The mind is a monkey that makes us a donkey

Evening program at ISKCON, Adelaide

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna. Before I start, I just wanted to know how many of you were there yesterday evening? Oh, most of you.
Okay. Okay, let me put another way. How many of you were not there yesterday evening? That’s also a significant number.
Okay, I was undecided whether I should continue the topic as I had taken yesterday or take a separate topic. Since a significant number of you were not there yesterday. So I’ll take a separate topic.
So the topic I was trying to speak on is the mind is a monkey that makes us into a donkey. The mind is a monkey that makes us into a donkey. Often, we all feel in our lives, we do something and then we wonder, why did I do that? This may not just be in terms of what is morally right or wrong.
Some people nowadays, there is the idea of moral relativism. Moral relativism means that you think that is right and that is wrong. But I don’t think so.
So if it is wrong for you, it’s not wrong for me. But even such people who subscribe to moral relativism, they also accept the idea in principle, that some things are right and some things are wrong. So even moral relativists accept the idea of morality.
Only thing is, they consider morality to be relative. But the point is, even they experience at some time or the other, that they do certain things which they regret later. Why did I do that? And this is not just with respect to any necessarily higher spiritual sense.
It may well be also related with something which is simply material. That means, say nowadays, people are very conscious of their figure. And slimness is considered to be the sign of beauty.
So people would have a very attractive looking figure. And for that, they won’t regulate their diet. So in such a situation, sometimes actually it’s like a double pressure is there on people in today’s world.
Especially with respect to eating. Because on one side, we are expected to be very slim and attractive looking. On other side, there is so much advertisement of food.
And most of the food that is advertised is unhealthy, is fatty. So on the one side, there is a… So these are two forces which are both more or less materialistic. One side is the craving to look good, the other side is the craving to eat good.
And in this way, people are pulled into different directions. Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita in the 14th chapter 10th verse, he says that these three modes of material nature, they pull against each other. And sometimes Raja and Tamoguna, they are overcome and Satoguna predominates.
Sometimes Tama and Sattva are overcome and Raja predominates. And sometimes Tamas predominates. So these three modes are like three different kinds of ropes which pull us in various directions.
So there is, in this, as spiritualists, sometimes there is the tug of war in our heart between our spiritual aspirations and our material cravings. But this tug of war can happen even at the material level, between two different kinds of material desires. So at such times, when people are pulled in different directions, so sometimes they will just have an eating binge, just eat a lot.
And then after, why did I eat like that? Why did I eat like that? I shouldn’t have eaten like that. And some people after eating, they try to, in order to not let the eaten food add to their weight, they try to vomit the whole thing out. They think that by that it will not add to the weight.
But then, the point is not simply the food adding to the weight. The point is also that the alimentary canal digestive system has to take in all that food and then again pull it out. It’s all quite strenuous.
So the Egyptian pharaohs tried to do this, many of them. They were epicureans. Epicureans means people who live only for sense enjoyment.
And so they thought they could trick nature. And what they did was, they had their physicians make painless vomiting pills for them. So they would have their golden bowels in which they would eat a big fish and then they would get a vomiting pill and they would eat it.
Vomit everything out and then eat again. Some of them tried to do that, but the body just couldn’t take it. And most of them got terrible digestive problems and eventually they died young.
So people have not tried to repeat that experiment so much afterwards. It’s a dangerous thing to do. The point here is that even materialistic people experience that there is something in me which makes me do things that I don’t want to do.
That on one side I don’t want to eat food that will be fatty and on the other side there is something within me which pushes me to eat. So this understanding that there is something within us which sabotages us, which makes us act self-destructively, it is more or less universal. Suppose now the cricket world cup is going on.
Sometimes when there is a high pressure situation. So at that time some players, they just get very nervous. Or one particular cricket team, it has got a tag of chokers.
Whenever there is pressure, they choke and crumble. So what happens over there, such players, often they use the word, there is some demon inside me. They don’t think of demon literally in terms of some being with horns and teeth coming out.
But demon they use generically as some malefic or malevolent force. Some destructive force that is there within them and which makes them act very foolishly. So you can just say, in a cricket match somebody can just play simple shots and easily win the match.
But somebody tries to hit a sixer and gets out. And then they lose the match. There is no need to do that.
But this is a case of nerves, this is a rush of blood. I don’t know what possessed me to do that. So even in material life, people have this experience that they end up doing things which they don’t want to do.
And what is it that makes us do such things? So the Bhagavad Gita explains that this is actually, it can be understood at various levels, but the active force which pushes us within us is the mind. So the mind is a very subtle, at the same time, very strong thing. To understand roughly what the mind is like, yesterday I gave the example of the hardware, the software and the user.
Or I gave the example of more of a TV and a person watching a TV match, but something similar. So we have a hardware, we have a software and we have a user. Now suppose a particular person repeatedly chooses a particular item to search.
So suppose somebody is repeatedly searching one particular item, say India, that’s what a person searches. So now Google, it notices that and then autocompletes that. Now if I am going to type Indonesia, but still as soon as I type I-N-D, it completes as India.
So I have a text-to-speech reader, whenever I write articles, to proofread them, I get the text-to-speech reader to read the articles aloud. So once I wrote, the sun is Sat Chit Anand. And then it was reading it, the sun is Saturday Chit Anand.
So here, the autocorrect is incorrect. So just as there can be a default program which has a faulty result. So because I earlier typed India again and again, so now when I want to type Indonesia, India gets typed.
Or because the computer is programmed, so in the two examples that I gave, one is because of my own habitual typing of India, Indonesia is also typed as India. In the other case, when the computer is internal settings only, Sat is transformed into Saturday. So these are basically the programming of the software which takes the machines, results in particular directions.
So just as there is this programming in the software, there is a programming inside us and that is the mind. So the mind is basically like a software program which acts in certain default ways. And therefore, by acting in certain default ways, it prompts us towards certain thoughts, certain desires, certain actions.
Say for example, if somebody is a very money-minded person, and say that that person’s birthday is there, and somebody comes and gives with great affection, some gift. The person looks at the first thought and says, I will give $25. What happens is, as soon as they see it, because the default setting of their mind is in terms of money.
So everything they evaluate in terms of money. So all of us, our mind is programmed in particular ways. And when we talk about purifying our mind, purifying essentially means changing the mind’s definition of happiness.
Say our mind has defined happiness. So for some people, eating is happiness. For some people, sex is happiness.
For some people, popularity is happiness. For other people, power is happiness. For some people, having the latest gadgets, that is happiness.
So all of us have our own pet definitions of happiness. By all of us, I mean our own minds. There are generic definitions of happiness.
Everybody is attracted to eating, mating, these things. But within that also, there are shades. So purification essentially means changing our mind’s definition of happiness.
