit kar rahe hai. Toh, Jagannath ji jo hai, is tarah se, poore ekag raha jate hai. Abhi, abh gaike, kaan se sunna hai, toh kaan bade ho jane chahiye.
Par aise nahi hai, kaan jo hota hai, bade kaan se zyada sunna hota hai, aise zaruri nahi hai. Bade kaan se zyada hum, distraction bhi aa sakte hai. Toh kya hai ki, woh, it is, sound, jo chetan ma, jo, sun rahe hai, Rohin jo katha bata rahe hai, woh, keval woh apne antarang karanon se sun rahe hai.
Aur jo bahay karan hai, woh, aur koi dhoni sun sakte hai. Toh usse hume nahi sun rahe hai. Toh hota hai, humare aatma jo hai, woh keval bhagwan ki kaam, bhagwan ki ichcha kar rahe hai.
Par jo humara man hai, uske aise saikro aur ichcha kar rahe hai. Toh uske beech mein, jo hai, hum fase hue hai bhi. Par wahan pe, poore ekagraha hai.
Toh usse tarah se, yeh kehne ka matlab, yahan par kya hai, ki Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, issi bhaav mein, issi, jo virah ka prem hai, woh anubho kar rahe hai. Aur, isliye Jagannath ji jo hai, woh virah ke bhaav nahi hai. Abhi, Krishna ji, Vrindavan mein hote hai, toh wahan pe, virah ka bhaav nahi hai.
Wahan pe, sanyog ka bhaav hai. Wahan pe, milan ka bhaav hai. Toh isliye, Chaitanya, humare liye, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, ka Jagannath Puri mein, rehna mahatmata poona hai.
Par, abhi jab, Jagannath rath yatra mein, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, agar woh, Jagannath ji, apne mandir se bahar aa rahe hai. Uska mat, uska sab, kya hai, ki abhi, jo Gopiya hai, woh apne haathon se, woh rath kheech ke, le ja rahi hai, Krishna ko, wapas, Vrindavan mein. Toh, woh jo bhaav hai, ki abhi, virah hai, aur, virah ka, anta bhi hone wala hai.
Toh, tabhi, utsaha, bahut badh jata hai. Abhi, agar, saadhanantaya, hum, roj ke din, anna ko yaad nahi karte hai, utna, jitna, upwas ke din yaad karte hai. Par, agar, upwas ke din bhi yaad kar rahe hai, toh, abhi, poora 24 gante hai, upwas ko, todne ke liye.
Toh, tabhi, anna ki yaad aati hai, par, utni hi aati hai. Par, maan bhi, nirjal upwas kiya hai humne, aur, saad 13 ko, abhi, fast breaking hai. Toh, abhi, saad 5 ho gaya hai, saad 6 ho gaya hai.
Toh, hum, jab kar rahe hai, mooh se, krishta krishta bol rahe hai, maan se, paani, paani, paani, paani bol rahe hai. Toh, jitna, virah ke anta bhi, karib aa raha hai, toh, us cheez ke sunuti, aur, badh jata hai. Toh, abhi, jab jagannath ji, rath yatra pe, jagannath rath pe, aa gaye hai, matlab kya hai, wo virah hai, virah ka anta ho ke, abhi milan hone hi wala hai.
Milan bhi kaise hai? Ek toh se kahe sakte hai, gopiyaan krishna ko dekh rahi hai, gopiyaan hi rath ko kheech rahi hai, toh krishna ko dekh rahi hai. Toh, milan ho gaya hai. Par, kya hai ki, hare ek, prakaar ke, rishta ke liye, ek ucheet, maahon zaruri hai.
Toh, matlab kya hai ki, agar, koi, mata aur apne pichche ka prem hai, toh phir, waha, agar, jo maa, agar school mein hai, toh apne bachche pe, us tarah se, wo prem nahi nahi, dekht kar sakte, jaise apne ghar mein kar sakte. Toh ki kya hai, wo maahon, waha pe alag hai. Toh, us tarah se, jo gopiyaan hai, waha, krishna se milan, tabhi mehsoos karegi, jab wo krishna, vrindavan ke maahon.
Tabhi hum, vrindavan jaahi rahe hai, waha bhaav hai. Jaldi hi, vrindavan bhaav jaayegi, aur milan ho jaayega. Toh, rath kyaatra mein, jo virah bhaav hai, uski parakashtha, prangati hai.
Aur se liye, jo chaitanya mahabharu ka bhaav hai, rath kyaatra ka bhaav hai, waha, bilkul ek hi hai. Isliye bhi, rath kyaatra, bahut mantap hon hai. Aur isne aata hai, jo sarodamodar, sarodamodar vaswami, waha, vrindavan ka aishwar, se liye kya hai, wo batate hain.
Ek baar, sarodamodar vaswami, aur shri vas pandit mein, ek bahas ho jaate hain. Waha kahte hain ki, ye dekho, Vaikunth mein toh aishwarya, itna vada vada hai. Vade vade mehel hai, jeewar hai.
Par vrindavan toh, bahut saadharan hai. Sarodamodar vaswami, batate hain, ki vrindavan ka aishwarya, kya hai? Sabse bada aishwarya jo hai, wo hai vrindavan. Ki, ab ye kaise hota hai ki, hamare, jab hamare paas paisa hota hai, toh when we have money, our friends know us.
When we have no money, then we know our friends. Matlab kya, jab hamare paisa hota hai, toh, saari log bolte hain, kya hai, tum pata hai, hum milete ek sab milete, hum bachpan mein saad the, our friends know us. Jab kisi ke baas koi aishwarya hai, dhan sampatti hai, toh tabhi, abhi kaun asli mitra hai, toh pata jala jaata hai, jab kisi ke baas kuch bhi nahi hai.
Jab hamare paisa nahi hai, main jaanta hoon tumko, kab milete, mujhe rahaat nahi hai. Logon aise rehte hain ki, jaan ke unjaana bana jaate hain. Toh fir tabhi, kisi jo hamare saath rehte hai, wo asli mitra hai.
Toh jab aishwarya nahi hai, tabhi jo metri rehte hai, tabhi jo sneha rehte hai, wo waas toh mein asli isni hai. Iska matlab yeh nahi ki, Vrindavan mein aishwarya nahi hai. Vrindavan mein jab bhi, aishwarya ki zarurat padh jati hai, toh Bhagwan ki ichcha se, Yogmaya ki ichcha se, jitna bhi aishwarya chahiye, wo turant prakat ho sakta hai.
Par, Vrindavan mein, aishwarya ki, pradhan nahi hai. Usme prem pradhan hai. 11 abhi adhyay, Bhagwan ji taan, 11 abhi adhyay kaunsa hai, kisi ko bata hai? Yes? Virat roop darshan, vishwa roop darshan jo hai.
Toh abhi, usme, Prabhupada ji, ek bada hai, dilchast tatpar mein, ek paan bolte hai, ki, a devotee is not interested, in seeing such a godless, display of opulence. Ki jab, anik bahu, dairavakta netram, ki, bahot se muh hai, bahot se sir hai, bahot se mukut hai, bahot se haath hai, bahot se pair hai, toh yeh jo hai, yeh darshan karne mein, bhakti ruchi nahi hoti hai. Bhakt Bhagwan ka, sundar, jo, do haath wala roop hai, woh dekhna chahate hai.
Par, yahan bhi jo, jo shabda, Prabhupada ji, istamal kar rahe hai, woh bade dilchast mein, ki, a devotee is not interested, in seeing a godless, display of opulence. God is displaying, his opulence. Bhagwan hi apna, aishwarya darsha rahe hai, vishwaroop jo hai, woh Bhagwan ka hi, aishwarya hai.
Par, Bhagwan gah rahe hai, ki yeh, bhagwat rahit, aishwarya ka darshan, bhakta ko, ko ruchi nahi hoti hai. Yeh, Prabhupada ji, kya kah rahe hai, yeh vrindavan, yeh bhaav mein kah rahe hai, yeh sneha, jo, Arjun ka bhi, vrindavan ka bhaav, wale hi nahi ho, par, Arjun ka bhi. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Jagannath Ji both were being praised and all the devotees were praising him but Sarod Damodar Goswami said that this is the opposite view Jagannath Ji’s body his soul his consciousness is in Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Jagannath Ji is in the temple and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is outside so he said that Jagannath Ji’s body is divine you can’t call him unconscious there were many problems so the capacity to find faults is also a strength if something is not at the right level which is not in the right poetry in the right music in that to find fault is also a strength is also a talent but what happens those people those who have the capacity to find faults they make it their only capacity some people can find fault that is fine but some people can’t see anything and others say this is good no, there is a problem oh, you are so expert you can see fault so what happens if he gets ego that others they are emotional they don’t understand I know what is right and wrong so if someone knows tattva gyan it is a good thing and if something is wrong it is important to tell but you have to tell and you have to tell that person’s feeling that excitement that is not bad we see Sarodana Goswami he tells the fault it is not like that brahmin has made his shloka and all the devotees are praising him but Sarodana Goswami is not excited that he has told wrong all the devotees say let it be that brahmin says I want to tell you Sarodana Goswami knows that it is wrong but what is when do we have a right to find fault when we get no joy in pointing out the fault when do we have the right to blame someone when we don’t get any joy in telling the fault of course that is not the only right but still it is very important if our ego gets joy I caught you I caught you then we should not see the fault Sarodana Goswami says once or twice Sarodana Goswami says no later he says then Sarodana Goswami listens and when he listens then he says and not only he finds fault then he says listen to bhagwat from a person from his bhagwat you are the principle of bhakti understand it from the right bhakti then do guldaan not only he finds fault then how to find fault he tells about it Sarodana Goswami in the leela of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is very deep and the bhav of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in that bhav no person should act he guards for that there is a secretary if you want to meet a big person then no one can meet you first take an appointment then meet so Prabhupada ji says Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is a secretary secretary means not only to meet but in his bhav no person should act so Sarodana Goswami gives a very deep guldaan so Sarodana Goswami ki jaya now I will tell you the last point so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu the main contribution we can see in Raghunatha Yajna and Gaudiya Vaishnava so purpose place, purpose and process purpose what was the bhav of avatar the process now in Vrindavan it is said that when people speak, they sing when they walk, they dance so Krishna dances very beautifully and Krishna with Gopis dances very beautifully so now Rath Yatra is going on since ancient times and the devotee pulls the chariot with his hands like Gopis but Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did a wonderful job that the dance how to dance in bhakti and how to dance in such a way that the devotee’s mind gets engrossed that is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s darshan the bhav of Gopis when we dance when we are very happy so dance is a spontaneous expression of joy a natural expression of happiness so when Gopis are coming with Krishna to Vrindavan they are very happy so to welcome Krishna and that happiness they dance Chaitanya Mahaprabhu by dancing and praising God that method even before that it was happening but Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has strengthened it and has followed it very extensively in many temples in South-South India in temples when there is God’s aarti then you see the aarti when there is kirtan then there is no music there is no music only one person sings so it is not responsive we don’t get a chance to sing so when God is being worshipped there is a serious atmosphere that feeling is right when we are worshipping Vishnu but when there is Krishna Krishna Krishna is God at home God is at home and at home there is spontaneity, joy and the feeling of joy is done by dancing so when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu used to dance it was so attractive when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu used to dance people used to forget everything and from far people used to come not only to see Jagannath ji but also to see Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and even Krishna Swamy has written Chaitanya Jagatam in Bengali but in the first shloka in the first shloka he has told the meaning of that shloka in a Sanskrit shloka and in the 13th shloka Jagannath ji was also surprised like Gopiyan Krishna dances in Rashtrila similarly Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is coming back to Krishna Vrindavan and after coming what a divine joy Chaitanya Mahaprabhu with that feeling so this contribution of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is the same contribution of our Sampradaya and especially Prabhupada ji established Jagannath Yatra all over the world once Prabhupada ji was in London and he was not well so he said there was going to be a Yatra but he said I will come he said I may not be able to come but I will try to come and Prabhupada ji not only came but he saw that there is a big Yatra going on in Trafalgar Square so then Prabhupada ji was so delighted when in western countries especially when British were ruling over India so Jagannath was the prime example of the ignorance that underlay the worship of the primitive Hindus means when British used to say that Hindus are so primitive are so blind are so foolish the biggest symbol of that is the worship of Jagannath ji they used to say Krishna’s form is very attractive Jagannath ji used to say what is this? big eyes, big face no hands, no legs and in front of such idol you dance and sing and not just one or two lakhs of people this foolishness may be in one or two people but lakhs of people are foolish this is what he felt so the worship of Jagannath was a symbol of the ignorance of Hinduism but by the grace of Prabhupada ji what happened? Prabhupada ji also knew when Prabhupada ji was in Scottish Church College he used to learn Bible and when he used to learn Bible there he used to be criticised for Hinduism when he used to teach how our Bible is higher than yours so when Prabhupada ji went to London and the British used to say that the worship of Jagannath is a symbol of the ignorance of India in the same Britain the same Jagannath has come and the same people of Britain are dancing in front of Jagannath so the cultural success was a very important moment when Jagannath ji was travelling in London Prabhupada ji was very tired and he saw that there were only British people and not many immigrants so Prabhupada ji lost his energy when he came out of his room he did not have the energy to walk and the servants were standing beside him so that Prabhupada ji would not fall but when he came in front he got so much energy that he started dancing in front of Jagannath ji and the whole chariot was dancing the whole chariot was dancing and the devotee who was sitting there I met him in Gurdas he told me that when there is a Kirtan in the temple it is a bit excessive and when we do Kirtan outside it is also a bit excessive but at that time when he saw Prabhupada ji dancing thousands of people were dancing and they were immersed in the divine emotions so it was not only Prabhupada ji’s ecstasy but his divine emotions were applying to all people in the same way Prabhupada ji has given Krishna Bhavna in the same way he has given Krishna Bhavna to others also in the same way he has given Krishna Bhavna to others also so this is the divine importance and this is a divine gift of Prabhupada ji in conclusion how in the beginning the topic was the importance of Rath Yatra I started by saying that history and smriti are two different things.
