Stop fighting battles that are already lost and start fighting the battle that is never lost – Vritrasura pastime analysis 3

[Bhagavatam class at Raleigh, North Carolina, USA]

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Yeah. Krishna Krishna. Hare Hare.
Hare Rama. Hare Rama. Hare Krishna.
So, I will talk today on the pastime of Pratharasura and how when we work in our lives, how we can work without getting disheartened even when we seem to be facing situations that don’t seem to lead to any success or any fruit. The Bhagavatam at one level, a western scholar has said, the Bhagavatam seems to be a death-obsessed book. Death-obsessed because there is so much talk about death in the Bhagavatam.
If we look at it right from the beginning, central narrative is about Parikshit Maharaj being cursed to die and eventually he dies. So, similarly, which are the other characters who die in the Bhagavatam who eventually meet with their death? Of course, Parikshit Maharaj is one. Then? Hiranyakashipu.
Okay, Hiranyakashipu. Okay. What is the question now? No, there are a lot of characters about whose death is talked about in the Bhagavatam.
So, who are all? We have Dhruva Maharaj’s departure from the world. We have Pruthu Maharaj’s departure from the world. We have Uttarasura’s death that is described.
Prahlad Maharaj’s departure is not exactly in detail. But Pandavas retire timely there. Even Krishna’s departure is described from the world.
And the 11th canto talks about the cosmic cycles which also talks about annihilation. They are at a physical level death. That is the big difference.
The terminology can be different based on the understanding of the philosophy. So, in what consciousness one dies is important. But that is the whole message of the Bhagavatam.
That at a physical level death does occur. So, this is one of the last prayers that Uttarasura offers before he is about to depart from the world. After that there is one more prayer.
And then at the end of it he just starts fighting with Indra and eventually he is killed in that battle. So, now here Uttarasura is a very fascinating character not just because he is a very fierce and fearsome demon. But because he is a demon he is offering exalted devotional prayers.
So, we look at the last part of Uttarasura’s life and try to understand what is going on over there. At one moment Uttarasura is fighting fiercely and he is telling Indra, you are the killer of your own guru. You are a killer of a brahmana.
You are a killer of my brother. And I will kill you. And he is so angry with him, he even says that actually after I die, your body will not even get any last rites.
I will throw your body to the vultures. And then he says those gods who will come and try to assist you unmindful of my promise, I will cut off their heads and offer their heads in sacrifice to Bhairav. The implication is that you are so impure that even your head can’t be offered to Bhairav.
So, he is insulting him like that. But suddenly in the next moment, if however, you defeat me in this battle, then I will give up my body in sacrifice for all living beings and I will attain the destination of the Manasvinam Gati Prapatsye that the destination which is attained by those whose minds are absorbed in transcendence. Prabhupada explains like Narada Muni.
And then from that point onwards, Vitrasura seems to shift his consciousness and instead of talking with Indra, he starts talking about Krishna and then he starts not just talking to Krishna, offering prayers to Krishna. So, he just goes into a different consciousness and then he sings this prayer where he is saying that just as a bird whose wings have not appeared longs for the mother bird to come and give him some food. Just as a calf longs for the cow and just as a lover longs for a beloved, like that I long O Lord to serve you.
If you look at the picture of Vitrasura, he is a fierce, scary demon. But he is offering such tender prayers. And so here he seems to go into devotional consciousness where enormous devotional ecstasy is in.
But in the next chapter, suddenly it is described that he starts fighting and Indra throws his Vajra and cuts off his arms. But then Vritra still keeps fighting and then Vritra opens his mouth and he swallows Indra. And the gods think that Indra has been killed and they start lamenting.
But Indra is inside Vritra’s body and because he has the Vajra with him, he still does not die over there. And he keeps fighting, he keeps whirling his sword inside and finally he breaks open Vritra’s mouth and comes out, Vritra’s belly and comes out. Vritra’s body basically breaks and comes out.
When he comes out from there, that’s when he emerges victorious. But the Acharyas describe that Vritra has already departed before that. So if Vritrasura is such a great devotee, first of all why would he continue fighting if he said, I just want to go to the Lord.
And if that’s what his desire is, then why does he continue fighting against Indra at that at the practical level. So actually Vritrasura, he, there is the body and there is the mind and there is the soul, three levels of reality. So at the level of the soul, his soul is very spiritually advanced and the spiritual advancement is the impressions are stored in the subtle body.
Whatever we do, the impressions get stored in the subtle body. So those impressions are stored for him in the subtle body and from there he has this devotional longing within him. But he also has a particular body, the body of a demon which is acquired because of the curse of Parvati.
And the demonic body continues to act in a demonic way. So the body has its own nature. Even if somebody becomes a great devotee, if they have a Kshatriya temperament, they’ll still act as Kshatriyas.
It’s not that suddenly they’ll become Brahmanas. If you look at the Mahabharata, every character has their own individuality. And it is that individuality that has great charm.
Bhima has a very different personality from Yudhishthira. And Yudhishthira is more, you could say, like a Brahminical Kshatriya who tries to stay calm, resolve things calmly. Bhima, on the other hand, is, you could say, almost itching for a fight.
Of course, he’s not undisciplined entirely. It’s not that he’s whimsical. Otherwise he would have attacked the Kauravas right in the gambling match itself.
He also has a code of honour where he functions. But still, the fact is that there is individual nature of everyone. And bhakti is not about suppressing that individuality.
It is about spiritualising the individuality. That means that each person will act according to their psychophysical nature, but they will work for Krishna. There are two things.
There’s what we do and how we do it. It’s like when we are driving a car. Some vehicle might be a sports car.
Some might be a more ordinary car. Something might be a super fast, very comfortable, luxurious car. The car will drive according to the way it has been structured and designed.
But where are we going with that car? So what bhakti changes is the destination towards which we go. But the car more or less remains the same. So Vritrasura, he is devoted to the Lord, but at the same time why does he keep fighting like this? If he is devoted and simply wants to go to the abode of the Lord, he could just sit in meditation and let himself be killed by Indra.
But actually his purpose is to demonstrate to Indra and to the world the glory of Krishna. So now the glory of Krishna is demonstrated at multiple levels in this particular pastime. At one level it is demonstrated that how a demon can himself be a great devotee.
