Talk show – What your phone can teach you about your mind 1

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
so in that verse in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says that that spiritual world is not illumined by the sun nor by the moon nor by fire now Shri Prabhupada adds in his translation, the word electricity the spiritual world is not illumined by electricity now we may wonder where is this electricity coming from it is not mentioned over there so the point is that when scripture is to be studied the point is not just to get it right the point is to get it across to get it across that means the essential point that is there people should understand the message so for example, if somebody comes and gives a class in excellent Sanskrit but nobody in the audience understands Sanskrit they got the point right but they didn’t get anything across so now when it comes to language it’s easy to understand I don’t know this language so somebody has to speak or translate that language into the language which I understand however, language when we use the word language we use it, it can be applied not just to the verbal tool that we use for communication but language can also be applied to the conceptual tool that we use for analysing and understanding all of us have a particular world view which we grow up with and things which don’t fit in that world view, things which don’t make sense within that world view we just can’t connect with them so the world view that we have is like our language and it is when the, whatever message is given, it is communicated in terms of that world view now that world view may not be exactly correct but that is the frame of reference with which we have grown and things have to be made intelligible within that world view and then we may expand the world view to accommodate the things which were not included there we may even revise the world view but first things have to make sense to us and knowledge progresses in a particular way if say today I say that I am going to speak on the demographic patterns of beers in the deserts in the polar regions of Russia what has that got to do with me we just won’t be able to connect with it but when we say that oh actually the demographic, the population of beers in the polar areas of Russia that is decreasing that increase, that indicates that the climate is actually changing and climate change is going to affect all of us then we see the connection so in general knowledge progresses from the familiar to the unfamiliar knowledge progresses from the familiar to the unfamiliar, whenever we hear something unfamiliar if it is connected with something familiar then it locks on over there but if it is not connected to something familiar then it just stays unfamiliar to us it doesn’t connect with us, it just doesn’t register with us in English there is a saying that doesn’t ring a bell for me now what does ring a bell for me means that actually it comes from the metaphor that actually when something is understood then our memory is like a place where when a bell is rung that means a connection is established and a chain of events starts happening just like in a classroom say when a bell is rung that means you can say interval is there or a break is there, children all rush out so when something rings a bell that means it triggers a set of thoughts inside us and it activates us, we are able to connect with it because it is connected with something inside us so same way when we want to understand the spiritual concepts that are given in the Gita, if we can connect those concepts with contemporary things in our world then then it rings a bell within us these things which are abstract start becoming clearer in the Bhagavatam itself in the 11th canto there is a section it’s called the Avadhut Gita enlightenment by the natural path there is a book written based on that learning from 24 gurus and those gurus are basically from nature and okay what one can learn from a tree, what one can learn from the sky now tree, sky these are not directly spiritual they are part of the material world but by observation and connecting those things with spiritual truths we can learn about spiritual truths in today’s world most of us we live not so much within within the natural setting as we live in a technocentric setting so in a technocentric setting when there is technology all around us can technology be used for spiritual purposes one of course we are using it right now we are using a mic, we are using a projector so we are using various devices that way for conveying the message as a channel for the message physical or instrumental we can use technology but technology itself can be used as a metaphor technology can be used as a tool for comparison by which we can learn so that’s the background for this topic. What your phone can teach you about your mind lets move on so the phone is the most ubiquitous of external devices among all the devices that we use this is almost all pervasive in fact according to some statistics in the past it is like even people who are very poor in India their slums they would have a TV antenna coming out of their houses but now people may be starving but they have phones so the penetration of phones has become far far more than that what TV has achieved in several decades the phone has penetrated more than that in less than a decade the smartphone is not all that old but now of course there is also a question whether the smartphone makes us smart or unsmart but what we will see today is that actually the phone is because it is so present around us because we use it so much because we do think about it whatever happens so we can learn from it how to take things forward in terms of understanding in our inner world so the idea is we are anyway going to think of the phone, we are going to use it so in the Bhagavad Gita in the 10th chapter when Krishna talks about how he should be constantly remembered, how the pure devotee should constantly remember him Arjuna asks the question at that time keshu keshu cha bhaveshu chintyo si bhagavanmaya how oh lord can I remember you and Prabhupada explains in the parpot the word bhaveshu it refers to material existence that people in general are conscious of material things so when they are conscious of material things how can those people who are conscious of material things remember Krishna then Krishna gives his vibhuti vibhuti means the special bhuta means existence vibhuti means we is visesha it’s a special existence something that is special within existence something that catches our attention that’s a vibhuti so now when Krishna gives a list of vibhuti’s that is the indicative list that is not an exhaustive list he says for example among mountains I am the Himalayas, among water bodies I am the ocean among animals I am the lion so the idea is whatever is the most attractive whatever is the most powerful, whatever is the most influential among a particular category of things we see that that object’s influence it’s speciality, it’s attractiveness as a manifestation of Krishna and in that way we can understand that ok this is so attractive where does this attractiveness come from it’s attractiveness comes from Krishna Krishna talks about that principle at the end of the Gita and then chapter 10.41 he says so he says whatever is opulent, glorious beautiful, know that I am manifesting a spark of my splendour so if we are to if we were to talk about that that list as indicative we can expand that list say we could say among cricketers Krishna is so and so cricketer among footballers Krishna is so and so footballer now that is not a static list in each generation there will be different footballers there will be different cricketers so the idea is that whoever attracts our attention in this world, whatever attracts our attention in this world where does that attractiveness come from attractiveness is coming from Krishna manifesting Krishna a spark of Krishna’s splendour so we could say that among devices Krishna is a smart phone that is what attracts attracts people’s attention maybe 30-40 years ago you might have said among devices Krishna is a television but television is now almost passing, people still have television people use television but nobody is excited about television so much how many companies are really we have got a new brand of television promoting it advertising it, it doesn’t make any much news so whichever things in a particular contemporary generation are attracting our attention what we are anyway going to think of if we can connect it with spiritual rituals then we can direct our thoughts towards Krishna thinking about Krishna there are two broad ways of doing it thinking about Krishna and Krishna’s message one is that we withdraw ourselves from the world and we focus on Krishna that is what we do in our sadhana in our chanting, when we come to the temple when we go on pilgrimages we are withdrawing from the world to connect with Krishna now that mode of connection is important so that we can focus on Krishna but Krishna is also present in the world in the sense that everything in the world is a manifestation of his energy so therefore we can connect with him also through our capacity to see the connectedness of things of this world with Krishna so the phone if we could connect some philosophical points with the way a phone functions that can remind us of those philosophical points and that way we could get certain things across so now phone is something which we all are familiar with so I don’t have to elaborate on the phone but the mind actually has many many meanings not just one or we usually use the word mind in a particular sense but in common parlance the word mind has many meanings so for example if a teacher is giving class teacher is speaking in a class and a student is looking here and there teacher may say give this your full mind give this your full mind what does that mean? it means give it your full attention isn’t it? or if somebody comes up in class and they are studying in college and suddenly they come and tell their parents I want to drop out of college the parents say have you lost your mind? have you lost your mind? there what