But if we bring the spiritual aspects of history into our smriti, then does that smriti become our treasure? And in our daily life, in today’s work, in the work of the present and the future, in the celebrations, we get our consciousness, our spirit, and we do smriti of that. We try to make smriti of what is in history. So how did I discuss about that? Shaitan Mahaprabhu, for almost 24 years, most of the time, after starting his devotion, was in Puri.
That is why Puri is very important for us. And we saw the sacrifice of Shivanand Sen. Shivanand Sen was in a state of bliss.
But he was planning the whole management. And our Krishna Bhavna is known when? When we are inspired. And when someone scolds us after serving us well, then it is very easy to get angry.
But Shivanand Sen is always calm. And he is always grateful. And this is his greatness.
Then we saw the place and purpose of Shaitan Mahaprabhu. The purpose is to feel the feeling of Krishna’s separation from Radharani. And what is there in Rathyatra? Krishna is waiting for the end of that separation.
And in Shaitan Mahaprabhu, Radharani is also about to end the separation. So the peak of the feeling of separation can be seen in Rathyatra. It was a very important event for Shaitan Mahaprabhu.
And what is the biggest Aishwarya of Nihar? It is the Aishwarya of Love. The purpose of all other Aishwaryas is to reach the Aishwarya of Love. And Krishna Prem is the Aishwarya of Love.
This can be seen in Swarudama Darshan. You have to stop Krishna and Shaitan Mahaprabhu with your own feelings. First you talk to Shiva Shakur.
And then you stop the Bengal Brahmin from meeting Shaitan Mahaprabhu. It is a talent to see the fault. But it is not a talent to see only the fault.
When to see the fault? How to tell the fault? And after seeing the fault, how to solve it? All these are important. All these can be seen in Swarudama Darshan. And then the last one.
Shaitan Mahaprabhu’s singing is going on for a long time. Rathyatra is going on for a long time. But the singing of Shaitan Mahaprabhu by dancing and the special dance of Shaitan Mahaprabhu that is a special talent of Shaitan Mahaprabhu.
And the special talent of Shaitan Mahaprabhu is done by Prabhupada like Rathyatra all over the world. And especially the British people used to say that the worship of Jagannath is the symbol of ignorance of India. The same British people, Prabhupada ji in the Rathyatra of Jagannath in the number of hundreds and thousands did the Rathyatra in the dance of Bhakti.
So this is the great grace of Prabhupada ji. And that grace is with all of us today. Through this, we can also benefit our heart and the hearts of all the Yogis who are with us with Bhakti.
Thank you very much. Shaitan Mahaprabhu Ki Shri Jagannath Yatra Mahamahotsav Ki Shri Prabhupada Ki Gaur Bhatt Vrindaki Tai Gaur Premanandai So thank you very much for joining today. I hope I’m audible to you.
So we are going to discuss about these limbs of Bhakti, Limbs of Surrender. And yesterday I talked about the medical metaphor for understanding surrender of how the six limbs accepting the favourable and rejecting the unfavourable. That is similar to what a doctor will tell a patient to do.
And that is if it’s not a surgery, most other treatment is often the patient has to do a lot of work. So in the six elements of surrender, the first two are quite active, dynamic. There are choices which we make in order to surrender.
The next four are more of supposed to our actions. The next four are dispositions. We have faith in Krishna that he will protect us because we have faith that he’s already maintaining us.
We see that. And then we understand that our whole being is to offer to be him. And we are worthless without him.
Like a computer case grew, fallen away from the computer. So today I’ll speak on the first two elements. We’ll see how much, how it goes.
And we’ll understand the mood of surrender. I’ll take examples primarily from the Bhagavatam to illustrate each of these elements. And I’ll also talk something from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.
So Anukulyasya Sankalpa Pratikulyasya Varjanam These two are brought together. It’s like suppose we are guiding someone to do some someone go there. So you’ll come to this turn at this intersection, turn left and don’t turn right.
So in one sense, both of them are doing the same thing. So except the favourable and reject the unfavourable, there is this kind of dual instruction to convey the same point. Krishna uses also repeatedly in the Bhagavad Gita, where, for example, in 439 and 40 Krishna says, what is the what is the destination of those who have faith? And for 40 he says, what is the destination of those who don’t have faith? Shraddhavallabhate jnanam tat parasayate indriyam jnanam labdhva param shantin achirenadhi gacchati If you have faith, you will acquire knowledge.
If you are letting knowledge of Krishna, if you are also sense control and then dedicated, devoted to attain that knowledge. On the other hand, if you don’t have faith, abhyascha shraddha dhanasya samsayatma vinashyati nayam loko spina paro na sukham samsayatmanah That if we do not have faith, then we will not be happy either in this world or in the next world. So basically, the point is that there is a contrast by which the instructions are given.
This or that. So anukulyasa sankalpa patikulyasya varjanam Now, if we consider that. In the world, we are always making choices.
Some choices are made even unconsciously. Say, for example, if you’re sitting on a chair and you’re uncomfortable, you might shift without even noticing that we are shifting. If we feel a little hot, we might just move toward the fan.
And sometimes some some things happen without thinking about it. And some things, some choices happen by conscious contemplation and decision. So now what happens below our conscious awareness? That means we may be aware, but we don’t consciously think about it.
Or sometimes we are not even aware of it. But we are not investing our consciousness in doing it. So that has broadly two categories.
There are impulses and there are instincts. In general, the word impulse is associated with something which is short sighted and counterproductive. So somebody might have an impulse by which they might binge.
They might binge eat or they might splurge, spend a lot of money. So that’s impulse. So impulse is something which we do without thinking and which is unintelligent.
Whereas instinct is something which we do again without thinking, but we do which is intelligent. So some people are good at certain things. That means if somebody comes to a house and they have good skills at home designing interior decoration, they just say, OK, you move the sofa here, put this picture here.
Just change the colour of these drapes and your home will look much better. And somebody might have lived in that house for many months and they will not think about it. So basically, for us, both impulses and instincts are there.
I mean, here Krishna is talking about surrender. He’s talking about surrendering to the six elements. He’s talking about something which is done by conscious contemplation.
So consciously we choose what is favourable and consciously we avoid that which is unfavourable. So simple example, suppose we come for a class. And the different devotees come to programmes for different purposes.
For some devotees, the class is the primary. They want to learn the philosophy. Some people it might be the kirtan is what they look forward to.
The class is something which they tolerate. For some people, it might just be being in a community together. Social, not socialising in a negative sense, but just being with people who care for them and who they care for.
That’s what is the most important. So now, suppose, say, somebody, suppose you are in a category where the class is very important for you. And suppose there’s some other devotee for whom the socialisation is very important.
Then some devotees might just want to chat and they might not be very interested in focussing on the class. If we want to focus on the class, then Anukulya Sankalpa means we sit in a place where we don’t get distracted. That may be the devotee sitting next to other also not chatting or they don’t get distracted.
Generally, it is seen that in any meeting, if one person picks up their phone, everybody else wants to pick up their phone and see. So it’s a group incident. Of course, we can make notes on our phone also.
But the point is that we are very affected by the things around us. So simply when we come for a class, Anukulya Sankalpa means we try to be in the situation where we can have maximum concentration. And Pratikulya Sevarjanam would mean that we try to avoid those situations where we are likely to get more distracted.
Maybe don’t sit near the door because then everybody coming in and going out. We will be distracted by that. So this is simply Anukulya Sankalpa Pratikulya Sevarjanam in the activity of hearing.
So we surrender to Krishna during the limb of hearing. And most of this can be applied even to chanting by making these choices. In many ways, this among the six limbs of surrender, the beginning points are actually more practical for us.
So when we when we sit for studying Shastra or doing our japa, how much our mind will focus. That is often not in our control. We may try some days we feel absorbed in chanting and some days we feel obsessed by something else.
And then we feel as if when will this chanting end? Some days we feel that chanting japa should never end. If it’s so connected, if it’s so empowered, if you get such a taste and some days we feel that japa never ends. It just goes on and on and on.
What is this? So basically things work differently at different times. So we can’t very easily predict how our mind will feel at some time. But we can.
We have, in a sense, much more control over our physical actions than our mental emotions. So Anukulya Sankalpa Pratikulya Sevarjanam is more about those practical actions. So even when we don’t feel surrendered, we can act surrendered.
And that acting surrendered is by choosing what is favourable and avoiding what is unfavourable. So I’ll talk about this in three terms, favourable, unfavourable. Basically, we use the word Adhi Bhautik, Adhi Daivik and Adhi Atmik.
