Supersoul speaks 2 | Seeing God’s order amid disorder | Singapore

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
And C was? Connect. That’s what we are going to discuss today.
And then T was? Target. Target. We want to target the Lord in the context of making Him our ultimate goal of our life.
Thank you. Anything else? Fan. Sorry? Fan.
Fan. Okay. So when we want to appreciate, we look at God or whatever ultimate reality.
There are three options for us. That ultimate reality is? Favourable. Favourable to us.
Against. Against us. Neutral.
Neutral to us. Non-existent. Or is non-existent.
Now, if that higher reality is against us, then we are doomed. Whatever we do, we are also fighting against that higher reality. So there is practically no point for living only.
Now if that is neutral, then we have to explore whether it is neutral or is it favourable. So then we discussed about, what was the next point? Major point of the class yesterday? What diagram? Different philosophies. Yes.
Based on 4.10, we discussed the various philosophies. So, what is this? What is the x-axis? Real. Real.
What is real? The material world. Yes, the material world, the world we live in is real. And then? Other.
So other world or the spiritual world is real. So based on, what is in the first quadrant? What is the philosophy called? Materialism. Yes, materialism.
That is the prominent philosophy in this world that this world is real and whatever exists beyond is false. So this is the worldview of? Desire. Desire or Raga.
So, now the problem with this worldview is that there is a death ultimately. Death takes us away. It takes whatever we are attached to away from us.
Then when this happens, we discussed how in our life journey, we all have something that we consider to be Artha. And when this Artha is taken away from us, then we have either option to go down toward what? Anartha. That means now the Anartha is basically Raga is the worldview where the things in this world we consider to be Artha.
So, when we go toward Anartha, that can be to the other two worldviews. And above what is what? Parmartha. Parmartha.
So, when something in this world is taken away from us, either we can get frustrated and think everything is valueless or we can look towards the actual supreme value that should last. So, when we go toward Anartha, that’s why happen these two worldviews. So, the second quadrant is what? Nihilism.
Nihilism or Voidism. The initiation Shunyavadi. So, neither this world is real nor the other world is real.
This is the worldview of? Despair. Despair. Meet the Raga.
This is what? Krodha. Krodha. Yes.
Anger. Life has no point to live at all. No.
Nothing is of any value. What is the point of living? So, this is the worldview of despair. And then we have the other world is real, this world is false.
This is the worldview of? Bonism or Nirvishesham. So, Nirvishesham, nothing special, everything is one. So, this is the worldview of? Fear.
Fear. Or we can call it? Dread. Everything in this world is just a trap.
Whatever looks attractive is a deception to trap us in this world. So, these two are the Anarka where we go towards Bhaya or Krodha. And then the fourth quadrant, what is it? Bhushan.
Yes. It is the worldview of Bhakti. It is the worldview of? Bhuta, but Bhava Magata.
Bhava is the, it is devotion. So, we want to go towards this worldview. Now, significantly in this worldview, even the world we live in is considered real.
It is not unreal, but it is temporal. And then we discussed, is there any other point you remember? Sorry. One more thing.
Just say one more thing. Lovely. Gift of life and gratitude.
Gift of life and gratitude. Yes. Okay.
So, when we talk about gratitude, we often think of the gifts for in life. You know, I got this, I got this health, I got this job, I got this talent, so many things. But the gift of life is much more fundamental.
And that itself is not, it is not, although we consider it commonplace, but there are so many chapters involved. So, we discussed on the 15th chapter, the three levels, you can appreciate it. What are the three levels? Cosmic.
At the level of the universe, at the cosmological level. Then at the level of the earth. And then at the level of our own body.
So, the physiological level. So, at the level of, if the sun was not existing, we would not exist. If the earth were not floating, if the earth were not producing vegetation for us to eat, we wouldn’t exist.
If the body did not have the capacity to digest food, we would not exist. So, there are many things which make our very existence possible. That’s why the gift of life is to be appreciated.
And then, there was one more image which I said we’ll come back to in each of the sessions. That is the image of spiritual advancement. So, in spiritual growth, what happens? Initially, the world is big for us, and Krishna is, God is, small for us.
But as we grow, what happens? The world becomes smaller, and Krishna becomes bigger for us. So, now, I think we covered most of the things. Thank you.
So, let’s move on. So, the pastime we are discussing here is, we are discussing which pastime, do you remember? Puranjan pastimes. I have given you so much philosophy that pastime might have been forgotten.
But the point was, it was a starting point for us to get into the discussion. So, Puranjan. So, I discussed about how Puranjan, in his next life, he becomes Indraki.
And then, she is a devoted wife to her husband, Malayatmaja. And Malayatmaja is a spiritualist who departs, who is competent here and belongs to the world. And then, he departs to Samadhi.
And while she is lamenting, at that time, the Lord comes to her. The Lord comes in what form? In the form of Brahman. And he starts speaking to her, saying that, you know, be happy.