does the word mind mean? it means intelligence why are you acting in a crazy way? so the meanings of words are actually not just fixed they are not stored in dictionaries one word can have many different meanings and what we are referring which meaning we are referring to we need to be clear similarly the word mind Einstein was one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century when we are using that word mind there we are referring to an intellectual person one of the most brilliant minds now in especially western philosophy the word mind is used for the non-material side of things so for example there is a common phrase mind over matter mind over matter there was a western philosopher Rene Descartes who talked about mind matter duality the idea he said that body is made of matter and there is something beyond the body and that he called the mind so he referred to the non-physical part of our being that is the mind but these are all valid senses in which different people have used the word mind when the Bhagavad Gita uses the word mind it uses it in a particular sense what is that sense? to understand that sense we will have to understand the Bhagavad Gita’s model of the self the Bhagavad Gita offers a particular understanding of who we are as persons and based on that understanding we can understand what the mind is so it offers us a three level model of the self there is the body there is the mind and there is the soul and so our current existence we could say is three dimensional we have physical side, mental side and spiritual side now most of us know that there is the gross body the subtle body and the soul so Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita’s seventh chapter fourth verse that these eight elements earth, water, fire, air, ether mind, intelligence and ego they comprise the eight elements eight components of my separated energy now among these the first five are considered gross the remaining three are considered subtle now the subtle body is sometimes referred to in shorthand as the mind although subtle body has mind, intelligence and ego but they are all essentially the same thing I will explain what I mean by this the mind, intelligence and ego are essentially in structure they are the same see if I have a phone in the phone I may have an OS some basic operating system is there and then I have some inbuilt apps and then I have some apps which I further downloaded so now if we look from the software perspective the all apps are essentially codes of 0 and 1 all apps are essentially codes of 0 and 1 now from the content perspective there is no difference between the operating system a native app and an added app the difference is from a functional perspective the in fact there is a difference between 1 and 2 apps there is no difference in terms of the content just a sequence of 0’s and 1’s all apps are essentially the same but in terms of functionality they are different similarly when we come to the subtle realm when we come to the level of mind, intelligence and ego it is what are they made of earth, water, fire, air, ether we understand that they are made of atoms but at the subtle level we don’t have anything called atoms. Atoms are gross they may be invisible to a naked eye but they are still gross things.
So when you talk about mind, intelligence and ego we don’t have the conception of atoms as we understand it in modern physics so structurally actually they are they are the same it is functionally they are different so in that sense we could refer to all three together as the mind. The same substance the same programme the same idea basically the same code of 1’s and 0’s if it is arranged in a particular way it may function as an app doing this function it may, if arranged in a different way it may function as an app doing another function so the mind is the in that sense the intermediary between the body and the soul just like the software is the intermediary between the person the user and the hardware and in this way we can compare where exactly, what role does the mind play in our in our function now most of us when we get a computer when you get a, now a days for all practical purposes a phone is like a computer so when we get a get a small phone, get a phone now the phone when we think we get a phone we essentially think of the structure of the phone but actually the structure of the phone would be of no use without software on it the software usually comes with it in the old days when you purchase a computer now we would have to get some, a separate CD and then instal the hardware instal the software, after it starts functioning now a days, most computers come with it so when we think of getting a phone, we don’t think of the phone and the software to run it the OS or something, two different things we just get it together so like that, for all practical purposes the body and the mind they are lumped together as one unit I’ll talk about this, a big difference for certain practical purposes the body and the mind are lumped together, in the sense that the body and the mind both are material body and the mind both are material, but just as in a computer, in a phone, we could say the hardware is something which we physically see if there is damage in the hardware, we can see, oh there is a crack here on the phone oh there is this part which has become deformed we can see it very easily but if there is some damage in the software we can’t see it similarly, when we say people are hurt somebody has got a fracture, somebody has got a limb, somebody has got a scar we can see that, oh this person is hurt but if some person has been emotionally hurt we can’t see that but that is also real now in what sense are the body and the mind one they are one in the sense that both of them are different from us, just like the phone, software and the hardware both are separate from now within themselves software and hardware are very different and if there is software problem hardware problem, the way to deal with it also is different and that dealing with software and hardware problems, I will talk about more in the evening talk, but here the point which I am making is that trying to understand this three level existence that we all have so we have to have a sense of distance from the mind so that we can understand the difference between us and the mind what do I mean by this that at one level the mind is inside us at another level the mind is outside us what do I mean by outside us, actually the mind, right now say I am speaking this so the mind is inside me and the mind is saying what you are speaking is very abstract nobody is understanding it hmm should make things simpler maybe there is a mind inside you that mind may be saying what is all this strange stuff going on I thought I came here to hear about Krishna what is all this about a phone going on so we all have a mind inside us which is speaking certain things so in that sense the mind is inside us but this idea of inside and outside is based on the reference point of the body from the body’s perspective the mind is inside us and say this glass is outside outside me outside all of you also but if we consider that our actual identity is that we are souls then from the soul’s perspective the mind is outside us we are not our mind, the mind is outside us and that’s where things become complicated when dealing with the mind, see with respect to the phone we can see both the software and the hardware are outside us because it’s just outside entirely but when it comes to us ourselves, the body is something which we see, ok this is physically here and the world is outside us but the mind is inside us from the body’s perspective and because of that we tend to very easily identify with the mind and I’ll talk about this identification and how it can create problems soon but the important point is just because the mind is inside us that does not mean we and the mind are the same that does not mean that any and every thought that comes in our mind is necessarily our thought or it’s our desire let’s try to understand this further yeah now every often we have devices and the devices may have apps within them so the apps have certain the apps have default settings, the device themselves has default settings so one of my main services is writing, so while writing when I have to proofread I often use a text to speech software to read out what I have written, so to the human eye the and them may look very similar and I may not notice the spelling mistake but when it is read out, the pronunciation is so different that I can catch, oh this is a mistake so once I have written the soul is Sat Chit Anand and the text to speech software read it out the soul is Saturday Chit Anand so now actually I had written it properly, I was wondering why is Saturday coming over here then I look back, then I from the computer’s perspective they thought that SAT, what is that? it’s a weekday, so I have to expand it to Saturday so there is a default setting over there and so it was like autocorrect over there change Sat to Saturday but the autocorrect was incorrect and I had typed in the correct thing but the computer made it incorrect and then I had to recorrect what I had done so just like sometimes some default settings in a device can make a correct input incorrect like that we all also have default settings in our mind and those default settings often make the correct into incorrect what that means is let’s consider one of the biggest problems that America is facing as technology is becoming bigger and bigger and better it is said that all our devices are becoming smaller and smaller the computers are becoming smaller, the phones are becoming smaller even the weighing scales are becoming smaller but the people on those weighing scales are becoming bigger and bigger laughter so obesity is a big problem nowadays and when this is a big problem there are studies done about why people over eat or how people over eat so now what happens? many people resolve I am going to eat regularly there is a survey done asking people how many food related decisions do you take everyday? and most people they said we take around 12-15 decisions should I eat this, should