Spiritual Advancement and Material Ambitiousness

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, the topic today we will be discussing is Explanatory Advancement and Materialisation. The Huta, in one sense, is a book that directly addresses this issue. Bhagavad Gita, as most of you know, was spoken on a battle field.
Is my audio clear behind me? So, it was spoken on a battle field and then Arjuna, feeling that the prospect of a war against his own relatives was too gruesome, decided that he will not fight. He said, how can I fight against those whom I meant to respect forever? I cannot fight against them. And Arjuna, in fact, says over there that better that I live like a beggar than fight this war.
So, Arjuna is thinking at that particular time beyond the specific ethics of the situation that renunciation of the world is what is required for spiritual growth. It is that if I continue my perseverance in my in this war that will entangle me. And renouncing the world same can entangle me in the ending of my spiritual towards the nation.
Krishna’s reply is in essence to Arjuna not renunciation of action but renunciation in action. Not renunciation of action. You don’t have to renounce action.
But you can have the disposition, the attitude of renunciation within action while performing action. In fact, the Bhagavad Gita is a very word affirming book. Word affirming means that it reveals to us how God is the source of everything, how God is the best of everything and how God is the purpose of everything.
How Krishna was reading the Bhagavad Gita as God is the source of everything. Krishna says that everything in this world emanates from Him. Everything in this world is the matter of spirit.
And both matter and spirit have their unifying source in Him. So the Bhagavad Gita with this vision shows that this world is not illusion because it reveals the connection of this world with God. It is also God’s imagination.
Some people often think that yes, if I have to go spiritually, as Arjuna was thinking, this world is illusion and I have to renounce the world. But the Bhagavad Gita first says that God is the source of this world. And because this world comes from God, God is real, so this world is also real.
And this world has real value, real potential. This comes in the 7th chapter, 7.6. Then in the 10th chapter, the Bhagavad Gita shows how God is the best of everything. Whatever is beautiful, whatever is opulent, whatever is glorious in the world, that springs from a spark of my spirit.
That means that if you look at the sky and if you look towards the tall mountain range, whichever the tallest mountain range, say Mount Everest, it catches our attention. Krishna says, whatever catches our attention, that manifests my glory. Its attractive potency comes from Krishna.
And this vision permeates everything. Prior to this, this is 10.14, the second last verse in the chapter. Prior to this, from 10.20 to 10.39, Krishna gives a list of all that was considered attractive, impressive in that culture.
And Krishna says that all this emanates from me. What this means is, again, Krishna talks about devotion which sees God in the world. Not just God beyond the world, but God in the world.
I’ll come back to this point later, but it completes this philosophical arc of thought. Bhagavad Gita also says that God is the purpose of the world. The world has its purpose in fulfilling it in God.
Every object has a particular purpose. And to the extent it is used for that purpose, it will be happy. The child is playing with the cricket bat.
And suddenly, the child sees some delicious food and takes the bat and puts that in the plate and tries to eat with the bat. The mouth will not fit in the mouth. So, we can use the cricket bat as a spoon.
Every object has its purpose. So, the Bhagavad Gita reveals to us that the purpose of this world is God. Now, what does it mean that the purpose of the world is God? That means that when we use the resources of the world in the service of God, then those resources bring us lasting happiness.
Whatever is there in this world, when we use it in the service of God, that brings us far greater fulfilment than when we use it for any other purpose. So, with this background, let’s look at two aspects of the topic we are discussing. Spiritual advancement and material ambitions.
Spiritual advancement essentially means that we grow in our love for God. The purpose of practising spiritual life is to turn our heart towards God with love and devotion. All of us have certain objects of love and those objects of love usually bring meaningful purpose to our life.
We may have family members, we may have certain hobbies, certain interests. Whatever it is that we deeply love, that is what brings meaningful purpose to our life. We can all have different objects of love and they all bring some purpose, some meaning, some satisfaction to different beings.
At the same time, these objects of love, they cannot provide lasting fulfilment because those objects themselves are temporary. Say, if someone has a great love for wealth, money, money, money, and more money, now that obsession, suddenly, money provides a lot of help. But, when we get obsessed with a particular thing, often we get so caught in what it can provide, what it will provide, that we overlook what it cannot provide.
