The Gita’s five subjects analyzed as a guide to action

[Talk at Bhaktivedanta Hospital, Mumbai]

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank all of you for coming here today evening. I will speak on the messages in Bhagavad Gita in essence.
Most of you have been coming to the classes of the Bhagavad Gita for a long time. So, I will take this talk in three parts. What according to Bhagavad Gita are the components of existence? How do these components interact with each other? And how we can interact in a way that we can actualize our potentials, we can achieve life’s ultimate purpose.
So, if we look around the world, we see a mind-boggling variety of things existing and especially with today’s age of mass production, marketing, specialization. You go to purchase a toothpaste, sometimes there are 300 versions of theoretical toothpastes. So, the sheer variety of things in the world can be bewildering.
So, what is it that actually exists? If we consider that, so, then we will find that there is everything that exists around us, it is made of matter. So, matter or what the Bhagavad Gita calls as material nature, that is one component of existence. The Bhagavad Gita’s analysis is sometimes talked based on the Upanishads in terms of three components which are called, which are alliterative.
Alliterative means the first word of all the, first sound of all three is the same. So, there is Jagat, Jeev and Jagadish. So, Jagat is the world around us, it is made of matter.
So, matter is one component of existence. Then there is matter is insentient, it is not having consciousness. So, for example, if I say stub my toe against this table, I might feel hurt and I may feel some pain.
Now the same impact has hit the table also, but the table does not feel any pain. The table does not have consciousness. So, Jagat, matter is insentient, whereas we all have sentience, we have consciousness.
So, that another component that exists, which has consciousness, that is Jeeva, that is living beings. Now, we humans have developed consciousness, but the more the etiologists, ethologists, ethologists are people who study animal behavior in their natural habitat, the more they study animal behavior, the more they find that animals also have feelings, they also have emotions, they also have their moods. So, they also have consciousness.
So, living beings in general have consciousness. This is the second component of existence. There is Jagat, which is the primary component you see around us, which is insentient.
Then there is Jeeva, which is conscious. Now, within Jagat, there can be a lot of variety, there can be hundreds of thousands of things. Jeeva also has innumerable living entities.
But when we go down to essentials, there is Jagat and there is Jeeva. Now, is there anything more beyond this? So, if we look at the approach of modern science towards nature, towards the study of reality. Now, as 2-3 months ago, I was invited to do a talk in Cambridge University.
And there, the Cambridge students, a talk was just near the place where Newton is said to have seen the fruit falling. That tree is considered to be like a pilgrimage place for scientists and scientifically minded people. So, now, Newton saw the fruit fall and just he raised the question, what made this fruit fall? And based on that, he came up with the theory of gravity.
And the development of theory of gravity was the first push, which eventually led to the engine of modern science and technology that has transformed the world dramatically today. Now, it was Newton’s brilliance that just by observing the simple fruit falling, he came up with the theory of gravity. At the same time, he is asking the question, what made this fruit fall? That asking the question itself involves an assumption.
The assumption is things do not just happen by chance. There is a causal connection between things, between the way things happen, underlying the way things happen. There is a cause effect connection.
And science tries to find the patterns of cause effect connections. And when they find those patterns, they postulate theories. When they are able to, scientists are able to express those theories in mathematical equations, then they become laws.
So, we have Newton’s law of gravity, Newton’s law of motion. Now, why at all should nature have any causal order to it? Why couldn’t things happen by chance? Now, okay, the fruit fell and just fell. What made the fruit fall? Nothing made the fruit fall.
Now, we see there is an order in nature. Sometimes some people think of science and spirituality as contradictory. They say science advances, there is no need for spiritual side, there is no need for God, there is no need for all such things.
Now, whatever people could not explain in the past, they attributed it to God. And now, now that we have got science, we can explain things. And therefore, there is no need for God.
This vision of science and spirituality as in conflict, that a science explains more, and there is no need for spirituality, there is no need for this ultimate spiritual reality God. This is based on a blinker. I think there is an echo.
Can you decrease the audio? Am I audible now? Still the echo is there, isn’t it? Okay, is it better now? Still the echo is there, yeah. Okay, now, oh no, still a lot of echo actually. Is there anything I am doing wrong here? Because I have spoken here earlier, we never had the echo like this.
So, is it better now? Because of? Yeah. Okay, I think it is slightly better now. So, I was talking about how science offers explanations.
And that is definitely brilliant. So, many of the explanations that science comes up with. So, science offers explanations of the behavior of nature, how nature behaves.
So, nature’s behavior can be explained through science. But the explainability of nature requires an explanation. What do I mean by this? The explainability of nature requires an explanation.
That means, why should nature follow any laws? Why should f is equal to gm1 m2 upon r square, why should that be true at all? There is no reason within the materialistic or atheistic framework. Why nature should be following laws? Nature follows law that is explained. But why nature follows laws? There is no explanation.
That is an assumption of scientific method. When Newton asked what made this fruit fall? That question contains the assumption that fruit do not fall by chance. There is some cause which makes them fall.
And what is that cause? So, that India’s great mathematical genius, Srinivas Ramanujan, he said that an equation for me has no meaning unless it represents a thought of God. Why does nature have an order that science can uncover? That is because, so we use our intelligence to uncover the order of nature. But where did that intelligent order in nature come from? That is a reflection of a sublime intelligence, of a supreme intelligence.
So, God and science are not explanatory competitors. Because science cannot explain, so we need God. No, God is the explanatory foundation for science.
So, the more science explains, the more we understand that science is discovering the glory of God’s intelligence as reflected in nature. So, Newton said when he made the significant scientific discovery, he would say, Oh, father, I think thy thoughts after thee. So, the point I am driving towards is, through all this is that there is a third component in existence.
And that is the source of matter and spirit, the source of Jagdish and Jeeva, that is, the source of Jagat and Jeeva, that is Jagdish. So, the Bhagavad Gita talks about these three components of material existence. So, Jagat is called as the Aparaprakriti, Bhumira ponalovayu khammano buddharevac ahamkaraitiyam me bhinnapatrasthadham.
Material nature, Krishna says, is one energy of mine. And then Jeeva is another energy, apareyamidastvanyam prakritim vidhineparam jeevabhutam mahabahu etadhavarete jagatam. 7.4 and 7.5 in the Bhagavad Gita.
And then he says, all this, it is sourced from me, it comes from, etadhyoni nibhutani sarvaanitya upadharaya ahamkarsanasya jagatam prabhavapralastha. 7.6. Whatever exists, it is a combination of matter and spirit. And all of it comes from me, all of it is sustained by me.