I not eat this but then they went over the full day and they found on an average people take 215 food related decisions everyday now how is it possible 215? actually we get so many food related stimuli in today’s world, we just be passing by a hotel we say oh this food is there should I take it, should I not take it we may see a billboard we may see a promo, oh maybe I should buy this, maybe I should not buy it so actually we keep thinking about it and we take some decisions based on that and now how do we take those decisions? so there is, we often talk about conscious and unconscious but there is a third there is conscious, unconscious and there is subconscious subconscious means that which happens below our conscious awareness so for example now say a person has decided I am going to eat healthy food, so they have kept some salad or some fruit, whenever I feel hungry, whenever I get a snack attack as they say the desire to have a snack attacks us when I get a snack attack I can’t say no to it because I am hungry but I will take some healthy food, I will take a fruit I will take a salad, something healthy I will take but suppose they have some healthy food in their drawer below their workplace and they also have some unhealthy food, maybe something very fatty now if they are conscious ok I am feeling hungry, ok I will take this fruit and I will eat it, if they are conscious they will eat the healthy food but suppose they are talking on phone or they are working on the computer discussing with someone and they are not really conscious of what they are doing, suddenly they start feeling hungry now without even realising their hand will go to the fatty food and they will start eating it hey I planned not to eat, what happened so what happens is we all have certain default settings within us so the hunger is a natural body need but what I eat when I am hungry that is something which is a setting which has been made in our mind and that setting may be incorrect that means there are some people who drink a lot of soda, so whenever they feel thirsty they don’t drink water they drink soda now water is quite good soda is also may be useful in certain situations but if that setting has gone into their head thirst means I take some soda or I take some soft drink then although water could serve their purposes they take the soft drink for many people when they are thirsty they take tea, sometimes it may be fuming hot and they take fuming hot tea at that time actually it doesn’t serve much purpose but that is the setting that has gone in their mind whenever I feel thirsty I should take tea so we all have certain default settings within us and those default settings may not be the best settings for us they may be faulty and when often we make resolutions I am not going to do this or I am going to do this but the problem with the resolution is that it’s like say I came by a flight now from Laguna beach Irvine, so there is a take off the flight takes off say it took off at 6.50 and is supposed to land at 9.50 so there is a take off, there is a landing now what happens, our resolutions take off but they crash land before reaching the destination they just take off very enthusiastically this is just a few months ago there was a new year, I was giving a class in Australia, so quoting that actually if you see for many people make new year resolutions but it is found that more than 90% of the new year resolutions are not new the resolutions that were made in the previous years but you just couldn’t keep it so now this year I am going to do it so the problem is not that sometimes people say I just don’t have enough will power I don’t have enough determination, I don’t have enough will power now that is one understanding of it but that is a very incomplete understanding when we talk about default settings the will power alone is not enough say suppose this floor is say inclined like this floor will be inclined like this and as soon as water falls on it now say there near that wall the wall has become cloggy because of too much accumulation of water and we want the water to flow this way and here there is a sink or a drain from which the water can go out now if the floor is inclined this way then no matter how much I intend the water should go this way but the water is not going to go this way because the floor is inclined this way then the water is going to go this way now if I want the water to go this way each time the water falls I have to actually maybe use a saw or a brush or something and push it in the opposite direction, so now we easily understand, somebody says why is the water going that way the floor is inclined that way that’s the way the water is going to go if we don’t want the water to go that way we will have to change the inclination of the floor and if we don’t change the inclination we can’t blame why is the water going that way so when it’s a physical structure it is like, when a physical structure is in a particular way it’s not a matter of willpower why is the water going in that direction that is where the water is going to go because the structure is like that now by my willpower I may decide that I will push the water in the opposite direction but the water by itself is going to go in that direction so we understand this easily for physical structures but this applies also for the mind although the mind is subtle but still it is real and we use the word inclination for the mind also I have an inclination for this thing I have an inclination for music I have an inclination for cricket I have an inclination for geography or whatever we use the word inclination for different things there the word inclination means that I am interested in this, I like this my thoughts naturally go in this direction so mental inclinations affect the flow of our thoughts as tangibly as physical inclinations affect the flow of water this is physical inclination will naturally cause the water to flow in a particular way similarly mental inclinations will automatically cause our thoughts to go in particular ways and when the thoughts start going in that direction there is no use beating ourselves up for lacking willpower it’s not a matter of willpower it’s just nature that is like that now when I say it’s nature that doesn’t mean it is not changeable the floor is inclined in this way I can do some architectural work and change the inclination to be this way but I have to do some physical work just by my desiring the water is not going to flow in this direction so similarly with respect to our mind we may decide when I am hungry I want to eat healthy food but if I have been habituated to eating unhealthy food eating fatty food then naturally as soon as I start thinking of food my thoughts will go in a particular direction ok I want to eat this it’s not necessary there is an announcement here about a Toyota Camry 059 URD is wrongly parked so like this suddenly things flash on our mental screen also we are thinking about one thing and suddenly something else comes up sorry so now moving forward with respect to default settings now with respect to a device when you have to understand it actually all of us now if we have a browser in our phone we often set it to a particular home page now as soon as we open the browser automatically it will go to that home page now if I don’t want to go to that home page then I have to go back and change the setting of that browser without that as soon as the browser is open that home page will open like that our mind has a particular home page you know for some of us it may be food for some of us it may be money for some of us it may be a particular relative for some of us it may be for patriots it may be their nation for different people it may be different things for people who are cricket fans they are doing nothing they are thinking about cricket so especially when the world cup is going on in India often you see people just walking along the streets and imagine swinging their bats bowling, catching you know actually what happens is in their mind they are there in the cricket match they are thinking I am the next Tendulkar, I am the next Kohli or whatever it is so that is the home page of their mind is browser and whatever just like the home page is what naturally opens up whenever the browser is open like that as soon as we start thinking our mind goes to the object that is our greatest attachment so my home page of our mind is browser I refer to the object of our greatest attachment now it is not necessarily that the object of the greatest attachment has to be a bad thing it may be so if we are working in the world money is important for us if a mother is constantly thinking of her child that is good, she has to take care of the child but sometimes when we want to think about other things also we may not be able to think if our browser gets caught on that home page, that is where it goes so and sometimes we may be attached to things which are unhealthy or unhealthy also a person is alcoholic from the moment they wake up first thing in the morning think of is alcohol now a person is a drug addict right from the moment they wake up till the moment they sleep the thought that grips them and drags them the most is the thought of drugs so depending on the mode of good depending on whether our mind is in the mode of goodness passion or ignorance we may have different home pages which may be of different levels of distraction for us some distraction may not be much harmful some distraction may be very harmful but actually that is not a distraction that is our default focus of attention it is a distraction from some higher purpose that we may have but for us that is a default thought so we all have certain settings for our mind and now there are two extreme approaches to the settings of the mind one is to resent them why are they like this and the other is to just surrender to them now neither of them is of any practical help when I start resenting why does my mind go in that direction well that is the way the mind is right now just like sometimes we we get some devices and those devices have some inbuilt apps some devices come with an inbuilt browser and we may not like that browser