Spiritual happiness depend on external sources, so isnt it outside-in not inside-out?
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Question from Anantavallabh Prabhu, in one of your lectures you have said and some point I have heard from other devotees also that happiness is not outside in but it is inside out, which means we cannot get happiness by the external sense objects which are outside us. Example, gulab jamun or any other external sense object cannot give us happiness. Real happiness doesn't need external object or something from outside to experience that happiness but it is the internal experience.
Question is, even to get spiritual happiness or real happiness we need some external source. How is that inside out? If I am cleaning vessels in the temple, I get real happiness but again cleaning vessels is something outside and happiness, what I'm feeling is inside. Again it is outside in not inside out.
Answer, we may sometimes use certain statements to phrase certain truths in ways that are rhetorical or easily memorizable but these sort of catch phrases may not always convey all the subtleties involved in the philosophical truth. So for example, sometimes we may say there is no happiness in the material world but then the scriptures also say that there is a happiness which is just like a drop. So then we may say actually there is only drop like happiness in the spiritual world, in the material world but then in other places we may find again that there are levels of happiness in the material world and the happiness in Swarga is hundred times better than earth and then beyond that it's hundred times more in Satya Loka and beyond that hundred in Sitappa Loka, beyond that hundred times more in Brahma Loka and like that.
Taittiriya Upanishad use a hierarchy also. So then we may wonder if it's a drop in the whole material world but are we having say the drop of being multiplied by a hundred or divided by a hundred, how is this hierarchy being created? So first point to understand is that happiness itself is not a literally quantifiable entity and when we use material examples or metaphors or aphorisms to express truths they are not necessarily conveying the full reality but they do give us a picture of that reality. So what is the actual reality? Certainly in the Sadhaka stage we need an external source to connect with Krishna in a realistic and honest way.
So that means if we go to a temple where there is vibrant spiritual atmosphere, there are devotees, there are kirtans, there are deities then naturally we feel much more Krishna conscious then when we go to a shopping mall where everybody is in a materialistic frame of mind and everybody's wearing either sensually alluring dresses and the whole atmosphere is reeking with sensuality. So certainly for us the externals influence the internals and that principle applies even to spiritual life and the whole process of Sadhana Bhakti to some extent if you look at the 64 items of devotional service that Bhakta Rishan Amrit Sindhu gives, all of them are to some extent we can say external activities. Take Charanam Ruh, take shelter of the deities, offer flowers to the Lord, bow down to the Lord.
So actually we are doing activities with our body or we are doing certain activities at certain places. So then they do seem to be outside activities but then the underlying principle in all these activities is yena kena prakaarena manah krishnanimeshe, somehow or the other always remember Krishna, fix the mind on Krishna, smartha avyasa tam vishnu, vismartha avyam na jathu chit sarva viddhi nishedha sura etayor eva kim karam, that the essence of all rules and regulations is that one should somehow or the other always remember Krishna. So if we are coming from a material environment to a spiritual environment then coming to the spiritual environment itself acts as a stimulus that reminds us of Krishna.
So naturally if we come to a temple and then we are doing some external activity which will seem to be similar to a material activity that we might do at home, we are say washing vessels. So but overall because the atmosphere there is spiritual, we may have devotees around, somebody will be chanting or we may ourselves be feeling the difference in the atmosphere. So the external activity acts as a spur for us to remember Krishna.
But if that is our routine activity, if that is our daily service, then we will find over a period of time just doing that service will not give us any special happiness because what gave the happiness was not just the rendering of the service. The rendering of the service is important but Srila Prabhupada would often use the phrase to perform devotional service in Krishna consciousness. So doing the washing of the utensils is devotional service and in many situations especially if we are coming from a non-devotional environment to a devotional environment and engaging in devotional activity then just doing the devotional activity reminds us of Krishna.
But when we do the devotional activity regularly we may have to consciously strive to remember Krishna and the action of remembering Krishna is internal to us, is internal to us. It is a matter of our own choice and our own conscious endeavor to try to fix our mind on Krishna. External aids may help us.