We have known each other for a long time. So, does anyone have a mic separately? We have a second mic? Yeah, I can see. So, we can just read some of the translations over here.
So, take the mic. Maybe one verse. Prabhu can read one verse.
Adi can read. So, we are studying. So, let us read this particular verse.
So, we discussed, who are you? Whose wife or daughter are you? This is the verse we discussed. Let us look at the second verse now. Who would like to read? Yeah.
The Brahman continued. My dear friend, even though you cannot immediately recognise me, can’t you remember that in the past you had a very intimate friend? Unfortunately, you gave up my company and accepted a position as enjoyer of this material world. Yeah.
So, basically, Don’t you remember? So, throughout this narrative, this particular character will be referred to as avijnansakha. Avijnansakha is the unknown friend. So, in our life, we have some friends whom we know.
But sometimes you may see in some movies or some novels, you know, somebody gives the inheritance to some person. And they don’t even know who gave the inheritance. They may have some unknown benefactor.
So, if we have some unknown benefactor, it is a big blessing for us. And sometimes we are trying to serve a temple and somebody is a donor. One thing is to not want their name to be known publicly.
But even they don’t want even the temple to know who gave the inheritance. It is something completely unknown. This is avijnansakha.
So, it says, You turned away from me in trying to enjoy this world. That is earthly pleasure, material pleasure. So, basically, the world becomes big for us because we desire to enjoy the world.
We’ll talk about that a little later. But let’s go ahead with the verses. Yes, full.
My dear gentleman, both you and I are exactly like two swans We live together in the same heart which is just like the ones at lake. Although we have been living together for many thousands of years, we are still far away from our original home. Yes.
So, the Lord is speaking over here. Hamsa aham chitham That I and you, both of us are hamsas. Chakayu manasayu So, in the manas, right? We are trying to stay in this particular lake.
Abhutam andhra bhokam We have travelled for a long time. Abhutam, for a long time. Sahasra parivartanam For hundreds of years for me.
It’s been a long journey. Normally, if it’s a long journey, we think, have I come close to my destination? But unfortunately, in this journey, we are going round and round. It’s a samsara chakra.
If we go around in a circle, then we don’t circle, we don’t go closer. Just keep going up and down. So, you see that? We have been on a very long journey.
Yes, who’d like to read? My friend, you are now my very same friend. Since you left me, you have become more and more materialistic. And now seeing me, you have been travelling in different forms throughout this material world, which was created by some woman.
Hmm. So now, sattvam kihai mam bandho You and me are the same friends. We are still together.
Our relationship has not ended from my side. sattvam kihai mam bandho gato gramme nimati mudhi Gramme nimati means materialistic intelligence, materialistic consciousness. So, with that consciousness, we are travelling.
vicharan patam adhrakshi So, vicharan, wandering around. and kayachi nirbhutam saya So here, it is in the particular story, if you know Puranjan’s story, is that Puranjan is wandering around as a king and then he comes to a palace and there is a beautiful queen over there and he marries her and he becomes the king. So, similarly, the Shriya refers to Mayadevi.
Mayadevi is created in this world and you are trying to enjoy in this world. So the Lord is giving a broad outline of the nature of our present existence and our journey. And then, the Lord will go towards describing this material world and the material body in very vivid and similarly functional terms.
Would you like to read? In that city, the material body, there are five gardens, five gates and one protector, three apartments, six families, five stores, five material elements and one woman who is all around. So now, if I have to explain this, the whole class will have to be devoted to that. So I won’t go into that right now.
You can read the purport in the past. This is basically describing that there is a lot, the key point over here is that there is a lot already in this. When we come to the body, we often, in our mother’s womb, the body is formed.
But even the mother doesn’t know how the body is being formed. So there is already a prototype based on which our body gets formed. So in this world, there is a lot going on and we are simply like visitors entering into this world and specifically into the body in this world, the body is like a microcosm of the world at large.
Now the idea is, there is some description further of these. Would you like to read? My dear friend, the five gardens are the five objects of sense environment and the protector is the ninth air which passes through the nine gates. The three apartments are the chief ingredients fire, water and earth.
The six families are the aggregate total of the mind and five senses. So here, generally, if you go to a city, if it’s a more traditional natural city, the beautiful things are the parks and the gardens. The sense objects are the parks only.
And then, in the previous narrative, they described that whenever our health goes down, it is the prana that is affected. I know that talks about the very important role of prana. So prana is considered the defender.
The soul never dies but it normally also, when we look at the pulse of a person, the breath of a person, then we understand that life has ended. So prana is considered to be the defender. Then, of course, there are the nine gates.
The city of nine gates. And then there are the three apartments although there are many building blocks but here the focus is on the gross elements earth, water and fire. Now, these are often associated with kapha, paatha and metta in some thought systems.