So, for example, money can provide a bed, but money cannot provide sleep. Among all the species on the planet, human beings are the only species that needs to take sleeping pills. Among all the species, we are the only species who put stupendous amount of efforts to make comfortable beds as compared to what humans do to have comfortable homes and beds within them.
No animal goes to that effort, no bird goes to that much effort. We go to so much effort to make comfortable beds, and after that, you lie on the bed, quite often you are not able to sleep. So, why does this happen? There are certain things that can be satisfied by the material life.
Money can provide us a bed, but it cannot provide us sleep. Money can provide us entertainment, but it cannot provide us peace. If we have money, we can go and watch a movie, some crime, some first act, first show, first release, we can watch Gurda, most famous theatres.
But, it cannot provide us peace. It can, but through entertainment, we can temporarily forget things that cause anxiety. But once that forgetfulness is removed, then again, anxiety will come back.
So, certainly, this is not to minimise the importance of money, but we live in a culture which influences the importance of money far more than what it is. And, the point which I was making is, we all have different loves in this world, and these different loves provide us a certain amount of satisfaction, but it is limited. But, when we connect all these different loves with the supreme object of love, that is Krishna, then all these contribute to our supreme content.
Then we connect with the supreme reality through whatever we have. In today’s world, material ambitiousness is often divorced from spiritual advancement. So, one kind of divorce was what I started with from the Bhagavad Gita.
That is, people think, at least in those times when Arjuna was thinking was, if I have to grow spiritually, I’d have to renounce the world. That is one kind of rupture that can happen between spiritual advancement and material ambitiousness. The other kind of rupture that can happen is, that we think, if I want to be material ambitious, I cannot be spiritual.
I cannot be spiritually advanced. Because, when we equate, often, at least in today’s culture, material ambitiousness is equated with materials. Materialism is a philosophy.
It’s a worldview. That philosophy, what it underlines is that, matter is all that matters. So, there are two broad categories of materialism.
There is functional materialism and there is fanatical materialism. Functional materialism means, matter is all that matters. Anything beyond matter, it doesn’t matter at all.
So, money, wealth, positions, power, things that we can tangibly see and show, those are the things that matter. That is functional materialism. We are God, we exist, soul exists.
All those things don’t really matter. That is functional materialism. And fanatical materialism is, not just that matter is all that matters.
It is matter is all that exists. Nothing exists beyond matter. So, in a such a culture, material ambitiousness is equated with materialism.
So, if I want to grow material, then, often, that growth material is wedded with the worldview of materialism which relegates spirituality and God and soul and all such things to the Siberia of mythology. Some people might believe these things but they don’t really exist, they don’t really matter. Now, what does this rupture do? That means when we rip material ambitiousness from spiritual growth, that has an intimate consequence among several.
One of them is it breeds the main thing is anxiety. Anxiety, we may say that, yeah, there is so much uncertainty in life. So, there will be anxiety because of that.
But it’s interesting. So, anxiety may be there because say, I have given an exam. I don’t know whether I will pass the exam or not.
I have got a job. I don’t know whether the job will continue or not. I have got good health now but I may fall sick.
So, there are real issues of uncertainty which can cause anxiety. But curiously, much of the anxiety in the modern and postmodern world is caused not by outer uncertainty. It is caused by inner instability.
What this means is that if we compare, broadly the world can be divided into developed world and the developing world. So, in the developed world, the basic necessities of life are very unclear for most people. In the developing world, for most people, food, clothing, shelter, medicine, all these are also objects of uncertainty.
So, relatively speaking, in the developing world, people should have more reasons for anxiety than the developed world. But, survey after survey consistently shows that people in the developed world are more anxious than the developing world, are more stressed. And not only that, people from the developing world, if they come to the developed world, they also become more anxious.
So, now, this can have various causes but one primary cause is although outer uncertainty decreases, but inner instability increases. Inner instability increases when we adopt a worldview of materialism. Now, we may not consciously adopt also.
Most people in the world don’t think much beyond the immediate. So, it’s not that people don’t believe in God, don’t believe in soul. Most people, it just doesn’t matter to them.
It doesn’t matter to them. So, the more we come to a material prosperous situation or we come to a place where material prosperity is all that we see around us, then that is what we start aspiring for. And the more we start aspiring for material prosperity, the more we become at least functional materialists, where matter is all that matters in our life.