So if we go in front of the deities and then remember Krishna, is that at one level outside in happiness? We can say it is outside in because we look at the deities which are outside us and then we were reminded of Krishna and we felt happy. But the essential difference between say this kind of outside in happiness and then somebody goes to a movie and watches one's favorite movie stars and also feels happy. The difference is that there is no abiding internal relationship that is being revived in the material case.
So it's not that that particular movie star is permanently, eternally present in the heart of that person. Now figuratively we may say that oh, that particular movie star is there in the heart of his fans. But that is just a figurative expression to indicate that the person loves that person, loves that particular star very much, is mad after that star.
But from ontological or a real point of view, it is not that that particular movie star has a localized expansion in the heart of all his fans. Obviously not. So but whereas Krishna has.
So actually speaking, the spiritual happiness becomes steady and deep-rooted when our internal connection with Krishna is established. That means internally we are able to remember Krishna. So Srila Prabhupada talks about this in the third canto when he's talking about elaborating on Kapil Dev's teachings and he says that the yogi seeing the Lord in the heart and the super soul and the devotees seeing the deity in the temple are both the same because the essential activity is seeing the Lord.
At one level seeing the deity is easier because one doesn't have to go through the elaborate and difficult process of yam, niyam, asana, pranayam, patyahara to come to dhyana and dharana and samadhi to see the Lord. One can just go to the temple and look at the deity. So it's easier.
At the same time if one has developed a great devotion to the Lord then one can see the Lord internally even when one doesn't have any external stimuli. In fact at such a time wherever one goes and whatever one sees one remembers Krishna. He described about Chaitanya Mahaprabhu that he did not see moving and non-moving objects when he looked at in the material world anywhere.
He actually just saw. Everything was an impetus for him to remember Krishna. So was that when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu saw a river and that reminded him of Yamuna and then he felt a surge of ecstasy because of that.
Was that outside in happiness? Not exactly because for him primarily there was devotion and because there was devotion inside and there was a further stimulus for that devotion. Now in the language of Rasa this is called as a Uddhipan. Uddhipan is a stimulus for that particular emotion which is there in the heart and then the happiness becomes more intensified.
But it is not that the same forest itself gave happiness. Actually the happiness comes from the devotion and the connection with Krishna that is there in the heart of the person. So at an advanced stage a devotee doesn't need any external stimulus for the remembrance of Krishna and when we come to that stage then actually our devotional service becomes extremely steady.
So steady that nothing can shake it. That even when we go to externally provocative stimuli we don't get disturbed by that. Yesterday Srila Prabhupada went to America and he was not disturbed over there.
So for Srila Prabhupada was his happiness coming from outsiding or inside out? Actually his happiness was coming from Krishna and he had a connection with Krishna within his heart and that was the primary source of his happiness. At the same time when he would see the manifestations of Krishna in the outside world. So Prabhupada was constantly connected with Krishna in his own heart.
But then when devotees started dancing in Kirtan for the first time in Tompkins Square Park or when the first Sathya Yatra was established then when the external stimuli connected with Krishna was also there then that would take his ecstasy deeper. But that doesn't mean that there was no happiness beforehand or that happens outside in. Actually that happiness is inside out.
That means internally there is a connection with Krishna, a devotional connection with Krishna and that devotional connection is further stimulated by certain external sights, sounds and other similar stimuli. So in that case actually speaking when my devotee experiences the happiness and that happiness is expressed to the world through his Kirtans or through his speeches or whatever then the whole world can also experience that happiness. Otherwise the happiness is there but one is not able to experience the happiness.
So in the process of Samadhi as described in the Patanjali's Yoga Sutra actually there are in Sampragyat Samadhi. Srila Prabhupada talks about this in his Purport 6.19.22 also. In Sampragyat Samadhi Patanjali's Yoga Sutra described that there is Savitarka Samadhi and then Savichara Samadhi.