And then see, inside a city there are some people who are active. So inside our body, ultimately the soul is there but primarily it is the mind and senses that are active. Krishna says manah chashtani driyani prakriti sthanika shakti But most of us don’t even know that our soul exists.
What happens for us is it is the mind and the senses that are active. So they are considered the family residing inside. Then, let’s go ahead.
The five stores are the five working sensory organs. They transact their business to the combined force of the five elements which are better than. Behind all these activities is the soul.
The soul is a person and enjoyer in reality. However, because he is now hidden within the city of the body, he is devoid of knowledge. Yes.
So while all this is happening in the city of the body, there is the actual person that is within the soul. But let’s right now say I am seeing you, I am knowing you but I the lower am unknown to you. So it’s almost like the lower is unknown.
So the soul is hidden at the core of our being. the core, the soul is a chit ananda. It has the capacity for consciousness.
It has the capacity for cognition, for knowing. But right now, the knowledge is covered. So we have very little awareness of who we are or what we are meant to be.
Go ahead. My dear friend, when you enter such a body along with the woman of material desires, you become overly absorbed in sense enjoyment. Because of this, you have forgotten your spiritual life.
Due to your material conceptions, you are oppressed in various miserable conditions. Yes. So now here, the specific predicament, why we have a particular body is described.
So Tasmir Swam, Ramayana is Krishna. Ramayana is that Rama refers to the goddess of fortune or female. So this female represents the enjoying spirit that ultimately comes from Mayati.
Because of that we get caught in the body. It’s like a child is watching say a movie. Now see, the movie is a horror show.
It’s a horror movie. A child is perfectly safe at home. The mother is nearby.
The father is in the next room. The child’s consciousness is caught in the TV. The child will be scared.
The child will fear. Now the child is free. Certainly.
Because the consciousness is caught over there. So at one level, the whole arrangement, first of all the TV set and then what is broadcast on the TV set. All that is not created by the child.
All that is created by someone else. But the child that is watching it. Purusha Prakruti Stori.
So basically, within the system of illusion, there is a generic or a universal illusion and a specific illusion. The generic illusion is that there is a TV set from which you can watch many things. The specific illusion is a specific TV show that the person is watching.
So different people can watch different TV shows. So like that, when the soul becomes attached to the body, that is the person getting moved to the TV set. The whole arrangement is made by material energy.
But within that, based on our specific desires, we will decide what it is that we want to watch. And accordingly, that kind of illusion comes in. So, when you talk about the moha or illusion, there is a general moha.
The general moha is what? Basically, that which is temporary, we think to be long lasting. We almost think it to be eternal. That which is tiny, we start thinking it to be huge.
The pleasure there is some pleasure, but we think it to be huge. We think that to be the moha of our life. And the specific illusion, the specific illusion, it depends on our desires.
So, for some people, if you consider, some people get satirical care, some people get politics, some people stock market, some people may get into romantic movies, some people may get into action movies. There are different kinds of illusions in the world. So, like that, different people get caught by different things.
So, that’s how, why in this world, what happens? Daksham Papi is seen in Prabhupada. We have placed it now, Papi is seen in Prabhupada. It is sinful activity, but essentially, we may not know it is sinful, the result is seen in terms of the suffering that we get in this world.
So, now, I’ll tell the translation, you read the translation, then you go back to the words. Yes, go ahead. Actually, you are not the daughter of Vidarbha, nor is this man a Malayadvaja, your well-wishing husband.
Now, were you the actual husband of Gauranjali, you were simply captivated in this body of nine days. Yes. So, Natam Vidarbha is Vidarbha, saying that whatever identity we have right now, our identity also changes in life.
Most of our identities are relational. When we are married to someone, then the husband of so-and-so, or wife of so-and-so, then we have children, then the parent of so-and-so, mother of so-and-so, daughter of so-and-so, son of so-and-so. So, our identities keep changing.
So, in this world, two identities of this life are known about. The daughter of so-and-so, and the wife of so-and-so. And then, one identity is from the previous life also.
In the previous life, as Puranjali, the princess of Puranjali, you are not the Nagnapati’s from Puranjali. So, all these identities that we have, these are all coming from the body and the situations that we have in the body. And they are, they are temporary.
They are not necessarily false. They are temporary identities. And the mistake is not accepting the identity.
The mistake is more like accepting it to be our essential identity or our main identity. It is a temporary identity that we have. Yes, who is reading? Sometimes you think you are such a sometimes a blessed woman and sometimes a loser.
You look. This is all because of the body. It is created by the imaginary energy.
This imaginary energy is my potency. And actually, both of us, you and I are pure spiritual identities. Now, just try to understand this.
I am trying to explain our actual position. Yes. Actually, as Prabhupada explains, he is actually bringing out his compassion.
I am just trying to understand this. I am trying to explain our actual position. So, pashya vayor gatin.
Pashya. Pashya is see. Pashya avayor.
Avayor is our gatin. This is our situation. This is where we are at right now.