This leads to anxiety because there is no inner stability. There is no shelter within. There is no soothing.
Because the nature, the only thing constant in this world is that nothing is constant. The only thing constant in this world is that nothing is constant. नासतो विद्यते भावो In the Bhagavad Gita, second chapter, 15th verse, Krishna says that of the temporary there is no endurance.
आधिगूतम् क्षरो भावः In the 8th chapter, 4th verse, Krishna says that the nature of the material world is constant change. Because at the material level, nothing is constant. So that causes insecurity.
A simple example of this would be, many times if some people go for on a sea ride for the first time, some people get seasickness because of the constant restlessness that is there. So that although that restlessness doesn’t seem to be so serious as to cause us trouble, but at a biochemical level, it disturbs the world balance in some way. And that’s why some people get seasickness when other things may happen.
So that’s because the boat underneath is constantly moving. So when we adopt a worldview of materialism, intentionally or unintentionally, then there is nothing stable in the matter. Because matter is always changing.
So that creates instability. And just like there is a physical seasickness, so materialism leads to something like an emotional seasickness, constant restlessness, constant uneasiness, constant stress, constant anxiety. And Shankaracharya is one of the prominent thinkers, spiritual thinkers from India, so he composed a verse at his times about how people are distracted from God.
So he says bala avastha kridha means when a person is a child, he is caught in play. I won’t play this, I won’t play that, I won’t play that. Then taroda avastha taruniram.
When a person is young, that person is attracted to that person’s opposite sex. Then vriddha avastha chintam chintam When we grow old, there is constant worry. Now you may say worry is there all the time, but when we grow old, why does Shekaracharya say worry is there? Because as we grow old, our power to do things decreases.
And then the anxiety naturally increases. Because when we can’t control things, anxiety increases. He concludes that by saying that param brahmam gopinisam.
But to the absolute truth, nobody had read it. However, he was talking about distractions which are age-specific according to his culture. I was just coming from Mumbai.
So one of our devotees told me today we had a very important seminar in our class. It was a fifth standard student. He was 10-11 years old.
I asked, what was the topic of the seminar? He said, stress management. So, for a 10-year-old child, Shankaracharya was saying, Rudha avastha chintamaknam. But today, Bala avastha chintamaknam.
Even in childhood, there is stress, there is anxiety. And of course, in youth, there may not be the same kind of anxiety that was there in old age. But nowadays, relationships are such a source of great anxiety.
And that anxiety is often the peak in youth. Along with, of course, the career anxiety. So, that chintamak is not just in old age.
It is in childhood, it is in life, it is throughout, the anxiety is there. So, one of the defining characteristics of materialism is anxiety. So, when I talk about these two situations, that there is spiritual advancement, there is material ambitions.
Now, when those two are separated apart, then when only spiritual advancement is to be pursued, that leads to a philosophy of world rejection. And when only material ambitions is pursued, that leads to world obsession, which causes disproportion anxiety. Krishna says, He says, That is unmeasurable anxiety.
And this anxiety, he says, It goes on in the mind. For whom? For those who make the material the god of their life. So, if these two are not to be separated like this, how are they to be united? In the Mahabharata, when Yudhishthira becomes the king of Indraprastha, at that time, the sage Narada comes to meet him.
And as per the Vedic culture of hospitality towards sages, Yudhishthira greets him, honours him, worships him. And then, after that, Narada asks Yudhishthira some questions. He says that, Are you Nirmal? And then he says, What do you mean by Nirmal? He says that life, especially in the householder order, has to have balance of three things.
Dharma, Artha and Kama. So, he says, Don’t pursue Dharma at the expense of Artha and Kama. Don’t pursue Artha at the expense of Dharma and Kama.
And don’t pursue Kama at the expense of Dharma and Artha. He says that, family will be happy where Dharma, Artha and Kama are pursued in balance. Now, what exactly do we mean by Dharma, Artha and Kama? The, interestingly here, Yudhishthira, while talking with Yudhishthira, Narada does not talk about the fourth Purushartha.
In general, in the Vedic philosophy, there are four Purusharthas. Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha. So here, he doesn’t talk directly about Moksha.