So when this definition is not examined, it is not corrected, then even if you practice bhakti seriously, even if you make resolutions, no, I will not do this. I will do that. But if our mind is defining happiness in a particular term, so then we will not be able to sustain that resolve for long.
Say for example, if I decide to fast on Ekadashi, but okay, fasting on Ekadashi is possible. But if I am told that while fasting on Ekadashi, for those 24 hours, you have to continuously look at a big feast of food without eating it. Now fasting is not difficult, all that difficult.
Fasting is not all that difficult. But if I have to look at the feast constantly, then fasting will become 100 times more difficult. So if I am constantly being exalted by stimuli that promise happiness, and then I am told don’t enjoy it, it’s extremely difficult.
This is fasting is possible, but fasting when all around us, we are seeing food being around, it makes it much more difficult. Similarly, when our mind conceptualizes happiness in a particular way, and then we are told don’t do it, then we will feel that resolution as a deprivation. And none of us can live without happiness.
So if you’re feeling deprived, deprived, deprived, then the end result will be that we will succumb to that eventually. So often religion is perceived in these negative terms. For example, Christianity has the 10 commandments, many of them are thou shall not.
So there were atheist gag, gag means a joke. So the atheist says that in the beginning was the word, and the word was no. So they feel that if you practice religion, the Bible, the first word in the Bible, the beginning was the word, and the word was God.
So that is changed to the word was no. So they think that instead of God being the center of religion, people have a conception that disallowing us from enjoying happiness. No, no, you can’t do this.
You can’t do that. You can’t do that. You can’t do that.
That they think is actually religion, that is scripture. Now, nobody can practice religion if this is their conception of religion. That I’m told not to do this, not to do that, not to do that, not to do that.
So the mind has its own definitions of what comprises happiness. And the mind is like a monkey that makes us into a donkey. That means a monkey is very restless.
It will take one thing and just go to the next thing and then go to the next thing. But if the monkey catches on to one thing, it just gets fascinated with something, it will just not give it up. Sometimes in Vrindavan, if you go, monkeys are everywhere.
Suddenly they take something, they take somebody’s purse, they take somebody’s spectacles. And then whatever you do, the monkeys will not give it up. If they hold on to something, they hold on to it very tightly.
So like that our mind latches on to some idea. I want this. I must have this.
So sometimes the children, they say, I want a toy. I want this. I want this.
I want this. And if you don’t give it to me, then you don’t love me. So children may be very small, but they also know how to press the buttons of their parents.
How to get the things that they want from them. So they just make a big spectacle and start crying in public, maybe in a shopping mall or in the street. They create a big scene.
Oh, I want this. So the mind is like that. It just latches on to some idea and if you don’t have it, then if you don’t give it to me, what is the point? I must have it.
I must have it. You must give it to me. Now the difference between the child and the mind, Krishna also uses the word chanchala for describing the mind.
Now chanchala is restless and that is a characteristic of the mind. But Krishna and Arjuna, both of them talk about it actually. Arjuna also says that the mind is not just chanchala.
It is chanchalam himanah krishna pramathi pallavadraham tasyaham nigraham manye vayor ivasu duskaram. So in 6.34 he states that mind is chanchala but he also says that it is along with that pramathi, pramathi means maddening, pallavadraham, it is very powerful, drudham, it is obstinate, stubborn. So now if a child is restless, that’s a trouble.
But if a small child is restless, it can sometimes be physically restrained also. What if a big, hefty young man comes along and he is angry, restraining that person becomes much more difficult. This is pallavat.
The mind is very powerful. And when the mind has a particular definition of happiness, then for the child, quite often the parents insist, give me this and the parents give that to it. But for us when our mind insists on something, there is no benevolent parent to readily provide it.
We often have to work hard to get that thing. And in pursuing the things which the mind defines as happiness, often the mind makes us like a donkey. Donkeys are also creatures of God.
They are also to be respected. Sometimes western people, they come to India and they say, you know, because your religion likes it, so you respect cows. But then you neglect donkeys, you neglect dogs, you neglect all other animals.
No, the point is, vidya vinesar palle brahmane gavyasthi nishuni chaiva shapakaya cha shapakaya cha pandita samadarshina. See, all living beings equally, but within the living beings, there are different living beings who are differently connected with Krishna in terms of the way they contribute to Krishna’s culture, the way they themselves are disposed, certain animals are in goodness, certain animals are in passion, certain is ignorance. So, today there is a culture of increasing animal rights.
So, for example, the vegan movement, it is a positive development in many ways, because at least people have become conscious about the suffering that animals go through. At the same time, sometimes this thing can be taken towards an extreme and animals are considered to be entirely equal to humans. Basically, in Christianity, it holds the idea that only human beings have souls, animals don’t have souls.
So, then we ask the question, but animals are also conscious, animals also feel pain. So, how can animals not have souls? So, actually animals have spirits, but not souls. So, what does this mean? Prabhupada made things clear.
We are spirit souls. So, they have the idea that there are different kinds of souls. So, the souls that are human beings, they are souls who can know God, but souls who are animals, souls who are in plants, they cannot know God.
That’s why they are different kinds of souls, which they call as spirits. But recently, somebody asked the current Pope, the current Pope is trying to reinvent Christianity in the public eye. So, he was asked, you know, I love my God.
I’m sorry, I love my dog. I love my dog very much. And every Sunday, I go to church, the dog also goes with me to church.
So, if God will take me to heaven, will God not take my dog to heaven also? So, now, the Pope Church for the first time in the history of Christianity said, even good dogs can go to heaven. The point I was making is that Christianity actually puts humans far above everyone else, as if humans are entirely different category. Humans alone have souls which can know God and the whole rest of the world, the animal world, the plant world, it all becomes simply a backdrop for the central drama of human redemption.
Their existence serves no purpose other than the central purpose of humans being redeemed by the grace of Jesus. Now, in contrast with this, so, Christianity spiritualizes humans and de-spiritualizes all other living beings. In contrast with that, there is the materialistic worldview which evolved from Darwinian evolution, which says that actually, we humans are very egoistic, we are special.
We are nothing but animals. So, what Christianity does is, it puts humans on a high pedestal and all animals out of that pedestal. Whereas, materialism brings everyone down to the same pedestal, saying that actually no one is spiritual.
All of us are simply materialistic creatures. So, so much of the movements like PETA, they strive for equality. And they are often doing good work in terms of decreasing the pain caused to animals, the cruelty inflicted on animals.
At the same time, they often operate from materialistic framework, where they consider humans and animals to be equal in the sense that everyone is more or less the same and none of them, no one is spiritual. But the Vedic understanding is that all living beings are equal in what sense? We all have similar souls. So, the difference between human beings and animals is not in category.