but by default that is the browser now we can’t change the default setting of that device we may go deep in and find out instal some other browser and we may change that browser later but by default it will come with that particular browser so like that now our mind has a particular set of settings now resenting it is of no use some of us may so going back to more philosophical context the Bhagat, the Gita talks about chaturvarnayam mayasvishtam gunakarmavibhagasya Krishna says that in 4.13 that there are these four varnas now the four varnas the four social divisions essentially what are they about they are about four distinct mindsets and a person of a vaishya mindset by default their thoughts will be about money for a person of a brahmana mindset their thoughts will be about books about studying, about philosophy about knowledge now it is not that thoughts about money are bad and thoughts about knowledge are good both are just the default settings and once if we start resenting why is it like this then we just waste our energy suppose a person who is of a vaishya mindset thoughts go towards money a lot and then they see somebody who is just delighting and studying shastra why am I not like that or somebody who is a brahmana thoughts naturally go to scripture but they think this person he earns so much he is so shrewd about money I can’t even count notes properly so why is it like that well that is the way it is we all have to understand that we have got this body which is with a particular set of settings now the settings are changeable to some extent that we will talk later but the point is we have to accept that this is my beginning point and when we are in the world it is not that we have to become someone else a brahmana doesn’t have to become a vaishya not as a vaishya have to become a brahmana entirely some brahminical qualities need to be developed by a vaishya and a brahmana may if they are living in the world they may also have to have some understanding of monetary affairs but it is not that we have to change ourselves to become someone else say I have an android phone and somebody has an iphone and somebody else has a windows phone now they all can serve the function of communication but they will all have certain features of their own an android phone will not function like an iphone and an iphone will not function like a windows phone windows phone will not function like an iphone there are differences and once we accept this is the starting point then we may be able to customise if I like some feature of an iphone I might try to get an app by which I can get that customised function in my phone or I don’t like something about android I might remove it from my particular software, particular app we can do those things but the starting point we have to accept and once we accept from there we move onwards I will talk about acceptance and transcendence much more in our later classes but at this point the default settings one point I said is if we start resenting why is it like this? resentment doesn’t serve any purpose because we are what we are we can change from here but we have to begin from where we are like if say if we are travelling by road somewhere and we go to a wrong place we have to accept that I am at the wrong place then start off to the right place then start resenting why am I at this wrong place? I will never get to the right place resenting our default settings is of no use on the other hand just accepting them that is also of not much use some people they just keep forgetting things and why didn’t you do it? oh I forgot, why did you write it down? I forgot that also laughter laughter so now some people say this is the way I am now this is the way I am is not a rationalisation for irresponsibility if I say this is the way I am then ok I accept your but then we have to take precautions to be able to to be able to do things effectively now if I have a particular responsibility I have a particular role, I have a particular service and I know that I have weakness in that particular thing then I may have to prepare a little bit more, I may have to plan so it’s not that because something is a default setting we just accept it as it is we can change it it’s not that we have to surrender to the default setting and the change it involves many steps but the point which I made is that just intention or willpower alone is not enough there is a process required for making that change the physical inclination in a particular way actually I will have to change the flooring of the floor so that the inclination will go in a different direction similarly if we have settings in a particular way within us that’s like the inclination of the mind so to change that, just like if there is a default setting in the phone we may have to find go deep in the settings, where is the default setting for the browser I don’t want this as my default browser I want some other default browser so we’ll have to go deep within, find the setting and change the setting so if I have autocorrect of Saturday I don’t want to do that, then I’ll have to go deep in the software where is this autocorrect settings and then this autocorrect, I don’t want this autocorrect so it requires some more process just intention I don’t want Sat to change to Saturday that is not going to make much difference because that is the default setting so resenting the default setting is of no use nor is just uncritically accepting the default setting what we need to do is understand the default setting first of all recognise it and then recognise whether it is desirable or undesirable and if it is undesirable then find a process to change the default setting at a general level the process for changing the default setting of our mind is the process of Bhakti Yoga Bhakti Yoga purifies us and it changes the default setting gradually I’ll talk about this again a little bit later but at this stage our focus today is on the concept of default settings within the phone and changing them is something which we have to do but we can do it in a balanced way without resenting it without accepting it but evaluating it maturely so with the process for changing as I said there is a first I recognise the water is going in this direction I don’t want the water to go in this direction then what do I do? Krishna talks about Shama and Dama in the qualities of a Brahmana in the 18th chapter he talks about Shama and Dama Shama is peacefulness of the mind is we could say control of the mind calmness and Dama is control of the senses so he says these two are the first two qualities of a Brahmana Shama Dama Shanti Raja Gyanam Vigyanam Brahma Karma so in 18.42 he says these are the qualities in the Veda now what is the significance of Shama and Dama control of the mind and control of the senses so control of the mind means say if this is the home of a person. Say two friends are staying in a hostel over here and this is their workplace.
And along the way there is a bar. Now one of them has never drunk and person has learned from childhood drinking is bad, it’s unnecessary, it’s a bad habit, it gets you into trouble. Person has never drunk and has no desire to drink also.
Then what happens? They may see somebody drinking, they may see even their friend drinking, they may see some tempting hoardings but they don’t feel much agitated because that is not an option in their mental mental set of options only. They have not done that, they are not going to do that. So even when they pass by that bar, they won’t drink.
The desire also will not come. The mind will stay peaceful. That is shama.
Dhamma means the other person has drunk a few times and then as soon as they pass by the bar, they get the desire. Maybe I should go and drink. Too much things to do.
No, no, I want to drink. No, but it costs so much money. No, but I want to drink.
So like that the desire comes in. But the mind is not peaceful. But dhamma means even when the mind is not peaceful, at least don’t act at the physical level.
So best is keep the mind peaceful so that one doesn’t get agitated. That’s mind control, shama. But if the mind is not peaceful, at least don’t act at the physical level.
That means dhamma. Control it. So going back to the example of the water flow, shama means we change the flooring itself so that the water naturally flows in the desired direction and doesn’t flow in the undesirable direction.
But dhamma means when the water is flowing in the undesirable direction, we physically push it back. We don’t let it flow. It will naturally flow in that direction, but we don’t let it flow.
We push it back. We push it back. So in the initial stages of our bhakti, when we are trying to change the default setting, often we have to push the water in the opposite direction.
Push the water. The mind goes in a particular direction, you push it back, push it back. So that by the default setting which is there in the mind, our thoughts will go in particular directions.
But push it back, push it back, push it back. It goes off, push it back. Goes off, push it back.
Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, 6.25, 26, 27, he analyses how to control the mind. He says, wherever and whenever the mind wanders, bring it back under the control of the self. This is actually the process of dhamma.
The mind is going in a particular direction and we are feeling, let me do this. But no. If I decided not to do it, I will not do it.
So it’s like repeatedly, the water is going in the wrong direction, push it back. Say as soon as I open the browser and the homepage is open. I don’t want this page to open, close it.
I have not yet come to know where is the default setting and how to change the setting. So what I do, if that page is open, just close it. So now like that, in our situation, our mind may go in certain directions.
But when it goes in those directions, we have to be cautious. We have to be cautious. More about being cautious, I’ll talk again in our future sessions.
And how to increase our conscientiousness, our consciousness, our awareness of things. But at this stage, there is one process is repeatedly making sure when the wrong thing happens at the mental level, don’t let it happen. Change it.