But as the discourse moves forward between them, he brings a reference to Moksha also. But Dharma, essentially means our connection with God. Artha means our connection with our life, our job or profession.
And Kama refers to our connection with our life. So, Krishna, here Yudhishthira says that these three connections, our connection with God, our connection with our profession and our connection with our life, all these three need to be balanced. So, when there is world rejection, then one rejects Artha and Kama and pursues Dharma.
And when there is world obsession, then one pursues Artha and Kama and rejects Dharma. So, what does the balance of Dharma, Artha and Kama imply? Now, Dharma, there are, in the Vedic culture, there are different kinds of Dharma that are talked about. In the Bhagavad Gita, towards the end, Krishna says, in 18.66, which is called as the Charama Shloka, the climax, the summit, the most important verse of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna’s main verse is this, Sarva-dharman parityajya maham ekam sharanam vraja aham tvam sarva-pavate bhyo mokshe shyam pavanshi jahan So, this gives you all varieties of connection.
You just surrender to it. I will take care of it. I will protect you from all problems.
All beautiful reactions, you know, here. So, here, he is saying that the topmost Dharma is the Dharma of surrendering to Krishna or Bhakti to Krishna. Maham ekam sharanam vraja.
So, in our life, when we practise Bhakti, when we chant the holy names, when we come for satsang, when we study scripture, when we worship the deities, when we honour Vaisal, these activities bring a stability to our life which cannot be brought by anything else. Just like I was giving an example of a boat. On the boat, a person is always restless because the waves are coming.
But if the boat is anchored to something which is firm and strong, the boat becomes stable. So, Dharma is our anchor to the supreme unchanging reality. That is God.
And that brings stability in our life. God is a source of shelter, is a source of happiness. Just like, say, on a night like this, when it is very cold outside.
And then we come to a room which is cosily heated. We immediately feel at ease. We immediately feel comfort.
Similarly, God is the place where our heart can feel comfort. Where our heart can feel relief. As I said earlier, there are so many things in this world which cause anxiety and stress.
But when we fix our faith in God, meditate on Him, pray to Him, worship Him, that brings comfort, relief, shelter, strength, solace to our lives, to our heart. So, it is described as the memory of God. What a home is for the body.
Devotion, bhakti is for the heart. So, home is a place of shelter for the body. Similarly, The purified soul of this is fixed in Krishna.
When we have a home, it is not that 24 hours we stay in the home. We go out of the home for various work. But we know in the back of our mind, I have a place of shelter.
Similarly, when we practise bhakti, when we practise the dharma of bhakti, it is not that we don’t think of anything except God. It is not that we do anything except nothing connected with God. No.
Everything that we do is connected with God. But it is all rooted. We do various things in this world.
But they are all rooted in God. And that is where we get shelter. So, dharma is not just a set of some rituals that some people thought of in the old times and do now.
Dharma involves practises by which the changing can link with the unchanging. By which the changing can link with the unchanging. That is the essence of dharma.
The supreme unchanging reality is God. So, there are various rituals and practises whose purpose is to connect us with God. And if that purpose is not served, then dharma can seem to be like a burden.
Why do I waste time? I don’t need to do this at all. And of course, sometimes some people may use dharma as a social cosmetic. That means dharma is practised not to take shelter of God, but to show the world how good I am, how moral I am, how religious I am.
That is good at one level, but that isn’t completely the purpose of dharma. Now, artha and karma is an integral units of life. And it is significant in the form in which they have given new culture.
The Vedic culture is not a world rejecting culture. It is a world harmonising culture. So, within that is bhakti.
Now, there can be several areas where we may perceive a conflict between our material advancement, between our spiritual advancement and our material ambitions. So, I will talk about two of them and then I will summarise them. In the questions, you may also foresee some other areas of conflict which we can discuss in the question answers.
So, at one level, it may seem that material advancement, material ambitions and spiritual advancement cannot go together because they are opposites. If I devote myself to God, then why should I work so hard in life? If ultimately God is what matters, then why work so hard? Why achieve things? What is the impetus if we know that God is the ultimate goal of life? And what is the impetus for ambitious? Some people think you will become too spiritual and you will become materially unambitious. You will become materially not very productive.