So, in one sense, yesterday I mentioned philosophy is help to make sense of things that don’t make sense. So, we need to see things how they are actually. So, at this particular point, when that anartha, when that artha, what she had considered artha, is taken away from her, the lord is coming to point her towards the paramartha.
So, for all of us, while this is an incident that is described in allegorical form along the story, but the lord is there in our hearts. And the lord wants to talk with us. Generally, we often talk about these two words, prayer and meditation.
So, in one sense, they are related. At the same time, they are also different. Now, prayer is when we talk to god.
Meditation is when we listen to god. So, in one sense, our mantra chanting is both a prayer and a meditation. On one side, we are uttering the mantra, we are speaking.
That is, we are trying to talk to god. We are trying to offer our prayers, prabhupada, say that the mantra is chanted in the mudra, Krishna is engaging in your service. So, it is prayer.
By the same time, it is not the lord is deliberately silent, making his presence and his will hidden to us intentionally. He wants to talk to us. But, because we have turned away from him many, many times, now, his voice is no longer audible to us.
It’s because there are so many other voices inside our head that the voice of the lord is no longer heard. The Bhagavad Gita is not just a historical description. Yes, it is a description of Krishna and Arjuna.
Prabhupada explains that our body is also like a child. And the super soul is present in the child of this world. And just as Krishna spoke to Arjuna in the Gita, similarly, the lord wants to speak to us.
In fact, when we study Shastra regularly, so basically, just as Krishna spoke to Arjuna in the chariot, similarly, in our body, the super soul wants to speak with us, the soul. So, this is not just a historical dialogue. It’s what is meant to whatever we hear in history is going to inspire that talk within our hearts.
And Krishna, as a purpose of the world, Krishna becomes a living, loving reality for us. We say God becomes bigger. God talks with us.
Just understand the actual situation. So, understand that. We have so many things which are important.
That is important. And then, what is really important in the process, we will learn that. So, by studying Shastra, what is meant to happen? So, here, slowly this Brahmana is guiding, advising, and earning the trust of this widow.
And, as he is doing that, then he can describe that she will become enlightened. So, isn’t that our spiritual growth in one way of God becoming bigger? Now, spiritual growth can also be understood in two different ways. See, there is faith and then there is surrender.
Now, faith essentially means we understand God is on my side. Yesterday, I talked about faith is God. So, through faith, we start perceiving that God is on my side.
And surrender means I will be on God’s side. That God is on my side and I will be on God’s side. I choose to be on God’s side.
So, this is the essence of this dynamic relationship. I will be means I choose to be. There is a choice that I make.
So, when Arjuna is facing the battlefield, it’s a terrible situation for him. He has to fight against Bhishma and Drona and his grandfather and his teacher. Now, these are the people for whose pleasure he learned archery.
Generally, see, we all, even no matter how old we grow, there is a child inside us. And that child wants the approval, the appreciation of our elders. It could be our parents, our guides.
So, when we achieve something, it’s just like the world praises us. But there are some people who we respect and love very much. And their appreciation counts a lot.
So, for Arjuna, he had learned his archery so that he could please Drona, he could please Bhishma. And now, he had to fight against them. It was a nightmarish situation to be in.
And yet, by hearing the Bhagavad Gita, he understood that Krishna had it as a plan. And this is not just some misfortune that is always happening. This is all that is happening.
Krishna has a plan. And Krishna wants my good, Krishna wants everyone’s good. So, when we read Shastra, it is not just to hear some nice stories.
It’s good to hear those stories. But through those stories, the Shraddha that we are going to get is, Krishna is on my side. That Krishna is for me.
Krishna wants my best. And then, as that faith becomes stronger, that will inspire us to surrender. So, while these are stepwise process, they are also cyclic.
Faith inspires surrender. And as we start coming on the side of the Lord, we start seeing how things start falling in place. And then that increases our faith.
So both of these go forth. So here, what is this? What we have been told is that the Niranjana Sakha is here with you. The Lord is with us and the Lord is for us.
So, with this background, we will look at the main verses in the tomorrow’s session. But let’s move forward now. So, we talked about appreciate.
And now, how do we connect with the Lord? What does it mean? So, yesterday, I talked about the gifts of life and gifts in life. See, generally, how does a child appreciate and love the parents? Now, every child, you could say, has certain needs and has certain desires. So, now, the child may need food.
But the child may not value the food very much. The child may value some toys or the child may value some chocolate or some sweet rice. They may not necessarily choose food.
So what happens is that the child will see the love of the parents in terms of the fulfilment of their desires. Not in terms of the fulfilment of their needs. But what happens is as the child starts growing, then the child starts appreciating that even if my this desire or that desire is not fulfilled, that what happens is, my needs are being fulfilled.
So, we would call it desires or wants. So, basically, in one sense, the process of growth in normal life is that initially, we consider desires more important than needs. But as we grow older, we start valuing the needs more than the desires.