All of it will ultimately enter into me. So, Jagat, Jeeva and Jagdish, these are three primary components of existence. And science, as it exists in its mainstream version today, focuses primarily on the study of Jagat.
It does not study consciousness much. And it does not study the Supreme Consciousness. Now, this is not necessarily a problem.
Science adopts a particular method for studying. And that method is that it looks for material explanations for material phenomena. At the same time, the problem comes only if this is considered to be the total reality.
So, for example, and this is the hospital. Now, people come here because they are in pain to get relief from pain. The whole of medical science is devoted to helping people become free from pain.
At the same time, there is no machine within science to measure pain. We cannot quantify pain, we cannot have a painometer, which tells how much pain you are having. Why? Because pain is not a physical entity.
It is a conscious experience. So, scientists can experience, scientists, researchers, doctors, they can understand. If you have a fracture, this much the bone is aligned, must be terrible pain.
There is a small hairline fracture, there is some pain over there also, there is much more pain. So, there can be some estimate, but that estimate can never be quantified in terms of mathematics. Can we say that just because pain cannot be quantified in terms of mathematics, pain does not exist? No, pain is a reality.
In physics, this is called the hard problem of consciousness. The hard problem of consciousness means that nowadays we are having artificial intelligence, which can do many of the things which humans can do. So, for example, we can have a chess playing computer, which can play chess as good as the world champion.
And there are some scientists who propose that actually we human beings are nothing but good computers. And in future, the computers will become better than us. So, the intelligent robots will become better than us.
So, now the question comes up that actually the machines, they do not experience anything. If a computer, say there was a computer Deep Blue, which for the first time defeated the world champion in chess at that time, that is Garry Kasparov. Now after that, all newspapers all over the world, they showed Kasparov holding his head, feeling disgraced and devastated that I was defeated by a computer.
And the makers of Deep Blue were delighted. But what about Deep Blue itself? There are no emotions. So, the hard problem of consciousness is that if a computer can do all the processing of information that we human beings can do, why is it that we need to have any experience at all? If we were simply information processors, then the computer can do information processing better than us.
But the computer does not feel anything. We feel emotion. So, where do these come from? They come from a conscious aspect of ours, which is different from matter.
And that is what the Bhagavad Gita calls Atma. So, science studies the interaction of matter with other matters. So, for example, if you put this chemical in the body, this will cause the damage in this way.
If you put this chemical in the body, that damage can be countered in this way. So, this is interaction of chemicals. So, out of the three components of existence, Jagat, Jeev and Jagdish, science studies primarily the interactions within Jagat.
How different elements of matter interact with each other. The Bhagavad Gita also talks about these three elements. Its focus is along with these three, how they interact with each other.
So, Baldev Vidyamukha is a prominent commentator on the Bhagavad Gita. And he says the Bhagavad Gita subjects can be analyzed into five primaries. So, there is Jagat, Jeev and Jagdish.
And the interaction of these is in two terms. There is Kaala and there is Karma. So, Kaala is time.
And time causes transformation. And the transformation that is caused by time is involuntary. A small child grows into a young man, a young man grows into a middle-aged man, a middle-aged person grows into an elderly person.
All this happens by the force of time. And we do not even notice it happening on a daily level, but it is happening. So, Kaala causes transformation.
That is one agent of transformation in this world. And that is not in our control. And the other agent of transformation in this world is not in our control.
And the whole thrust of Bhagavad Gita is on channeling this agent of transformation in the most productive way. And that agent of transformation is Karma. Karma essentially means action.
So, the kind of actions that we do, they bring certain reactions. And what kind of action should we do by which we can get the best reaction? What is the action that will give us the best result? That is what the Bhagavad Gita discusses. So, as you know, the Bhagavad Gita is spoken at the start of the climactic war in the epic, the Mahabharata.
And in that epic, when Arjuna sees his relatives arrayed on the opposite side of the war, he gets emotionally overwhelmed and starts thinking, how can I fight against them? Gurunatvahimahanubhavah Skatham Mahishmamahamsaankhedronamjamadhusudhanah Ishubhiprasiyotsami Pujarahamsudhanah So, Krishna, Arjuna asks, here is my martial teacher, here is my grandsire, how can I, I am meant to offer them respects, how can I send arrows towards them? How can I fight against them? When he gets bewildered like this, what is the question he asks? He doesn’t simply ask the question, should I fight or should I not fight? His question is very precise, and that question is what makes the Bhagavad Gita universal. So, in 2.7, he asks, Karpanyadoshopahatasvabhavapruchyamitamdharmasammurachetah Ishreyasyannishchitamroodhitanme shishyastehamsadhimantamtrapannam So, he says, Krishna, surrender to me. I become your disciple.
Please instruct me. I am asking you. I am asking you what? Dharma.
What is Dharma? So, Arjuna’s question is not whether I should fight or should I not fight. His question is, what is Dharma? So, what is Dharma? What is duty? What is my duty in this situation? Should I be fighting against my relatives or should I be abstaining from arms? And that question is what the Bhagavad Gita answers. So, Dharma is not just religion.
Today, the word Dharma is used interchangeably with religion. Dharma is not just religion. Dharma is not just duty.
The word Dharma has a much deeper meaning. Dharma refers to the order that exists in nature and the actions that harmonize us with that order. So, there is an order in things.
And if we understand that order and if we harmonize with the order of things, then we live in harmony, we find happiness. So, Dharma is that set of actions that enables us to harmonize with the order of nature. So, for example, if we come to a hospital and while we are admitted in the hospital, if I start demanding a seven course feast, I am not going to get it.
I start blaming, why is this hospital not providing the seven course feast? And the hospital has a purpose. And the purpose is to get treated. So, the hospital has an order to it.
If I find I order seven course feast and it doesn’t come and I get frustrated as the hospital is good for nothing. I have not understood the order of the hospital and I am not harmonized with the order of the hospital. So, the hospital as order means order is connected with purpose always.
If I start using my small cell phone and I decide I will type my next book on the cell phone and I am struggling to type words over there and I say all this is useless. I can’t type a book on this. Who told you to type a book on the cell phone? Sir, I would say the cell phone maker is a stupid person.
No order, no proper, not improper. Order always has to be connected with purpose. So, there is an order to things in this world.
And when we understand the natural order of things, then we harmonize with it. So, if I come to a hospital, I understand, I have come here for treatment. Okay, I might be on a diet.
If I want to eat a seven course feast, I can go later once I am healed, I can go to a hotel and eat it. It’s a different place for that. So, when we understand the order of the place that we are in and we harmonize with it, then there is positive result.