So we cannot go by externals in devotion that normally you would think that the gods are pious or devoted and the demons are, as the words say, demonic. But here somebody’s demonic body is exalted devotee. So the Bhagavatam helps us to at one level see the glory of devotion where you go beyond externals to see just the heart.
But that is only one aspect of the glory of Krishna. The other aspect is if we want to demonstrate the power of a particular weapon, then the stronger the opponent is, then the greater the power of that weapon will be demonstrated. If the opponent is not ready to fight, not fighting only, and the weapon comes and kills the opponent, then what’s so great about the opponent? So the greater the opposition, then greater the power of the weapon that is seen.
So here Vithrasur knows that ultimately he is going to die. That he is pitted against Indra. So his life you could say is almost like a doomed life.
Sometimes people say that meri kismati phooti hai. My destiny is rotten. Actually destiny sometimes works favourably, sometimes unfavourably.
But if at all somebody had a destiny that is ruined, we could say that’s Vithrasur’s. Because from his birth itself there was a mistake in his conception by which whereas he wanted to be, he wanted to have a, his father wanted a child who would kill Indra, but he ended up chanting the mantra wrong and having a child who would be killed by Indra. Nowadays we have genetic technology and people are saying that we can, of course it’s a far way away and many times science makes much more promises than what it delivers.
But people are saying that in future you could just using genetic engineering customise the perfect baby that you want. It doesn’t work so well. They try it because you could actually customise the physical characteristics.
But the physical characteristics don’t define the person entirely. And especially nowadays when intravenous or things like that are used, various technologies are used, the basic result is that when we try to control everything in nature, we find out that there are so many factors that need to be controlled. Suppose Prabhupada defined what is perfect management.
He said everything is managed and nobody appears to be managing. That is perfect management. That is Krishna’s management.
Krishna is not seen anywhere in the battlefield, but Krishna is managing everything. So the idea is that actually when you start doing something, this also has to be managed, this also has to be managed, this also has to be managed, this also has to be managed. It’s very easy to think when somebody from observer say, this is so easy to do.
But once you start actually doing it, you realise there are so many things to be done to manage anything at all. So like that when we try to micro control everything, we realise that there are so many things to be micro controlled. There are many stories even in secular literature of how the attempt to play God can go terribly wrong.
In fact, there is a whole genre of literature which are based on the idea of Frankenstein monster. Somebody, it’s a fiction story, Dr. Victor Frankenstein tries to create a monster, tries to create a perfect human being. And that perfect human being turns against himself, becomes a monster.
And monster goes on a rampage killing everyone. So technology many ways can work like that. So anyway, this is something which happened to Thraser that the technology went wrong.
And the result was a very powerful, ferocious being came up. But this being was destined to die at the hands of his opponent. So this is such a tragic destiny.
We have other cases where some warriors are born to kill someone. Dhrishtadyumna was born to kill Drona. But to have someone born to be killed by someone, it’s a very tragic fate to have.
And Dhrishtadyumna was not ignorant of it. Dhrishtadyumna knew that his father also knew that, oh, the mantra has been chanted wrong. And Dhrishtadyumna also knew yet he fought heroically.
And then not only that he fought heroically, eventually he also came to know that his opponent had got a weapon from Vishnu which had been further strengthened by the sacrifice of Dadichi. So he knew fighting against such an opponent was impossible. When he had to fight against such an opponent, which is impossible to fight, it’s very easy to stop fighting.
Just give up the fight. Fate is against me. What can I do? So the Bhagavatam describes that we can see life at two different levels of narrative.
One is at the material level, the other is at the spiritual level. So at a material level, he is doomed. And if you look only at the material level, there’s not much point in Dhrishtadyumna trying to fight also.
Because normally see nowadays if we have cricket matches and sometimes a lot of people, if they have suspicion that a match is fixed, then they get very angry that some players are just deliberately playing to lose the match and a match is fixed. So the whole idea of excitement in a sports match is that who will win? Who performs very nicely and who will win? So if a match is fixed and the suspense of the match goes out, the Vritrasur’s match with Indira was already fixed at his birth itself. And he knew his endeavour was going to make no difference.
And yet he fought. So here we have at this material level, he is doomed. Both by the mistake at his birth as well as by the empowerment of his opponent.
But he is not acting at the material level. At the spiritual level, he is acting simply for the glorification of the Lord. So at one level, he glorifies Vishnu by revealing how great a devotee he is.
Even in a demonic body, he is so devoted to the Supreme. But at another level, he glorifies Vishnu by demonstrating how he is such a powerful enemy and despite being such a powerful enemy, he is overpowered by Indira. Indira fighting on his own is effortlessly defeated by Vritrasur.
Indira throws his mace at Vritrasur. And what does Vritrasur do? He effortlessly catches the mace and hurls it back at Indira. And he hurls it back in such a way, he doesn’t even attack Indira.
He attacks Indira’s elephant. And that elephant just flies back. And Indira is devastated.
What do I do against such an opponent? Just doesn’t know at all. And when Indira is devastated like that, he loses heart and that’s when he tells Indira fight. You have been blessed by Vishnu, you will win.
So here, Vritra is such a powerful demon that the king of gods is no match to Vritra. But then when that king of gods is empowered by Vishnu, he uses Vishnu’s weapon. Then he becomes more powerful than Vritra and is able to defeat Vritra.
So Vritrasur keeps fighting to demonstrate his supreme power and his great power and thereby to demonstrate the supreme power of Vishnu. He is so powerful but even he is overcome by Vishnu. In the Mahabharata there is a similar dynamic with Bhishma.
Bhishma Pitamah when he is fighting against the Pandavas, at one level he has no desire to fight against the Pandavas. His desire is simply to fight against his desire, he loves the Pandavas, he has trained them, he has seen them grow and he has no desire to fight against them at one level. But on another level what is his desire? His desire is to reveal to the world the glory of Krishna.
So on the ninth day he fights so fiercely. And on the other side Arjuna is half-hearted. He just doesn’t have the heart to fight against Bhishma.
For every one of us how we perceive things determines how we will act. So Arjuna when he is fighting against Bhishma, he actually has no motivation to fight wholeheartedly. Because Bhishma is my grandson, how can I fight against him? He is fighting as a duty but his heart is not in it.
Now Bhishma on the opposite side also has a similar situation. Arjuna is his grandson, why should he fight against Arjuna? But Bhishma has some other motivation. On that day Bhishma decides that I will fight so that I can demonstrate to the world how much Krishna loves his devotees.