Now, usually we associate the word with klesha that there is. So we could say psychophysical, Adhi Atmik, then social is Adhi Bhautik. Of course, Adhi Bhautik can also include other living beings.
And then but we can all put that in English and social and then you could have anywhere environmental Adhi Daivik. So now from all these three, kleshas can come upon us. But the point is, why these three specifically? Because these three are the broad circles in which a soul is embedded in the world.
We are spiritual beings, but we are embedded in a particular body and mind. Then we are embedded in a particular social situation, social circle. Say, for example, we might have a male body or a female body, maybe a South Indian body or a North Indian body or an American body, whatever.
And each body, mind and machine comes with a particular set of particular nature, particular influences. We could go back to the earlier one, particular instincts and impulses. And similarly, we are in a particular social circle.
So we might be having neighbours, we might be neighbours, neighbours who are completely anti-spiritual. Relatives might be a little bit pro-spiritual. Family members might be neutral or positive or maybe equally more enthusiastic than us also.
So we can have this social circle can also vary in different ways. And then there is the environment. Some places where it becomes freezing cold, waking up in the morning may seem almost impossible.
It may be so unbearably difficult or doing any kind of morning sadhana or anything. It may be very, very difficult in particular places. In other places, it might not be that difficult.
So basically, these three circles affect us in various ways. And we can try to change certain things in each of these circles. We cannot change everything, but the Anukulyasana Ankalpa Pratikulyasa Varjanam would mean that in each of these, we try to choose what is favourable and avoid that which is unfavourable.
Essentially, every action that we do, it actually interacts with one or more or all of these circles. It interacts with all, but it is it is significantly affected. Sometimes, say, for example, we might be very healthy and we might not even notice our body and mind.
Our body’s fate, our mind is clear. And then when we want to do something, when the environment is clear or many of the circles are clear, then it’s like a transparent mirror or a transparent window. When there’s a transparent window, we don’t even notice the window.
We just notice what is being seen outside. So sometimes our social circle is clear. What we want to do.
Everybody is encouraging us. Everybody is warm to us. So then we don’t even notice that much.
It’s not an obstacle. And sometimes the weather may be very sparkling and friendly and lively. Sometimes it may not be.
So basically, when we act in these three circles, we need to act in a way that is favourable for our relationship with Krishna and need to avoid the actions that are unfavourable for our relationship with Krishna. Let’s consider the example here of Bali Maharaj. Bali Maharaj social circle.
Let’s focus on that. In that particular situation, it was social circle that mattered the most. Not the environmental or not the psychophysical.
Any social circles. Essentially, he was surrounded by demons. And he had a Brahmana guru to whom he was very indebted, because this actually in the 8th canto it is described in 10th, 11th chapters, that Bali Maharaj actually was killed by Indira.
But then Shukracharya used his mystical Brahmanical powers to again, to bring him back to life. And when he came back to life, after that he had him do the Vishwajit yajna. And based on that, he defeated Indira and conquered the heavens.
So his life and his possessions, everything he had got by the virtue of Shukracharya. And then at that time, what happened to him? Vamana came as a Brahmana seeking charity. Now, if you consider here, Vamana is a Brahmana and Shukracharya is also Brahmana.
And if you consider Vamana is much younger, just like a child. He’s a dwarf. Not only physically, he is small in size, but age wise also Vamana is considered to be like a small, not a very old, old man.
Certainly not a middle aged man. He’s not even a young man. He’s a boy.
And that’s why he is called as Upendra. Upa in Sanskrit means sub or below. So Upadhyaksha, Adhyaksha is the chief, Upadhyaksha is the deputy chief.
So deputy we would say. So Upendra means the younger brother of Indira. But actually we could take it in the, like we are just to say, is the same word can be explained different ways.
That’s one of the ways of analysing. And the Bhagavatam, sometimes Indira is criticising Krishna. And Vishwanath Chaturthi explains how that criticism is actually a praise.
So Pandita Maninaha, he says that. He thinks he is very clever. Pandita Maninaha.
But Chakravarti pass in this actually also means Pandita Maninaha. He is given maan, given by the panditas. Similarly, Upendra, we could in Sanskrit Upendra.
If you take it in English, it would mean Up-Indra. The one who is situated up above Indra. That he is a person who is the supreme being.
Indra is just the highest among the gods. Among the administrative gods, he is the king. But Indra is the, Vamana is much above that.
But at least at this point, Upendra, who is Vamana, he is just an ordinary brahmana. At least extraordinary in the sense that he has great effulgence, great charm. But Bali has not interacted with him before.
Bali sees him for the first time. So Shukracharya is a brahmana who is, who is time tested. Who has done incredible things for him.
And Vamana has come to him. We have never done anything for him. Vamana is going to ask him for something.
So among these two, whom should he choose? Now common sense might say that obviously he should stay with the time tested brahmana. And this time, this brahmana also gives him reasons. Although you have said that you will give him charity, but you shouldn’t right now.
Because you take everything away from him. And you also say that, OK, sometimes when your life is a threat, you needn’t speak the, you needn’t honour your word. And this is a case like that.
So now in this case, his latent devotion gradually will manifest. And that’s why he’s considered an exemplar. Example is like something which illustrates.
Exemplar is when some person illustrates that. It’s called exemplar. So it’s exemplar of surrender because in one sense he gives up so much for so little.
He gives up the counsel of a time tested brahmana for an untested brahmana. He gives up his kingdom just and he’s ready to give up everything just to honour his word. Ultimately, he gives up his own head, which means he actually subordinates himself to offer to offer himself in a mood of devotion.
So we could say that when he does it, he is it’s an extraordinary example of surrender. But what happens before surrender is he’s choosing to anukulyasam kalpa. So he says that if it is Vishnu who has come to take something from me, then giving to Vishnu is actually a great fortune.
So initially his calculations are like a kshatriya who is very charitable. But because he has had Prahlad Maharaj as his grandfather, Prahlad has instilled bhakti impressions within him. So at this time of emergency, the bhakti impressions come out.
And with these bhakti impressions coming out, he works. He actually becomes absorbed in Krishna and he offers himself. So anukulyasam kalpa.
So here, offering himself to or giving his own head for the third step of Vamana is anukulya and he does that. And he feels that although it is his priest, it is the brahmana who is also in one sense his guru, who is telling him don’t give, that is pratyakulyasya. So he refuses that pratyakulyasya varjana.
Now I give this specific example because the Bhagavatam says that when Shukracharya told him don’t give anything to this brahmana, it is said in the Bhagavatam that Bali Maharaj thought about it. And after due contemplation, he came to this decision. So whereas earlier we talked about instincts and impulses.
Now that is something which we do without thinking. This choosing the favourable and rejecting the unfavourable is something which we do with due thought. So what is required for us to be able to accept the favourable and avoid the unfavourable? So pratyakulyasya varjana means to put aside.
The word reject has nowadays an increasingly negative connotation. And especially the rejection is used when the relationship breaks up, whether it is before the relation is formalised or after it is formalised. So the word reject often has a strongly negative connotation.
So I tend to avoid using that word. It’s avoidance that we can use also. So pratyakulyasya varjana.
Varjana means to put aside, to avoid, to leave. When we varjana is that not necessarily that thing is bad, but it is not favourable for me. So we see that when Bali does not do shukracharya’s bidding, he doesn’t condemn shukracharya saying that you are misleading.
He just gives his reasoning and he moves on. So when we are accepting something and when we are avoiding something. There is the understanding that some things are unhealthy.
So we say there is a saying in the Bible of hate the sin, not the sinner. So it’s interesting. The focus here is not the sinner.
Don’t hate the sinner. But then should we hate the sin? Hate is a very strong emotion. The point of hating means we have to be understanding that certain actions, certain consequences and certain actions and best be avoided.
And we keep a healthy distance from them. So varjana is in that sense that something which are unfavourable, we stay away from them. So we could have four possibilities.
Some people who are completely. Completely thoughtless. They may love the sin and love the sinner.
So they will completely be dragged down. That means if what they are doing is they are doing. They are particular.
This is uncle. Uncle is a virgin. They’ll be doing that.
But some people might they might go to the other extreme. And if it was a four quadrants, a sin and sinners, hate the sin and hate the sinner. And somebody would love the sin and love the sinner.
Well, we should care for those those who are wrong or those who are taking us on the wrong direction. But we cannot love that wrong thing. So the Karna was associated with Duryodhana.
And he loved Duryodhana and started loving Duryodhana’s nefarious actions also. So much so that he started doing them more than Duryodhana. It was Karna who suggested that Draupadi be disrobed.
So love the sin and love the sinner will also drag us down. Then third, third quadrant could be the hate the sinner and love the sin. This is hypocritical.
So some people, they publicly condemn anyone who does something wrong. But privately, do they do the same thing themselves? Because they are attached to it. That’s hypocritical.
But what is best is compassionate is. To be compassionate is hate the sin and love the sinner. So basically, the point I’m making over here is this accepting the favourable and avoiding the unfavourable.
It requires a proper understanding of philosophy so that we can differentiate between what is favourable and what is unfavourable. Now, we also say that Sankalpa and Vikalpa are the functions of the mind, accepting and rejecting. So but here also in surrender, it is something that accepts something and rejects something.
So what is the difference? The difference is that when the mind accepts or rejects, the mind does it instinctively. That the mind just whatever it feels like doing, it does it. Whatever it feels like.
I don’t want to do it. It doesn’t do it. So that it’s driven primarily by emotions.
And devotion is too important a thing to be left to our emotion. Devotion is too important a thing to be left to our emotion. It’s like if you consider if, say, if we have a job or if we have responsibilities, sometimes we feel like doing it.
Sometimes we may not feel like doing it. But if you understand it’s important for us and we do it, no matter how we feel. Something similar.
With respect to devotion, it’s too important to be left to our emotion. So the mind accepts and rejects simply based on its feelings. Whereas for this Anukulyasa Sankalpati Kulyasa Varjanam, we need to use our intelligence to know what is favourable and what is unfavourable.
And how do we know this? I talked earlier about, say, three things. We consider that is. OK, how do you put it? That is instincts and intelligence, sorry, instincts and impulses, which are done without conscious intelligence, conscious intelligence.
Instincts are a programme intelligence. We are intelligent, but we don’t consciously think about it. And impulses are programmed and intelligent programme and intelligent.
There are two, these two forces and above them is our conscious intelligence. So basically, surrender requires us to choose what is favourable and avoid unfavourable. That means now the instincts and impulses we have, that’s what we already have.
So some of us may have impulse to say as soon as some Facebook update comes up, I just want to look at it. Now, we want to control it, but it may take some time to control it. You might have some virtuous instincts.
Say, whenever we are travelling by train or car, if we see a temple, we just hold our hands or just move our head a little bit. If we touch our foot to someone in a way, we offer our respects. These are all instincts which are good at some level.
So, Anupulisa Sankalpavartikulya Sivarjanam requires primarily the conscious intelligence to be functioning. So now, this brings us to the point, which I think of surrender as a very devotional activity. But the devotional also is based for the devotional.
The philosophical is foundational. It’s like if you are to drive on a road, it is the driving that will take us to the destination. Just having a map alone won’t take us to the destination.
Our GPS tells us the full way, but it is we have to drive. So while driving, two things are required. First, we need the map and then we need to drive according to the map.