This is based on a misconception that, in fact, Krishna himself says that if somebody practises spirituality just because that person doesn’t want to work hard, just because that person doesn’t want to work, it is lethargy basically. So, दुख्खमित्येव्यकर्मः कायक्रिष्वयात्चिन् संकृत्वारादि संजावगाप नईवजावगाप लंदने So, Krishna says दुख्खमित्येव्यकर्मः Oh, this work is very troublesome. कायक्रिष्वयात्चिन् कायक्रिष्वयात्चिन् And my body will be very uncomfortable.
I don’t like this work. So, I will give it up. So, some people use spirituality as an excuse for running away from material life.
Just a few days ago, I met a young boy in India. He said I am considering becoming a monk. So, what are the factors that you are considering? He said, I have just proposed to a girl.
If she says no, I will become a monk. So, the idea is that if material life doesn’t work out, then I will practise spirituality. So, the at one level, people say if anybody wants to connect with God, that is fine.
But if we are running away from problems, running away from frustrations in life, then actually, we cannot use religion as a hideout for the problems of life. Because the troubles of life will come everywhere. And even when we are practising religion, it is not that the problems go, the problems are there.
The difference between a person who practises dharma and a person who doesn’t practise dharma. Everybody in this world will have differences, whether a person is dharmic or adharmic. But the difference is in the future and the trajectory towards which a person is moving.
Suppose there are two people in a hospital. Both are obviously in the hospital because they are sample for sample. But for one person, the disease is diagnosed and a medicine is prescribed.
For the other person, the disease has not been diagnosed and no medicine has been prescribed. So, right now, both of them may be in discomfort. But for one of them, the trajectory, the pathway to cure is more or less laid out.
For the other person, there is a long way yet to go. First the problem has to be diagnosed, then the right treatment has to be given and then the path to recovery will be there. So, the difference between a materialist and a spiritualist is, although externally both may seem to have similar issues, but for a spiritualist, the ideal goal is there.
And not only is the goal known, but it is being perceived. For a materialistic person, there is no ultimate goal to life. You know, for most materialistic people, their life is basically, essentially, people lose their health in youth to gain wealth.
And then as they grow older, they lose their wealth to gain health. And then in the end, they lose both health and wealth. They lose everything in life.
That is misfortune. So, there is no ultimate solution that is in there. So, if somebody seeks spiritual life in escape from material life, such a person will not be able to sustain spiritual life also because spiritual life also has its own challenges.
It is not a way to escape from challenges. But, so the point is, whether a person is taking treatment or not taking treatment, pain will be there. The discomfort will be there if there is a disease.
But if a person is taking treatment, there will be cure. So, now, one point could be, as I said, the conflict between spirituality and materialism may come because a person thinks that if I am not materially successful, then I can practise spirituality. Or, if I am materially successful, why do I need to pursue anything material? But the Bhagavad Gita, as I said, Bhagavad Gita offers us the vision that God is the source, God is the best, and God is the purpose of the world.
So, the Bhagavad Gita tells us, if we are devoted to God, then we see the world also belongs to God. And we see our talents, our abilities, our resources, our gifts, they are also coming to us from God. And, God has given things to us so that we can give justice to these abilities by developing them and using them.
So, what we are is God’s gift to us. What we become is our gift to God. What we are is God’s gift to us.
We all have certain talents, certain abilities, certain resources, certain interests, and even the most talented person will not achieve much without discipline, commitment, hard work. But, with the discipline, commitment, hard work, what talent we have, which is potential, that becomes actualised. So, what we become is our gift to God.
So, our life, how do we move towards God? It is not just by rejecting the talents, the abilities that we have, but by using those talents, abilities, resources in a mode of loving service. Now, when we have talents, abilities, resources, in a materialistic world view, those talents, abilities, resources are used primarily to prove to the world how great I am. I want to show the world how great I am.
You know, Prabhupada, he had come to Australia four decades ago. At that time, he was giving a lecture. And at the end of it, there was one person who was dressed very fanciful, long flying cape and big cap and you know, very fancifully dressed.
And then, he said to Prabhupada, Swamiji, I am God. And next year, on February 22nd, I will prove to the world that I am God. And Prabhupada was looking at him.
That’s alright. Everybody thinks like that. Prabhupada was completely nonchalant about it.