He says I will fight in such a way that Krishna will be forced to defend Arjuna. Because he knows that Arjuna is not going to fight wholeheartedly. And therefore when Arjuna is not going to fight wholeheartedly, then I’ll kill Arjuna if Arjuna doesn’t defend himself.
And then to protect Arjuna, Krishna will raise his weapons. So Bhishma is excited in anticipation to think how is Krishna going to protect himself. So when a cause seems to be lost at the material level, Bhishma had no desire to actually kill Arjuna.
And yet he fought because he was looking at the spiritual level. He was thinking of what will please Krishna. What will reveal the glory of Krishna to the world.
So Krishna had taken a vow that I will not lift any weapons. But then he lifted the weapon. He lifted the weapon because that is what Krishna wanted.
That is what he had to do to protect his devotees. So the Bhagavatam describes, you could say, life at sea at two levels. At the material level, ultimately there is death for everyone.
At the spiritual level, if there is absorption in Krishna, then there is a supreme success. So Mithrasur, even till the moment of his death, keeps fighting because he wants to reveal the glory of the Vajra that has been, of the weapon that has been blessed by Vishnu, that has been given by Vishnu. And that’s why till the last moment he keeps fighting heroically.
Although he has no desire to fight at a demonic level. So once his transformation happens, he starts focussing on Vishnu. Thereafter when he fights, he is not fighting as a demon fighting against the God.
He is fighting as a devotee, apparently fighting against the Lord to demonstrate the glory of the weapon of the Lord. So Indra’s victory, he knows is not Indra’s victory. It is Vishnu’s glory.
Because Indra alone is powerless. That Vritra has already demonstrated by having Indra along with the elephant thrown back. But now when he fights and Indra wins, it is Vishnu’s victory because it is Vishnu’s weapon that has enabled him to win.
So similarly for us, when we are going through life, I mean we all face certain battles, certain challenges in life. At that time, certain challenges can seem simply pointless. That, why am I doing this? What is the point of doing this? We usually do a particular service so that we can have some impact, we can make some contribution.
We can actually help someone, please some devotees. Ultimately, please us, spiritual master, please Krishna. So when we, if we consider that we have, when we are trying to do any service, there is Krishna whom we want to please.
Ultimately, we want to spread Krishna’s glories. We want to please the devotees and we want to reach new people. We have Nama Hiruchi, Jiva Daya and Vaishnava Seva.
These are three broad principles of Krishna Bhakti. We want to reach more and more people also. Now, how are we going to reach so many people? How are we going to reach people? It is primarily when we share Krishna’s message.
We cannot teach those whom we don’t reach. Reach has to first be there and for that reaching out, we have to extend ourselves in various ways. And when we are trying to do a particular service, sometimes some services seem to be producing no results at all.
At that time, you may wonder, should I continue this or should I just give this up? So I talked about the physical level, where sometimes for Uttarasur, his service was doomed. There is a spiritual level where he was fighting and there he was confident that he is glorifying the Supreme, so he is going to be successful. Now, in between these two is the mental level.
The mind can either focus on spiritual reality or it can focus on the material reality, physical reality. And if the mind focusses on physical reality, it may get caught in so many things. This can go wrong, that can go wrong, that can go wrong.
How will this work out? How will that work out? So if you see Prabhupada’s Markini Bhagavad Dharma song, Prabhupada is not blind to the physical reality, but his vision is fixed on the spiritual reality. He is not thinking from the perspective, oh, my pronunciation, my accent is so strange. How will people understand what I am going to say? His vision is fixed on the transcendence.
That he says, Nachao, Nachao Prabhu, Nachao Semate, My dear lord, if you have brought me here to dance, please make me dance, make me dance. As a puppet master makes a puppet dance, so make me dance. It’s a very striking metaphor because if we see, a puppet has no free will.
Is Prabhupada saying that I don’t want to have free will? The soul’s free will is always there with us. So this one devotee, a person was trying to practise a devotee and he had some habit. He used to smoke or something.
He just couldn’t give up smoking. He was chanting Hare Krishna, practising for 10 years, 12 years. He just couldn’t move forward because he was not able to give up smoking.
So one day he told me, he says, I have been praying to Krishna for so long, help me to give up this conditioning. I am not able to give it up. But now today I have found a new prayer to offer.
He said, Krishna, please take away my free will. Take away my free will. Now, actually free will is intrinsic to us.
Free will is completely innate to the soul. And bhakti is not about Krishna taking away our free will. Bhakti is about we voluntarily harmonising our free will with Krishna.
So the free will is something which is never lost. Now this phone is here and if I drop it, I won’t drop it, don’t worry. But if I drop it, the phone does not have any free will whether to fall or not.
The phone is simply governed by the law of nature. And that’s why science can predict material phenomena. Science can predict, okay, that if we move this object, if we press this gas as much, this car will move at that speed.
Now we can predict that. If you move the gas, if you press the gas, and then you find that the car is not moving only. That is only because if there is some mistake in the functioning of the car, some device is malfunctioning or whatever.
But normally material things are predictable. This much variation we make over here, this much variation will happen over here. So, but we cannot do that with people.
We cannot do this with people. No. There is one, nowadays people, forming relationships is a big, big anxiety.
And technology has come in. So, there are many dating apps. So, there is one dating app which was developed which said that actually your computer knows more about you than you.
So, what they said is that you, based on what your computer knows about you, we will understand, we will find a digitally compatible match for you. So, now they tried it and it seemed very idealistic. But actually it is a complete disaster.
Because yes, a lot of about us, what we search on Google, what kind of sites, that tells a lot about us. But that doesn’t tell everything about us entirely. So, the digital footprint of a person does not reveal the personality.
So, we may try, but the fact is that there is something which is irreducible about living beings. That people, their behaviour cannot be predicted entirely. Now, the level of predictability of people’s behaviour, that will vary from person to person.
Some people may be highly predictable, some people may be highly unpredictable. How they will behave. But still nobody is 100% predictable.
No matter what happens. So, we cannot apply the laws of nature in terms of mechanical laws to understand how people will behave. The point I am making here is that when Prabhupada is saying make me a puppet or let me dance according to your will.
He is not saying that I don’t want to have free will. Rather this is a poetic expression of how he wants to harmonise his will with Krishna’s will. So, at a material level, Prabhupada’s challenge was almost insurmountable.