Savitarka Samadhi means that there is contemplation on an external object as an aid for meditation and in Savichara Samadhi the meditation is on a thought itself. One doesn't need an external object to aid one's meditation. So in Savitarka one may keep a form of one's Ishtadev in front of oneself and then meditate on that but when one advances further Savichara Samadhi is considered to be higher than Savitarka Samadhi.
So in Savichara Samadhi one doesn't have to have an external aid. One just has that thought, that vision inside one's own mind and that's what gives one happiness. So that is higher.
So that means once we advance more and more we don't need an external stimuli for our internal remembrance of and we are happy in spite of that. So now it does this happen to materialistic people also? Say some say India won the cricket World Cup and the Indian captain hit a match winning sixer. So now when people saw that they just went mad after that.
It was wild dancing and singing and drinking and exuberant celebrations were there. So now is it that if people, this is outside in obviously, but say now people can just go back into their mind and mentally replay that match winning World Cup winning sixer. Will that give them some pleasure? Yes it will.
It may depending on how intense is the recollection and how intense is the attachment to cricket. But in material life the memories of pleasure all have the law of diminishing returns because there is no intrinsic connection. The soul has no connection with cricket internally and the soul certainly doesn't have any connection with the person who hit the match winning six also.
So that is a connection which has been contextually established because that person is identifying with a particular body, which is in a particular country, which has a particular game, which is considered popular and because of this triple misidentification with body, country and game, some sort of infatuation is established which gives some happiness. But all three are artificial. Whereas with respect to a devotee remembering Krishna, now certainly we may have some, we may see some beautiful deities and seeing the beautiful darshan of the deities may give us some happiness and later on we may recollect it and we may feel happy and later on we may also feel that actually the law of diminishing returns, I cannot remember that those deities similarly or I cannot, I do not feel the same pleasure as I felt when I first experienced that darshan.
That may be true because our memory may be fading at a material level but at a spiritual level every experience of the happiness of Krishna consciousness is reviving and strengthening our latent connection with Krishna and as that connection with Krishna deepens and strengthens, we will start experiencing Krishna internally more and more independent of any external stimuli. So as I was telling that there is Savitarka and Savichara. So we have an external object that stimulates our memory or we have an internal conception that stimulates our memory.
But the advanced stage of devotion is beyond both external focus or internal, external object or internal conception. Actually at the most advanced level svayam eva sphuratyadha. Actually Krishna himself manifests in the heart of a devotee and floods the devotee's heart with his remembrance which brings anandam buddhivardhanam, great joy and then the devotee shares that joy with the world.
So for a devotee, for the advanced pure devotees that happiness is inside out because Krishna floods the heart of the devotee with happiness and then that devotee shares that happiness with the world. So Vishal Prabhupada in Tompkins Square Park was closed his eyes and started chanting Hare Krishna and he was absorbed, lost in remembrance of Krishna and actually externally speaking when Prabhupada started that kirtan, there was no outside in stimuli for him. There was no picture of Krishna over there.
There were no devotees around over there in the normal sense of the word devotees or people who remind us of Krishna. They were all hippies who were in their typical hippie dresses most of them and actually Prabhupada started chanting Hare Krishna. Internally he was meditating on Krishna and Krishna was manifesting himself in his heart and then that ecstasy that reached Prabhupada's heart came out of his lotus lips as the sound of the Hare Krishna Mahamantra and there were several hundreds of hippies who were just gawking initially but they all started chanting and when Prabhupada opened his eyes practically the whole park was transformed into Vaikuntha where so many people were chanting, dancing and experiencing a sublime happiness.
So this example of inside-out. So for us at our level we can't artificially jump to inside-out level of happiness. We have to try to also cultivate outside in happiness.
That means that's why we need to go to a temple, we need to associate with devotees, we need to read scriptures, we need to take darshan of deities but by this an inside connection will be awakened and when the inside connection becomes active then we will also start experiencing inside-out happiness. That means wherever we are we will ourselves be happy and we will be able to share our happiness with others. Thank you.