Don’t get angry, why is it happening? Yes, it’s happening, but let it get it back. Don’t let the water flow too much in that direction. Water is flowing, push it in the opposite direction.
Like that, we mechanically keep doing the right thing. Now the difference between a physical device and its settings and the mental functioning is that actually, if we just keep changing, the mind goes in a particular direction, we get it back in that direction and some other direction. Mind goes in a particular direction, we get it back in the right direction.
Just by doing this again and again, itself the mind setting will change. To illustrate this, with respect to say the homepage of a browser opening, we could give an example that the homepage opening is one thing, the browser setting is another thing. And if I find the browser setting and change it, the homepage will not open itself.
But with respect to purification of the mind, things don’t work that easily. Say for example, if we are going on our browser and let’s look at Google autocomplete now over here. Say that if, I’ll conclude with this example and then we can have some question answers.
Let’s say, if I have been visiting a particular website, say India News. So if I have been visiting that repeatedly and as soon as I type I in my browser window, it immediately goes to autocomplete, India News. Now, if I decide I don’t want to visit this site so much, I don’t want to spend so much time on that.
Now what I do is, if instead I go to some other website, say if I decide to go I, I go to Scon News. Now, if I keep choosing, as soon as I comes, India News will come in the autocomplete. But I don’t click that autocomplete, I type I S K C O, Scon News.
And again and again, if I keep visiting Scon News, what happens? Over a period of time, when I type I, Scon News will come. So like that, by repeatedly choosing a particular option, the autocomplete which Google gives, that changes. And similarly, when we repeatedly do a particular activity and that becomes like a pattern in the mind, that becomes a setting of the mind.
So just by repeatedly doing the right activity, it requires, it requires willpower, it requires determination, but you just keep doing it, gradually the setting of the mind changes. This is the mechanical way to change the setting of the mind. There’s another, there’s a devotional way also to change it, which we’ll talk about later.
But this is also one way. Just repeatedly do the right thing, then gradually the option of doing the wrong thing goes back into the background. And the right option becomes the default option.
So if somebody is addicted to eating sweets, and they want to eat sweets with a lot of sugar, a lot of patties and chocolates or whatever, which are not so healthy. But then they decide, I have a sweet tooth, I can’t give up eating sweets. But I’ll eat natural sweets.
Maybe I’ll take dates, I’ll take something which is naturally sweet. Now initially, what will happen, the mind will say, no, I want to eat this, I want to eat this, I want to eat that, I want to eat this toffee, I want to eat this chocolate, I want to eat this candy, whatever. But if the person keeps eating say dates or whatever, natural, they want to decide to eat.
Gradually as they keep doing it, what happens, the taste also changes. The sweet taste, the desire for sweets may not go away. But the desire for which particular sweet I need to eat, that can be changed.
So just by repeatedly doing this, consciously do it for one month, two months, three months. Then after six months, as soon as the desire for eating some sweet comes in, immediately they’ll think of dates. They’ll not think of some other sweets.
So what happened, by repeatedly choosing a particular option, that option has become like the default setting of the mind. And when this happens, then the struggle internally decreases. Krishna talks also, the mind can be your enemy and the mind can also be your friend.
So when the mind’s default setting is something which is harmful for us, then the mind is our enemy. But when the mind’s default setting is something that is helpful for us, then the mind is our friend. And the whole process of bhakti yoga, yoga in general and bhakti yoga in particular, is actually to change our mind from being our enemy to being our friend.
And I’ll discuss about this more in our next session. I’ll summarise here what I talked. We started by talking about this topic, what your phone can teach you about your mind.
And in that first I talked about how the spiritual message, whenever it is shared, the point is not just to get it right. The point is to get it across. So when Srila Prabhupada adds electricity in the translation of 15.6, the purpose is what? The purpose is that Krishna’s point is that the spiritual world does not require any source of light.
So Krishna 5000 years ago, the common sources of light were sun, moon and fire. But today for most people, the most common source of light is electricity. So to convey this point that the spiritual world does not require any artificial source of illumination, Prabhupada adds electricity over there.
So electricity may not be there in Sanskrit, but the point is not just to get it right, the point is to get it across. That the spiritual world does not require any external source of illumination. It is self luminous.
So similarly, the spiritual truths need to be translated into contemporary terms by which they become intelligible to us. Knowledge progresses from the familiar to the unfamiliar. So when something is explained in familiar terms, the unfamiliar also starts, it rings a bell within us.
It triggers our thoughts and our understanding follows. So I talked about how if somebody is speaking in a different language, you won’t understand it. But when people come from different cultures, different backgrounds, different world views, the way they think, that is also like their mental language.
And unless things are presented in terms of their mental language, they may okay, the verbal language makes sense, but things won’t register inside. So we live in the modern times and we need to understand the spiritual concepts in terms of contemporary terms. So I talked about how the word mind and the word and the phone.
The phone is the most ubiquitous device today. So we talk about Krishna’s opulences, the list is not exhaustive, it’s indicative. Whatever is attractive in this world, whatever we are going to think of anyway, Krishna through the Vibhuti Yoga chapter says, understand that thing which attracts you, that thing which you think of, that is a manifestation of my greatness.
So in today’s world with smartphones being so ubiquitous, you could say that among devices, Krishna is the smartphone. You think about it anyway, so that is that attractiveness which impels people’s thoughts towards the phone, that attractiveness comes from within the spark of Krishna’s splendour. And then we discussed about the word mind.
We use it very commonly, but it has many different meanings. So it can refer to attention, intelligence, intellectual person or the non-material side of things. The Bhagavad Gita uses it in a specific sense to refer to the intermediate reality between the soul and the physical body.
So like there is hardware, software and user. So like that there is the body, mind and soul. And the subtle body is structurally more or less similar, functionally it’s different.
So subtle body, just like the software, within software we can have OS, native apps, secondary apps. Now in terms of structure, all of them are just codes of 0 and 1, but functionally they are different. So from the structural point of view, the whole subtle body is 1. From the functional point of view, there are different functions that are performed by mind, intelligence and ego.
That’s why as a shorthand, the whole subtle body is sometimes referred to as the mind. Now we discussed about the mind being the intermediary between the body and the soul, just like the software is the intermediary between the user and the hardware. So just as we think of the, when you think of a phone, we understand the hardware and software are together with it.
So like that when we understand the body, we should know the body and the mind are together, as something outside of me, something distinct from me. Now it is easy for us to, with a little philosophy, to understand that I am different from the body. But the mind to understand that it is different is a little more difficult, because the mind is inside us, from the body’s perspective.
It is outside us from the soul’s perspective, but because it is inside us, we tend to get carried away by its thoughts. And we think of those thoughts as our thoughts. So to dis-identify, dis-identify means not identify with the mind, to dis-identify with the mind, what we need is some distance.
So just as the software may have certain settings in a computer, which may not be desirable. So Sat Chit Ananda changing to Saturday Chit Ananda. It’s undesirable.
It’s a default setting. Like that we all have default settings for our mind, which say, if we are going to eat some food, the default setting, oh what food means? Fatty food. So that is the default setting.