How was he ever going to be able to reach out to people who had never heard about Krishna? And he with his being in a different generation of a different age group, different culture, different language, accent. But Prabhupada was not looking at the material level. He was fighting on because he saw that there is Krishna’s plan over here.
Now the mind, as I said, can get obsessed on physical reality, it can get obsessed on spiritual reality. When Mithrasur was focussing on Krishna, I think, I want to serve Krishna. It was not that he was blind to physical reality.
He was still fighting. When he noticed that his arms were cut, at that time he kept fighting. Now the resource that was left for him was his mouth.
When he used the resource that was there. So, when one is spiritually conscious, that doesn’t mean one is materially or physically unconscious. Physical consciousness is there but he is not focused on that.
So, in our life, sometimes at a physical level, at the external material level, things just don’t seem to be working. We seem to have met a dead end in our life. And the mind stays focused, obsessed with that dead end.
Then we get choked. We just can’t move on. Why is this happening? We are trying to, we think there is a door over here and we try to open the door.
But that door has been sealed to almost be like a wall. We just can’t open it, can’t break it down, we can’t do anything. We simply injure ourselves by that.
So, then at a physical level, trying to keep fighting, doing something might seem pointless. But if you think that, okay, I am not acting only at the physical level, I am also acting at the spiritual level. At the spiritual level, Krishna is my lord and I am his servant.
And Krishna, I want to serve you. So, if we focus on the spiritual level, we will find some way to keep serving Krishna. Even at the physical level, that doesn’t seem to be any way.
Okay, this path doesn’t work, let me find this way. A river, when it is blocked by a particular obstacle, the river is not attached to that particular path alone. This path doesn’t work, let me find out this path.
Let me find out this path and let me keep moving on. So, the river keeps moving on, the path is variable, the purpose is invariable. The purpose is to go towards the ocean.
The path will vary from situation to situation. Similarly, for us, if we keep fighting battles that we are already lost, that means there are certain situations which are just not going to change. And if they are not going to change, then trying to, hoping, somehow craving that this will change, this will change, this will change, that simply wastes our time, wastes our energy.
And sometimes situations may change also. How can we be just as we can’t be 100% sure that somebody will change or something will change, we can’t even be 100% sure that something will not change. So, what do we do? We can’t let our bhakti be dependent on some material situation working out in a particular way.
I want this to change, then things will be wonderful. Or I want this to stay unchanging, then I can steadily practise bhakti. But at the material level, change is constantly going to happen.
So, we acknowledge what is happening at the material level, but we focus on what is happening at the spiritual level. At the spiritual level, I want to serve Krishna. And how I can do that at the material level, that may change.
So, Prabhupada was very resourceful. I was talking with Giriraj Maharaj recently on phone. So, he is one of the most prominent biographers of Srila Prabhupada.
Very meticulously he has biographed many aspects of Srila Prabhupada’s life. And just now he is completing a book on the Juhu project. How the temple came out.
It’s a 800 page book almost. It’s coming to volume. So, he was discussing with various other Prabhupada biographers.
So, he was talking with Sita Kirti Prabhupada. And he asked Sita Kirti Prabhupada, what was the aspect of Prabhupada that you found most attractive? And he said, when Sita Kirti Prabhupada gave the answer, I was quite surprised. But then I thought, it’s true.
I also found that quite disarming. Sita Kirti Prabhupada said, I have not met any person who was as practical as Prabhupada. Now, we may not think of practicality as Prabhupada’s outstanding work.
His absorption in Krishna, his determination, his sacrifice, his untiring vigour. Yes, all of them were there. But Prabhupada was practical.
Whatever worked, he would do that. Actually, if it had not been so practical, he would not have crossed the ocean and gone to America. Because the traditional taboo was very great that you are not meant to cross oceans.
And this seems to be like a very significant taboo. I met a devotee in America. He is into mathematics.
He is doing mathematical research. And he is working to further carry on India’s greatest mathematician in modern times was Srinivas Ramanujan. So, he was from a South Indian Brahmin family.
And when he sent his reports, he had written in his books about his mathematical formula. And he sent it to a scientist in UK. And the scientist was so stunned to see how amazing these findings were.
So, he was a clerk in the British government, very nominal position. So, then he said, come to America. Come to UK.
Come to Cambridge. And we will present these findings. So, when he he was not even a priest.
He was just an ordinary Brahmin. He wanted to go to America, to the West. His whole community ostracised him.
This was 1920s. 1920s, 1930s, 30s, right. 1920s had corresponding 1930s.
He went there. And then 1910, 1920 actually. Then the First World War broke out.
And 1920s, he eventually died. So, the point was that society was at that time so conservative that even somebody is not a priest. He was just a person working in a ordinary office job.
When he was told to go to America, he had to go to the West. His whole society ostracised him. And for some time, his wife had to live separate from her family because she says, your husband is gone to the West.
That means he has fallen down. You also have fallen. We do not have anything to do with you.
So, now it is opposite. If somebody goes to the West, oh! You become like a person from another planet. Laughter Laughter Laughter So, social values changed so much in a short time, actually.
So, India seems to have had like a love-hate relationship with the West. Love-hate relationship means we love the glamour of the West. But at the same time, I feel, many Indians feel westernisation has come in and spoiled our values, whatever.
So, some people say that we should have westernisation without modernisation. Sorry, we should have modernisation without westernisation. So, Prabhupada had that mood of Yukta Vairag.
We use modern technology, but we do not have to take up materialistic values. But anyway, the point here is that even for the, even if Prabhupada had not been practical, Prabhupada would not have been able to go abroad. He was able to go abroad because he was just practical.
Okay, it’s not working out in India, let me go abroad. He was practical, that’s why he went in a ship, not just in a ship, it was a cargo ship. There’s not much possibility for people to go.
But he just travelled in a cabin. He was practical. So, as a devotee, at a practical level, we have to see how best I can serve Krishna.
At a spiritual level, we have to see that whatever happens, Krishna, You are my Lord and I am Your servant. So, some things never change. And some things never stay the same.
So, what things never stay, na sato vidyate bhavo na bhavo vidyate satah. Krishna says in 2.16 Bhagavad Gita, that of the material, there is no constancy. Of the spiritual, there is no change.