So the map, having the map is what scriptural study does for us. Just having the map is not enough. Scriptural knowledge has to be applied, not just studied.
So Anupulisa Sankalpavartikulya Sivarjanam, it’s going back to the driving example now. If I have a map, which tells me, OK, this route will take you half an hour more. This route will say half an hour.
So we have that information and then we use it to choose the shortest route. So similarly, a map is what enables us to choose. And scripture is like a map for us.
The scriptural knowledge gives our intelligence the overall map, the overall framework within which we can make choices of what is favourable and of accepting the favourable and avoiding the unfavourable. So it is purpose that brings perspective. When we study scripture, what is the purpose? Now, when we we can go into the fifth canto cosmology.
And it’s so complicated, this dimension, this loka, that loka. If you consider what is the Bhagavatam’s purpose in studying that or describing that, Parishad Maharaj has seven days remaining and Parishad Maharaj doesn’t have the time at that time to do a PhD in cosmology. He is interested in focussing his mind on Krishna.
That’s what he’s renounced the world for. And that’s what Shubhadeva Goswami is speaking for. So the point is, fix the mind on Krishna.
And during that time, that was the Bhagavatam’s worldview. It seems to have been familiar. And so that is described by Shubhadeva Goswami.
And that description is used so that he can remember Krishna within his existing knowledge of cosmology. Now, today, most of us have grown up in the modern education system and we have grown up with a very different conception of the universe. If somebody is specifically interested in cosmology, they can focus on trying to analyse, compare, contrast, reconcile the Bhagavatam’s cosmology and the modern cosmology.
But for most devotees, they’ve not come to Shastra to study cosmology. They’ve come to Shastra to learn how to remember Krishna, how to become better devoted to Krishna, how to bring meaning and value into our life. So then we can focus primarily on the study of the Bhagavatam.
If you look at the purports of Shri Prabhupada in the fifth canto, he’s not going into the technicalities, the descriptions too much. Even in his purports, he’s giving the principles of spiritual life rather than specifics of the universal manifestation or the manifestations of the universe. So I was discussing with Duryodhana Prabhu in Perth about the fifth canto cosmology and how to make it intelligible to rational people today.
So he said that he is in a careful study of that. And basically, if you consider the thought flow of the Bhagavatam, the fifth canto starts with detachment, with how Bharat Maharaj is giving instructions to Maharaja Ashok Dev is giving instructions to his sons. And then after that, we have the whole story of Bharat Maharaj and everything.
So basically, the point is that how important it is to detach from the world and to be attached to the Lord. And the whole universe is described from that perspective, how everybody in every part of the universe is doing dharma and devotion. How they are either they’re attached to the Lord or they’re moving toward becoming attached to the Lord.
And that’s what we should also do. The thrust of the Bhagavatam is not to describe cosmology. The thrust of the Bhagavatam is to show how throughout the cosmos there is devotion.
Therefore, we should also practise devotion. So for us, if there is too much confusion in some philosophical point, this doesn’t make sense. How do I make sense? And if it’s not a central point for us for fixing the mind on Krishna, then we might just put it in the ballpark, in the car park.
That means, OK, maybe in the future I’ll understand this. Let me put this aside and move on toward those things which nourish my relationship with Krishna. So even in studying Shastra, we have to adopt this approach.
Anukulya Sankalpa Hithikulyasya Varjanam. Accept that which is favourable. And avoid that which is unfavourable.
And Prabhupada does this quite pragmatically. That now in scripture, Bhaktivinoda Thakur has written a beautiful essay on the Bhagavatam, which he wrote for the Bhadraloka of his times. I spoke about this earlier also when I spoken on the appearance.
So he basically helps people to navigate the Bhagavatam through whatever part of the Bhagavatam might be troublesome. So he says the cosmological and the chronological aspects of the Bhagavatam, they are basically the setting. But the essential thing is, is the Leela of Krishna, the Smaran of Krishna, the Bhakti for Krishna.
It’s like, say, sometimes we are watching a drama of the Ramayana. Or of Krishna Leela. Now, we might have a certain setting for Krishna Leela in our mind.
This is how Vrindavan is. And somebody might, in a particular drama, depict Vrindavan in a slightly different way. Now, the important thing is that whether Krishna Leela is being accurately depicted.
The setting for Vrindavan is important, no doubt. But we will see that the way ISKCON artist Vishal Prabhupada encouraged to make it is much more realistic. Much of the Krishna depiction, especially if you consider Jaipur and Vrindavan also, it’s Rajasthani art.
And that is slightly different. So the setting is important. But more important, the setting is, is the essence of what the substance of what is being depicted.
Similarly, for either way. The point of studying the world is not to understand the world. The point of studying the world is to understand that we need to go beyond the world.
I write in the Gita every day. So the Gita daily article I wrote called the point of the world is to point beyond the world. The point of the world, the world exists to point us to a reality beyond that reality is Krishna.
So today, if you find the Bhagavatam’s cosmology very difficult to understand, we could consider today’s cosmology. And the important thing is that we move toward Krishna. For many thoughtful people, even for many scientists, even the vastness of the cosmos as discovered by science also points to a cosmogonal intelligence.
These are different models, just like Ayurveda and allopathy can have different models of the body. And both work in their own ways for treating the body. Similarly, Bhagavatam and science can have different models of the universe.
But if both of them are promoting God consciousness for other seekers, then we can adopt whichever one helps us the most. So in the study of scripture, we need to have this. If you want to stay focused, Anukulyasa Sankalpa Pratyakulyasa Varshans.
Otherwise, you can get so caught in small, small trivialities. And Prabhupada was asked one time by the disciples in Hawaii that how do we explain to scholars the phenomenal numbers in the Bhagavatam? For example, Maharaja Ugrasen, he said to have an astronomical number of bodyguards. So if you tell this to scholars, they start laughing.
They say, how could so many people live in the island of Dwaraka? Where were their quarters? Where were their restrooms? It’s not possible. Now, Prabhupada could have said that Krishna can maintain the whole universe on the tip of a needle. But Prabhupada chooses not to fight that battle.
Prabhupada said, among all the sections of the Bhagavatam, was that the only thing you found to speak to the scholars? Very profound question. Was it the only thing you found to speak to the scholars? That means we have to consider what is Anukul for them to develop appreciation for the Bhagavatam. What is Anukul? What is favourable for them to come closer to Krishna by their study of the Bhagavatam? And Prabhupada focused on that.
We have the principles of spiritual life, which are universal. Bhakti is the way of approaching the divine through love. That is so appealing.
So I focus on things which are not that important. In the study of scripture, Anukul is the sankalpa, pathikul is the savarjanam. Same we can apply in our association.
Some devotees tend to be very, very critical. Everything about the Krishna conscious movement is, oh, this is bad, that is bad, that is bad. Well, yes, the Krishna conscious movement is in the material world.
And in the material world, everything is contaminated. So we see the Krishna conscious movement also like a multi-level manifestation. Multi-level manifestation means depending on our consciousness, whether it is in tamoguna, rajoguna, sattvoguna or shuddhasattva, we will see the Krishna conscious movement differently.
So if we are primarily in tamoguna, tamoguna is characterised by, say, fighting and passivity. Sometimes we just hyperactively fight and other times we just become apathetic. So if we are tamasic, then we will see that devotees keep having quarrels, devotees keep fighting.
There are so many groups. It’s so pathetic. Why do devotees quarrel? You’re all saying you want to serve Krishna.
Why do you keep quarrelling? Yes, there are differences everywhere and there are differences in the material world also. And because Krishna conscious movement is there in the material world, it will exploit those people who have the mode of ignorance in their minds. And this is what they will see.
And they will see this is just a group of people who keep quarrelling. They can’t get along with themselves. Somebody in Rajoguna will see the Krishna conscious movement as something which is a way to power and prestige and wealth.
I’ll say that. So if that person is active and they think, oh, here I can get, I can, I can do this. I can do that.
I can become famous. I can become popular. Or somebody may say this is what all the leaders are looking for.
This is what they all want. Everybody wants prestige. Everybody wants power.
Everybody wants followers. Somebody in Satoguna, they will see that, actually, this is a place where if I come, I can live a better life. I can have like minded, uplifting people.
I can hear some wisdom. I can purify my heart. And whatever be the lunches over here.
The quality of my life can be better in the association of devotees in the moment, rather than outside. Provided, of course, I associate properly. But that’s what a devotee will focus on.
Devotee in sattva and is serious about spirituality. Devotee will see. Oh, there are so many exalted devotees over here.
Their association is so precious that we associate with them. So now when we are, we are practising Krishna consciousness in a particular moment, then we will have to, we have to very carefully apply this. That if we start looking at everything that is wrong, there are many things that are wrong.
Krishna is Kalpataru and Krishna’s movement is also Kalpataru. So Kalpataru means whatever we want, we will get it. So if you want prestige, we will get prestige in Krishna’s movement.
We just wait around, become a little senior and then as soon as we come, people start offering obeisances to us. That’s quite gratifying to the ego. That’s what we’re looking for.
If we want followers, we just we just know how to pretend to be advanced. Even if you’re not advanced, you can attract followers. If you want controversy.
We can get as much controversy as we might find in the gossip columns of Monday newspapers. That much we can find on sites by people who are disgruntled devotees. And we can live in controversy.
This happened. This happened there. So we can get controversy.
We can get prestige. We can get following and we can get Krishna also. So Krishna Krishna in the Krishna consciousness movement, it is a matter of changing our consciousness.
So if we want Krishna, we will get Krishna. But if you want to be conscious of other things, that’s what we will focus on. That’s what we get.
So in the moment, also, we have to apply the Sankalpapati Kulli Sivaji that we associate with those who uplift our consciousness. We focus on those things that are favourable for our relationship with Krishna. And that way we all can move forward in our devotional journey.
So here, accepting the favourable and rejecting the unfavourable is something which is very proactive and has to be responsibly done. And this is a resourceful, responsible choice is the active part of surrender. And tomorrow we move on toward more the consciousness underlying surrender and talk about the dispositions.
But I summarised today. So I spoke about. How the how to understand surrender in terms of its first two elements.
I look good. This is Sankalpapati Kulli Sivaji. Except the favourable.
Avoid the unfavourable. I started by talking about how in every situation we do apply. We choose something and we avoid some things and we do it sometimes based on our instincts, which are like programme intelligence or impulses, which are like programmed, unintelligent impressions within us.
But we want to act with conscious intelligence. That’s what is recommended as a part of surrender over here. And to develop the conscious intelligence, we need to study scripture care.
Scripture is like a map, whatever map is for a driver. So just studying scripture doesn’t take us to the destination. Looking at the map doesn’t take a driver to the station, but studying scripture or having a map is essential for driving to the destination or making the choices that will take us closer to Krishna.
And I talked about how we have to act within the world. First, your example, simply when we come to a class whom we sit next to or what position is it can determine whether we are able to hear nicely or not. And that itself is applying on a collision of the collision.
So the soul exists in three broad circles. The physical, the social and environmental. And in each of these circles, we need to choose what is favourable for our relationship with Krishna.