Now, we may not explicitly say that I am God and I want to prove that I am God. But, the whole idea is that most people are motivated just by the desire to show their greatness to the world. They think I am great, but the world has not yet recognised who I am.
So, in the future, I will do something and the whole world will recognise who I am. Now, this ego-driven motive for achievement, it creates exploitation. It creates destructive competition.
Because when I think the purpose of my talent is not to make a contribution, but to demonstrate my greatness. And whoever comes in the way, I will scratch that person. I will beat that person.
I will get that person out of my way and march ahead. So, with such a conception, our success, when our goal is primarily to prove our greatness, then we wed ourselves to uncertainty and anxiety. So here, a person is materially ambitious, but the motivation for the material ambitiousness is to prove my greatness.
Now, there are two main problems with this attitude. First of all is, if we are honest with ourselves, we don’t have too many great things about ourselves. We have some good abilities, which may become great.
But if we are centred only on that, I have to prove my greatness. Then, if our purpose of life is trying to get our sense of self-identity, our sense of self-worth, our sense of life’s purpose and glory, from wanting to prove my greatness, then that attempt is like trying to get the water supply for a whole city from a puddle. The puddle does contain water, but it is so finite.
If we want the whole world to recognise our greatness, the problem is even if we do something great, the world, how long is it going to stop? Okay, some people may congratulate, some people may felicitate, but, oh God, when is somebody going to praise me? When is somebody going to recognise my glory? And another anxiety is, we are not alone in trying to establish our greatness. So, if somebody becomes greater than us, then, finished. Now, what happened to us? Long ago, before I was introduced to bhakti, at that time Sunil Gavaskar was the top unscored test candidate.
And then he retired. And a few years after that, Alan Borden he crossed his record and he became the, for that time, the highest test unscored. So, at that time, Sunil Gavaskar was interviewed.
I just happened to meet him. And he says, how do you feel, now that you have recorded him? He was very calculated at that time. So, he said, I feel like a bird who was flying in the sky who suddenly finds that his wings have been clipped.
Can’t do anything, it’s a fall down. So, the point which I am making is, if our goal in material ambitiousness, is to want to prove to the world our greatness, that we, first of all, it’s not certain that we will be able to prove to the world that we are great. Even if we succeed, the world is not going to give us as much appreciation as we want.
Even if it gives us, still somebody else will become greater than us. So, essentially, we will never be as sensible as this. So, bhakti offers us an alternative motivation for our ambitiousness.
Bhakti doesn’t say, don’t be ambitious. Arjuna was the world’s greatest archer. Now, any skill that you require, it requires hard work.
Yes, Arjuna definitely had some innate talent. But still, he ruined diaries. It was not that Arjuna was constantly just being bhakti to people.
He was a great bhakta, but he would tirelessly practise. And one of his examples of how tirelessly he practised was that he was in Drona’s academy, archery academy. So, one night, he was just taking his food and that time, the sudden gust of wind came and the lamb that was there got extinguished.
And he was eating food, so his hand just went to the plate and took it and ate it. As he ate it, he thought, if I can eat without light, then I can shoot without light also. Why can’t I practise at night? And then, he perfected the art of shooting targets chest-based or something, even if you could see nothing.
And that proved a decisive skill for him during the later days of the Kurukshetra war, when the codes of the war were no longer followed. The normal codes of the war were fighting late at night and rest at night. But when the war became too frenzied towards the end, then the Kauravas stopped following the code and kept attacking even at night.
So, at that time, this proved a very decisive skill for him. So, the point is, Arjuna was a great devotee, but he also worked hard to actualise his talents. Practise diligently.
Now, what was his purpose? His purpose was not just to prove that I am a good archer. His purpose was to serve God. To help in bringing righteousness in the world.
He used his archery skills to counter those who were antisocial powers and help virtue come to God. Now, we may not have that specific situation or influence, but we all can use our talents for the purpose of God. What does purpose of God mean? That means, in this world, as I said, people have this conception that if somebody becomes devoted to God, somebody becomes spiritual, that is because either that person is good for nothing, that’s why this person is God to God, or this person will now become good for nothing.