So, if our service, our self identity, our self worth, it’s all coming from the material level alone, then we will never have any security. There was a Greek philosopher, Sophocles, who said that actually we don’t enter into the same river twice. The river is just outside our house and we go into it for bathing, but we don’t enter the same river twice because the river is constantly changing.
The water is never the same. Even if I take two dips, I take one dip, come out of the river and take another dip, even in that the river doesn’t stay the same. So, at the material level, things will keep changing and we have to adapt.
How best can I serve Krishna? So, Prabhupada’s practicality was, okay, if this is not working, let’s try this. If this is not working, let’s try this. Whatever works, Prabhupada is ready to do.
But at the same time his practicality was not that oh, nobody is interested in Krishna Consciousness, so let me stop preaching Krishna Consciousness. No, that was transcendentally fixed. I am going to serve Krishna no matter what happens.
But how I am going to do it, that will vary from situation to situation. So, the Bhagavatam depicts that the mind, which can focus on physical reality, which can focus on spiritual reality. So, when something is not working out, except this is not working out, no need to keep fighting a battle that is already lost.
Prabhupada saw that in India, people not taking Krishna Bhakti, so he said, okay, just leave it now. No need to bother about it. Just came to America.
He didn’t keep fighting the battle that was already lost. It was not working. But then that does not mean Prabhupada gave up the battle itself.
He gave up the war itself. He took up a battle that was elsewhere. So, for us to have that nimbleness, nimbleness means that flexibility by which, okay, should I keep fighting this battle or should I fight some other battle? For that, we have to actually raise our consciousness above the battle to the purpose of the battle.
So, when a warrior is, when a battle is fighting, when an army is fighting and say at this place, the enemy seems to be very strong and attacking the enemy over there, it just leads to a deadlock. Then, yes, you want to defeat the enemy. But do I need to attack at this point only? We can take a step back, observe, and maybe that place the enemy seems to be weaker.
Let’s attack over there. So, in that sense, if we have to spiritualise our consciousness, we have to constantly strategise and re-strategise. Okay, this way I’m moving forward towards Krishna.
This way I’m able to do service. If this way is not working, I’ll work this way. If this way is not working, I’ll work this way.
So, the devotee is fixed in purpose, fixed in intention, but flexible in execution. If we are not flexible in execution, we will become frustrated when things are not working out. But we are flexible in intention itself.
Then we will have no fixity in our devotion. Today I serve Krishna, tomorrow I serve Maya. Then we will not grow spiritually.
So, Prabhupada’s example is that he was always fixed in intention, but flexible in execution. So, we want to make sure that we have a short life, we have limited time, we have limited energy, we have limited abilities. We want these to be used in the best possible way.
So, we have to stop fighting the battle that is already lost. Okay, this didn’t work out. Why did this happen like this? Why did that happen like that? Why did that happen like that? Just don’t bother about it.
Uttarasura didn’t bother. Why was I born with a mispronounced mantra? Why was I born so that I was doomed? Parikshit Maharaj did not waste his time fighting the battle. Why was I cursed to die in seven days? He just accepted that.
But that did not mean he gave up fighting. Once you find that a particular battle is not working, just put it aside and shift to another course. Parikshit Maharaj absorbed himself in Krishna.
Uttarasura absorbed himself in Krishna and through that he found a way to move forward. Prabhupada absorbed himself in Krishna and Krishna revealed a wonderful way for him to share Krishna Bhakti all over the world. This last verse of the Bhagavad Gita is very interesting for two levels.
The Bhagavad Gita is the word of God but it ends, this is the last point I’ll make, it ends with Mattir Mama. Matti means opinion. Mama is mine.
So if it is God’s revelation, why is it ending with a man’s opinion? Normally Prabhupada says we should not just speak our opinion, we should speak according to Shastra. So why is the Bhagavad Gita ending with Mattir Mama, my opinion? Not only that, if we consider this verse a little more, we have heard some verses so often that the implication, we stop thinking about it. Like sometimes something becomes very familiar, we just take it for granted.
But this verse has something very strange about it. Because it says that wherever there is Krishna and where there is Arjuna, there there will be victory. Now, actually, wherever there is Krishna, there is going to be victory.
So why is Arjuna needed over there? You could say Krishna is Lakshmipati, he is the lord of the goddess of fortune. Wherever is Krishna, there is going to be victory. So, why is Arjuna talked about there at all? The point of the Gita is not to glorify God’s position.
The point of the Gita is to change man’s disposition. If Krishna himself wanted to, he could have arranged for all the warriors on the Kaurava side. At one moment Krishna can give a heart attack to all of them.
And without raising a simple weapon, all of them will fall out of the tent. Krishna is present at the Paramatma in everyone’s heart. So, Krishna’s purpose was not just to win the war.
His purpose was to not just glorify God, the Gita’s purpose is not to glorify God’s position but to transform man’s disposition. So, Arjuna was disheartened. Arjuna was thinking, he was initially not willing to do Krishna’s will.
And by the end of the Gita, he became ready to do Krishna’s will. So, the point there is that we will have to, each of us as a living being has to fight at a human level. And if at a human level while fighting we are harmonised with the divine will, then we’ll be victorious.
The point is not to glorify God’s position, which is of course there, but that is not the main thing in the Gita. The point is to transform human disposition. And similarly, when it says that is spoken by whom? That is not Arjuna, that is Sanjay.
So, when Sanjay is saying this, that indicates the potency of the Gita’s message that not only did it act on Arjuna, and Arjuna became transformed and persuaded, but it acted on Sanjay also. And Sanjay was also transformed. Sanjay was also inspired.
Sanjay was also persuaded. Of course, there was one person who was not persuaded. Who was that? Dhritarashtra.
Yeah, that was because he was so attached that that attachment blinded him. And it took him a long time later to eventually become enlightened. Dhritarashtra had to lose everything before he lost his blindness.
His blindness was not just physical blindness, it was his attachment. And when he lost the object of his attachments, when he lost the Kauravas, then he became hopelessly frustrated. And that’s when he actually turned towards spirituality.
But the Gita’s message is that Arjuna fought and it was Arjuna who won. Krishna is always victorious. But the purpose of the Gita is to make the devotee also victorious.
Arjuna became victorious because he realised that he cannot stop the course of the war. He stopped fighting. Oh, I can’t, I want to avoid this war.
He tried his best to avoid the war, but that’s not working now. So then he fought the war. He did not fight against the Kauravas.