The same way what the Bhagavad Gita tells us is there is an order to things in this world and we are meant to cooperate with that order. At the end of the Bhagavad Gita, when Krishna is finished, then Arjuna gives his understanding. Krishna asks Arjuna at the end in 18.72, he says, कच्चिदेत शुतं पार्थ त्वये काग्रेन चेत सा, कच्चिद घ्यान सम्मोह प्रणश्टस्ते धनन्जय, O Arjuna, have you heard attentively? कच्चिदेत शुतं पार्थ, have you heard O Arjuna? त्वये काग्रेन चेत सा, have you heard attentively? And कच्चिद घ्यान सम्मोह has your ignorance and your illusion.
प्रणश्टस्ते धनन्जय has it been destroyed? And then in response Arjuna says yes. अर्जृनवाच्य नश्टो मोहस्मते लव्धा तत्प्रसादान्नयाचित सितोस्मिवत संदेह करिशेव चनंतव He says, my memory has come back to me now and what am I going to do, he says, I will do your will, I will do your will, in that particular context for him doing the will meant fighting the war, but fighting the war is not the message of the Gita, the essential message of the Gita is harmonizing with the will of God, that is again going back to the point of harmonizing with the natural order of things. So the Bhagavad Gita’s essential message is to help us understand the natural order of things so that we can harmonize with it and when we harmonize with the natural order of things, we experience peace, we experience serenity, we experience fulfillment, we experience joy.
So now, karma, all of us are doing some karma, all the time, we have a job, even if say somebody has enough money so they don’t have to do any job, they are doing something, they are watching TV, they are playing video games, they are surfing on the internet, they are fooling around in a car, they are doing something or the other, all of us are doing activity all the time. Even when we are sleeping, most of the time we are dreaming and our mind is doing some activity. So you are all doing activity, but what kind of activity will lead to optimal results? That is what the Bhagavad Gita guides us to.
Newton saw the fruit falling, maybe instead of Newton, a monkey had been sitting over there, the monkey would have just eaten the fruit and gone away. Many human beings would have also done the same thing. Newton saw the fruit falling, he asked, what made this fruit fall? So we human beings have the capacity to deliberate and then decide what to do.
Animals are largely governed by instincts, I feel like eating, let me eat, I feel like mating, let me mate, I feel like sleeping, let me sleep. We also have instincts, but we also have higher intelligence, which enables us to regulate our instincts and think about deeper things in life. So I talked about the Bhagavad Gita’s fifth subject of karma, which is action which we can choose.
And while elaborating about karma, I talked about dharma. So what is the relationship between karma and dharma? So dharma is basically, as I said, the activity that helps us to harmonize with the natural order of things. And our karma should be guided by dharma.
When our karma is guided by dharma, then the result of this is sukha. We experience happiness, we experience, in fact, supreme happiness. So the Bhagavad Gita is addressing these five subjects, it gives an analysis of jiva, jagat and jagdish.
And then it talks about kala, whether we like it or not, the world change is going to happen. If I just keep, say, milk in a pot, just keep it there, change is going to happen. But what is the change? The milk will get spoiled.
So kala by itself causes deterioration of things. In science, this is referred to as entropy. Things, if they are left to themselves, they become more and more disorderly.
This is one of the laws of thermodynamics. So kala causes change, parivartan, but that parivartan is actually destructive. It is degenerative.
But karma, our actions that we do, they also cause change. Now what kind of change they will cause, that will depend on what kind of karma. Just before the Kurukshetra war took place, at that time there was a lot of effort made by various parties to avoid the war.
The most well-known of these endeavours is Krishna himself going as Shantidutta, as going as a messenger of peace and offering the Kauravas a peace treaty on the most accommodating of terms. Pandavas had entitlement actually to the whole kingdom because they were the heirs. But okay, half the kingdom they had, there is a division, they both had half the kingdom.
But Krishna said don’t even give half the kingdom, just give five villages. And Arjuna, Duryodhana rejected even that. There are different ways of saying no.
If we ask someone to do something and they say no, actually I have to do this, so I can’t do this, I am sorry. There is a no which has, which reflects a desire to say yes, but an inability to do it. But there is a no which is, so there is a no to the action, but it is not a no to the person.
I am not rejecting you, but I am unable to do it. But there can be a no which is a rejection not just of the action, but also of the person. Can you please do it? No.
I will never do it. Even if I have nothing to do, I will never do it. Somebody speaks like this, what happened? What is bugging this person? Why is he speaking like this? So, when Duryodhana said no, how did he say no? He said no, not just to the proposal, it was no to the person.
He said, I will not give you enough land even to stick the tip of a needle through. You cannot think of a more arrogant way of saying no. I have to give just a simple parallel in today’s situation.
Say in India, between India and Pakistan there is a whole long dispute over Kashmir. And say the Indian Prime Minister goes to Pakistan for peace negotiation. And the Pakistani party says that we will not give you enough part of Kashmir to stick even the tip of a needle through.
It is not just a rejection, but it is an insult. In fact, if the head of the state is going for a peace negotiation and then they reject, that person rejects. So, that was what Duryodhana did.
Now, this is the most well-known of the peace endeavors. Now, here what happens? So, when Krishna at that time, Krishna told the Kauravas, then you have chosen destruction. So, Dhritarashtra tried to rationalize and said, Oh Krishna, actually I don’t want this war, but what to do? Duryodhana doesn’t listen to me.
Duryodhana doesn’t listen to me. So, Krishna just turned to the other Kuru elders, Bhishma, Drona. He said, you have seen the arrogance of the prince and the impotence of the king.
Now, O assembly, you will know who is responsible for the consequences. The whole point of that mission was, for Krishna going there was to get the Kauravas to make a right choice. So, actions have consequences.
When Duryodhana rejected the peace proposal, the consequence eventually was that he and his whole set of other brothers and then Kauravas, all of them went astray. So, he chose a karma that was disastrously wrong. So, I talked about how the Bhagavata is telling us to harmonize with God and Duryodhana chose deliberately, knowingly, brazenly to disharmonize with God, to reject God.
And he bore the consequences of that. So, in contrast, Arjuna, he harmonized with Krishna. He chose to act according to Krishna’s will.
So, how does this apply to us in today’s world? So, the Gita’s message if you would like to support is that there is Jeev, Jagat and Jagdish. And today science and technology gives a lot of knowledge about Jagat and how to operate matter in a more controlled way or in a more effective way in some ways. But what about the interaction between Jeeva and Jagat? What about the interaction between Jeeva and Jagdish? That is what something science cannot tell us about.
And for that we need spiritual knowledge. We need spiritual knowledge. We need the knowledge of the Bhagavad Gita.