That doesn’t mean we give up our desires. Desires are important. But, when our needs are taken care of, we appreciate that more.
So, just as this is the journey of normal growth, similarly, in the journey of spiritual growth, what happens is, for us, there are material gifts and there are spiritual gifts. So, initially, we value the material gifts far more than the spiritual gifts. If our health is good, we have a good job, we have a good salary, all those things we value more.
And, Krishna doesn’t reject or condemn that. Krishna, in the 7th chapter, says, All of these are Sukruti, because they are coming to me. As we grow spiritually, what will happen is, we will start appreciating spiritual things more than material things.
This is the journey of spiritual growth. So, now, when we get material things in our life, we need to be able to see the hand of God. And, gradually, to connect with Krishna, how does the child connect with the parent? Because the parents take care of the child.
Parents love the child. The love is seen in various ways. So, for us, how do we see the hand of Krishna in our lives? So, there are three steps over here, by which, how do we move forward? The first is, appreciate.
Appreciate means that, this is what I talked about yesterday, but, it is that, the many things that we have in our life, often, we don’t see God’s blessings in our life, because, our mind, in everyone’s life, there will be what we have and what we don’t have. No matter how much we get, these two things are always going to be there. Even if we get a big house, or a mansion, there will always be someone who has a bigger mansion than what we have.
Isn’t it? There will always be what we have and what we don’t have. Now, if many times people think that I will become happy, then, what I don’t have moves into the category of what I have. And then, there is some truth to that.
There are some things which we live in our life, we get them, it doesn’t happen. But the problem is, if our mind is locked into looking at what we don’t have, then we will never be happy. So that’s why, happiness, that’s why our satisfaction, which is there, it is not just an emotion.
Satisfaction is a decision. I feel satisfied. That’s true.
We sometimes do feel satisfied. It is an emotion, but it is much more a decision. A decision comes by appreciating what we have.
Say, suppose, after this programme, there is Prasad. Suppose Prasad is there. But suppose there is some peculiar system over here, that everybody will have a sweet tooth.
But everybody will have a different sweet tooth. So say, you have Parthi, you will have Peda, I have that too, you have Gulab Jamun, you have Malpua, you have Sandesh. Everybody has a different sweet tooth.
Now, I may be having a delicious sweet, but if I am looking at what you have and what she has and what he has, then I may be having Sandesh, and it will taste like sandalwood. Isn’t it? Because, I am not looking at what I have. So, the first thing is, we appreciate it.
That, if we are to ever see God’s hand in our life, we are just talking about appreciating, but we are talking more about the gift of life itself. So, in our life, also we have many gifts. Apart from the gift of life, there are gifts in life also we have.
So, to some extent, we start appreciating the gifts. Consciously look at the gifts that we have. modern psychologists also talk about writing something like a gratitude journal to remind us, what are the good things in my life.
Now, once we start appreciating, this helps us see that so many things that are there in my life and they are not just there because I work hard for it. There are so many other factors that have to fall in place for them to come about it. And still, after this also, if one of the problems that comes up is, we may appreciate what we have, but there are times where we feel that we don’t get what we deserve.
We may work very hard. We were in school, we worked very hard and we were given an exam and we got 5 less marks than what we wanted. We work in a project and we work very hard and then somebody else comes and takes us for a project.
And it is when such things happen, it can be very infuriating. Why is this happening? It’s that there is life, there is inequality in life. Some people have more wealth than others.
Some people have better looks than others. Things being unequal, in one sense, that upsets us. But what upsets us more is that things are unfair.
Unequal itself is unfair. But beyond that, there is inequality, but why is it that I put in so much effort and I get so little? So this is what often leads people to start questioning the world and questioning God. One of the biggest questions in theology in the study of God is why do bad things happen to people? And it is a question which does not have an easy answer.
Sometimes I just use karma as a magic wand, but it’s not that simple. And I’ll explain how it takes place and to what extent we also have to understand how things are. But broadly, what happens for us many times is, if we consider that if I put in work worth 100 and I get result worth 10, then it seems very unfair.
There are some people for whom they do a hundred things and they barely notice all the things that they are doing for them. For one small thing, they will do a little drudgery appreciation. Why is this person like this? Why am I even here? Why is this person so unfair? Now, it is true that such things will happen.
At the same time, if we are honest with ourselves, we find that there are also times when we put in effort worth 10 and we get a result worth 100. Say, we may find that we study a little bit for the exam and what we study comes in the exam and we get great marks. Or, sometimes it happens that there is a we join a particular team for a project and we join the team and the project is nearing the completion and the project does very well and we get the credit for it.
Like India won the cricket World Cup in 2011. So now, in that World Cup winning team, there is one player who didn’t play a single match and yet he was there in the World Cup winning team. So, if we look at our lives, yes, there are times when we get less than what we deserve.