He fought for Krishna. And while fighting for Krishna, he attained the supreme victory. So I’ll summarise what I spoke today.
I spoke on the theme of how we can stop fighting battles that are already lost and then start fighting the battle that will never be lost. So the battle, I focused on the theme of Hritarasura. Hritarasura was doomed because he was born with a defective mantra chanting which meant that he was going to be killed by Indra.
And he also knew that Vishnu had given a weapon to his opponent which would make sure that he would be killed. And yet he fought on. He reveals he is initially fighting as a demon, but then his devotional qualities are revealed.
And after that again he starts fighting. Initially he is fighting simply as a demon fighting against the God. But once his devotion becomes manifested, then he fights as a devotee fighting to glorify the Lord.
So he glorifies the Lord first by his actions, by exhibiting how devotion is not dependent on one’s birth. Even a demon can be a great devotee. Then he demonstrates his devotion by demonstrating the power, his own power so that comparatively speaking the power of Vishnu’s blessing that can be demonstrated.
So he has effortlessly defeated Indra. But then when Indra uses Vishnu’s weapon then he is able to defeat Hritarasura. Thus he demonstrates Vishnu’s glory.
Similarly Bhishma fights against Arjuna, not because he wants to kill Arjuna, but because he wants Krishna to raise the weapon and demonstrate to the world how much he loves, how much Krishna loves his devotees. And sometimes at a material level when we are trying to do something, if something is just not working out, we might get disheartened. Why should I keep doing this? But if we see, okay, this is not working out, let me see if this works out.
So a devotee by, we have the physical level of reality and the spiritual level of reality. So Prabhupada was eminently practical to do what worked at the physical level. But Prabhupada was eminently transcendental because he is fixed in the purpose of serving Krishna.
So we have to be fixed in intention, flexible in execution. And Prabhupada said, make me like a puppet. What it means is not that you take away my free will, but let my free will become harmonised with you.
Our free will is innate to us and that’s why we cannot predict how we will behave or even people will behave. But at the material level, things are unpredictable. At the spiritual level, the fact that Krishna protects his devotees is always sure.
And when we obsess at the material level, then if things are going wrong, we will feel totally disheartened and give up. Like a river is blocked in a particular channel. But the river understands my path can be variable, my purpose is invariable.
And then the river finds some other way to move towards Krishna. So Prabhupada’s one of his outstanding qualities, possibly his most outstanding qualities is his practicality. So even when India had a great taboo about people going to the West, Prabhupada went all the way alone and found a way, found a place where people were receptive to Krishna Bhakti and he kept marching ahead.
Similarly, if we keep practising Krishna Bhakti, we too can find a way even when everything seems to be blocked. So rather than just obsessing over things that are not working out, we take a step back. Think how best can I serve Krishna? And then find a way by which we can move forwards.
So trying to do particular things at a material level in a particular way, it might be just a thing that is not going to work out that way. So no need to fight a battle that is already lost. It’s not worked out.
But that doesn’t mean that everything is lost. At a spiritual level, we always have a passion to serve Krishna and that is a battle that is never lost. So we focus on fighting that.
And that is the mood of the Bhagavatam. Even though it talks about so many people’s death, the death is only an event that happens at the material level to Parikshit Maharaj, to Vritrasura. But at a spiritual level, they are absorbed in Krishna and they attain the supreme victory thereof.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. Any questions or comments? Two points which I think are very important you said is that harmonise the free will with Krishna’s will.
Can I have some water please? Very nice. The other point which you talked about like, you know, obstacles are there, so change your path. I do not have a question related to the main topic but you gave an example of Arjuna and Bhishma who were fighting.
And Arjuna was not fully motivated because he was affectionate, you know, and on one side we say Arjuna is a pure devotee. And Bhishma Padama was having a motive to get Krishna’s being glorified and we say that devotional service is unmotivated, right? So little contradictions but how do we align all those things to be on the same platform? Yeah. So we say devotional service is unmotivated.
But Arjuna was a pure devotee. Arjuna was not fighting half-heartedly whereas because Bhishma had a motive to get Krishna, to seek Krishna’s glory, so he was fighting wholeheartedly. There are multiple ways we can answer this.
First is that the word motive, what does it actually mean? When we say we should practise unmotivated devotional service. And obviously when Prabhupada had a motive that he wanted to fulfil the instruction of his spiritual master. That’s why he was preaching.
Not only that, Prabhupada, Prabhupada’s spiritual master’s instruction was to preach in the Western world. But Prabhupada spent most of his later life after his con was established, actually spent much more time in India than in the West. And from the 70s onwards.
And Prabhupada said, my spiritual master asked me to preach in the West, I’ve done that now. But he says, my desire is to establish temples in India. Because he felt that India was where the culture was there and that’s where there will be longevity.
So that means Prabhupada had his own desire also. So this is my desire, that’s the spiritual consciousness in India. So, when we say the word motive, it simply means that a devotee’s service is not dependent on the fulfilment of the attainment of the result.
That is, we cannot work if we don’t have any motives. What would motivate us? The word motive has got a negative connotation in our context because we equate the motive with selfish motives. When Yashodamayi cooks food for Krishna, she wants Krishna to get the best milk.
She wants Krishna to have the most delicious food. She wants Krishna to be healthy. So that’s obviously motive.
So the word motive is used in the sense of selfish motive. That is what we don’t want to have. That means I want to use God for my own pleasure.
That’s what we don’t want. But to say that we don’t have any motive, that is not going to work. Because motives are essential for us to function in life.
Now, moving forward, there is a difference between, if you want to go further into motives, there is a goal and there is a result. Goal is what we said before we started doing the work. Result is what we get after the work has been done.
So we don’t want, we don’t do the work just because we will get the result. We do the work because it will please Krishna. As a part of pleasing Krishna, we also want to get the result.
So we seek the result also. But that is not our focus. So the Pandavas, every day in the Kurukshetra war, they set goals.
So in the 14th day, Arjuna told, Arjuna took a vow that I’m going to kill Jaidrath. Now Krishna did not tell Arjuna, you have forgotten Karmanyavadi Karasthi Maa Phaleshu Kadachana at that time. Why not? Because the point is that if we have to do anything, we have to set goals.
But Maa Phaleshu Kadachana, do not be attached to the result. That means that we have to recognise that we alone don’t produce the results. There are factors beyond us which also work to produce the results.