The researchers are talking about an anxiety epidemic. Millions of people all over the world are suffering from anxiety. And this anxiety can have many causes.
One cause is the inability to perceive reality. For example, if we are in dark, if we go to our home, say after this program you go back to your home and then you turn on the power switch and the power doesn’t turn. It’s dark.
Now when we are unable to perceive things, we start feeling a little nervous. Why is the power not coming? And then you hear some noise. Is there some stranger, some burglar come inside? We will feel more nervous.
So, when we are unable to see things and that naturally causes uncertainty and anxiety. When we are able to perceive things, then we are able to prepare. Maybe somebody is broken, I have to call the police or I have to go out, I have to defend myself, whatever I have to do.
So, when we are able to perceive things, we can prepare for responding to things. And when we are talking about perception, it is not just physical or visual perception. There is a perception that leads to understanding.
So, if a person is completely uninformed about economics, that person sees a stock market graph going down. There are people who are just holding their heads, there are people who are getting heart palpitations, there are people who are getting heart attacks. Maybe just a line has gone down in the computer.
Why are you getting so worked up? The person who is not economically informed, that person sees but does not see. Why? Because we don’t just see with our eyes, we see with our intelligence. Whatever visual data goes inside our eyes, we make sense of it with our intelligence.
So, we see not just with our eyes but with our intelligence. And when it comes to life, it is the Bhagavad Gita that gives us the intelligence to see things, to make sense of what is happening and how we are meant to respond. All of us at various points in our life will face various degrees of uncertainties.
So, say if a student is going to choose a career, should I go in this field or that field? That’s uncertainty. Person has got a degree now, should I look for a job here or there? That’s uncertainty. You become marriageable age, whom should I marry? That’s uncertainty.
Where to take a house? Where do I take a house? That’s uncertainty. At every step in life, wherever we have to make choices, choices brings uncertainty. And uncertainty can cause anxiety.
Now the more things change in our life, the more we need to hold on to something that doesn’t change. The more things change in our life, the more we need to have something to hold on to that will not change. 2.16, Bhagavad Gita Krishna says, as far as the world around us is concerned, change is the only unchanging reality of the world.
The only thing constant in this world is that nothing is constant. Things just keep changing. Then what is it that we hold on to which is unchanging? That unchanging reality is God.
So, there is Jagat, there is Jeeva and there is Jagdish. Jagat is constantly changing. I may have a very good job right now, but the tone of market just shifts and that same industry may go down tomorrow.
And my job is no longer lucrative, not even secure. So, Jagat is always changing. If our vision is only focused on the world, then the changes of the world will constantly make us vulnerable to anxiety.
If our vision rises above this world, then we see something that is unchanging. So, when our vision is fixed on beyond the Jagat, beyond the Jeeva to the Jagdish, then we can look at things in this world for security, we can look at people in the world for security. Things keep changing, unfortunately people also keep changing.
And different people behave in different ways. Same person may behave in a very different way in future. We don’t know.
So, we do have to rely on things, we do have to rely on people, but because these keep changing, we cannot have ultimate security in these things. So, when our consciousness is sheltered in Jagdish, God is the supreme unchanging reality. And that unchanging reality is what enables us to face the changes of this world.
So, I’ll conclude with one theme now. Be not fearful, be not fretful, be faithful. So, when be not fearful, if we look ahead in life, none of us knows what the future is going to bring.
So, if we look at the future, it can cause fear. Maybe this will go wrong, maybe that will go wrong. Maybe I might get a terminal disease, maybe I might meet with an accident.
I don’t know what is going to come in the future. So, if we just look at the future, we can cause us a lot of anxiety. It can fill us with fear.
The uncertainty about the future can make us fearful. Now, if you look back at the past, we can think, why did I do like that? Maybe I could have done like that. Maybe you could have done like that.
Maybe only that person had done like that. Only this had happened like that. As one friend was telling me, just send a mail.
He was saying, yesterday India lost a match so closely. Only if that batsman had hit that one ball, we could have won the match. Well, the match is already over now.
Can’t change it. If we live too much in the past, what happens is, we are fretful. This went wrong, that went wrong, this person did like this, that person did like that.
So, when we live at the material level of reality, if we live in the past, we are fretful. If we live in the future, we are fearful. If we raise our eyes above, whatever happens in life, God is always in control.
Be faithful. The Bhagavad Gita says in 18.58, mat-chitta-sarva-durgāi mat-prasādāt tarīśyasi If you become conscious of mat-chitta-sarva-durgāi, whatever obstacles come in your life, mat-prasādāt, by my mercy, tarīśyasi, you will cross over all those obstacles. Now Krishna is not telling Arjuna, you become conscious of me and all your obstacles will go away.
He is saying obstacles will be there, but you will be able to cross over them. You will be able to go over them. Not that obstacles will go away.
If you look up to the Bhagavad Gita, there is a Kurukshetra war that took place. And it was quite a difficult war. Pandavas often suffered many reversals.
They had to face formidable warriors. So there were obstacles for Arjuna also. But with Krishna’s guidance, Arjuna was able to go over those obstacles.
He was able to deal with them in an effective way. So mat-chitta, if you become conscious of me, you will pass over obstacles by my grace. So when you talk about being faithful, what does it mean? Is this faith some feeling God will take care? Some people write a Gita Sāra.
So one of the statements in the Gita Sāra, Jo hua, wo achcha hua. Jo ho raha hai, wo achcha ho raha hai. Jo hone wala hai, wo bhi achcha hi hoga.
Now I have read the Gita more than a hundred times. I have not found any words which says anything like this in the Gita. The important point of the Gita is not what happened.
The whole crux of the Gita is what we are going to do. Now it is not that everything that happens is good. Everything that happens can be for good.
It’s not that if somebody meets with an accident, it’s not good. It’s bad. If there is a misunderstanding, if there is a big relationship, upheaval, it’s not good.
There are good and bad things. We cannot say that everything that happens is good. If I go and slap someone, why do I slap them? Jo hua, achcha hua.
And they will slap me back. Jo hua, wo bhi achcha hua. So everything that happens is not necessarily good.
But everything that happens can be for good. That means that God can bring about good even from the bad. Bad things can happen in life.
But if we respond rightly to them, then God can bring about good even from that. So the essence of the Bhagavad Gita is not focusing so much on what happened. Whether it is good or bad.
Some things are good, some things are bad. The more important thing is, is my response good or bad? If I am going along a road, maybe a dark road at night, and a snake comes and bites me. I feel a sting.
And I see the snake slithering. How dare the snake bite me? I start running after the snake. I will stamp and kill the snake.