Avoid that which is unfavourable for the story of Bali Maharaj, which was analysed primarily to show how he gave up the time test to Shukracharya and honoured his word to the untested Vamana because he chose what was favourable for his relationship with the ultimate reality, Vishnu. And because he gave up so much for so little. That’s that’s how that’s one reason why he’s an emblem of self-surrender to the Lord.
Then I talked about. Applying this principle of accepting the favourable, rejecting unfavourable to the way we look at the philosophy and we look at the at the devotee, at the Krishna conscious moment, at scripture, the focus of scripture, the purpose is to help Parikshit Maharaj and us to fix the mind on Krishna. So some things within scripture are not so easily understandable or they disturb us.
Then we need to keep them in the ballpark and move onwards in our relationship with Krishna. So what is central in scripture is not the cosmology or the chronology. Central is the spirituality, the remembrance of Krishna.
And that’s what we need to focus on also. And whatever is favourable for the development of our relationship with Krishna, for some people with intellectual or scientific explanations, they might want to do an intricate study and that might be favourable of cosmology. But for most, it may not be.
So then they talk about in our association, when we have to select four kinds of people, four kinds of attitudes to hate the sin and hate the sinner. That is being judgemental. To love the sin and to love the sinner is being sentimental.
To hate the sinner and love the sin is being hypocritical. And to hate the sin and love the sinner is being spiritual, is being devotional. So to understand what to avoid and what to not avoid, we need our intelligence to be sharp.
And that sharp intelligence, we can also, in the association of devotees, look at what is favourable for us within the moment. The moment can be seen as a place of quarrels and conflicts when we are in a mode of ignorance and we’re looking for that. The moment it can be seen as a place for pursuing prestige and wealth and following.
If we are in the mode of passion. As a place for living a more a more meaningful and purposeful life, adding more value to our life, if we are in the mode of goodness and as moving to as a place for associating those who are close to Krishna and moving ourselves close to Krishna, if we are in transcendence, in association, if we choose our association carefully and focus on that which is favourable, then we can purposefully move toward Krishna. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. Are there any questions? Yes, Mataji. So was that a comment or was that a question? Yeah, thank you.
Should we stop here then? Yes, Mataji. Yes. So sometimes we keep making mistakes in terms of choosing or doing something which is unfavourable and not doing that which is favourable.
So how do we if we keep doing it repeatedly, how do we overcome that? So basically, we begin with what we can do right now itself. Then you might be able to list three things which are doable. Which which are good for which are favourable for a relationship with Krishna and which are doable.
Maybe I can whatever I read five minutes more Bhagavatam every day. If I’m reading zero minutes, I can read five minutes. If I’m reading 10 minutes, I can read 15 minutes.
Something we can just list things which are doable for us and start with them. And we can list something which are unfavourable and which we can do. Say I spend one hour on social media.
Maybe I’ll spend 45 minutes. Whatever. Something simple.
So we need to begin somewhere. And sometimes some conditions are deep rooted. So if we define our devotion by our ability to overcome those conditionings, then we will feel so discouraged that we will feel as if we are not advancing at all.
So the same thing, somebody else might be able to give up very easily, but we might struggle to give up because each of us has different conditions. So say this is indulgence, this is abstinence. And then it might be a straight path to walk for somebody from indulgence to abstinence.
That is, I’m indulging and I give it up. But for somebody else, the conditionings might be so much that in between indulgence and abstinence, there is a big mountain to be climbed. And it is so exhausting to climb that mountain.
So I’m going to talk in Atmanikshepakarpani. I want to talk about self-acceptance. We talked about how we need to choose what is favourable.
What do you also need to choose? What is a favourable conception of ourselves, a favourable relationship with ourselves? We can be an unfavourable, unfavourable attitude, which we often talk about is the thing that we are greater, we are better than what we are. The thing that we are pure when we are not pure, the thing that we are advanced when we are not advanced. But another could be that to just think of oneself so negatively.
I’m worthless. I can’t do this. I can’t do that.
I can’t do that. Humility is not a self-flagellation. Self-flagellate is to beat.
Self-flagellation is constantly beating oneself down for being worthless. That is not humility. Humility essentially means we stop thinking about ourselves and we start thinking about Krishna more and more.
So self-obsession can be because I think I’m so great or self-obsession can be also I think I’m so fallen. But either way, if you’re self-conscious, then you can’t be conscious of Krishna. So that optimal understanding of ourselves so that we are neither negatively self-obsessed, not positively self-obsessed.
That’s what we need. So we have to accept, OK, this particular conditioning may take a long time for me to overcome. But let me work on what I can do.
And as we keep doing those things, which we can, accepting the favourable wherever we can and avoiding the unfavourable wherever we can. Begin with that. Gradually our spiritual strength will grow.
We will become purer by that. And gradual things we are not able to do, we also start doing that. So begin with where we are and take even a small but tangible steps from there.
Does that answer your question? Thank you. Yes. OK, it’s a long question.
I think it’s already twelve. I’ll answer this very briefly today, but maybe tomorrow you can ask this question again and I can answer it more. So how do we separate the sin from the sinner? Basically, we all have to know what is our capacity.
That means if a person is drowning, they can’t save somebody else. And if somebody is too heavy and we swim to try to save them, then we will also drown by that. That means in some cases, if somebody’s nature is such that it triggers too much negative emotion within us.
Then even the effort to try to see them positively will only increase the negativity within us. So sometimes some amount of distance may be what is required if some natures are such that they don’t match at all. Then we first may need a certain amount of distance so that our consciousness doesn’t get that agitated.
And in some that means in some cases, some people have done such terrible things. They act in ways which are so unpleasant for us that just simple actions makes us forget every philosophy and everything. So then we may need to create a distance because we can’t make our mind and its emotions our slaves.
They will be what they are. And if their emotions are going wild, we keep a little distance from them. To that person, this is not the ultimate solution, but that might be initially what is required.
But over a period of time, we understand that just as we have a mind which troubles us. And which makes us do things which we do not want to do. Others also have a mind.
And what we call as people’s nature is what comes from their mind. This is we struggle to separate our mind from us and we are misled by our mind. So others also get misled by their minds.
So if we see their mind, their nature as coming from their mind, not their soul, then rather than thinking that we are fighting, that they are attacking us or they are troubling us, we see that we are all fighting the same battle. Is that their mind troubles in a different way. Our mind troubles in a different way.
But we are all battling against the mind. So just ascribing their nature to their mind. Helps us create a some some amount of camaraderie, comradeship.
Now, of course, we may say I am struggling to control my mind, but this person is not even struggling to control their mind. They’re simply acting according to nature. Yes, practically, if some people act in ways that are too hurting for us, better keep a distance.
But if you can see this way that it’s their mind that is making them do such a thing, then rather than thinking, why are you doing this? When we say, why do you act like this? That means we are equating them with their mind. But instead, we become more empathic. And when this kind of situation comes, what kind of thoughts come in your mind? What do you feel at that time? And then if you understand that, oh, this is how their mind is thinking, this is how their mind is making them perceive the situation.
And then we can help them to say that, actually, the reality is not like this. So basically, the essential answer would be that just need to separate. We hate the sin and not the sinner means see the sin as coming from the impelling by the mind.
And see the soul as separate from it. Because of the ignorance and illusion in the mind, people act in ways that are hurtful. So how we practically deal with it, that will depend on the nature of our relationship with them, how close we are, the hierarchy in the relationship, whether we are we are guiding them or they are in authority position for us.
And the the. How important is that relationship? Do we need to work with them always? Based on that, we’ll have to come up with different specific strategies of how to at least we separate them from their mind. And then we equip them to separate themselves from their mind.
And then gradually we can come to a more effective working or intimate relationship with them. That’s your question. Thank you very much.
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So for both of these, we have to scripturally link the map. And the application of scripture is the driving. So in scripture, also, we need to focus on what is favourable and avoid what is unfavourable.
That means if certain things don’t make sense and they’re not central to the message of the scripture, then we don’t have to focus on them. And similarly, if certain things, say, in the association of devotees, we find certain things are not according to the way we feel they should be, we don’t get worked up by that, knowing that such things are inevitable in the material world. We talked about seeing the association and seeing the Krishna conscious movement at four levels, in ignorance, passion, goodness, and transcendence.
So now beyond that, I’ll today talk about how do we look at Krishna and how do we look at ourselves in a way that enables us to move forward in our devotion. So our actions are shaped by our conceptions. Not just conceptions, also our dispositions.
So I talked about instincts and impulses which comprise our disposition at a subconscious level and also our conscious contemplation and decision. So in terms of the conceptions that we have or that we can have, if we consider that there are three, we can have certain conceptions of God and we can have certain conceptions of ourselves. And based on those conceptions, we will decide whether we will be able to work properly or not.
Say, for example, going back to the medical metaphor, depending on how much confidence we have in the doctor’s capacity to heal us and to cure us, and depending on how much faith we have in our own curability. Sometimes some people get some cancer. And even if it is curable, they are so frightened by the word cancer that they stop taking the treatment thereafter.
Or they take it half-heartedly. They become pessimistic, thinking I am going to die now. Then so that they have to have the conception of the doctor and the treatment is important.
Conception towards oneself is also important. So I’ll talk this in terms of, so rakshishti ti vishwaso goptrutve varanam tatha. These two, I’ll talk about what our conception toward Krishna is to be.
And then in tomorrow’s session, I’ll talk about atmanikshevan karpanne, where I’ll talk about what should be our disposition toward ourselves so that we can wholeheartedly practise bhakti. So rakshishti ti vishwaso goptrutve varanam tatha. That Krishna is my protector.
To have faith that Krishna will protect me. Avasya rakshibe Krishna. Prabhupada would quote that in the context of the nectar of devotion, that Krishna will certainly protect me.
And goptrutve varanam tatha, that Krishna is my maintainer. But these two are two distinct concepts. So if you want to look at it from our perspective, you might say that, OK, we have security in our home, which is our protector.
Security in our home, security around our home in the locality. We have security in terms of the police. We have security at the level of the border and the defence forces.
So all this is security. And then security and maintenance are two different things. So for example, maintenance for that, we may have our job.
We may have certain resources by which, say, the government maintains those who can’t maintain themselves. So protection is more from danger. So protection is talked about when there is danger.
Maintenance is for the normal survival. We could say that even normal survival is characterised by danger constantly. But still, there’s a difference in the sense that normal survival, in the normal course of our life, even if danger is possible at every moment, it’s not that danger comes upon us at every moment.
So basically, when we live in the world, soon we recognise that, actually, there is me and there is the rest of the world. So in the rest of the world, like yesterday, I talked about there is adhipavitik, adhidevik, adhyatmik, our psychophysical, our social, and our environmental circles. And we could say all of this is ultimately under the control of Krishna.
Maya adhyakshena prakriti. Suyate saccharacharam hetunane nakam deya jagad viparivartate. So maya adhyakshena prakriti.
Krishna says that material nature works under my supervision, adhyakshata. Adhi aksha, aksha is eyes, adhi is from above. So adhyaksha is literally, it means one who sees from above, one who oversees or supervises.
So oversee and supervision, both of them have the same idea of seeing and from above or a higher perspective. Suyate saccharacharam, and all the moving and non-moving beings in this world, hetunane nakam deya. So by that cause, what is that cause? It is Krishna’s supervision under his supervision.
The world works according to its own order. Jagad viparivartate, going through constant change. So if we consider the constant change that happens in the world, it’s almost a two-step causation Krishna is talking about.