We talked last time about karma, daiva, kala and phala. So our endeavour, destiny, time, all these three work together and then the phala, the result, comes about. So when the daiva is not working favourably, that time the result may not come.
So if we make our devotional service conditional to getting the result, then if the result doesn’t come, we’ll feel, what is the point of doing devotional service? So a devotee does not make the service conditional to getting the result. But at the same time, the devotee is not uncaring about the result. The result is not coming, then what can I do? Should I try to put in more endeavour over here to get the result? Or maybe this is not the service I meant to do.
Should I put my endeavour somewhere else and let me work over there to get the result? So that can vary from person to person. Does that answer your question? Any other questions? But in micro level like small small duration or time, sometimes we are in conflict that whether this is better option or this is better option. That’s fine.
So when we say we have to harmonise with Krishna’s will, Krishna doesn’t want us to be like a programmed robot. We have our individuality. See when we say this is Krishna’s plan, Krishna’s plan is not like a railway track.
Krishna’s plan is more like a plane trajectory. If a plane goes from New York to LA, every day the plane might be going, but it’s not that every day the plane will go by the exact same path. Same plane may go by different air pressure, the velocity of the plane itself, the atmospheric conditions.
The railway track means it has to go exactly on the same path. Plane track means, plane trajectory means, it may go a little off track, but it’ll come back on track. So similarly for us, it’s not that we are at a micro level, there is some ideal way which we are meant to act and to the extent we are off that ideal, we are off track.
No. There is a purpose to be achieved. We want to serve Krishna, we want to please Krishna, we want to glorify Krishna.
And each of us, based on our individuality, will do it in different ways. And not just based on individuality. Each of us will do it differently on different days also.
Because our psychology is different. Isn’t it? So, at a micro level, no need to get too much worried about it. Just have the intention to please Krishna, do the best we can.
And even if we sometimes go off track, plane can do course correction, come back on track. Thank you. Yes, Mataji.
Prabhu, you said about the three levels, that is physical level, mental level and spiritual level. So, at times when we face challenges, at the physical level, clearly it seems that we are going to lose or we don’t find any other option. Like, there is a loss for sure.
And while on the spiritual level, yes, we are pleasing spiritual master, we are preaching for the devotees. And all the mental, at the mental level, the thoughts that are coming, how to address that? It’s on the physical platform or it’s on the spiritual platform? I hope. So, the thoughts come for us, are they coming from the physical level or spiritual level? It’s possible both.
It can also be a combination of both also. It means that, say, if you wake up in the morning and then you feel very tired, we set the alarm. The alarm is saying, wake up.
And a voice inside is saying, go to sleep. Now, which is what we follow? Which is the voice to follow at that time? Sometimes it may be that we just slept very less. And physically it might not be the best thing to wake up at that time.
So, we can’t deny physical reality. If we stretch ourselves too much, then eventually the body will not be able to sustain itself. So, at the same time, it is not that every time we feel like sleeping, that means we just need to sleep.
It might just be that we are lazy, we are just bored, we are lethargic. One test which we can have to know how tired we are is that we can think of, if at this time I had to do something which I like to do, would I still be so tired? If I had to read Bhagwatam, I’d start feeling sleepy. But if somebody likes to watch TV, and the TV programme, my favourite programme starts, immediately I’m wide awake.
Then really, was I physically tired or just bored? And that boredom manifested as physical lethargy or tiredness. So, in general, we can’t stereotype and reduce complex situations to simple realities or simple navigable realities. We have to learn from, basically, it’s two things.
There’s intelligence, there’s experience, and there is, you could say, advice or consultation. We use our own intelligence to understand. This is what I can do, this is what I can’t do.
This situation, this problem is there now. Should I, the thoughts that are coming, are they coming from the physical level or are they coming from the spiritual level? We use our intelligence to analyse. And then there’s the experience afterwards.
I thought it was like this. I thought I could get up in the morning and do some service, but then I found that whole day I was so tired. Just couldn’t do much.
Probably I need a little more rest. So that’s experience. And sometimes we may also, if there’s a third person who can observe us from separately, they can also give us some inputs.
You know, this way you are doing this, you can try it this way. That’s where association comes into the picture. So there’s no fixed answer to this, but we have to observe.
And we can’t, there are two extremes which both have to be avoided. One is that we replace the material with the spiritual. The other is we replace the spiritual with the material.
That means that even if no matter how tired I am, how material things are not working out, still I think spiritually everything will work out. And I just keep persevering. So Prabhupada says in a lecture that if you don’t take care of your health, then in the future, even if you are very enthusiastic to serve Krishna, you will not be able to do anything practically.
If the body is broken down, you can’t do anything at that time. At the same time, we can’t replace the material with the spiritual. That means that we can’t deny material reality.
The body has its limitations. And just what applies to the body also applies to us psychologically. If you are too exhausted by trying to do something, this is not working out for you.
You try something else. At the same time, we cannot replace the spiritual with the material. That means that unless this works at the material level, I am not going to do anything further.
I have to solve this problem. This cannot be like this. This has to become like this.
Only then I will move forward. So we cannot reduce our whole life to the material track. And we can’t reduce our whole life entirely to the spiritual track.
Reducing it to the spiritual track means not considering the material aspect of things at all. Reducing it to the material track means neglecting our spirituality till something at the material track works out properly. So we have to find out a balance between the two.
Not a via media. A balance by which we acknowledge both realities and then move forward. Okay.
So shall we stop here? Last question. So probably you were talking of this point about like when you have a motive to serve Krishna, a motive in the sense like we have, like a goal. So when we actually set a goal in terms of service, then our natural mood while we are doing the service is we pray to Krishna that please help me.
That’s true. And then as service increases, the mood of our prayer becomes more and more like asking, oh please help this. You know, it’s all dependent on you Krishna.
So that is one mood where we are like asking Krishna and that could be like our main mood of connection with Krishna. And the other mood where there is gratitude where we thank Krishna that thank you for engaging me in this service. And I have been hearing this point that sometimes devotees say well the gratitude level is higher and we should not always be asking Krishna.
But when you are engaged in service, that mood of asking Krishna is more prominent and that means that gratitude mood is not there. That’s true. Very nice question actually.
When we are trying to do some challenging service for Krishna, we naturally pray to Krishna that please help me do this. Please remove this obstacle or whatever. So they are asking Krishna to get things done.