And I am running after the snake. But what is happening in that process? The poison is spreading in my body. And whether I kill the snake or not, I am killing myself.
So what happens? It’s bad, the snake bit me. But my response sometimes can make the problem much worse. Or my response can minimize the problem.
So the essence of the Bhagavad Gita is not on what is happening. In this world sometimes good happens, sometimes bad happens. And it’s not that we have to somehow artificially imagine everything that is happening is for good, is good.
If somebody is met with an accident, that is bad. But good can emerge from it. Bad is the expertise of God.
But for the expertise of God to work, He needs our cooperation. He needs our cooperation. Without our cooperation, God cannot bring out good from the bad.
And this is what the Mahabharata illustrates repeatedly. And if you know the story of how when the Pandavas were in the forest. At that time, Duryodhana had actually dispossessed them, dishonored them, got them exiled.
But still he was not satisfied. The nature of envy is that it’s never satiated. He didn’t just want the Pandavas property.
He actually wanted the Pandavas to be completely ruined. So he manipulated Durvasa Mani. And told Durvasa Mani, you go to the place of the Pandavas.
And so that Yudhishthira can serve you nicely. You go to him after he has had his lunch. So he can peacefully serve you.
Actually he knew if they wait after lunch, there will be no peace for Yudhishthira. Because Yudhishthira had that Akshaya Patra, which would provide food till Draupadi took food. After Yudhishthira took, they were not providing the food.
So deliberately he sent them down. And when they went there, Pandavas received them. Sometimes when somebody comes, in front we put a face which is a smile.
But inside, what has happened? You know. It’s like that. So the Pandavas were in great anxiety.
And Durvasa Mani was known to be a short-tempered sage. So they were wondering, if we are not properly hospitable to him, he may curse us. So they were worried.
And then Durvasa said, okay, I will take food here. But before that I will go and take a bath. And sanctify himself.
So then Yudhishthira turned to Draupadi and said, what are we going to do now? He is a king, but in this matter he is consulting Draupadi. He doesn’t know what to do. So Draupadi said, we can’t do anything.
Just pray to Krishna. And she prayed to Krishna, Krishna, please help us. And miraculously, Krishna appeared over there.
And Draupadi was so relieved. Now Krishna has come. Krishna will solve the problem.
She says, Krishna, we have got a big problem. He says, Draupadi, Krishna told you. Afterwards, I will solve your problem.
But first, I am hungry. Give me some food. And Draupadi, initially, by praying to God, her problem had compounded.
First, she was not able to feed Durvasa. Now she is not able to feed Krishna also. She says, Krishna, actually we don’t have any food.
That’s why I called you. He says, no, I am hungry. Give me some food.
She says, no, but we don’t have any food. You just go inside. See on the Rakshaya Path.
If something is there, I want something to eat. And now she went there. And there, she saw there was just a little morsel.
And she gave it to Krishna. And Krishna ate it. And he said, I am satisfied.
Satisfied. And miraculously, when Krishna ate that food, he arranged that even the Durvasa Muni and his associates, they also felt satisfied. Yasmin Tushtam, Jagat Tushtam.
Now often for us, the thrust of the story is how Krishna protected Draupadi or how by satisfying Krishna, everybody is satisfied. But let’s take a different angle of analysis over here. Now, the Rakshaya Path is not any ordinary vessel.
So how is it that Draupadi allowed one morsel of food to remain over there? Normally, you know, a good homemaker, after any meal is done, they wash the vessels and keep them safe. And, you know, if suppose in a house we have some special silver vessels or golden vessels, you know, they may use them, they are very special vessels. And very special care is taken to keep them.
So why would this particular vessel have one morsel of food remain? Now, when they were in the forest, Draupadi, most of their servants who were serving them in the court, they had left them. But there was one male servant and one female servant, they said, you know, we just want to be with you all day. So maybe it was that female servant’s carelessness, it was her mistake.
But it was Draupadi’s kitchen, it was Draupadi’s utensils. So at one level we could say that that one morsel of food being left over there was unclean. It was Draupadi’s mistake.
But Krishna was so expert that Krishna used that mistake and brought good out of that mistake. So what happened over here was that the Rasa’s muni is being manipulated and coming there. That was not good.
Even Draupadi just leaving one morsel over there, you could say that’s not good. But Krishna was so expert that Draupadi brought, that Krishna brought the good out of it. But how was he able to bring the good out of it? Because Draupadi was afraid.
She could have been fearful, oh Krishna, what is going to happen? All these sails, we won’t be able to serve them and they will curse us and what is going to happen to us? She could have become fearful. Or she could have become fretful. Now maybe I could have taken my meal a little later.
Then I could have served the sages first. Okay, but she didn’t do that. She called to Krishna.
Even when she called to Krishna, it appears Krishna told him, give me some food. There is no food available. You just go and see.
There is no food available. She just did what Krishna told her to. She went and saw there was a morsel of food over there.
So when we talk about being faithful to Krishna, it’s not just something abstract. I am faithful to Krishna. If a student has got exam tomorrow, student says, my parents say, come on study.
No, I am faithful to Krishna. I am studying. I am faithful to Krishna.
No, that’s not faithfulness to Krishna. Faithfulness means you study. Study.
Do your duty. So faithfulness does not mean not doing your duty. Faithfulness means doing our duty and leaving the result in God’s hands.
So many times there may be situations in our life and we just don’t know what to do. So our relationship with Krishna is primarily a relationship of service. We are meant to serve him lovingly.
So in some situations in our life, we may just not know what to do in the situation. What to do? Why is this happening? So we can have, when things go wrong in our life, we can ask the why question. Why is this happening? Why is this person behaving like this? Why is she speaking like this? Why is he doing like this? And quite often the why question has no answers.
Why did this accident happen? Why did I get this disease? Why did this misunderstanding happen? Why did the economy go down? You can go into a whole big analysis. From a practical perspective, the why question sometimes just doesn’t have any answers. And asking the why question is simply disempowering.
We just feel powerless. We feel frustrated. We feel helpless.
We feel victimized. But being faithful to Krishna means changing the question that we ask. Instead of asking the why question, you can ask the how question.
How can I serve you now, Krishna? This situation has come in my life. This is an unexpected situation. This is an unfavorable situation.
This is a terrible situation. How can I serve you now? If we just change this question, what can I do now? How can I serve you now? Then that service attitude becomes like a flashlight. Small flashlight that illumines in the darkness of perplexity and adversity.
Suppose right now we are sitting here and suddenly the power goes off. Now there might be some rant, some curses. What is this? But after a few minutes, a few moments, what will you do? We will take out our phone, turn on the flashlight.