That Krishna, that then things happen in the world. Krishna says they happen under my supervision. But it is not just, it is, there’s a difference between supervision and intention.
That means that, for example, a supervisor watches, if there’s a factory and supervisor is watching how the workers are working. Now, everything that the workers are doing, the supervisor is not doing. And sometimes the workers may do something which is not right.
And then when the supervisor sees, the supervisor may correct. Sometimes the supervisor may let a person make a mistake so that they learn from the mistake also. So here there’s an important thing to understand this difference between Krishna’s supervision and Krishna’s intention.
Now, why is this difference important? Because if, as I said, at a basic existential level, we can divide reality, we, and the rest of reality. So if we are making that division, we and the rest of reality, then we may find that the rest of reality often works against us. And sometimes works very unfairly and brutally against us.
And if this rest of reality we consider to be just one unit, that, yes, the rest of reality is basically Krishna or God. And then if the rest of reality is hurting us in various ways, it might happen through various means. It might be some people might just get on our case and persecute us.
Sometimes the weather might get on us. Some disease might just hound us relentlessly. So if we see the rest of reality as one unit, and that is targeting us, that is attacking us, then it will be very difficult for us to surrender to that rest of reality.
Because I talked earlier about how the surrender is not like a defeated army general surrendering to the victorious army. It is more like a patient submitting to a doctor. And even more so, as we will discuss later, that it is more like a lover surrendering to the beloved.
I will do your will. Your wish is my command, people say when they’re in love with someone. So that is when Krishna and Arjuna says, ashto mohasmate labdha tatrasadan mayachuta sito smigatasandeha karishe vacanam tava.
So karishe vacanam tava. After hearing the Bhagavad Gita in 1873, that’s what Arjuna says. And here, essentially, he’s meaning that your wish is my command.
So when he’s saying this, it’s out of love. So it’s not so much out of fear or frustration. It’s not about disease and discomfort.
It’s out of love. So now, for us, we may progress through all three phases in connecting with Krishna. Sometimes we may connect with Krishna at the level of fear.
Oh, life is so much trouble. Krishna, please help me. Or it may be that, oh, the troubles in my life are because of my own misgivings, and I need to purify myself of my impurities.
So Krishna, please help me to purify myself. But the first is like a defeated military general. Second is like a patient going to a doctor.
And third is, Krishna, whatever the situation in my life, whatever, however I may be, you are my lord, and I am your servant. I simply want to serve you. It’s out of love.
So when we want to surrender to Krishna, we need to have a healthy conception of Krishna in relationship with us and in relationship with the rest of reality. In some cases, say, for example, when a doctor causes pain to a patient, the doctor’s purpose is not to cause pain. It is to cure pain.
So we know that at that particular point, the doctor is the source of the pain, that, OK, an injection is being given, a surgery is being done. But we could say the apparent cause of the pain is the cure for the actual pain. The apparent cause for the pain is the injection of a surgical instrument cutting into our body.
But that is only the apparent cause. It is actually the cure for the actual cause of the pain. The actual cause of the pain is the disease, the disorder in the body.
And that is cured by the doctor. So now in this case, in some cases, we understand that actually this is the disease I have, and this is the treatment for this. And as a part of the process of treatment, I am going through this.
So in this case, if we see reality in this way, that means in the rest of reality, I am going through some difficulties, and I want to surrender. But it is the rest of reality that is causing me suffering. Now, is all of the rest of reality Krishna? Well, we could say ultimately everything is controlled by him.
So it is, in one sense, non-different from him. But sometimes we can see that the pain that the rest of reality is causing us, that is ultimately for us to learn something. Say, somebody, we trust them, and they betray us bitterly.
That can shake our faith, not just in that person, and not just in humanity. Can people be like this? It can shake our faith in ourselves also. Am I such a bad reader of people that I couldn’t discern that this person would do like this? What does that say about my intelligence, my capacity to make decisions, trust, sound decisions? And it can be very, if we are betrayed, it can be very, very psychologically disorienting, depressing, even devastating.
And at that time, if we are to recover and move on, it’s very difficult to see this as Krishna performing a surgery. Normally, when some kind of surgery is happening, then we understand that, OK, this is a disease. This is the process for the treatment.
And this is how the treatment is happening. Many times when the suffering is going on in our life, sometimes we may be fortunate enough to know what is it that is the disease and how what we are going through is a cure. So for example, when Bharat Maharaj became attached to a deer, and therefore, in the next life, he had to take birth as a deer.
And then after that, he took birth as Janbharat. So in that case, he was given the remembrance of what he had done wrong. And thus, he was very cautious as a deer.
And he didn’t just frolic around like other deer. But he stayed near the sages and heard the sacred Vedic sounds from them. And next life, although he was born in a Brahmin family, he did not get involved in ritualism.
He focused on spirituality. And he was indifferent not only to rajas, but even to sattva, not only the passion and pleasure of the world, but even to the sattvic pleasure that might come by living a pious life. He was indifferent to that also because he thought, even that may entangle me.
In the past, it was sattvic virtue of kindness, of compassion that had entrapped him. Of course, after this, it had been compassion that it was not exactly compassion that entrapped him. It was compassion that was uncritical, that was not carefully thought out, that compassion soon degenerated into passion.
But the point was it started with something sattva, apparently sattvic, saving the life of someone else, of a deer, maybe a deer. But then after that, he started thinking of it as himself as the maintainer of that deer and became attached. So from sattva, it went to rajas.
So he was so careful that he decided that even something in goodness, I will not let myself get attracted by it. So here, he knew, OK, what was his mistake and why did he have to take some extra words? But in most of our lives, we don’t have that facility. The workings of karma are so complex that they can give even complex thinkers a complex.
Even complex thinkers, a complex. Complex means, if you get an inferiority complex, if we are with someone who is super fast at doing something, we are struggling to recollect the words, and they have also recollected and recited that word for the next words also. If, say, some people are fast at doing things.
And if somebody is fast and somebody else, then it is really faster than them. So if we just open our phone, and somebody else has not only opened their phone, but has typed the message and sent the message also, people start getting a complex. Am I good for nothing here? If we are not used to being a slower person in the world, just being with somebody faster can give us a complex.
Similarly, for those who are complex thinkers, to not understand something, that can give them a complex. How can I not figure this out? But karma is, gahana karmanogati, as Krishna says in 4.17. So the sentence, the complex sentence that I said about complex, that the workings of karma are so complex that as to give complex thinkers a complex. That is just a wordplay retelling of Gita 4.17. Anyway, the point is that in our lives, we can’t so easily know what is the disease and what is the cure.
Or what is the disease, and how what we are going through is a cure for that disease. We can pray, and sometimes the dhami buddhi yogam tam. We get the understanding of that.
We see with respect to Parshit Maharaj, it is a minor mistake and a major reaction for that. Now, was it for some other past karma? Did he himself know that it was the Lord’s plan? He did not get too caught in that. So for us to surrender to Krishna, all this might seem a little philosophical, but the point I’m making right now here is that when we are praying, say, and our prayers are not being answered, then how do we surrender? Normally, we may pray half-heartedly, and we may work also.
Sometimes we may stop working and just start praying. But if sometimes our prayers are not answered, then how do we surrender? How does this… We may say, I have the faith that Krishna is my protector and Krishna is my maintainer, but what if the protection doesn’t seem to be coming? What if my maintenance itself is under threat? So then how we understand that Krishna is our protector? So the faith that we require in Krishna has to be philosophically grounded. It cannot just be based on naive realism.
In bhakti, we take our perceptions seriously, but we don’t take them literally. We take our perceptions seriously. What does it mean? That means what we see with our eyes, what we see with our ears, we take it seriously.
For example, if we’re going on a road, if there’s a ditch, we need to step aside from it. We’ll fall and get injured. Similarly, if there’s something which is very attractive, or depending on what it is, we may have to keep a distance from it or we may go toward it.
So our actions are very much shaped by our perceptions. So in that sense, we take our perceptions seriously, but we don’t take them literally. Literally means we don’t think that what our eyes show us is the complete reality.
It is one part of the reality. So when we pray to Krishna and apparently there’s no protection coming, how do we stay surrendered at that time? That surrender requires us to understand Krishna better, to understand how Krishna works and how Krishna is our well-wisher at a better level. So that means that the rest of reality when we see, so let’s take this example now of Parikshit Maharaj continuing this.
At one level, we could say Parikshit Maharaj surrendered to Krishna when he was cursed to die in seven days. And he surrendered, he expressed his surrender by just determinedly hearing without getting distracted. And he did, what happened? I did, suppose there’s a movie starts with a hero being cursed to die in seven days.
And then at the end of the movie, that hero dies. Hey, what’s this? I thought it was an adventure movie, but this is a disaster movie. I thought adventure means the hero will escape somehow mystically, but the hero doesn’t escape.
So the same Vishnu or Krishna who protected Parikshit in his mother’s womb from the Brahmastra, was that Krishna not capable of protecting Parikshit from the curse of a Brahmin? Ashwathama was also a Brahmin. And you could say it was his weapon, which is also like a curse. Curses are also used, Kshatriyas use weapons and Brahmanas use curses.
So in this case, Ashwathama was a Brahmana who used a weapon, but Shringi was a Brahmana who used a curse. So the same Lord Vishnu who protected Parikshit in the mother’s womb, why did he not, why could he or why did he not protect Parikshit at the, when he was cursed? So Shringi’s curse apparently had its effect and Parikshit Maharaj died. So what’s going on over here? Was he not protected? He was protected.
The protection the Bhagavatam demonstrates is at the spiritual level, that his consciousness was protected, his consciousness by his continuous determination to hear and by his having the facility of Shukdev Goswami being there ready to speak about Krishna Katha in such a beautiful way, heart-enriching way, that he became absorbed in hearing about Krishna. And it is not that Takshak destroyed Parikshit Maharaj, or that the snake bird killed him. Rather, it was that the Krishna Katha and the absorption of Krishna Katha delivered Parikshit Maharaj.
His soul, he had entered into a trance and his soul left the body and went to Krishna Loka. And when Takshak came and bit him, it was just a body that was destroyed by Takshak. The soul had already become elevated and liberated.
So sometimes Krishna’s protection comes in a way that we can see at the material level, as happened to Parikshit at the start of his life. And sometimes the protection doesn’t come in a way that we can see at a physical level. So if we consider protection and maintenance only in terms of what we see at the physical level, then our faith in Krishna will be shaky.
And that’s why surrender is not just, yes, Krishna, I’m surrendering to you, I have faith in you. But that faith also requires a philosophical understanding that reality is bigger than how we perceive it. And therefore, whatever is happening, it may seem a particular way to me, but there is more to it.
There is more to it. So sometimes at the material level, things may be fixed by Krishna’s mercy. And sometimes by Krishna’s mercy, even if things are not fixed, we become fixed in him.
We become fixed in our devotion. And that is the ultimate fixing. Ultimately, no matter how well things are fixed in the world, they will break down.
So sometimes things are fixed by Krishna’s mercy. Sometimes they are not. If we consider Krishna’s protection only in terms of things getting fixed, then we cannot stay surrendered for very long.
So it’s like a patient has pain and the doctor’s treatment is ultimately meant to cure the pain. But sometimes, say, in some forms of treatment, the doctor’s treatment may increase the pain temporarily. And the patient needs to persevere through that.