Now that this person has become devoted to God, now this person will become impractical, irresponsible, negligent, and then this person will become good for nothing. This is often the preconception that people have. So, if a person who is a professional, who is a student, who is working in this world, if that person is ambitious, but the purpose of the ambitiousness is not just in the workplace, I want to show the world how great I am, I want to show everybody in all my fields how great I am.
No, the purpose is no other. When we love someone, the nature of love is to share. If a mother loves a child, she will tell other mothers, my child did this, my child did this.
Naturally, we talk about whom we love. That’s natural. So, when a devotee loves God, then devotee expresses one’s love by telling about the gloriousness of God to others, so that others also become attracted to God.
Others also want to love God. So, now when we want to attract others towards God, it is not just for emotions, it is for actions. So, if we are professionals and our motivation is that, yes, I have gone to the centre to the lecture of Dharma, I have practised Bhakti, and I have got students, I have got students, and Krishna is my Lord, I want the world to know how wonderful Krishna is.
So, I will perform my work, the ambitions in my work, not to prove my greatness, but to show the world Krishna’s greatness. Now, if I become competitive, if I become successful, people will want to know, what makes you tick? And then, what makes me tick is, my relationship to Krishna, my connection with Krishna. That gives me D.P., that gives me stability, that gives me strength, that gives me success.
Maharaj Yudhishthir, who was the king of Indraprastha, later on he performed a sacrifice, where all the kings of the world came and offered to be with him. Now, for that he had to conquer the whole world. It’s a huge labour.
But he did that. What was his purpose? His purpose was so that when all the kings of the world would be there, his purpose was not that I will be enthroned as the emperor of the world. Yes, that happened.
If we actualise our talents, if we work hard and ambitious, then we will attain success. But that was not Yudhishthir’s purpose. Yudhishthir’s purpose was that when everybody in the world is assembled at that time, I will glorify Krishna.
And I will tell the world how wonderful Krishna is. So, he used his royal resources and he attained success as a toilet administrator, as a king who became an emperor and through that he glorified Krishna. So, if our heart is connected with Krishna, if our heart is devoted to Krishna and then we see our talents, our abilities, our resources, not as ours for our own enjoyment, but as gifts from Krishna meant to be, meant for us to develop and to make a positive contribution, then we can have a nobler drive for our own ambition.
A nobler purpose for our ambition. Imagine there are three teachers. They are teaching in school.
And suppose somebody goes and asks a teacher, what are you doing? What are you saying? I am trying to discipline this unruly mess. So unruly, so messy, so ungraceful. And that is the job conception of my teacher.
Second teacher, what are you doing? I am earning my living. Third teacher, what are you doing? He says, I am helping, shaping the future of the world. Shaping the future minds of the future citizens of the future nations.
The activity will be the same, but the vision will determine the stage. So, spirituality offers us a grander vision of our own life and of the ambitiousness that you can have now. That when I am working in my profession, it is not just so that I earn a living, it is not just that I have disagreeable colleagues and I have to deal with them.
My purpose is much higher. Actually, the higher our purpose, the greater will be our inspiration. And the greater the inspiration, the greater will be our ability to tolerate difficulties.
When there is a great inspiration, small problems I can deal with. But if there is no great inspiration, if you don’t stand for anything, then you will fall for nothing. So, if you don’t have something which truly inspires us, then every small irritation, a small irritation will irritate us.
When we all have the experience that we get absorbed in something, then even if somebody around us makes noise around us, we just not absorb. That is a good example, simple example, of how when we have a higher inspiration in our life, then we will learn to tolerate more and we will be able to pursue our goals more purposefully. So, that’s why inherently it is not that material life and spiritual life are in contradiction.
We have a proper devotional conception of our talents and our profession and they get harmonised. The second aspect, I will stop. That can be possibly in terms of time.
I have only 24 hours in a day. If I have to practise spiritual life, that requires time. If I have to pursue my ambitions, that requires time.
How do I manage both? I have only so much time in a day. Yes, time can always be a challenge, but one of the things which a time-centred division of our day, of our schedule, overlooks is that what consumes our time is not just activities. It is also our thoughts.
If we are worried about something, we may work on something for one hour, but actually we end up doing not even the work of 10 minutes. So, what is spiritual? Although it may seem that our bhakti is going to take our time. The time I could use for my ambitions, for actualising my dreams, whatever it may be.