The flashlight does not replace the tube lights. It can never provide as much light as the tube light can. But still, it can show us enough light to take one step forward.
Okay, I am here. Is there something on this side? Maybe I can move this way. Maybe I should move this way.
Flashlight will help us to take one step forward. And if we take one step forward, the flashlight will show the next step. And it will show the next step.
And that way we can keep taking steps forward till the light comes back eventually. So now the same principle we can apply in our life when we face either perplexities or adversities. Perplexities means we just don’t know what to do.
Adversity means things have gone wrong. Either way, we were going through a normal course in our life. Things seemed to be going normally and suddenly the power went off.
What has happened? Everything seems to become unstuck. Things have just become unsettled. Disrupted.
What am I to do? So if we start asking the why question, why is this happening? We just disempower ourselves. Just ask the how question. How can I serve you? Krishna, you are my lord.
I am your servant. How can I serve you? It’s not that when we ask this how question, suddenly Krishna will appear in front of us and do this. It may not happen like that.
Krishna can do that also. But that doesn’t have to happen like that. We might say, okay.
Okay, this situation. Maybe I can just do this one thing. I take one step forward.
Most problems… See, there are problems and there are burdens. Problems become burdens when we extend those problems into the future for infinity. Say, I have a problem now.
I say, I have a boss who is disagreeable. This boss. I have to live with this boss for the next 30 years of my life.
My God, if I think I have to live with this boss for 30 years, then even 30 minutes tolerating becomes difficult. So when we extrapolate the present into the future and think this whole problem is going to be there forever, our mind tends to eternalize the present. If I have a problem in the present, I think this is the way it is going to be in the future.
It’s not going to be like that. Okay, this problem is there right now. The power has gone off right now.
If when the power goes off, we start thinking, the power is never going to come back. We will feel horrified by that prospect. But we know, okay, power has gone off.
Power will come back. While the power has gone off, how can I deal with it? Same way, if we think that, confusion has come, delusion has come, distress has come, what can I do now? One step forward. What is the next step that I can do? So if you are confused, if you are bewildered, if you are distressed, the first step we can do is just pray to Krishna.
That’s what Draupadi did, pray to Krishna. Practical way we pray to Krishna is chanting His holy names. So we chant the names of Krishna, that’s a prayer to Krishna.
Krishna, please, sir, engage me in your service. At least please give me the intelligence how I can serve you in this situation. And this service attitude will become our flashlight.
Okay, you can do this one step. I can do one step, I can do one more step. I can do this also.
Maybe I can know, okay, this problem is there. Maybe I can consult someone. Or, okay, this problem is there.
Maybe I can do this. When we have a problem, and just focus on why this problem is there, why this problem is there, why this problem is there, we frustrate ourselves. But okay, usually in our life, when one door closes, some other door opens somewhere.
But when the door closes, we keep glaring at the door so fiercely, we hope as if by my glare, this door is going to burn down and it’s going to open again. That door is not going to open. But instead of glaring at the closed door, we just keep an open mind.
Some other door opens somewhere. And then we go on. So how can I serve? So faithfulness to Krishna means that we don’t think of any problem as the end of the world.
Yes, Krishna is still in control. This is a bad thing. But Krishna can bring good out of the bad.
So Krishna, how can I serve you? What can I do in this situation? Should we step forward? Pray to Krishna. Whatever intelligence we get, we should not act. Take one step forward, take one step forward.
Sometimes the step may be right, sometimes the step may be wrong also. But then even if it is wrong, we realize it. So if it’s dark, I walk into a wall, I shouldn’t be walking this way.
I will do course correction. And then I move forward again. So if you just take one step, one step, one step forward, eventually you will see that whatever problem seems to be catastrophic, that problem will go away.
And the light will turn on again. The power will come back. And we will be able to move on in life.
Not only will that particular problem be solved in new course, but more importantly, we will have increased our faith in Krishna. And that will be an enduring thing. That will be in fact life’s most precious thing.
In this world problems are going to come. But if we have developed that faith that by taking shelter of Krishna, by cultivating a mode of service to Krishna, I can weather these storms. Then the storms of this world will not shake us that much.
Rather, the storms of the world, instead of shaking us, they will shake the illusions that are around us so that we become more fixed in Krishna. So the storms of the world, rather than hurting us, they will actually help us in taking more shelter in Krishna. And thus, we will become deeply sheltered in Krishna and this life itself.
What to speak of? At the end of this life, in the future, where we will attain Krishna. So I’ll summarize. If you have any questions, we can discuss.
I talked about what is the essential message of the Gita. For that I analyzed what is the Gita’s analysis of the components of existence. There are three components.
Does anyone remember what are they? Jagat, Jeeva and Jagdish. So, Jagat is matter. We see material things around us.
They are bewildering variety. But ultimately it’s just matter. And then there is consciousness.
That is the Jeeva. All living beings have consciousness. And then I discussed, now in our observation, these are the only two things that exist.
Jagat and Jeeva. How do I know that Jagdish exists? I talked about how science offers explanations about the behavior of nature. But the very explainability of nature requires an explanation.
Why does nature have an order? Newton asked, what made this fruit fall? Why should something have made the fruit fall? Why should there be a cause-effect connection in nature? That is because nature reflects the supreme intelligence of God. An equation for me has no meaning unless it represents a thought of God. So, there is Jagdish.
That is the overseeing controller of the time. Which one? Yeah. Jagat is matter which we see around us.
Jeeva is the consciousness, all of us. And then there is an order in nature. Where does that order come from? That order reflects, that order which we uncover with our intelligence, that order is there in nature because it is put there by some superior intelligence.
That intelligence is Jagdish. So now, how do these interact with each other? Science basically studies the interaction of Jagat. Various objects of matter, material objects, how they interact with each other.
And that itself is a very valuable body of knowledge. But that is not an exhaustive body of knowledge. Medical science can help us, free us from pain.
If you have this pain, take this pain killing medicine, take this healing medicine. It is good. It removes the pain.
But it cannot quantify pain. We cannot have a painometer specifically which can quantify this degree of pain. Why? Because pain is not, it is a conscious experience.
It is not in the realm of matter which is what science studies. So, when you talk about the interactions, there are two sets of interactions. There is the unconscious, the involuntary interactions that happen, involuntary changes that happen.
And there are the voluntary changes that we can figure out. The involuntary changes are, which is caused by karma. When left to itself with the passage of time, things will deteriorate.
Milk kept to itself will get spoiled. But there is karma. We can consciously choose and make things change for the better.