So that’s why if you’re not thinking consciously, consciously, subconsciously, our hand will go towards the fatty food. So to change that, it’s not just willpower or intention alone. That if the floor is inclined in a particular way, water will flow in that direction.
No matter how strong my intention, it should not flow. Similarly, if we have certain default settings, our thoughts will go in those directions. So we need to just as I want the water to flow in a different direction, either I have to change the flooring or I have to keep pushing the water in the other direction.
Just the intention alone is not enough. So like that our resolution, I won’t do this alone is not enough. We need to follow it up with something more.
And in that connection I discussed about our settings. We all have certain settings. And once we recognise those settings, it’s not necessary that we resent the settings nor is it necessary that we accept the settings.
We evaluate the settings. If we resent it, then we are just disempowering ourselves because we are what we are. And if we just accept it, then we are not using our free will effectively.
We can change things. So neither resenting nor accepting, but evaluating and then choosing. So initially we discussed, especially for changing the settings, what we call the brute force method, the repetition method.
That Shama and Dama, that if the mind is peaceful, if there is no inclination, like a person has never drunk alcohol, they will have no inclination when they pass by an alcohol bar also. That’s Shama, the mind is peaceful. But if the mind is getting agitated, then Dama, bring it under control.
So if the floor is inclined in a particular direction, to get the water to go in the other direction, repeatedly you have to keep pushing, keep pushing in that direction. Like that, the mind may go off in a particular direction. So to get it to go in another direction, we have to repeatedly bring it back, repeatedly bring it back.
Like say, if my computer browser, I repeatedly open India News and I don’t want to visit that site. So to change that auto-complete from India News to ISKCON News, I’ll have to go to ISKCON News again and again and again. Like that, if we keep choosing a wiser thing again and again, over a period of time, a wiser thing will become our default choice.
Just like say, if I’m eating chocolates, I know that’s unhealthy, I have a sweet tooth. I don’t have to give up necessarily sweets. I eat natural sweets like dates.
If I keep eating it again and again and again and again, over a period of time, that will become the default setting. So one way of changing the default setting is by deliberately making the right choice again and again and again. Further ways of changing the default setting and further exploration of this metaphor of the mind, of the phone for understanding the mind, we’ll discuss in our evening sessions.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. So any questions or comments? If you want to write down and sentence it, that’s also fine.
Or if you would like to discuss in the evening, that’s also fine. Yes, I got the question. So to change the default settings, we need to be aware of it.
How do we become aware of things? Yeah, it’s actually a part of a later seminar, but I just mentioned two, three points quickly here. The first point is, awareness of our lack of awareness is also a step towards awareness. So sometimes we may chant.
You say, my mind wanders everywhere. Well, at least, you know, complaining that the mind is wandering everywhere is better than wandering everywhere with the mind. When I say the mind is wandering everywhere, that means I don’t want it to wander, but it’s wandering everywhere.
So if we have particular… so chanting is an activity where we are actually forced to be aware of our minds. And when it is going off in other direction and we find that it is, actually chanting, we may not realise through chanting that Krishna is non-different from the Holy Name. But through chanting, very easily we can realise I am different from my mind.
I want to focus, but what is this force which is going here, going there, going there. There is something inside me which is not me. That we can very easily understand by chanting.
So in that sense, even if our chanting is not attentive, still it gives us some level of realisation. It takes us a step towards realisation that, okay, actually I’m not aware. I want to be aware, but I’m not aware right now.
So the first step is just becoming that. Okay, I’m not conscious. I’m not aware that my things are going off in a particular direction.
So any activity which requires us to focus, in a general way, or any activity that requires us to focus, that actually helps us to become aware of things, become more aware of our mind and mind’s default settings. So sometimes we chant and somehow struggle through our 16 rounds and then, finished. It appears like a workout.
If you could wait after that and think for a few minutes, okay, my mind, every day my mind wandered. Okay, we can just look back for two, three minutes after that and think, where all did my mind wander? And then we can try to find out patterns. Now every day the mind may find some new directions to wander, but there are some things which are common.
And some things are common. It may worry about finances, it may worry about relationship, it may worry about this, it may worry about that. And then if we can think through those things, you know, consciously focus on those distractions and process them.
Okay, now this is, okay, my finances, I have this concern, but this is the solution for it and I can work out on the solutions. Now calmly write things down. Okay, this can be dealt in this way.
I’m doing these things to deal with it and in future I’m going to do this. So when the mind starts wandering, or maybe if we know there are two, three distractions which regularly distract us from chanting, then just before we start chanting, just read whatever we have resolved. Okay, this distraction is troubling me, okay, but this is what I have done to deal with this.
This is what I’m going to do to deal with this. So we address the specific distraction using our intelligence. And then it’s not that the mind will stop wandering, but at least the mind will not get so much energy.
Because what happens, the mind feels, oh, this is a big problem, you’re doing nothing about it, do something. What is this chanting? Stop it, do something else. But, yes, this is a problem.
I have done this, this, this, this. Now sit down. Now focus on chanting.
So the mind, it may not immediately listen, but it does not get so much energy to agitate us. If we know I have done this, this, this to solve the problems. Sometimes that means observing.
We often focus on concentrating on the holy name and trying to get the mind back forceful to the holy name. That is good. It is essential.
That’s what we want to do. But also observing where the mind is going and then trying to deal with that in a practical as well as intellectual way that can help us to decrease the force of distraction. So just as it applies to chanting, it can apply to other things also.
Wherever we are unaware, if we start recognising, how is it that I’m becoming unaware? Or what is exactly happening? Where are my thoughts going? Then we can address it specifically. Does it address your question? Any other questions? Yes. I was just saying about the 1925, there was a speech that was done and there was a conversation about Sadhu.
Those days, the Italian language was so highly written. Directly it speaks about Sadhu. So we can remember.
But in the Kaliwa, there is one thing. So we can’t even remember. I have a question.
Even in this age, right now, we have to connect the things which we can understand that you are giving telephone to connect to Krishna. Then we can understand what is happening. So the Indian language.
So when this scripture is described as a Bhagavatam, even though Bhagavatam is not like a simple book, but Bhagavatam itself is about Krishna. When we check the Bhagavatam, we associate it with the Lord. But in these days, when we use our cell phone, we can feel that this is like hardware, even the Bhagavatam.
We are putting the Bhagavatam in the hardware and hardware is himself Krishna. So the question is that the Bhagavatam is non-different from Krishna. So when we touch the book Bhagavatam, we are connected with Krishna.
But say when we have the Bhagavatam verses in our smartphone. So when we are touching the smartphone, are we actually touching Krishna? Or how do we see this? Ultimately, that the purpose of all rules and regulations is to always remember Krishna and to never forget Krishna. So whatever is favourable for our remembrance of Krishna, we accept that.
And whatever is unfavourable, we avoid that. So now some devotees may feel that okay, when I sit with the physical book Bhagavatam, I’m really feeling like I’m studying Shastra. And then that’s what stimulates their remembrance of Krishna.
Some other devotees may feel that actually, if I have a book, I may not always be carrying the book with me. If I’m reading it my phone or my computer, and I can mark it, I have a page marker, I can immediately go to that page. I can have all my markings with me.