It is a level or quality. Category means, you know, humans are one category, just spiritual beings and animals are another category of non-spiritual beings. No.
All living beings are spiritual beings. But in quality, in terms of the level of consciousness that is developed, that is different. So, the level of consciousness that is developed in humans is much bigger than that is in animals.
Say, there is Ekadashi. We may decide to fast on Ekadashi. But if the cat sees a rat, the cat cannot think today is Ekadashi.
So, animals are simply driven by their impulses. And they largely act like program machines. They also experience emotions.
But they largely act like program machines. In human bodies, we have intelligence, which can regulate our instincts. We also have instincts, but we have the intelligence by which we can regulate our instincts.
Animals more or less are driven by their instincts. So, why I was talking about this is that we, in our philosophy, we don’t disrespect donkeys also. We also understand that donkeys have souls.
And the point is that through the actions of certain animals, certain lessons can be learned. So, sometimes we may consider the cow is very holy and the donkey is very lowly. But it is not like that.
In one verse, Bhagavatam says, Shva Vidva, no, what is that verse? No, that is different. Where donkey and Deha Pattakal, no, no. Yat tirtha buddhi salile na kareche chineshu bhikyeshu saeva go kharaha.
So, he says, one who identifies with the body, one who thinks I am the body, one who thinks the nation in which I am born, that is my country, that is the nation in which I was born, that is worshipable, one who goes to a holy place simply to bathe and not to associate saintly persons. Such people are compared to saeva go kharaha. Go is cow and khara is a donkey.
We may say, cow and donkey, they are both of the same category. The point is Bhagavatam is drawing some lesson over here. And just as a donkey is unintelligent in one way, a cow can be unintelligent in another way.
The donkey is usually unintelligent in terms that it often works very hard carrying huge burdens just for getting a little grass, which it can get anywhere else also. And a cow, it is said that a cow when she has milk in her milk bags, at that time, the cowherd man, the cowherd woman is there, they can just get even something which looks like a calf. And just by seeing the calf look alike, the cow starts giving out milk.
So, in this way, the cow just gives out milk freely, the cow can be fooled in that sense. So, the point here is, both are animals and both often exhibit lack of intelligence. So, when we say that the mind makes us like a donkey, that means what? The mind makes us work extremely hard for very little gain.
For very little gain. So, currently I am writing a book on spirituality and addiction or how bhakti can help one to become free from addiction. I was reading an account of the lives of some addicts.
When people become addicted, somebody is addicted to alcohol or somebody is addicted to drugs, somebody is addicted to smoking. So, at that time, they are literally bound. The normal ropes, they make us motionless.
The normal ropes make us motionless. But the ropes of desires make us restless. They make us run here, run there, run there, go get this, go there, get there, go there.
And because we are moving around, because we are going here, we are going there, we don’t realize that we are bound. So, when I will show you for a drunkard, how he realized. Actually, I am a slave.
Because we move around and we think that this is my desire and I am doing this. We think, anybody who stops me, why are you stopping me? It’s my life. I want to enjoy.
We think like that. But quite often, actually, we are bound. So, this drunkard, one night, he was sleeping and suddenly, early in the morning, 3 o’clock or something, just woke up with a strong craving to drink.
He woke up and he went out, went to his fridge, he found there was no wine, no beer, nothing. He got irritated and said, I have to go out now. This person, he went out, took out his car and went to purchase wine to the nearest shop and went there and he found that the particular brand of wine he wanted was not there.
He got frustrated. He took his car and went out and suddenly, the car broke down. It’s all in the middle of the night, cold, freezing.
This is in America. It’s freezing. And then he got out of his car and he walked almost half a mile to the next wine shop.
Finally, he got that bottle of wine. He took it anyway, nobody had drunk it. He thought, no, I went through so much trouble.
I will peacefully drink and enjoy this. So, he put it back again and started going back. As he was going along, he slipped and fell.
And he did not put the cock on the bottle properly. It was all here, Abhishek of wine for him. So, as he just fell and soaked in the wine, lying on the ground, he looked around.
Everywhere, at night, all the tall buildings around, people were sleeping. And he was lying on the ground. What am I doing? I could have been peacefully sleeping in my bed.
Here I am, dragged in the middle of the night, halfway across the town, drenched in wine. What am I doing? That was the time I realized, I am asleep. Actually, quite often, realizing our bondage is liberating.
Realizing that I am bound is the feeling of becoming free from being bound. So, what happens is, often we also have very strong desires and those desires drag us here, drag us there, make us do this, make us do that. And if we look at it actually, the amount of pleasure we get from the fulfillment of that desire, it is very little.
We get some pleasure, but over time, the desire becomes so strong, the desire becomes so forceful, that when we enjoy a particular activity, what we get more is not so much the pleasure but the relief from the craving. So, every time we indulge in an activity and at that time, that desire, if we conceive of it as a rope, then the rope becomes thicker. Every indulgence adds a strand to the rope.
Krishna says, Asha, Pasha, Shatair, Paddha, Kamakrodha, Parayana. In 16.12 in the Bhagavad Gita, he says, Asha, desire, is like a pash, like a noose. And every time we indulge in a particular desire, that desire becomes stronger.
And suppose, somebody is tied with a thin string to my hand, that person pulls, I won’t feel much pain, I can resist it also. But somebody is tied with a thick, sharp rope, when that person pulls, not only can I not resist the pull, but also if I try to resist it, it hurts me. So, like that, over time, as the desire becomes stronger and stronger, that means the desire noose, the rope of the desire starts pulling more and more, at that time, when the pull is there, we feel so much pain that enduring that pain is intolerable.
So, we indulge not because the pleasure is irresistible, we indulge because the pain is intolerable. Get it, know it, enjoy it. Craving becomes so strong.
Actually, when we indulge in it, there is not much pleasure. It’s a little pleasure, but we indulge because saying no is so painful. It’s so difficult to say no, it’s so intolerable.
And often, based on whatever definitions of pleasure we have, the mind has acquired, for those pleasures, we crave like donkeys. We work extremely hard and often hurting ourselves in the process. But at the end, the pleasure that we get is very little.
So, actually, people who get addicted, they sometimes just give up everything. Sarva dharman parityajya maalam ekam sharanam vraja. Just give up everything.
If a person becomes an alcoholic, that person may just squander the whole bank balance. The person may just mortgage the house. The person may sell one’s own possessions.
The person may just lose all intelligence and ruin everything. Sometimes people ask, if Yudhishthir Maharaj is Dharmaraj, how could he have gambled everything? How could he have gambled his own wife? So, what they ask is, if he gambled everything like this, how can he be called Dharmaraj? Yes, that is a valid question. But the scripture often illustrates things through extreme examples.