But the point is that it is not always that just more work, more work, more work will lead to more success. Because we are not machines. We need to take breaks.
Actually, even machines need this. What does it mean? We are conscious beings. We need to rejuvenate ourselves, rejuvenate ourselves.
Spirituality, as I said, if our thoughts are distracted, if we are too worried, if we are too stressed, if we are too irritated, then we can’t function properly. So, what spirituality does is we connect with God because God is far greater than us. And the connection with God brings our thoughts to rest.
One of the main reasons my thoughts go here and there is because we don’t have a satisfying object first. When we practise bhakti, our thoughts get a satisfying object first. Prashant nishesh manodh panthara kadadamai kaantikal tyaginkara So, great saint Ammachari says that bhavantaneman prashant nishesh manodh panthara my mind is like a chariot running here running there with the horse out of control.
But ever since I have been devoted to prashant nishesh my mind has become focused. What is my goal now? I want to perish your glories I want your glory That is my goal now. So actually speaking, although at an external level we may see that bhakti takes time, but if we use that time purposefully to connect with God, that connection will bring us greater calmness, greater clarity, greater control over our thoughts and that will increase our effectiveness in Ammachari.
The Bhagavad Gita talks about three gunas, there are three different ways of functioning. So, when we are too caught up in externals, then the external focus makes our capacity to concentrate and be productive lesser and lesser. Why is that? Because our mind becomes restless.
But if we calm our mind by connecting with God, then we keep focussing. So, yes, there is always a balancing act in this time that we have to do. Bhakti may seem to be taking our time, but it will bring our thoughts into control.
So bhakti won’t take away our work time, it will take away our worry time. The time that we spend on worrying the mind has to tremendously decrease if we become devoted to God and we become more productive. So, as devotees, our aspiring devotees, if we properly understand the principles of bhakti, then it is not a very ambitious thing as to go against bhakti.
In fact, even in the direct activities of bhakti, there are many of our talents that we can use for the service of Krishna. We can directly that through bhakti, if we have singing ability, we can sing for Krishna. If we have decorating ability, we can decorate the home of Krishna.
If we have managing ability, we can manage ruins for Krishna. Like that, even in the direct programme of bhakti, we can use our talents and we can grow in those times. And even in our profession, in our family, we can whatever bhakti we do, directly to the local activities, we bring that emotional, inspirational intention and we do our activities with that intention.
And in this way, both can be harmonised joyfully. We can be joyfully harmonised. Okay, so I’ll summarise.
I started by talking about how the material ambitious, spiritual advancement and material ambitiousness, they can seem opposite because some people think spiritual advancement requires renunciation of the world. But Bhagavad Gita says, not renunciation of action, but renunciation in action. Renunciation in action means that I do action not to prove to the world how great I am, that my ego is not my goal.
I am renounced from the ego. I work, I do action to share the greatness of my beloved Lord with the world. And then, discuss the other misconception that can cause this to go apart, is we think material ambitiousness means that I have to materialistic.
We think that matter is all that matters or matter is all that exists. Such a worldview breeds anxiety. Money can give us bed, but money cannot give us sleep.
It can give us entertainment, it cannot give us peace. This materialistic worldview leads to tremendous anxiety. And the integration of the two happens when we understand that God is the source, God is the best and God is the purpose of the world.
So our talents are given by God to us so that we can serve Him. What we are is God’s gift to us, what we become is our gift to God. And so bhakti means that we offer what we have to God by developing it and contributing to it.
And then we discuss two conflicts that might be there. One is we may think, if I want to devote to God why do I need to be material ambitious? Or if I am material ambitious, then I won’t be able to devote to God. We may think that way because we think the goals are separate.
But then I said that bhakti tells us, we use our talents and abilities to glorify God. Not to seek joy in our own greatness. Trying to prove our own greatness to the world will never satisfy God.
It will always keep us uncertain and dissatisfied. It’s like water in the city with the water in the puddle. It will never satisfy.
When you glorify God, you feel great satisfaction. And as far as time is concerned, yes, we will have to do some balancing of time. But bhakti will save the time that goes up in our waste thoughts, in our worry thoughts.
And that way, when we become calmer and more focused, we will become more productive in whatever time we have. We will be able to do more, more calmly and more successfully. Thank you very much.