But there are also times when we get more than what we deserve. Now, there are times when we find, somebody might just be very kind to us. Maybe in school, we might remember a teacher who was very harsh and demanding.
But maybe some teacher was kind to us. He or she went out of their way to help us. We all can think of such people like this.
So, we can say even if life seems to be unfair, in the long run, it is fairly unfair. Fairly unfair means that in the long run, it is even unfair. This is not to say that terrible things won’t happen.
For some people, there are more terrible things than others. That is true. But overall, things do even up.
Now, most of you probably know, I need pledges for walking. I got polio. I got polio when I was one.
My mother took me to a clinic for getting a polio vaccine. And somewhere in a small town in Maharashtra and there, the fridge in which they kept the polio vaccine, the power supply had gone on for that night. And because of that, the vaccine, the polio, multiplied over there.
Not the vaccine, the germs multiplied over there. And the vaccine ended up giving me polio. So, I was just walking along.
One day, I just sat down and started walking. Now, I don’t remember any of this. But my first remedy, it was probably two and a half or three or something.
And some distant relative had come to our home. And she was consoling my mother saying, it’s so sad your son got polio. And I remember my mother speaking in very calm, very clear, confident voice.
Whatever he lacks physically, God will provide him with it. Now, I had no idea why my mother said that. And my mother passed away soon after.
So, I didn’t get to ask her. But somehow, that stayed with me. And then, as I started going to school, as I started studying, I couldn’t play outdoor games like most kids.
But I could notice that when I started studying, I could understand things very quickly. I could remember them much more than others. I could articulate things much better.
So, somehow, it settled in the back of my mind that yeah, I didn’t deserve anything to have polio in my life. But I didn’t deserve anything to have an IQ better than others. So, it is I don’t know.
It is not that I knew any philosophy of karma at that time. But the point is that life, when we look at the way things work, there will be times when we get less than what we deserve. But there will also be times when we get more than what we deserve.
So, if we look at the bigger picture, normally, if I am polite to you, I will expect that you should be polite to me. But, if I am polite to you and you are rude to me, now, I have two options. Either I think you are a greedy person.
Or, maybe, I have been rude to you in the past. I have forgotten, but you have not forgotten. Maybe there is something more going on here.
Maybe it might not be that I have been rude. Maybe I belong to a particular community. And somebody from my community hurt you in the past.
And that resentment, that anger, that, now you are taking it out on me. So, basically, when things don’t make sense, at that time, either we can come to the conclusion that things don’t make any sense at all. Or, we can come to the conclusion that there must be something bigger going on.
There was something going on that I am not aware of. Because of which this is happening. So, essentially, what happens is, when we are getting, say, this particular thing is happening for us, we could say that at this particular time, there is something coming to us from behind.
So, there is some negative karma coming from the past. And because of that negative karma, our present positive karma is getting reduced. That’s why we put an effort of 100, but we get a result only of 10.
On the other hand, what is happening is, some positive karma from the past is coming in. And that’s why we put a little effort, and we get a lot of results. So, many times, the philosophy of karma, so, it is, the emphasis is given on judgement.
Whatever you do, you will be held accountable for that. Whatever you are suffering, it’s your own karma. Now, that is one aspect accounted, but that is not the emphasis of karma.
See, Krishna, when Arjuna has to fight against Bhishma and Drona, although Krishna is God, Krishna doesn’t go into any esoteric, previous life story, telling Arjuna, you have so and so in this life, and Bhishma was so and so, and Bhishma did that in that life, and you did that in that life, and because of that you have to fight. Krishna doesn’t go into any special revelations like that. If you focus on karma primarily as a system of justice, then it raises many questions.
And, if I am punished for something, at least I should be told what was wrong that I did. But, we don’t know that. So, thinking of karma as a focus on judgement, that is true, but that is not the primary focus of karma.
But, this may be the essential focus of karma is encouragement. How encouragement? What the karma philosophy assures us is our actions matter even when they don’t seem to. That I am treating this person well right now, but I have been kind and polite to this person, but still this person is rude to me.
So, I can come to the conclusion, what is the use of being kind and polite? But no, my kindness and politeness, it matters. So, sometimes we may do a karma and we may not get a punishment. But, that doesn’t mean doing the karma, doing the good karma is useless.
It just means that something from the past is affecting us right now. Because of which we are not getting results. But, the past negative phase of karma will not last forever.
It will end in time. So, now basically then we see that if I do good and I get bad. So, there is good action and there is a bad result.
So, basically there are broadly two options for it. We can go to two extremes of pendulum. One extreme is to say that there is no cause effect at all in the world.
That life is all chaotic and disorderly and there is no meaning. So, sometimes if an atheist asks one of the strongest questions by atheists is why do bad things happen to good people? So, mostly religious people try to defend and explain but sometimes offence is the best defence. They say, why should bad things not happen to good people? What do you mean? Bad things should happen to good people? Bad things should happen to bad people? Who said that? If there is no God, if there is no organising principle which is the foundation of atheism then on what basis can you say that good things should happen to good people? Isn’t it? Life will have no ordering principle at all.