I can have my whole book with me. So they may feel this is an easier way for me to remember Krishna. So in certain settings, the traditional forms we do preserve.
It’s not that in the temple altar instead of the deities, we are going to put a phone with the image of the deities. We are going to have the deities over there. So in certain places, the traditional forms will be there.
But at the same time, we have to also remember the purpose. And the structure, the form should serve the purpose. The form should not obstruct the purpose.
So if somebody doesn’t have a physical book, then if the phone they are reading, that’s wonderful. The important thing is to remember Krishna. So if you see, as technology is progressing, things are changing drastically.
Before say Gutenberg, when he made the printing press, actually books themselves were a scarcity. So Bhagavatam itself, throughout the history of the Bhakti tradition, the book Bhagavatam was not very common. The book Bhagavatam was rare.
It was there probably with some Brahmanas. We know that story of Srinivas Acharya. When he wanted a Bhagavatam, he actually went across from Puri to Bengal and then he came back.
He wanted to study under Gadadhar Pandit. But Gadadhar Pandit, Bhagavatam had got completely worn out because of his tears. So actually to get a copy, I had to go from one country, one state to another state and come back.
So in the past also, the primary transmission of spiritual knowledge was through the oral tradition. That people would come and hear. In practically every village, every town, they had their sadhus.
They had their learned Vidwad Sabha, learned people. And then there were travelling monks who would go from place to place. And they would share.
So in the past also, it’s not that most people were physically reading books. It was that they were hearing. So the primary mode of transmission of knowledge was through hearing.
Then as books started getting printed, so books became more and more available. So in a sense, the printing of books made access to physical books more widespread. So naturally when something becomes more widespread, there’s a tendency to devalue it a little bit.
So something is very rare. So Bhagavatam was only with brahmanas. And in the village, there may be two or three brahmanas who have Bhagavatam.
Then actually the Bhagavatam would be very much respected. Now everybody has a Bhagavatam. The respect for it may go down a little bit.
So now similarly, if every phone has a Bhagavatam, then the respect for it may go down. But the point is, that is simply a cultural form. If you remember the spiritual purpose.
So spiritual purpose. Now if somebody has got, say, 18 volumes of the Bhagavatam, then if the Bhagavatam was only in one place in a village, people might even offer aarti to it, offer flowers to it. But if that Bhagavatam is in every house, it’s not practical to worship it in every house.
Maybe on special days, we may offer some, do something for it. So the cultural form in which Shastra manifests, that has historically also changed. In the past, Shastra would be handwritten.
The Prabhupada did not insist that we have to have Shastra handwritten. Use printed books. It’s perfectly fine.
So today if you’re using phones, the cultural form certainly has certain reverence associated with it. But there is cultural reverence and there is spiritual reverence. Spiritual reverence comes from realisation.
So if we have philosophical understanding that, okay, Krishna is manifesting through the Bhagavatam, Krishna is manifesting through the Bhagavad Gita and that wisdom is available here, then the spiritual purpose of remembering Krishna can be served even through the phone. So the cultural form is important, but the cultural form is meant to assist the spiritual purpose. And if sometimes the cultural form is not particularly easily available, then whatever way the spiritual purpose can be served, we should serve it that way.
So we may not exactly get the feeling on opening the Pocket Vedas app or whatever on the phone that, okay, I’m touching the Bhagavatam. But we can be intellectually touching Krishna. We can be devotionally touching Krishna by hearing, by using our intelligence to understand the Bhagavatam and by using our heart to devotionally connect with Krishna’s message in the Bhagavatam.
So Krishna always remains accessible. The specific forms in which we access Krishna may vary according to time, place, circumstance. But Krishna will always be accessible and the way to access it is through the devotional intent of our heart.
Does it answer your question? Okay, so Prabhupada said print my books and distribute. Now we can’t actually say distribute laptops or phones containing Prabhupada’s books. We have to distribute physical books.
So what do we do? Actually, I think our generation’s problems are enough for us to deal with. Future generations, Krishna will send intelligent, devoted souls in each generation of his mission to carry on his mission. So we can focus on our generation.
And yeah, we can, of course, have leaders who are doing some succession planning. But we just can’t foresee the future too far into the future. We will force it a little bit.
So two points I would say about this. First is that, in general, the digital distribution and the physical distribution, they are not competitive. They are actually complementary.
That means that there are some people who read only digital books and they don’t read physical books. So if we keep our message restricted only to physical books, we will not reach them. And there are people who read physical as well as digital.
So if our message is available in the digital books, digital format also, then those people may connect with that. And so many people prefer to read short things on computers or on phones. And when they want to read something, they just browse through books, look at their excerpts, look at some sections.
This is interesting. Then they get a physical copy and they read it. So the digital presentation of our message can actually expand the physical presentation also.
So especially the younger generation, it’s mostly on the digital devices. So it’s not that they don’t read books, but first they explore on the digital. There is a Pew Research Foundation, which is especially known for doing surveys about religious organisations, into religion.
And they found that in the last 20 years, or the last one or two decades basically, in the age group of 15 to 40, the people who converted to Christianity, almost 40% of them were introduced online to Christianity. That’s 40%. So it’s a substantial number.
So if we are not presenting our message, others are going to present their message anyway. And people will go over there. So we have to present in the traditional format for people who are ready to take in the traditional format.
We have to present in the contemporary format for those who are ready to take in the contemporary format. We have to be present wherever people are present, so that Krishna’s message is available to them. And how to do it in future generations, we really don’t know at this stage how the world will change.
Maybe 5-10 years ago, people had thought that the physical books are going to go out of print, because digital books are going so much. But at least last year’s survey indicates that again physical books are going up. So people still want to feel books in their hands.
Digital books have been going up also, but physical books have had a resurgence. So we can’t, the world is changing so fast. In the past, changes that would take 50 years or 500 years, now they’re happening in 5 years.
So we can’t really predict much in the future. But we have to be resourceful. Make Krishna available in whatever forum people are searching for.
Does this answer your question? Thank you. Any other questions? Yes. So till what time we should go on? Please let me know.
Okay, fine. Yeah, we’ll come to you. Yes, bro.
So to your analogy of the body being the hardware, and the mind the software, and the soul being the user. So the software, the hardware is changing up for every life. But the software is not changing.
It’s the same software that carries you from one life to another. So keeping that in mind, and you said, you know, how default settings get changed because of our actions, like I constantly go to Indian news, you know, when I open the browser, I find, you know, Indian news comes. So what I’m going to say is, this YouTube stuff that we’ve done, not only in this lifetime, but also in previous lifetimes.
So this whole process of changing the default settings is really a tough process. So going back to the analogy, the mind the user, can you think of Krishna as an admin, or a super user? Can we think that the user is having so many problems between software and hardware? Can the admin come and just do an instal or wipe out the whole thing? So changing the settings is a very complicated process. So can we say that Krishna is like the super admin who can just change all settings in one go? Yes, Krishna can definitely do that.
At the same time, Krishna wants to see whether we want the change. So we can see in our own lives that some changes have already happened. Some of us might have been eating meat before.
But now, if we are travelling in a plane or somewhere and see somebody else is eating meat. Practically, many devotees fall back from Krishna consciousness, but very few, if any, go back to meat eating. Prasadam is a higher taste.