But then we also say we should be grateful that we just have an opportunity to do some service for Krishna. So if you focus on getting things done then the gratitude mood goes down. There is the specific and there is the generic.
That means say specifically in general whenever we do a thing for the first time or we are doing new, at that time the specific what we are doing that becomes very important. The generic why we are doing it that becomes going to the background. Say if if we are giving a Sandevi’s class in a big temple somewhere for the first time.
You go to Mayapur Vrindavan, they ask you to do a class over there. Oh, I am in a holy dham, I am getting opportunity to speak over there. So the place where we are doing it that becomes important.
Say when I first came to America several years ago. I am in America right now. I am giving a class.
I am going to this place for the first time. I am going to this place for the first time. But over a period of time as we keep doing that then the fact that we are speaking about Krishna that is more important than where exactly we are speaking about Krishna.
So basically there is something in the foreground of our awareness, there is something in the background of our awareness. So initially what is in the foreground is initially the externals stay in the foreground and the internals go to the background. Internals means our Krishna consciousness specifically.
External is what am I doing for Krishna. As we keep advancing in our bhakti then the specific service definitely remains important for us because that’s the expression of our devotion. But beyond that we realise that I am situated in security of my relationship with Krishna.
And because of that there is an inherent stability. So it’s amazing that when Prabhupada came in 1965-66 to America if you look at his life at that time it was a, you could say it’s a track record of constant failure. Everything he had tried till then had backfired.
And yet the people who met Prabhupada at that time, they said that Prabhupada was so satisfied. So simple, so satisfied. They never met a person who was so joyful.
Obviously Prabhupada had strong desire to glorify Krishna, to have the Krishna consciousness moment established. That is why he had come all the way to America. Isn’t it? But still Prabhupada was satisfied.
So how was he satisfied? He was simply satisfied that he was glorifying Krishna. That he was worshipping Krishna. He was glorifying Krishna.
He was speaking about Krishna to others. He was writing about Krishna in his books. And whether the world would sit and take notice, that would be revealed later.
So that means we have to have that gratitude for the overall fact that at least we are in the ambit of Krishna’s moment. We are serving Krishna. And that gratitude has to sink, has to come so deep into our consciousness that that is always there.
And then within that, I want to express my gratitude to Krishna by doing this, by doing that, by doing that. So if we get so caught in the specifics of our service, that if the service doesn’t work out, then we feel that my whole life is ruined. No.
The very fact that we are connected with Krishna means that we are extremely blessed. But if particular services work out, that’s even more wonderful. So that’s why there has to be this, there is, there is this, you could say, dynamic between focus and balance.
Whenever you are focused, then it’s on one thing. Balance means you have to see everything. So we want to be focused and at the same time we also want to be balanced.
So if there is focus without balance, that is Rajoguna. Just get caught in one thing only, excessively. If there is only balance without any focus, that is Tamoguna.
Just trying to balance this, balance that, balance that, but there is no focus on anything. We cannot even balance also. So when there is balance and focus, that is actually Satoguna.
Because when we are going to do a particular thing, we do it wholeheartedly. But once it is done, we are able to move back. This is a role that I am playing.
This is a responsibility that I have but I am different from it. So Arjuna was able to do that that when he was fighting as a warrior, as an archer, he had the fame as the world’s best archer and it was not just the fame that he had. He had that skill and he fought wholeheartedly.
But when he found that his ability had been withdrawn, he was defeated by some infidel coward men, he was able to withdraw from that role. I am not an archer, I am a devotee. And even if my archery skill is not there, still I remain a devotee and he remained devoted to Krishna.
So the more we become conscious of Krishna, the more we can have that focus while we are doing a particular thing but also that balance that even if this thing doesn’t work out, I still have my relationship with Krishna and that will be expressed in some other way. So therefore, it’s good for us to remember that our relationship with Krishna is not dependent just on the result of a particular service. Sometimes what happens between two devotees, there can be very strong differences about how to serve Krishna.
And sometimes that difference can become so overwhelming that we forget the commonality that both of us want to serve Krishna. So there is the desire to serve Krishna that is common to every devotee and there are the desires to serve Krishna. That is the different ways in which we can serve Krishna and that can be variable.
So sometimes these desires I want to do it like this, you want to do it like this and that can become, that can be a conflict. So when that conflict comes up that we have to be careful enough that we don’t let that dominate our consciousness. Because yes, there is, there are differences and when the differences are there, we have to deal with them appropriately.
But if we don’t deal with them in a mature way, then the small differences can actually become so magnified that we lose the big picture. Among the millions and millions of people in the world who are there, there are only a few people who are actually wanting to serve Krishna. That is a huge commonality.
There is, Prabhupada says, intelligence means to see things in their proper perspective. So we have to see the proper perspective. The story of a man who was about to commit suicide jumping off a bridge and another man who came there and he said, Oh, stop it, stop it.
What are you doing? He said, Oh, I’m about to commit suicide. No need to commit suicide, he said. Nobody cares for me.
Nobody loves me. This person said. Oh, God loves you.
Oh, really? How do you know that? He said, because I’m a Christian. Oh, really? He said, I’m also a Christian. Oh, wonderful, he says.
Which branch of Christian? I’m a Protestant. Oh, I’m also a Protestant. Oh, wonderful.
Which Protestant? He says, I’m Baptist. Oh, I’m also Baptist. Which Baptist? He says, I’m a Southern Baptist.
Oh, I’m also Southern Baptist. Oh, wonderful. He says, which Southern Baptist? He says, I’m a Reformed Southern Baptist.
Jump down, you infidel. So, sometimes we overlook so much coward. I’m a Reformed Southern Baptist.
You are not a Reformed Southern Baptist. So, you jump down. So, we can just obsess over small differences so much.
We look beyond the desires to serve Krishna, which may be different. And you know, this tension is there in the spiritual world also. There are also right wing Gopis and left wing Gopis.
And there are also different devotees who want to serve Krishna in different ways. But then, because the principle of serving Krishna is common, so they move onwards based on that principle. So, thank you very much.
Pratah Shreemad Bhagavatam Ki Jai! Srila Prabhupada Ki Jai! Gaur Bhakta Vrindaki Jai! Jai Gaur Premanandai Jai! Sri Krishna Neswar Prabhu Ki Jai!