So this pain, which is induced after the treatment starts, is actually maybe cleansing the person of something which is going to cause much greater pain. Like say somebody has some digestive problems. And then they go and do something like panchakarma.
And panchakarma, they have something like Virechan. Then you have pills and all the bowels are emptied by that. And that can be quite exhausting and stressing and disturbing experience.
And you say, actually, I came to this place to be healed and here what’s happening to me? My body seems to have become worse. But if you understand the overall purpose of the treatment, specifically which pill will react how to which patient, that entirely can’t be predicted by doctors. But they can direct the overall direction of the therapy.
And over time, things will heal and things will improve. So similarly for us, when we are practising bhakti, Krishna’s protection is not necessarily in terms of our immediate material well-being. It is, Krishna also cares for our immediate material well-being, no doubt.
But Krishna’s, if the immediate material well-being, if securing that will require losing our ultimate spiritual well-being, then Krishna will sometimes take that away. So we need to have the philosophical vision to see that even when things are going wrong, ultimately, Krishna will bring good even out of the bad. That means that now, how do we see this? That sometimes something very bad happens to us.
Now, if we are surrendered, does that mean that we see the bad itself as good? So now, all that I have spoken, I will talk about this in three distinct ways. Basically, how can we stay surrendered when we are having distress and despite our devotion, the distress doesn’t seem to be going away. So there are three distinct visions.
One is that Krishna, one vision is to see that Krishna is the cause of this distress. The other is that Krishna is the shield from this distress. Shield means the distress is coming, but Krishna can shield me from, the distress may stay, but Krishna will shield me from the distress.
And third is that Krishna is the cure of the distress. Now, in the second and third conception, the shield and the cure. A shield is not itself a cure.
Shield means it is there still, but I am protected from it. Cure is, okay, it is countered. Krishna is the ultimate cure of the distress.
So now all these three visions of Krishna are fine. Let me talk about some examples to illustrate these points. Say, for example, now, when we talk about Krishna as the, if we consider Krishna as the cause of our distress, then we may wonder why is Krishna causing the distress? Maybe Krishna has some particular purpose, but if you don’t see the purpose, then you might start thinking that, is God cruel? Does God even care for me? If God does something like this, why should we surrender to him? Why should I surrender to him? Why should I worship him at all? So it’s difficult to have this vision of Krishna, that Krishna is causing our distress.
Now, let’s, now we may say Krishna is the cause of all causes. Yes, but he is not the, he’s not the, there is a sanctioning cause and there is an intending cause. Let me give you an example to illustrate this.
That when Dushyasan was trying to disrobe Draupadi, now, is it Krishna doing that to Draupadi? Is it that Krishna in the heart is telling Dushyasan that do this to Draupadi? And do we expect Draupadi to see that it is actually Krishna who is doing this to me through Dushyasan? Obviously not. When Sita is being abducted by Ravan, is she, is it, I want to think, is she going to think that actually Ravan is sent by Ram and it is Ram who is abducting me? Is Krishna literally the cause of all causes? Not literally. So when something happens in this world, there can be three levels of causes for it.
There is God, this is a whole different subject, maybe in future I’ll talk about this separately, but it is for our context. See, there is God’s will, there is free will, and there is evil. I repeat, God’s will, free will, and evil.
God’s will is, is ultimate. It is a sanctioning authority. Without God’s will, nothing will happen.
So God’s will is like you could say the circumference within which somebody can do something. Like a child is, children are given a park in which to play. So the parents or their caregivers keep them in the park.
But within the park, if two children start fighting and beating each other, and they go and get a broken nose and a bleeding eye, then is that caused by the parents or the caregivers? No. That’s why we see, Bhutanam Yanmitha Kali. The Bhagavatam says, in the Kunti’s prayers, that in this world, the problems, the conflicts are caused because of animosity among people.
You, oh Lord, are not the cause of the conflicts. So there is, so God’s will sets the broad parameters within which human will acts. And, within, it sets the parameters, like the parents, they set the parameters within which children can play.
So, we all have free will, and based on the kind of karma we may have done in the past, we are given certain level of influence around us, certain level of capacity to control and do things. Now, that’s our free will. So we all have free will, but this area over which we exercise our free will, is, is varying, depending on our past karma.
So for example, if we get angry, we might just yell at someone. But, say the president of America gets angry, the president might, might send a nuclear bomb on some country. Kill thousands, even millions.
So based on one’s present position, which one has acquired by one’s past karma, one can have smaller or greater degrees of influence in the world. Now, while we have this circle of influence, in Sanskrit, the word used for this is Kshetra. Now, what we do in our Kshetra, depends on our free will.
And our free will is influenced, also by how we have acted in the past. So if someone has repeatedly done bad things, then those bad impressions get stored in their consciousness as evil. So evil is not like a diabolical entity, like Satan or Shaitan, that is imagined in Christianity and Islam.
Evil is simply the, accumulation of accumulated impressions coming from our past, small, our past misdeeds. So, those who are evil, normally, if we hurt someone, we immediately apologise. We immediately try to make up, make amends.
But if we repeatedly hurt someone, then immediately, after that we say, hey, it’s just the way it is. We don’t even make amends for that. We don’t even feel bad about it.
So, there are evil people, they hurt others, and not only do they not feel bad in hurting others, but they, they, sometimes get a sadistic joy, in hurting others. When that happens, you have to see that, so there is God’s will, there is free will, and there is evil. So when people using, abusing their free will, under the influence of evil, do something terrible to us, that is not God doing it.
That is not God doing it. That is that person doing it, being influenced by the evil within them. So, if we start seeing God as the cause of all our suffering, it may become very difficult for us to surrender to him.
So now my question, okay, but then why is God allowing this? Because that is a question which is very difficult to understand. Because we don’t know what kind of karma we have done. We don’t know what kind of, things we need to go through.
But what we can see is that, that whatever we go through, it is Krishna also goes through with us. Krishna is always there in our hearts. So now, when we see, see what did Draupadi do? When, Dushasan was disrobing her, she didn’t, okay, it is Dushasan’s evil which is making her do it.
So she turned toward Krishna and she absorbed herself in Krishna. So now, when she absorbed herself in Krishna, it was like calling out to Krishna and Krishna became the shield by which, whatever was, whatever humiliating, dehumanising thing was happening to her. She was not conscious.
She did not let her consciousness stay over there. And then Krishna came and Krishna also became the cure. And that situation was mitigated by providing her unlimited sari.
In the case of Parikshit Maharaj, if you consider what happened. So, Parikshit Maharaj, got that curse. And then, he, when, Shukdev Goswami came, all the sages came, Parikshit Maharaj says, he doesn’t tell them all how unfortunate I am that for a small mistake, I was given such a big punishment.
He says, how fortunate I am that at the time of death, all of you have come here. So rather than blaming why this happened, okay, this has happened. Now, what is the shield from it? What is the cure for it? And he saw that it’s Krishna who is blessing him by sending all these sages.
It is Krishna who is blessing him by sending the, by sending Shukdev Goswami. It is Krishna who is blessing him by giving him, by manifesting the Krishna Katha coming through Shukdev Goswami’s eyes into his heart. And in that case, there was no protection at the material level, but there was protection at the spiritual level.
So now, we could say Parikshit Maharaj also saw that actually this is, this curse is also coming from Krishna. We could say it that way, but the important thing over here is that he focused not on that the curse has come from Krishna, not on where it has come from, he focused on where it is taking that. So now sometimes seeing our suffering as coming from Krishna, if it helps us see, okay, I had done something wrong and I need to rectify it, that is good.
But sometimes if we don’t see what wrong have I done, why is this coming? Then we understand that sometimes in this world, evil just exists. Evil can be in the same, sometimes this natural calamity is caused, breakage of our lives. Sometimes human misdeeds cause a breakage in our life.
But whatever it is, these, why these happen, it’s very difficult to know. But beyond all these, Krishna is always there to help us. So the protection of Krishna that the Bhagavatam demonstrates is the protection primarily at the level of consciousness.
That he was always, his consciousness was protected. He did not become resentful. He did not become hopeless.
He did not become suicidal. He just took shelter of Krishna. So all this is not to say that all of us, when we have danger, that’s all we need to do.
Now, for all of us, it’s not that our material situation will always stay the way it is. We can make efforts and we should make efforts to rectify it. But we also needn’t, needn’t reduce Krishna’s protection just to the rectification of our material situation.
Something is wrong. And if Krishna, if Krishna can fix it, if Krishna fixes it, then my situation is rectified. But it’s not necessarily like that.
Krishna can help in many different ways. Recently, I was at the Chicago airport and I was waiting for the devotee who was going to pick me up. And I was talking on phone and there was one more devotee with me who was looking after my bag.
I had a check-in bag and a laptop bag. So I was talking on the phone and then I looked back and the devotee, it was two, three minutes, I looked down and it was two, three minutes, my laptop bag was stolen. And the devotee who was with me, I thought he was looking at the bags, but he thought I had, he was holding the check-in bag and he said he didn’t notice also that I had laptop bag.
So, and I never keep my passport in my laptop bag. I always keep it in my pocket, especially when I’m travelling. But on that day, I had kept it in my passport, passport in my laptop bag.
The passport was also lost, the laptop bag was also lost. And it’s just two, three, not even more than three minutes. And, so, it was completely disorienting.
What to do, how to move forward now? So, of course, I was praying that maybe somehow the bag will be found. At least if the passport is found, then I won’t have the issues. But, you know, we tried our best.
We registered a police complaint, we searched, we did what we could, we couldn’t find it. But then I found that, I realised, once that avenue didn’t work, okay, what is the avenue now? Now, okay, I have to arrange for another laptop, I have to arrange a passport. Now, I’m travelling constantly and I can’t travel internally without a passport.
So then I found, as somehow I gave up that resentment about why the passport was lost, and tried, I stopped being resentful and tried to become a little resourceful. Now, what can I do? How can I get a passport? And then so many devotees from so many different places helped me. We got some contacts.
Normally it takes three to five working days to get a Tadkal passport also. But devotees use their contacts from various places. We called the Consul General of New York and the Consul General of Chicago.
And through it all, within two days, I got my passport. So sometimes if, now, of course, it was my mistake in some ways that the laptop bag was lost. But the point is that sometimes some material situations cannot be rectified.
And if we think that Krishna’s help is going to come, has to come in terms of the rectification of that material situation, then we may be looking in the wrong direction. But then I was thinking that if something like this had happened to me and I had just been alone, maybe on a, if I had not been a practising sadhaka, and if I had been alone, maybe on some job or something like that, I would probably not have had such a big support of a community. So we need to be open to how Krishna’s help may come upon us.
Instead of Prabhupada’s life. So I was thinking at that time that Prabhupada came to America and the place where he was staying, apparently the janitor of that place, he stole Prabhupada’s dictaphone and typewriter. And that was the only position Prabhupada had.
And at least I had, I had a whole community of devotees across various cities who could help. Prabhupada had no associates over there. And that no, there were very, very few devotees.
There were practically no devotees, only a few well-wishers. And probably as important as my laptop was for me, Prabhupada’s dictaphone and Prabhupada’s typewriter was that important. Both of them were essential for his service.