So what happens is, certain desires which we may have had earlier, just wipe it off. So we can look at our own past before we were introduced to bhakti five years, ten years, twenty years ago, and we can see some interests have just gone off now. Something which we were craving for, now those cravings are not there at all.
So the process of bhakti purifying potency is so great by Krishna’s mercy that some settings get wiped off. But some settings take longer. There are two reasons for some settings taking longer to change.
One is that they themselves may be very deep-rooted from previous lifetimes. And second is that we may also indulge in them intermittently. So it’s like, if ten times I go to ISKCON news, but after that two, three times I go to India news, then again I comes, it’s still going to be like… So some things which we just made, when we started practising bhakti, we just made a clean break.
We made a clean break, then those tendencies don’t surface again. But some tendencies we just keep… they keep surfacing, we keep indulging in them. So because of that, they still stay there in the foreground or the background of our consciousness.
So Krishna, He ultimately doesn’t want to impose His will on our way. And that’s why He won’t make changes unless we show Him that we want changes. And if we show Him consistently, then whichever conditions are troubling us, He will help us to overcome them.
And gradually, they will also disappear. Since Krishna is the super admin, but He is also a person who respects our free will. It’s like, He wants us to by our conscious actions show what we want to choose.
And if you choose repeatedly, then Krishna can do much more than what we, what the mere power of our choice can do. The inner change requires much more than that. And that much more that is required, that will be done by Krishna.
Thank you. So, the admin rebooted and changed the whole configuration of His way of thinking. So He said, you know, instead of, I was looking for a practise of His way, I’m doing that now.
So that is an example. I’m sure some of you will speak about this tomorrow. He’s trying to do it in a mechanical way.
Now He’s trying to do it in a spiritual way. But actually, it’s very hard because He has a very strong will to do so. For example, every week we inspire a community to encourage people to come out and chant His name.
So how many people actually do that? Every day we have a class. How many people actually come out? So, the fact that we exist in these things means that it takes a very long time for us to purify the pre-existing false perceptions of the mind that have been ingrained after many, many births and deaths. It can only be overcome by regular hearing and chanting.
In groups, in a group, let’s say, environment leads to consensus understanding of the doctrine. Without consensus understanding of the doctrine, you cannot have a concerted effort to preach. And therefore, preaching will be ineffective.
When you have, when we go out in a large group, like we’re going to go out today in a car, we go out in a very large group and the approach that actually happens in the environment is following the regular principles. There’s chanting against it, it’s a status, and the preacher is a status, and that becomes defective. One difference between seeing a digital representation of Sanctus Sanctus, and actually seeing live Sanctus Sanctus, is world class.
If you want to spread the fluid, if you do it by going to Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus Thank you very much. There’s one question, and last question. So how do we start the conversation about accepting our information and acting on our desires to change our information? So to accept the information that we are going to be accomplishing, at the same time to suppress over changing the information, then we are trying to get more and more attention.
So how do we balance between accepting our inclinations and simply acting on them which would lead to this further conditioning? As I gave the example that if I have taken a wrong turn while I was going on a journey, I have gone somewhere where I didn’t intend to go. I have to accept that I am at the wrong place, then I steer around and go to the right place. So like that, if you understand that okay, based on my conditionings, I tend to make some wrong choices.
So as soon as I recognise that I made a wrong choice, at that time I veer across and come back to the right track. So to some extent by our conditionings, the wrong choice may be like a default for us. And we may do it to some extent without thinking.
But as soon as we realise, at that time we can correct. See Bhaktivinoda Thakur in a different context gives the example that while running a race, we have gone off course. It is not that we have to go back to the starting point and start the race again.
From wherever we are, we can come back on course. So like that, to some extent our default conditionings will send us off course. And sometimes even before we realise it, we go off course.
So what happens sometimes, we do something which we had resolved not to do. We fall down. And then after we have fallen down, the mind says, now we have fallen down, now fall down fully.
Just binge more and more. Well no, we don’t have to do that. I fell down, that’s okay, that happened because of my conditioning.
Now I can get up. Quite often it is our reaction to a mistake that aggravates the mistake much more. I made a mistake but then I just react to it in a negative way and then I aggravate it, perpetuate it.
So if a snake has bitten me, then I get angry. How dare this snake bite me? I am going to go and beat it to death now. And the snake is slithering away and I go and chase the snake.
Pound on it, pound on it. I may kill the snake. But in the process, what happens? I am killing myself.
As I am running after it, as I am pounding my leg, the poison is circulating in my bloodstream. It will reach my heart, my brain faster and I will die. So sometimes by our conditioning, the snake may come and bite us.
Some desires may just come up and we may do something. But as soon as we realise it, stop it. So accepting means just recognising that there is a high probability of this happening.
We don’t live in a fantasy land where we think that I have decided now and from tomorrow onwards this is never going to happen. It doesn’t work like that. So quite often we are not able to perceive our resolutions not because we don’t have enough determination, rather it is because we have unrealistic expectations.
Here is my resolution. Here is the reality I want. I think I just made the resolution, immediately the reality is going to happen.
We have determination to perceive here if we recognise that when I start moving forward, sometimes I will slip, sometimes I will fall, again I will rise, again I will slip, again I will rise. Just keep doing this, gradually I will learn and I will move on. But when we expect that as soon as I have decided, from tomorrow onwards I expect to be perfect.
When our expectation is unrealistic, then when there is even a small reversal, small failure, we get so discouraged and we just give up after that. So accepting our default setting doesn’t mean surrendering to it. It doesn’t mean that not attempting to change ourselves.
It just means acknowledging the reality that I may make wrong choices. But if we just rationalise the wrong choices and perpetuate them, aggravate them, then we will never become free. But recognising that the probability this will happen and then as soon as it happens, I correct myself.
So in a sense, in terms of inner improvement, the right and wrong choices are not so much like digital, they are analogue. In specific incident there may be a right choice and a wrong choice. But overall in terms of our self-improvement, of our purification, of our overcoming our conditionings, our going towards Krishna, it’s more of an analogue progress.
That yesterday, in the past I was here, where I just succumbed to the conditionings. If I expect the clock will just go from here to there immediately, I transit to the conditioning next day, it’s not going to happen. But every day we struggle, every day we fall a little bit, rise again, struggle, rise again.
By that the clock is moving like this, like this, like this. So our capacity to resist the conditionings is increasing more and more. Every day that we are chanting, every day we are associating with devotees, every day we are hearing Shastra, every day we are doing Seva, actually that conditioning is changing.
Although that change may not reflect immediately in our having overcome a particular conditioned choice that we are making. But that change is happening. And as that change happens, gradually we will find that the wiser choices will become easier and the unwise choices will become more and more, will also become easier to resist.
So it will happen gradually. We don’t accept the conditioning in the sense that we think this is the way I am and this is the way I am going to be. But we accept the condition in the sense that this is the way I am right now and this is likely to happen.
So when it happens, let me be alert so that I can course correct as quickly as possible. Does it answer your question? So thank you very much. Shri Prabhupada ki, Gaur Bhakta Vrindaki, Tai Gaur Premanandai.