We can make curd, we can make buttermilk, we can make butter, we can make ghee. That requires some conscious intent, intelligent action based on that conscious intent. So, karma refers to the actions that we do.
And what kind of actions we should do so that we get the best result. That is the essential message of the Gita. In that connection, I talked about the word dharma.
When Arjuna is bewildered at the start of the Gita, he doesn’t ask should I fight or should I not fight. That would have made the Bhagavad Gita only of interest to people who are interested in the Mahabharata war. But what makes the Bhagavad Gita of universal relevance is, Arjuna asks a universal question.
Vachamitam dharmasam. What is dharma? And I explained what is dharma. Dharma is the action that helps us to harmonize with the order of nature.
So, if I am in a hospital and I expect a seven course menu. Seven course menu feast is not going to work. So, hospital has an order that is to be patient.
And when I understand that and I harmonize with that, okay, I am here to be healed. Then we will find there is order here and I can harmonize with it. And then I will be benefited by being over here.
So, the order is always connected with purpose. And then what is the Bhagavad Gita’s conclusion? Karishye Vachanamitavo. I will do your will.
So, Arjuna harmonizes with Krishna’s will. And that’s how he becomes successful in the Kurukshetra war. Now, all this idea about harmonizing with God’s will, what does it mean? How do we do it practically? Now, how we should not do it, that is demonstrated through Duryodhana.
Now, he not only rejected Krishna’s peace proposal, he rejected Krishna itself by his arrogance. And eventually he was destroyed. So, actions have consequences.
Disharmony will lead to destruction. Now, when we are to harmonize with Krishna, how do we do that? For that I talked about, be not fearful or fretful, be faithful. So, if we look at the future, so much can go wrong.
We don’t know. Uncertainty can cause us anxiety. So, whenever there is a darkness in a room, we don’t know what is there, we feel fearful.
So, like that future we can say it’s a dark, dark room, the future is a dark room and I feel fearful. But we don’t just have to look at it. Look at the future.
We can look above. Okay, in the past God is in control, in the present God is in control, in the future God is in control. So, be faithfully connected.
So, looking at the future in a spiritually unconnected way, in a spiritually unguided way will cause fear. If we look at the past and look at all the things that went wrong, we will become fretful. So, these are the, if we just stay in a materialistic level of consciousness, we will end up being either fearful or fretful.
But if we raise our consciousness, become faithful, Krishna says, if you become conscious of me, you will pass over obstacles by my grace. Now, what? You will pass over all obstacles by my grace. Let me complete this and then I will have Krishna’s two minutes.
So, then I discussed about what is being faithfully. So, I talked about the story of Draupadi. It’s not that everything that happens is good, bad things can also happen.
But Krishna is expert enough that he can bring good out of the bad. So, Duryodhana’s manipulating Durvasa was bad. Durvasa was coming at a particular time and there was no food was bad.
You could say when Draupadi is leaving a morsel of food, there was a mistake. Initially when she prayed, it seemed a problem go herself. But then, what happened? Krishna brought out good from it.
So, even if we commit mistakes, we don’t have to be fretful. We are faithful and then we try, ok, how can I respond in the best way. So, ok, I am bitten by a snake, there is no need for me to chase the snake.
Let me see what I can do to get the poison out of my body. So, same way, what does being faithful mean practically? It means, ok, pray to Krishna, accept him. Ok, this happened, but Krishna can bring good out of this.
So, Krishna, rather than asking the why question, it is just simply it is important. Why did this happen? Why did this happen? Quite often we don’t get answers. So, better shift to the how question.
How can I serve in this situation, Krishna? And that how question is like, when we are asking the why question, we are seeing that a door is closed and we are glaring at the door, closed door. But how question means, open our minds, have some other door open. So, it’s like when darkness comes, we may rant at the darkness, but then we turn on our small flashlight.
The service attitude is the flashlight that we can turn on when the darkness of like perplexity envelops our life. You don’t know what to do. Ok, what is the first, what is one thing that I can do in this situation? I can pray to Krishna, I can do this one thing, maybe I can concern this person.
So, take one step forward, one step forward, one step forward and we will be able to move on through the darkness. And even if we do wrong, we move in a wrong direction, we can always do course correction. And eventually, if we just don’t react in a knee-jerk way, we don’t overreact or impulsively do something, if you only take one step forward, one step forward, the power will come back.
You will find that things are restored back to normalcy. Not only things become restored, but actually we become bolstered internally. We become strengthened internally by experiencing the boosty power of faith in Krishna.
And so, faith is not just a feeling, but faith is also a praying to Krishna and then acting in a mood of service. Taking one step forward, one step forward. The essence of faith in this sense would be changing the question from why to how.
Don’t ask why this happened. Ok, what can I do now? How can I stay in this situation? We will find that this way, we will always have a torchlight where we can keep moving onwards and onwards. And in the end, the power will again come back and be forced back.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. Yes, you had a question? You said that in times of uncertainty or in times of opportunity and such, so to ensure that you are ready to do something, that means, let my faith be there with me.
What does it mean? It means that I should ensure that my faith remains unfulfilled even in uncertain conditions. Even in extreme conditions. And that will ensure that, that is going to be the stability, stability of the mind.
Once I achieve the stability of the mind, then it will ensure that, yes, I am able to take the right decisions, I am able to take the corrective actions to ensure that I am able to find out a way, I am able to find out a solution to my problem. Am I right? Ok. So, this is what you mean by having faith.
Ok, I will explain this. I will explain this. I think that is a valid point.
So, does having faith means that even when the problem comes, we maintain our faith and then by that we get calmness and then we are able to take mature decisions? Yes, that’s a process. But in many ways, faith does not follow such a linear step-by-step process. When the actual problem comes, it’s not that we can have a flow chart or we can have a program set.
Ok, this happens. Ok, now I will pray. I will chant one mantra.
I am feeling calmed down. Now I will deal with the problem. It doesn’t work like that.
It’s a relationship. You have to take shelter of Krishna. And that taking shelter, yes, there can be certain actions which we can do.
Now we may go into the temple and take darshan of Krishna. We can study the Bhagavad Gita. We may pray to Krishna.
There will be certain actions which we do. But the connection is through our emotion. The connection is through our intention.
So, in that sense, we can’t, we shouldn’t reduce faith to any mechanical routine. And it’s not just I have to have faith. It’s not that.
We shouldn’t see doubts as a defect. It’s natural when there are problems come. Why is this happening? We may get doubts.
So doubts are not necessarily a defect. The problem comes when we act on those doubts. A. Faith at one level, we could say, is an asset.