And the example here is that the lure of gambling, the fever of gambling can be so inebriating, can be so intoxicating that even a person like Yudhishthir can get captivated. They want to speak of all of us. So, now of course, when Yudhishthir Maharaj gambled, it was a very different situation because normally when people indulge in some undesirable activity, they indulge because they want pleasure.
When Yudhishthir Maharaj, he was practically forced to gamble because of the instruction of Dhritarashtra. When Dhritarashtra, when Duryodhana persuaded Dhritarashtra, that is normally call the Pandavas for a gambling match. So, at that time Dhritarashtra sent Vidura.
Vidura tried to tell Dhritarashtra, no, don’t go. Don’t ask for this gambling match because gambling will lead to fighting and fighting will lead to destruction. And still Dhritarashtra insisted.
And then Vidura went to the Pandavas’ kingdom, Indraprastha. And when Yudhishthir heard it for the first time, he says, why do you, he came because Dhritarashtra had summoned him, he says. He told Duryodhana, why do you want to steal, why do you want to take away from me the wealth that is meant for the service of the Brahmins.
He thought of his wealth, not his own wealth, he thought of his service for the cause of Dharma. They said, no, no, we don’t want to take any wealth away. We just want to have a game.
That’s what they tried to say. But overall, he was pressurized. And he, before, actually after the Rajasuya Yajna happened, then the whole Yajna went off very nicely.
And Vyasadev was one of the presiding priests for the Yajna. Then after that, when Yudhishthir Maharaj asked Vyasadev about the future, he says, now that this Rajasuya Yajna has been performed, will there be prosperity? He says, no. In the future, there will be a huge war to install you as the king of the world.
And after that war, there will be peace. But that war will be devastating. So when Yudhishthir heard this, he thought that I don’t want to be the cause of war.
And so he took, he said that war is caused by dissension. And dissension is often caused by disobedience. So he said, he took a vow that I will not disobey my elders.
And that vow worked against him. So Yudhishthira told him, play this gambling match. He could not say no.
He was, as it is a cultured person, and because his father was not there, he considered his uncle to be like his father. So normally also he would have been inclined to obey. But in this particular situation, he was further bound by his own vow.
Of course, this is not exempt Yudhishthira Maharaj entirely. Yudhishthira Maharaj also later admitted, he had to gamble, but he did not have to gamble to that extreme which he gambled. But what happened is, he was thinking as he was gambling, he lost his own kingdom, he started thinking, what have I done? I have lost everything.
Even if I have, what should I do now? Somehow I must get this back. Therefore he thought, let me gamble my brother. Let me gamble Nakula.
Let me gamble Sahadeva. At least now this should be enough. But at that time, Shakuni goaded him.
Shakuni said, oh Yudhishthira, everybody calls you Dharmaraj, but it seems that you love Kunti’s sons more than Madhuri’s sons. That’s why you gambled Madhuri’s sons, but you did not gamble Kunti’s sons. Yudhishthira got so angry.
He said, fool, don’t create dissension among us. All five of us are united like the five Pandavas. Basically they used a lot of emotional manipulation to goad Yudhishthira to gamble on.
But the point for us, Mahabharata intricacies we are not going to write down. But the point is, that if a person like Yudhishthira can also get carried away by the fever of gambling, what about far lesser mortals like us? So when the mind gets, the mind like a monkey grabs on to a particular definition of happiness and says, I want this, then the mind makes us act like a donkey. It makes us work unintelligently, sometimes self-destructively, even can make us work suicidally, where we are just forced to do this, forced to do this, forced to do this.
And for the sake of that, we may just give up everything. Now, how do we deal with such a mind? The point is that the mind is itself not evil. Krishna says the mind can be the friend and the mind can be the enemy also.
So the mind is basically like a software program. And if the program is working in a destructive way for us, say if my computer or software has been infected by a virus, and because of which my important files are all getting deleted. Now, what do I need to do? I cannot just throw away the software, throw away the computer.
Nor can I say I will never again use the software. No, neither of them will work. I have to use the computer.
I have this body, I have to use this body. Some people get so frustrated because of the problems that they have internally, in the mind level, they commit suicide sometimes. More often, suicides happen not because people are physically in great pain, but because people are mentally very disturbed.
So, but it is like throwing away the computer only because the computer does not work. That is not a solution. Or somebody will say, I just do not want this mind.
That also does not work, because if I want to work on a computer, I need an interfacing software. Without a software, I cannot work on the computer. Similarly, we need the mind.
So if the software is corrupted with a virus, then what do I have to do? I have to counter at the level of the software by putting an antivirus software. And the antivirus software will clean the, will remove the viruses. So, like that, the same mind whose thoughts are dragging us towards illusion and bondage, the same mind’s thoughts need to be changed.
And that happens when you fix the mind on Krishna. So, Krishna is himself like the ultimate antivirus program. And when we place Krishna in our consciousness, Pavitranam Pavitramyo Mangalam Chamangalam, Vishnu Dasanam says that, he is the most pure among all pure.
He is the most auspicious among all auspicious. So, what happens when we focus on Krishna is that we start experiencing higher happiness. We start experiencing higher happiness.
So, when we come to the Darshan of the deities, when we chant the holy names, when we dance in Kirtans, we start experiencing some higher happiness. Although we may experience this higher happiness, our mind still keeps craving for lower happiness. Because the experience does not change the mind’s definition.
The mind is still defining happiness in terms of sensual pleasures. And because of that, although we have the opportunity to experience higher happiness, we don’t feel happy. Just like, suppose there is a small baby and now the mother has sometimes given the baby the medicines and the medicine is bitter.
So, the baby gets a conception, oh, this must be very bitter. So, whatever my mother is trying to feed me is going to be bitter. But later on, the mother is going to give some nourishing food, which is actually sweet.
But then the baby says, I don’t want it. I don’t want. I am just shaking my head vigorously.
And what does the mother have to do? Mother has to catch and give the baby. So, what happens is that if the baby tastes, then the baby says, hey, this is nice. But the baby is so restless that he doesn’t taste anything.
So, like that, when we are practicing Bhakti, our mind is so restless. You have to do this, you have to do that. You have to go here, you have to go, you have to do so many things.
How can you sit and chat? How can you just sit in here? There is so much to do in life. The mind is just thinking of everything else. That means that the mind is not experiencing Krishna.
Now, even when we sit for classes, we sit physically for classes, but our mind goes for walks. And then, whenever there is a joke, the mind comes back, hey, I want to do a joke. What is the joke? I don’t want to miss the joke.
So, what happens with the mind is that it wants pleasure. And it has a particular definition of pleasure. And often Bhakti is not the way the mind defines pleasure.