And Krishna’s protection, how did it come to Prabhupada? At that time it came, Swamiji, this is not a good place for you to stay. You come and stay in another place. Other place, it was not necessarily any safer, but at that place, he was more accessible to the kind of people who would want to listen to him.
And that’s how, what was a disaster for Sri Prabhupada in India. Prabhupada writes in his diary that, in one of his entries that he, after that he felt, maybe I should just leave America and go back to India. But Prabhupada did not get discouraged.
So Krishna’s protection came in the form that through that, he was, he moved. So Prabhupada was earlier living in a high-rise, like a high-rise kind of place where professor, where that yoga teacher, Dr. Mishra, was teaching wealthy clients. And from there, Prabhupada moved to like a little lower level place, where, but still, where the wealthy people were not coming, but that was not, that was still not the place where the hippies would feel comfortable coming.
So it was a place which seemed safe, but was not safe. So Prabhupada was not getting anybody practically coming over there. But because of that robbery, Prabhupada moved from that place to another place.
And there, that’s how his preaching expanded. So everything that happens may not be good, but everything that happens can be for good. That means what is sometimes bad things happen, and they’re bad.
We don’t have to imagine that they are good. But sometimes from that bad, something good can emerge. So, that means that, that Krishna is my protector means that, yes, Krishna will protect me, but how he will protect me, that I cannot impose terms and conditions on Krishna.
So that protection cannot be tied to a particular expectation. That protection has to come with submission. It’s like we say, beggars are not choosers.
So protection has to come with submission. Krishna, what do you want me to do? How can I serve you in this situation? And, if we have that attitude, and we see what doors Krishna opens for us, and we walk through those doors, then we will find that Krishna will, even if we are in a very dark place, Krishna will take us to a brighter place. For me, I don’t know what brighter place the loss of the laptop and loss of the computer is going to take me, but at least one thing happened for me is that I developed so much appreciation for the association of devotees, and also for the importance of devotees, not just focussing on converting and preaching people, but also connecting with people who are influential.
So some people walk through the doors we open so that they come to Krishna. And some people open the doors for us so that we can take Krishna to different places. Even those people don’t come to Krishna.
So we need to connect with people at whatever level they are comfortable. So I think that’s one good that has come, but let’s see. So if we want, if we surrender, surrender also means surrender of our expectations.
Instead, we replace the expectation with submission. Krishna, whatever you want, I accept it. As Jesus said, let thy will be done.
Let thy will be done, O Lord. So that is actually submission to Krishna, and that is surrender. Now surrender has another aspect to it, which I’ll talk in tomorrow’s class, that is what Arjuna says at the end of the Bhagavad Gita, that I will do your will.
So that aspect of what we are meant to do as a part of surrender, what conception we have of ourselves and how we act, that I’ll talk in tomorrow’s session. So I’ll summarise what I spoke today. I spoke on the theme of the six limbs of surrender, understanding how to see Krishna, how to have the faith that Krishna is our protector and that Krishna is our maintainer.
So protection basically means that there are occasional big dangers, like say our home security or our police or our army protects us, and maintainer is the arrangement by which our life normally goes on. So for understanding how Krishna is our protector, I talked elaborately about causality and how things happen in the world. So when anything bad happens, is it Krishna doing everything? So Krishna is the ultimate cause of all causes, but he’s the sanctioning cause, not the intended cause.
So when things happen in the world, there is God’s will, there is free will and there is evil. So God is not that God is a supervisor. Supervisor means he oversees, not that he himself does everything.
So free will is what everyone of us has been given. And based on the kind of karma we have done in the past, the sphere over which the free will we can exercise varies from person to person. And if somebody abuses their free will to do evil, then what they are doing is not God’s doing.
It is what they are doing not because of God, but in spite of God. So basically when we are going through distress, we basically may divide the world into me and the rest of reality. And if the rest of reality is causing distress to us, then how can we pray to the rest of the reality itself if we consider Krishna as non-different from the rest of reality? So in one sense, he’s non-different, but in one sense, he’s different.
So how in that rest of reality, there is free will, there is evil, and there’s ultimately God and his will. That’s the differentiation we did. So sometimes we need to separate the two so that we don’t see God as the cause of our suffering, but the free will and evil is the cause of our suffering.
And God is the shield or the cure for the suffering. Sometimes we may see God as the cause of our suffering and the cure for our suffering. Just like a surgeon causes pain to cure pain.
So Bharat Maharaj had to go through two lives as a deer and then as a Brahmana because of his mistake. And he was given the memory by which he understood why he was going through it. But we don’t hear anything about Panishad Maharaj being given the memory like that.
And it is a minor mistake and is severe punishment. So if we can’t see, if trying to look at God as the cause of our suffering makes us just frustrated, bewildered, and disheartened, then better just see that the cause of suffering in this world is inconceivable. The working of karma is so complex as to give even complex thinkers a complex.
So therefore, just put aside, we don’t know why this happens, but what can I do now? So if we turn toward Krishna as a shield from our suffering, okay, the suffering is there, but even while it is there, Krishna will give me the strength to tolerate it. And sometimes Krishna will be the cure for our suffering. The suffering will go away.
So in the case of Draupadi, there was protection that manifested in the material level also. So Krishna acted as the cure for her suffering over there. Of course, the shield also, because she became absorbed in remembering Krishna and she was not aware of her humiliation.
But it is more of a cure because the humiliation didn’t actually happen. She could not be disrobed. That’s why sometimes the incident we call as disrobing of Draupadi, it is actually the attempted disrobing.
She was not disrobed. So, but in the case of Parikshit, initially he was protected in the mother’s womb, but at time of death, he was not protected. Or was he? He was at a spiritual level.
So Krishna was not a cure for the suffering at the material level, but he was a shield from the suffering. So Parikshit Maharaj was not in resentment or fear or agony. He was absorbed in Krishna.
Krishna’s protection came for his consciousness. And that is the protection that we always will get if we turn toward Krishna. So surrender means ultimately, surrender of our expectation also of how Krishna will protect us.
And I talked about my laptop theft and how Krishna’s help came, not in the recovery of the laptop, but in the recovery of the password of the laptop, but in the replacement of that. And the assistance, the resources that helped me do that. For Prabhupada, the loss of his dictaphone and his typewriter, the protection did not come in terms of regaining those specifically, but in redirecting him to a place that was more receptive for his outreach.
So when we have that openness toward Krishna, we surrender by saying, Krishna, I will do your will. And then we will replace expectation by submission. Then we’ll find that no matter how dark a place we may be in, Krishna, it’s not that Krishna is sending us to the dark place.
Krishna is going with us to the dark place and he will lead us to a brighter place. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
So are there any questions? I’m just calling on phone now. Okay, you can speak. If anybody has questions, I’m also calling here.
Hare Krishna Mataji? Yes, can you ask? Hare Krishna? Okay. Who is the devotee? The devotee is the victim? Okay. So if a devotee is victimised by someone, now, is it the devotee getting the reaction for their own past life, karma? Or is it the victimiser acting under the influence of evil and doing it? And what is Krishna’s role in this? It’s ultimately very difficult to know all this.
As devotees, we need to focus on seeing how best we can serve Krishna in the situation we are in. Sometimes we counter the situation. Now, ultimately, the focus should be on our dharma in this life, not on our karma from the previous life.
I repeat, our focus should be on our dharma in this life. That means, how best can I continue my service? My service is my direct devotional service. It might be my family responsibility.
It might be my professional obligations. But we are meant to be able to do that as well as is possible. And do what it takes to get the space to do that.
Now, say for example, if somebody has a very bad boss, maybe exploitative, abusive, manipulative, whatever. Now, should a devotee who’s working under such a boss see that, oh, this boss is there because of my past karma? Well, maybe. But if working under that boss is just making our life so miserable that we can’t chant and that we can’t, we can’t focus on chanting, we can’t practise bhakti, then it’s not that a devotee has to stay on in that job and think that by doing this job, I’ll be exhausting my bad karma.
That would be foolish. We don’t have to unnecessarily stay in abusive situations as if that’s the way to exhaust our past karma. Because we also have a responsibility to do our dharma.
And I’ll talk more about this tomorrow in the session. But the point is, if we can get some other job where the situations are better, then we should do that. Of course, we need to compare.
The mind always makes our suffering seems to be the worst. And we need to have some, maybe some friends, well-wishers who can actually help us objectively compare. Now, am I making too big an issue out of this? Or is it really a big issue? And we get a more objective picture based on that we can take some action.
So now, if somehow that is the only job we have and there’s not much possibility, at least in the immediate future, of getting another job, then if we have to stay there, then we stay there and say, okay, this is what I have to go through because of my karma. But let me try to focus on my dharma. And let me try to shield myself from the situation as much as I can.
It’s no, so rather than worrying about whether it’s my karma or this person’s evil, we focus on our own dharma. Now, if you have a facility to maybe report to somebody higher in the office, and you may want to try that. So these are practical things which we shouldn’t be blind to philosophy, philosophical perspective of them.
But the philosophical perspective shouldn’t blind us to the practical reality also. I’ll have to explain this more in detail in tomorrow’s class, but I’ll give one example and conclude this. And when the devotees in London performed a rathyatra, that they wanted to do a bigger rathyatra than what had been done in America.
And thus they got a huge cart with a huge tower on top of it. But somehow they kept the wheels of the same size. And then it was a much publicised event, but the cart went for maybe a few metres and it just crumbled, the wheels crumbled.
It was a disaster, a public relations fiasco. And the devotees were disheartened and they wrote to Prabhupada, that Prabhupada did this ratha cart collapse because of our poor devotion. And Prabhupada said, it was not your poor devotion, it was your poor engineering.
So poor engineering means that when you can find a practical cause and a practical solution at an immediate level, there is no need to escalate that to Krishna. And think, okay, maybe Krishna is displeased with our devotion, that’s why Krishna let this happen. No, so similarly, if there is a practical problem and it can be solved practically, there is no need to escalate it to the practical past life karma level also.
But sometimes the practical problem doesn’t seem to have any practical cause and doesn’t seem to have any practical solution. Then what do we do? We accept it as something based on a past karma and then we pray to Krishna that he give us the strength to tolerate it, to live with it. So for example, if we get some disease and doctors are not able to diagnose it, doctors are not able to cure it and we have to live with the disease.
Then you may say, okay, I did not do anything to anything, actually I would have got infected or got the disease, but somehow I got it and it’s not getting cured, so let me do the best I can. So sometimes we working on, for our service to Krishna, for our dharma, we may try to counter the situation and do what it takes to practically do that. But sometimes if it’s not possible to counter, then we may accept that situation and seek to surrender to Krishna in that situation.
So basically don’t get too caught in thinking what is whose karma, focus on what is our dharma and how we can best do that and how we can create the space for us to be able to do our dharma. Does this answer your question? If you have any follow up questions, we can discuss tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll keep my class a little shorter and we can have more time for question answers.
Is that okay? Thank you very much. And if any of you have questions, if you want to send them by WhatsApp or something like that to the conference leaders, I can take those questions in the last session in case you have for this or any of the previous sessions also. So tomorrow I’ll speak for about half an hour and we can have a half an hour question answers.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. Radha Shrimad Bhagavati Jai.
Padma Jai. Gaur Bhaktivinda Ki Jai. Targaon Manas.
Om Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Jai. Thank you.