So, we can conclude that there is no cause effect at all. And this is not the way anyone functions. Even atheists, this is not a criticism of atheists, there are many reasons why people become atheists.
And more often than not, atheism is not philosophic rather it is psychological. People have had bad experiences with religion or with religious people primarily. And then they turned towards atheism.
When I was in Texas, I was going for a programme. Texas is known for being very aggressively not excessively, but in general the southern part of America is quite evangelical Christian. So they push people a lot to take Bible and believe in Jesus.
So I saw a quote on a car bumper it said, oh God please save me from your preachers. Now the idea normally is that God saves us through his preachers. But here, oh God please save me from your preachers.
I don’t want anything to do with that. It is stupid. So, the point is, it’s not a condemnation of atheists first.
But it does mean pointing out the illogicality of atheism. So nobody lives with the idea that there is no cause and condition at all. Because when atheists are not going to bless their children.
Even if you study, don’t study, the world is a lot of place. It doesn’t make any difference. Now you study.
And sometimes life just doesn’t make sense. So atheism does not remove the problems of life. The problems are there for everyone.
Bad things happen to everyone in life. Atheism only removes the hope that So, atheism, what it does is removes life’s problems. Does it do that? Now, no philosophy is going to remove life’s problems.
Life’s problems are there for atheists, whatever we have. What it does is, it cannot remove what it does is, it removes the hope that life’s problems have some purpose. They have some meaning.
Why is this happening to me? There is some sense, there is some plan. So, all that atheism does is remove that hope for us. So basically, when we face life’s unfairness, one extreme is to say there is no cause and effect of it.
The other is to say that the universe or whatever you want to say or God is against me. Going back to our acronym, this is neutral, this is all chaotic. These things happen randomly or it’s against me.
So, this is where the whole universe is meaningless or the universe is against me. I am being singled out for something. Now, when the first is bad, the second is worse.
To think that somebody out there is out to get me and whatever I do, somebody is out there to thwart it, to destroy it. It’s a very dark way to live. Now, in between, what we understand is something bigger is going on.
It is not that there is no cause and effect, but there is something bigger going on. That right now, maybe I am going through a negative phase. Maybe I am going through a negative phase right now, which will end with time.
Which will continue till the last moment. Sometimes we may have a negative karma phase, and at that time we just have to live with it. But no negative karma phase lasts forever.
I was going to talk about the acronic arc. A was appreciate the gifts that are there. And B is persist.
Persist when we are going through a negative phase of karma. Sometimes it may appear as if I am doing good and nothing good is happening in my life. That doesn’t mean I should stop doing good.
In that, there is cause is in charge and there is a plan for life. But now this persists. How can we do this? I said for each session I will have one diagram.
So this is the diagram for today. And in our situation say there is our present karma. That means what we are doing right now.
And there is the past karma. What we have done in the past. Now our present karma can be positive.
Our past karma can be positive. Our present karma can be negative. Our past karma can be negative.
So now this is the best situation to be in. If our present karma is positive and our past karma is positive. That means what? I am doing good things right now and from the past good things are coming to me.
Then what will happen is we will be happy and we will be able to do good things also in our life. This is the best situation to be in. Now let’s look at these various situations.
Now if our past karma is negative or let’s try to understand this dynamic before with the example. Say suppose there is a city in which in a bank a lot of cash is brought in. Maybe 10 million dollars are brought in cash.
In cash in the bank. And then 10 thieves come to you. Oh! In this cash world.
And they all plan to rob. Now all 10 of them plan to rob the bank. But various things go wrong and 9 of them fail.
And one of them succeeds. Now why did this one person succeed and everyone else fail? It was because this one person had some good karma in the past. It requires good karma to do bad karma.
And to do bad karma means to be successful in what we do. See in general if we are honest in our lives we understand that success requires factors beyond our control to fall in place. Like in sports.
The players have to perform well. So many other things have to fall in place for victory to come about. So our present karma it has to be important.
But then the past karma has to fall in place. So the thieves the thief who succeeds is robbing the bank. Now A. That thief had instead developed the skills and developed the aptitude to do some project.
To do some work. By the past karma that thief would have been successful in that house. So basically because of past karma success was going to come.
But by the present karma the person decided what I want to do is it going to be good or bad. So basically the results that we get in our life so in general I give an example of 100 plus 5 but most often what happens for us is that whenever we get any falla that falla there is present karma and there is past karma and both combine together to give the result. Now sometimes it can range from the past karma will be 100 and the present will be 0 practically.
Like say somebody is not only born in a healthy family but somebody is born in a healthy family with great looks and with a great IQ. It’s almost like they just get propelled towards success. It’s never 100 to 0 you could say 99 to 1. They have to do some good work.