That’s why the mind resists. When we practice Bhakti, although we experience some joy in the process of Bhakti, still the mind continues to hold on to its past definitions of happiness. And that’s why the mind drags its feet while practicing Bhakti.
And the mind runs towards whatever in the past it has conceived of as pleasure. In such a situation, we need to use our intelligence. Jeeva Goswami has written a series of books called the Shatsandarbhas.
Shatsandarbha is six books which are like systematic philosophical exposition of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. So, in the Bhaktisandarbha he explains, Bhaktisandarbha is one of the final books in the six books, there he explains that when one is a pure devotee, when one is purified and on the spiritual platform, at that time one’s priti connects one with Krishna. That means because one has affection for Krishna one will naturally think of Krishna.
But when one is not yet Siddha, when one is a sadhaka, at that time one does not have much priti. So, what connects one with Krishna is not priti but buddhi. In the sadhaka stage, it is our buddhi that will connect us with Krishna.
And that is why Shastric study, studying scripture, hearing classes, understanding the philosophy is important. Chaitanya Chaitanya Amrita has said that, Siddhanta baliya chitte na kare alas, Iha haite Krishna lage sudhrudha manas. It says Siddhanta baliya, all this is philosophy, I am not interested in it.
I want to relish Katha, I want to relish Bhakti Rasa. We say like that. But, what happens, if we don’t know the Siddhanta, we may, we may still have a relation with Bhakti Rasa.
For example, nowadays, there are many, on TV there are many, there are many serials and movies which are based on Ram Leela, which are based on Krishna Leela, which are based on some spiritual storylines. And many people watch this. Now, this is, watching such movies is usually, nothing more than a pious form of entertainment.
It is a pious form of entertainment. It’s good that we are watching movies about Krishna or Ram, watching TV serials about Krishna or Ram. But still, that is, they are not really thinking of Krishna or Ram as God.
You know, they may at one level, they may be watching a movie and they may say, Oh, Sita Devi is separated from Ram and Sita is, Sita is crying in separation from Ram and Ram is crying in separation from Sita. And they may also start crying over there. And then after a few minutes, they change the channel and there is some Bollywood hero, heroine, they are crying in separation from each other, then also they will start crying.
So, actually, if there is authentic Bhakti, Bhagavatam explains that how do we know that somebody has Bhakti? Bhakti, pareshaanubhava viraktir anyatraja. Bhagavatam says that Bhakti has an internal symptom and it has an external symptom. The internal symptom of Bhakti is, that is, paraeeshaanubhava.
There is experience of God inside our heart. Bhakti is the process that gives us experience of God. And when there is experience of God, what happens? Viraktir anyatraja.
One becomes detached from other experiences. This experience of God is so fulfilling that one feels, I don’t need to watch movies, I don’t need to go here, I don’t need to go there. Because Krishna is such a fulfilling experience.
Now, when we don’t have philosophical understanding, then we don’t understand much of a difference between Krishna, between Krishna and any mundane hero. So, we may get attracted to Krishna and we may get attracted to some mundane hero also. But when we study the philosophy, then we understand the difference.
Siddhanta baliya chitte na kare alas, do not be lazy. Iha haite Krishna lage, sudhrudha manas. When we study the philosophy, then our mind will become fixed on Krishna.
How is it? I will conclude with one metaphor that suppose a baby is sick. And now when the baby is taken to the doctor by the mother, the doctor examines the baby and the doctor gives a prescription. The doctor primarily talks with, the doctor will smile at the baby, give chocolate to the baby, give some sweet.
But the doctor will primarily talk with the mother, parent, whoever it is. You know, give this medicine morning, afternoon, evening. And after that, the doctor is not going to be always with the baby or with the mother.
After they have gone back home, it is the mother’s responsibility to make sure the baby takes the medicine. So, the baby is like the mind. The mother is like the intelligence.
The doctor is like the guru. And the medicine is the process of bhakti yoga. So, the guru may smile at us, may embrace us, may talk sweetly with us.
All that is very good. But that is like the guru showing affection to the mind. But the guru’s real message is to the intelligence.
So, spiritual master speaks to the intelligence and helps us understand why we should be doing what we should be doing. And then the spiritual master is not going to be always with us. So, it is our intelligence which is responsible for ensuring that we practice the process of bhakti.
This is the mother is responsible for ensuring that the child takes the medicine. And that is why Jiva Goswami says that it is the buddhi that will keep us on the spiritual platform. Now, it is important that the buddhi alone cannot purify the mind.
Just the intelligence alone is not enough to change the mind. The intelligence used to practice bhakti, that is what will change the mind. So, it is ultimately the contact with Krishna by which the mind experiences, this is enjoyable, this is happy, this makes me happy.
When we repeatedly use our intelligence to force the mind to come in contact with Krishna, then gradually the mind starts experiencing, I was resisting this so much, but this is nice. This is actually enjoyable. And as this experience comes again and again, then gradually the mind changes its definition of happiness.
And when the mind accepts that actually Krishna consciousness is joyful, that bhakti yoga brings happiness, then from that point onwards, su-sukham kartum avyayam, our bhakti will become joyful. When the mind becomes peaceful, we become joyful. When the mind becomes peaceful, prashantamanasam hyenam yoginam sukham uttamam upaiti shantarajasam brahmabhutam akalmasam Krishna says in Shadashamsindhir Bhagwaniki, Krishna says in the 6.27 in the Bhagavad Gita, that when the mind becomes prashantamanasam hyenam yoginam sukham uttamam uttamam, the topmost happiness one will experience, upaiti, shantarajasam, the rajoguna, the passion that is there in the mind, it will go away.
Brahmabhutam akalmasam, being purified, will be situated on the Brahman or the spiritual platform. And that is the stage which we go to by the practice of bhakti. And the mind is extremely powerful.
When our mind becomes attracted to Krishna, then even if the world presents us with worldly stimuli, we will not think about the worldly stimuli, we will think about Krishna. And the example of this is given by Rupa Goswami. There is a beautiful prayer where he says, yuvati naam yatha yuvnav, yuvnav cha yuvatim yatha, mano bhiramate tatra, mano meram tantvai.
So he says, just as a boy is attracted to a girl, and just as a girl is attracted to a boy, O Lord, let my mind be attracted towards you. So here, what he is saying is, he is acknowledging. Normally, when we are trying to practice bhakti, and when we say a boy is attracted to a girl, a girl is attracted to a boy, we may start thinking, I am missing so much.
Maybe I should be enjoying over there. But it makes us feel there is so much enjoyment there, but I am not getting that enjoyment. But for a devotee who is purified, at that time he says, there is so much force by which they are attracted to each other.