Some people have faith. Some people don’t have faith. I don’t have faith.
What can I do? Faith is an asset. But at another level, faith is also a choice. So rather than saying, I should not let my faith be disturbed.
Why is my faith getting disturbed? I lost faith. Faith is a choice means we can choose to put ourselves in those situations, in that association, where our faith will get boosted. Now, if we face some problem and we associate with faithless people, they will say, just see, you are doing so much and still you got this problem.
Therefore, God doesn’t exist. So, what has happened? Our faith was weak. But then we chose an association which further wounded our faith.
So rather we come in some spiritual association and say, yes, things, difficulties, everyone goes through them. Great devotees went through difficulties. Just be patient.
People say, Krishna will make things out to be right. He may make even things better, better than what they are. So we can choose to put ourselves in those situations which will strengthen our faith.
So that means rather than just feeling, oh, I am meant to be faithful, but I don’t have faith. I am meant to be faithful, but I have got doubts. It’s not.
So we shouldn’t just think of faith as something about which we are just passive. I have faith or I don’t have faith. We can see faith also as something which is a matter of our choice.
I would put it something like, it’s like muscles. Some of us may have stronger muscles than others. But based on how we exercise our muscles, our muscles can also become further stronger.
So our faith muscles also, we can strengthen them or weaken them. So when we study the philosophy, that requires some intellectual exertion to understand the philosophy. But that’s like weight lifting.
That’s strengthening our muscles. When we face adversities and still we try to connect with God, we try to place ourselves in situations which help us to get a better understanding of things. That is also an exertion.
Faith muscles are becoming stronger. So rather than saying that we should not have doubts, we can put it in such a way that we put ourselves in a situation that helps us to address the doubts. That helps us to gain our faith back.
So when I say be faithful, that doesn’t mean that I’m saying that I don’t have faith. How can I become faithful? No. Be faithful means having faith is a matter of choice.
So when I have a problem, then I go to some devotees and ask a question. Go to some senior devotee, go to some devotees whose judgment I have some trust in and ask a question. If I don’t ask the question and I just arrive at my own understanding, this all doesn’t work.
This all is bogus. Then I’m choosing to be faithless. So what happens is all of us within us, there is a side which has faith, there is a side which has doubts.
Everyone has that. But our choice is what do we give more weight to? No, rather than doubting our faith, when we doubt our faith, we are believing our doubts. When we are doubting our faith, what are we doing? We are believing our doubts.
So instead of doubting our faith and believing our doubts, we can use to doubt our doubts. And yeah, believe in our beliefs. And that means go and associate with those who have strong faith.
And by then, associating with them also strengthens our faith. Does that answer your question? Yeah. Thank you.
Any other questions? Yeah. You said that you have to harmonize with the… You have to harmonize with the… Divine. …conditions and so that the things will be in place.
In other words, can I connect it to the power play that when the things are so uncertain, the boss has his own understanding. You have your own understanding, you have your own experience. You put your experience, you put your process, but the boss is not accepting it.
So in such case, how do you say that in your language, I have to harmonize with these conditions? Is there a way out that is used? If a change is out for you, what should you do? So it is, can you connect this to the power play? Yeah. Correct. So when I said we have to harmonize ourselves with the situation that we are in, does it mean that if we are having a job, a boss whose understanding is radically different from ours, does that mean we just quit the job or what do we do practically? See, there are principles and there are practices.
So if we see the Bhagavad Gita, it focuses on principles. Krishna doesn’t tell Arjuna, fight this war. He gives it as a call, but his focus on Arjuna is, think and decide what you want to do.
Vimrishchaita dasheshena ithechchchita, deliberate and decide what you want to do. So as a matter of principle, broadly speaking, whenever we face any unpalatable situation, there are three broad courses of action for us. One is change the person or change the situation, change ourselves or walk away from the situation.
That means as you said, either I give up the job, that’s like walking away from the situation or I change myself and work according to the way the boss wants me to work or I explain my perspective and persuade the boss and do things in my way. Now, which situation will work at what time? That is something which is going to vary according to time and place circumstances. So the important thing is not the specifics.
The important thing is the principle. The principle is that we don’t react impulsively. The principle is that we deliberate intelligently and make a considered choice.
Sometimes we think, you know, this is a situation in which I have a better understanding. I want to persuade my boss. I may talk with him, I may try to explain things to him.
Sometimes it may not work. But if we are acting based on our intelligence, then even if we don’t get the desired result, we will grow through that. Okay, maybe I did not make the presentation properly or maybe this person is of a particular nature.
He or she doesn’t understand things. So we will grow. It’s not necessary for our growth to that every action of ours has to have the desired result.
Sometimes by doing a particular action, we may learn something valuable. And that also we will learn if we have done the action thoughtfully. Even if we have done the action thoughtlessly, we learn.
But the only thing we learn is I should have done like this. But if you have done an action thoughtfully and still doesn’t work out, okay, this is a strategy which I could have worked this way or this is what I learned from it. So the important thing in life is that success and failure are not in our hands.
But our endeavours are in our hands. And what we should focus on is whether I am leading the best endeavours. And in some situations, changing others is the best endeavour.
In some situations, changing ourselves is the best endeavour. In some situations, just walking away from the situation is the best endeavour. So what it will be specifically, that can vary.
We have to deliberate. Maybe it is a major decision, write down, revisit and rethink it several times. And then pray over it, consult some other well-wishers and then make a decision.
So the point is that don’t make, don’t act impulsively. Don’t act impulsively, impulsively on the spur of the moment. At that time, just press a pause button.
And think and deliberate and then make a decision. So when I talk about that we be harmonious with our situation, that can mean various things. That it can, how do I harmonise myself with the situation? You know, if I want a 7 course, 8 course meal and I am in a hospital.
If I am not sick, what am I doing in a hospital? I can go to a hotel and take a piss. But if I am sick, so if I want a 8 course feast and I am, there is no reason for me to be in a hospital. At that time, harmonising might mean I go to a hotel or I go somewhere where the feast is available.
But if I am sick, so in that case, one situation might be changing, the situation going somewhere else. In another case, if I am actually sick, an 8 course feast would mean that the course of my medicine will increase afterwards. It will aggravate my situation.
But better I change myself at that time. So according to our intelligence, if we act, then we will be guided towards the right decisions. Sometimes we make a wrong decision also, but even through that we will learn and move on.
Did I answer your question? Yes. Any other questions? So thank you very much for your kind attention. Srimad Bhagavad Gita Dheer, Gopal Dheer, Gaur Bhakti Vindhya Kheer, Gaur Prema Dheer.
So we will have a short break now.