The other extreme could be the past is only 1 and this life is 99. That means somebody is born in a very bad neighbourhood maybe they became orphan in their childhood and they suffered various kinds of abuse and still they worked hard they got some scholarship they did a job and then they rose to become successful. So this combination of how much past karma and how much present karma we don’t know how it is going to work.
And this can also change during different phases of our life. Sometimes it may be that a lot of things fall in place for us and sometimes present we have to do very little and sometimes a lot of things fall out of place. So we do a lot and still we get little results.
But basically life the results that we get are combination of present and past karma. So when results don’t seem to be coming it is not that God is unfair or God is non-existent. It is that something bigger is going on.
Something from the past is affecting the results that are coming to us. So now if we go back to this with this understanding, let’s go back to this part. So if the person has negative past karma and negative present karma so negative past karma means that person will be relatively powerless.
The person has negative present karma that person will be bad. They will want to do bad things but because the past karma is not there so the person will be bad but will be powerless. Like somebody decides I will become a criminal and they join the underworld and they think I am going to become the next underworld dog.
And the first robbery that they make they are arrested and for the rest of their life they go to jail. So that person may want to do bad but if the past karma is not good they can’t do much bad. Isn’t it? Now so now if you see if the past karma is positive and the present karma is negative this is actually the most dangerous situation.
A person is bad and a person is powerful. So this is the most dangerous. This is where many tyrants, many dictators, many terrorists So they have the past good karma because of which what they do will be successful.
But right now they are doing some bad things. So now basically for us if we understand that God is in control and there is an action, result, coordination then basically we rule out this whole quadrant. I am not going to do any negative karma in the present.
So here see if we are in the so if we call it 1, 2, 3, 4 3 is the worst 4 is the best but if nothing has come ok it’s gone down ok it’s interesting that screen is one of these things ok now so if we are in this quadrant we are doing some good things but we are not getting good results. So this is where we need persistence. Persist that because of some negative karma from the past I am doing some good but I am not getting the results.
It’s like a child may be behaving very nicely but the parents withhold some privilege from the child. You know I did my homework I did this, I did that and the parent says you were naughty in the past. You know I did a big naughtiness that’s why you are not getting these privileges.
The child says I did this, you should give me this now. But there are some people in the past coming up. So this is where persistence is.
Krishna says I will stay but because our doesn’t come only from our present actions it comes from present plus past actions. So when we are going through this world I was discussing today about connecting with the lord connecting with the lord I am not talking about bhakti right now I will be talking about bhakti more tomorrow. For most people as a child doesn’t really understand the fundamental needs the desires, am I getting them or not? For most of us in this world the material things that are happening in our life they at a functional level matter much more and things are going wrong in their area it’s very difficult to keep our things steady.
So we need to be able to make sense of this. Now the last part in the acronym I am not going to elaborate on this I will talk about act. So T is Transcend Now transcend means what? Our, we start valuing the spiritual more than the material that it’s like a child starts understanding that the toys are not that important like material things and material things that are upside down that happen with it they are from the spiritual perspective ultimately temporary.
But you cannot come to this level immediately it takes time to come to this level. So and Krishna also doesn’t expect us to come to this level. So with the karma philosophy we understand things are not working that doesn’t mean that God is against me it just means I am going through some negative phase right.
So one way to persist is by just pushing on. Another way is all this is not that important. It’s like one essential meaning of transcending what does it mean? We start understanding that the thoughts inside are more important than the things outside that the things outside are important I want health, I want wealth, I want social respect and all these things I want a good house, I want these things but the thoughts inside are more important.
So by the practise of Bhakti Bhakti what it will do is it will improve the quality of our thoughts now will the quality of our things improve? That depends. Karma and Bhakti overlap in quite puzzling ways when we start practising Bhakti we start chanting Hare Krishna, we start remembering Krishna, then that remembrance starts elevating the level of our thoughts and that elevation of the level of thoughts starts giving us satisfaction internally so the material things start mattering less for us that’s how whether we are going through good karma phase or bad karma phase, our connection with Krishna is satisfied. Bhaktivedanta Thakur says in so many songs Sukhe Dukhe or Grehe Thakur Sampatti Vipatti a devotee becomes steady in them because the connection with Krishna helps us realise the state of things in the outer world matters but the state of thoughts in my inner world matters even more and Krishna is always there for us to remember and if we remember him he enriches our thoughts and by that enrichment of our thoughts the external, whether it is enrichment or lack of enrichment, that doesn’t matter so much so Krishna is there within our hearts calling us he wants to give us a higher vision by which when things are going wrong it is not that Krishna has abandoned us it is that Krishna is with us but it is he wants us to abandon the illusions that make us think that he has abandoned us that it is we who have gone away from him so this transcending how we can do that that is we target Krishna as the law of our life, that we were discussing in our last session in the morning to summarise what we discussed today