If by that force I could be attracted to Krishna, I would be so happy. So, even material stimuli, once the mind is purified, the material stimuli, rather than triggering materialism within us, they will trigger the desire for remembering Krishna. Bhaktivedanta Guru says, when I see how hard materialists work at their jobs, I feel how much harder I should be working for Krishna.
So, he doesn’t think I should become like those materialists and start earning that much money and doing all those things. No. They are working so hard for some material cause, how much more should I work for Krishna? So, realization, when we say I got a realization, or how can we get realization? Realization means the mind accepts it.
When the mind accepts something, when the mind accepts it, this is actually enjoyable, this is actually miserable. Then there is realization. So, first comes conviction.
Conviction means the intelligence accepts it. First comes conviction. We hear the philosophy.
By hearing the philosophy, conviction comes. So, conviction comes first. By conviction comes the practice of bhakti.
And by the practice of bhakti comes realization. First, even if my mind doesn’t accept, my mind will say, oh, I’ll do that, that will be enjoyable, I’ll do that, that will be enjoyable. But intelligence says, no, that is not enjoyable.
Little pleasure, but lot of misery. With that intellectual conviction, we practice bhakti. And then, just like the child takes the medicine and takes the medicine and becomes healthy.
This is good. So, like that, we practice bhakti, then we get purified, and we get the realization. This is enjoyable, this is not enjoyable.
And once we get that realization, then our life will become joyful. So, when Prabhupada says, chant Hare Krishna and be happy, is this one instruction or are these two instructions? Is he saying, chant Hare Krishna and you will become happy? Or is he saying, chant Hare Krishna and be happy? So, actually, they can be seen as both. That means, by chanting Hare Krishna, we will become happy in due course.
But till then, it is not that every day by chanting Hare Krishna we will immediately feel happy. But, suppose the patient has been sick for a long time and the patient has finally been diagnosed and now is being prescribed a medicine which is curing that patient. Then the patient can be happy that I am on the path to recovery.
Although I am not recovered, I am on the path to recovery. Similarly, as we chant Hare Krishna, even if we don’t feel happy every day when we chant Hare Krishna, but if you observe, this chanting does purify me. It does calm me.
It has changed me for the better. And if I keep practicing it, it will change me for the better in future also. So, based on the understanding that I am being treated properly, that I am in competent hands, we can be happy even when we don’t feel constantly happy in bhakti.
That way we can study and practice bhakti and then chanting Hare Krishna will automatically make us happy. But till then, consciously, rather than getting carried away by the mind’s dissatisfaction, we choose happiness. Focusing on the fact that Krishna has given us the opportunity to be healed from the mind’s mania.
So, I will summarize. I started by talking about the topic was the mind is a monkey that makes us into a donkey. So, I talked about how even materialistic people know that there is some force within them that makes them do some things which they don’t want to do.
So, I talked elaborately about how materialistic people will overeat. A double pilser. You should look good and you also want to eat good.
So, they think, why did I eat like that? So, what is this force which makes us do something wrong? Something which we don’t want to do. That, the Bhagavad Gita calls as the mind. And this mind is basically like a software program.
And, this is a software program by its previous definitions or by our own past choices. It does certain auto-complaints. Like, in Indonesia, it made certain complaints in India.
Sat Chit Ananda, Saturday Chit Ananda. So, like that, the mind, based on the way we have indulged in this life, or based on the way we have created impressions by our indulgence in the past life, the mind acts in particular directions. The mind has certain conceptions of happiness.
And it just prompts us in those directions. So, purification essentially means changing our definition of happiness. If we don’t examine and change the definition, then bhakti will seem like deprivation.
It’s like fasting, when there is a feast kept constantly in front of us. It is too difficult. And in that connection, the capacity for changing our definition of happiness, that is a unique human privilege.
Animals, they are just driven by their instincts. So, a cat can’t fast on Ekadashi. So, we discussed how Christianity tries to elevate souls, elevate human beings to entirely different categories, saying only human beings have souls.
And, opposing such unique privileging of human beings, materialists say that actually nobody has a soul. But the Vedic understanding is everybody has a soul. The difference between humans and animals is not in category, but it is in quality, in terms of what is the level of consciousness that is manifested.
So, we respect all living beings, but we also see how much is their capacity for spiritual understanding. And we discern based on that. That’s why, at one level, cow is considered sacred and donkey is considered to be like an unintelligent person.
But in another context, both cow and donkey may also be considered to be unintelligent. So, the mind is like a monkey means that it latches on to certain things and it just doesn’t let go. Not just like a restless child, but like a wild, powerful young man.
And then, once the mind latches on to a particular definition of happiness, it makes us work like a donkey to get those things. And we discussed two examples, one of a drunkard, who had to go out in the middle of the night and in the middle of the night, cold, drenched by his alcohol, he realized, I must leave. So, the normal ropes make us motionless, the ropes of desire make us restless.
I will discuss Yudhishthira Maharaj’s example also. How, even a person as great as him can be gripped by the fever of gambling. So, desires can make us do terrible things.
So, the mind, when it is gripped by certain desires, can make us act like a donkey. And then, eventually, when the desire grips us, initially we think there is a lot of pleasure over here. But after some time, we crave and indulge in the activity, not because the pleasure is irresistible, but because the craving is intolerable.
Because by repeated indulgence, the desire shackle has become so strong, that resisting it causes, that saying no to it causes great pain. And what is the way out? We discuss that we need to reprogram the mind. If the computer is corrupted by a virus, we need an antivirus program.
And that antivirus program is primarily our buddhi. Niyogoswami says that it is the buddhi that keeps us on the spiritual platform. And in connection with buddhi, we discussed how the mind, even when it experiences something as enjoyable, still, in Krishna Bhakti, it experiences as enjoyable, but still it doesn’t stick to it.
Okay, this is enjoyable, that is also enjoyable. So, the mind treats bhakti like a pious form of entertainment. But actual bhakti is, the internal symptom of bhakti is that we experience God, and the external symptom is that we become detached from other experiences, because the experience of God is so fulfilling.
And for getting this experience of bhakti, we need siddhanta, we need philosophical understanding. So, the spiritual master who gives us philosophical understanding is like the doctor. If there is a sick child, then the doctor speaks to the mother.
So, the mother is our intelligence. The mind is like the sick child. And the process of bhakti yoga is like the medicine that the doctor gives.
So, we have to use our intelligence to ensure that the mind practices, that we practice the bhakti, that the mind takes the medicine of the remembrance of Krishna. And then, by repeated exposure, the mind will start saying, Oh, this is actually enjoyable. And then the mind will change its definition of happiness.
And when the mind accepts that Krishna consciousness is joyful, then our life itself becomes joyful and we march onwards towards Krishna. Thank you very much. Are there any questions or comments? Yes.
Yes, Rohan. So, if the way to control the mind is by understanding saddhanta, but in the mind, obstructs us in understanding the philosophy also. So, then what do we do at that time? Yes, the mind is by nature restless.
At the same time, the mind’s restlessness also has different magnitudes. If we consider, say, like electricity is at this wave, this is the, say, this is the, like electricity wave is at this wave. It goes up and down slightly, but in between, suddenly there are spikes.
So, when the spikes come up, at that time, some equipment may get damaged, a lot of things can happen, the spike guard is not there. But it’s not that the spikes are constantly there in electricity. The spikes mean the waves go up, suddenly the voltage may go up a lot.
But that is only occasional. So, overall, there is a particular level of electricity. So, like that, if you observe the mind, it is not that the mind is constantly disagreeable.
The mind may not always be congenial, but still there are levels. Sometimes the mind is stubborn and just refuses to listen to anything at all. But at other times, the mind may not be really joyful, but the mind is not troubling so much.
So, there are times when the mind’s stubbornness goes to a peak. And at that time, we may just be helpless. But what we do, so what we do at that time may not be in our control.
But what we do in between the spikes is in our control. So, that sometimes nothing may work. We try to study, we try to chant, we come and pray to the deities.
The mind may just seem like it is hitting against a stone wall. Nothing seems to be working. So, at that time, just endure it.
But after that, what we do is most important. Or rather, in between the mind’s stubborn phases, if at that time we are practicing bhakti steadily, if at that time we are trying to connect with Krishna, then we are strengthening ourselves. And not only are we strengthening ourselves, we are also weakening the mind in the process.
And eventually, the spikes magnitudes will go down and down. So, rather than, we should think that we are defined by how we fall. We fall down in bhakti, that means, I am lost.
No, we are defined by how we rise. We are all fallen. We may fall down.
But what do we do after that? We may stay fallen or we rise again. Sometimes we say, Oh, now! Sometimes we fall down and we think, now I fall down, let me fall down completely. Something like that.
We fall down, we realize, okay, I dropped, get up again. And Krishna is not a critic. Krishna is a coach.
That means, like a coach also knows, okay, this is my wall, he is not doing this properly, not doing this properly. But the coach’s focus is on the potential, not on the weakness or the blemish or the mistake. So, like that, Krishna is a very understanding and compassionate God.
And that’s why we focus, even if we fall, what do we do in between? The mind is so devilish, that first, it makes us fall down. And then, it chastises us, why did you fall down? So, you know, first, it makes us a criminal, and then it becomes a judge who convicts the criminal. So, basically, what we need to do is, even if the mind makes us do something wrong, afterward, we shouldn’t stay at the same level of consciousness of the mind.
The mind will beat us up. Okay, forget it. I did it, whatever I did.
Now, let me focus on Krishna. Now, let me do something constructive. So, that way, we can strengthen ourselves.
And, we can also, ourselves, find out what are the ways in which we can hold on to Krishna. Sometimes, we may hear some points in scripture, in classes, which really strikes us. So, we should keep those, if some points really strike us, some verses really make sense to us, we need to keep them readily accessible.
Maybe have a small pocket diary, or have some notes in this phone, or somewhere like that. And, whenever the mind starts getting too agitated, we refer to them. It’s a war.
And, when an enemy attacks, we cannot say, wait, let me go and get my weapons, then we will fight. No, the enemy is going to attack. So, we have to, enemy can attack anytime, and we have to have the weapons with us all the time.
So, the weapons may be different things for different devotees. But, some philosophy, some verses, some tunes of the Hare Krishna Mahamantra, some, some pictures of the deities, whatever it may be. So, that we need to have.
I think yesterday, I talked about Uddhipan. Isn’t it? So, our Uddhipan, we have to find out. So, don’t worry too much about what happens during those spikes.
Focus on what we do in between those spikes. And, then gradually, the spikes will decrease. Thank you.
Yes, Mataji. Yeah. Okay.
Okay. Okay. Right.
Okay. So, if we say the consciousness in humans is higher than that in animals. And, we also say consciousness connects with the mind.
Suppose, there is a mad human and a mad animal. So, is the mad human really higher? Or, how is all this correlated? See, the mind is the channel for consciousness. So, it’s like, suppose, somebody is watching a cricket match.
That is happening in India. So, the TV screen is a channel through which the person’s consciousness is going to the cricket match in India. So, like that, the physical world is the outer reality.
And, the mind is the channel through which the soul. So, soul is here, mind is here. And, then the soul’s consciousness is going through the mind to the body, to the world outside.
So, now, there is a door over there. The door is open. Then, if we are here, we can see through that door outwards.
So, the mind is a doorway for the soul’s consciousness to be routed outwards. Now, there are different doors which may have different degrees of transparency. Some doors may be semi-transparent.
Some doors may be fully transparent. Some doors may be fully opaque. So, Krishna talks about three degrees of covering of the soul in 3.38. dhume naavriyate vahanyariya tha darsho malena cha etholbenaavrato garbhastha tha dene tamavritam So, he says that just as the embryo is covered by the womb, just as a mirror is covered by dust, just as fire is covered by smoke.
Similarly, selfish desire covers all living beings. So, the Acharyas explain that these three refer to three different levels of species. So, the embryo covering the the womb covering the embryo refers to the plant species, dust covering the mirror refers to the animal species and smoke covering fire refers to the human species.
So, without going into the technicalities of three examples, suffice it to say that these are different degrees of covering. The smoke that is covering a fire that can be removed when you stoke the fire it goes away. But if there is a mirror that is so thickly covered by dust and you can’t even see there is a mirror and you have to get a cloth and apply the cloth, rub the cloth, scrub away the dust then the mirror will be seen.
And if a child is there in the womb you cannot just get the child out. It has to go through its period of pregnancy and then after 8-9 months the child will come out. So, these are different degrees of covering.
So, in principle when the soul acquires a human body the covering on the soul’s consciousness is more transparent. The covering is less. And because the covering is less the soul’s original nature is more manifested.
In the animal bodies the soul’s consciousness is more covered and that’s why the original nature is not so much manifested. What this means is that all living beings look for happiness. A dog wants to eat a bone.
A cat wants to eat a rat. But only we human beings we cook our food elaborately. A cow will eat the same grass generation after generation.
But we will cook so many cuisines. Why is that? Because you see the soul is Satchitananda. The soul’s nature is to be constantly joyful.
Whereas the body can offer pleasure only intermittently. If I think of eating as my definition of pleasure then I can eat only 3-4 times 5-6 times a day whatever. If I think of mating as a source of pleasure it can be only for a few minutes or whatever.
So none of the bodily activities can offer constant pleasure. And when the soul’s consciousness is developed more in the human body in the animal body the soul is satisfied with whatever pleasure is offered by the body. That is the intermittent pleasure.
But when the consciousness is developed more in the human form then the soul wants more pleasure than what the body can offer. And that is why through nature through the body we can get some pleasure. But you want to improve that pleasure.
And what Bhagavatam tells us is that we should improve but that improvement should be vertical. It should be spiritual. Not just horizontal.
By improving things materially we won’t get much more pleasure. Little bit more okay. But if we improve our consciousness spiritually then we get more pleasure.
We get constant pleasure. But the point is that the soul’s original nature is much more developed in the human body and it is also capable of much more development further. In that sense the soul is different from the soul in the human body is covered by a thinner covering.
The door which is the mind which is more transparent. Now having this madness can be because of various causes. Sometimes the brain may be damaged or whatever.
The person may just emotionally crumble because of the pressures of life and they become mad. Whatever the reason it is that this person the soul still has the potential to think deeply to think of life’s deeper questions. But at that particular point a person has lost the resources.
So it is like there are two people who are wandering on the streets. One is a millionaire son who has forgotten that I am a millionaire and another is a pauper son who is also away from his home. Now both are in a similar condition at that time.
But there is a difference in their position. The difference is that he is a millionaire son. So like that the human being who has gone mad and the dog who has gone mad both of them are incoherent in their behaviour right now.
But that is because that is become impaired. But the soul in principle has the capacity. But just the tool for operating it is not working.
To give another example suppose say I am working on a computer and there is a dog who comes on the computer. If the computer is damaged neither I nor the dog will be able to do anything with it. But if the computer is working also the dog will not be able to do much with it.
So the dog does not have the capacity. So when we talk about madness, madness is basically a damage of the tool for functioning. But the original person who is functioning they themselves can be of different calibers.
So the animal and a human they are in that sense they are different. There are different levels of consciousness. Does it answer your question? Thank you.
Any other questions? Yes. Awareness of your thoughts is very important. Awareness of your thoughts, what we are thinking and the intelligence to discern misleading thoughts and truthful thoughts such as spiritual thoughts.
So that’s very important do you think? Yes, definitely. Yeah. Awareness of our thoughts, how important is it is extremely important.
In the Bhagavad Gita in the 14th chapter which is about three modes of material nature. Krishna gives the analysis of three modes and then when Arjuna asks how do I overcome these modes? The first point that Krishna says is prakasham cha pravrttam cha moham eva cha pandava na dveshti sampravrttani nanyavrttani kankshati udhaseena vadhaseenam asaktam teshu karmasu asaktam teshu sarvasu what he says is that actually prakasham means sometimes clarity comes, pravrtti sometimes passion comes, I want to do this, I want to do that, I want to do that. Moha sometimes just illusion comes.
So these three are Krishna uses these words to refer to goodness, passion and ignorance. This is 14.21, 14.11, 12.13 he has defined the three modes in these three qualities, prakasham, pravrtti and moham. What Krishna says over here primarily is that these three modes will come, when they come don’t be eager for them, when they go don’t crave for them.
That means he is basically saying be an observer of your consciousness, be an observer of your consciousness and sometimes some desire comes in. It’s not that because the desire has come in, that means I have to indulge in that desire. Desire has come in, it may go away.
A certain thought may come in, it may go, it will go away. Just because the thought, thought has come inside us, that does not necessarily mean it is my thought. Suppose on the street there are so many people walking along.
We know they are strangers. Suppose now one such person comes inside our house. Just because a person is inside our house does not mean that that person is our family member.
Even if a person is inside our house, an intruder inside our house is still an intruder. So like that, sometimes some thoughts may come inside us but they may not be our thoughts. So we need to observe carefully.
And this capacity for observation can actually develop through meditation. When we chant Hare Krishna, when we try to focus on one thought, on the sound of the holy name, it’s not just the utterance of the sound, we try to focus on the holy name, at that time the attempt to focus on the holy name helps us, the mind gets distracted here, gets distracted there, gets distracted there and then we start realizing. We may get carried away by those thoughts.
But if we are discerning, we start realizing, I don’t want to think of this. I don’t want to think of this. This is here, this is here but I don’t need to think about this.
So basically the attempt to focus on the holy name makes us aware of all that is there in our consciousness. We don’t want to think of this. want to want to We don’t want to think of We this.
don’t want to think of actually speaking, if I am aware, I didn’t want to go to this side. The popup comes up, this is not where I want to go. If you are aware, we won’t go there.
So like that we are thinking about one thing and the mind pops up something else. So if you are aware, you will understand this is just a pop-up coming up, I don’t need to go here. So like that, the attempt to focus on one thing, it may be a struggle, but it makes us aware of the distracting things that are there.
And once we recognize them as distractions, we can push them aside, we can focus on Krishna. So meditation makes, by trying to become aware of Krishna, we become aware of ourselves. We become aware of ourselves means, what all is there in our consciousness, the clutter that is there in our consciousness, we become aware of it.
And once we are aware of it, then we can cleanse it. So yes, self-awareness is important. It can be developed on one side through introspection, just by self-observation, as I said, in the beginning, observation of our consciousness, okay, I’m feeling this, is this really my feeling? How do I start feeling like this? So introspection, observing our consciousness is one way to become self-aware.
Another, often more effective way is to try to become Krishna conscious. And that process also, we become aware of what all the distractors are there. And as the self-awareness increases, then we start realizing our Satchitananda.
When you talk about self-awareness, there are various degrees. See, our self at its essence is spiritual. But currently our existence is three-dimensional.
There is the body, there is the mind, and there is the soul. So self-awareness can at a physical level be there also. I might be sitting in a very tensed muscular position, sometimes we are stressed, and then all our muscles start getting stretched and our heart starts palpitating.
So at that time, self-awareness may simply mean, okay, relax, breathe slowly, relax your muscles. So that itself, that level of self-awareness is also beneficial. So becoming aware of our body, not in the sense of gratifying the body, but making the body a suitable tool for our functioning, that is also one level of self-awareness.
Another level of self-awareness is becoming aware of the mind. These are the kind of tendencies, these are the kind of thoughts that are going on. And then at a higher level, becoming aware of the soul.
And at the highest level, self-awareness is awareness of the self as a part of Krishna. So that is brahma, aham brahma asmi, I am the soul, that is a good realization. But higher realization still is mamai vamsho jeeva loke, that I am a part of Krishna.
That is the self-awareness that brings self-satisfaction in a sustainable way. So when we realize that, and that happens by the process of bhakti yoga, then that self-awareness brings lasting self-satisfaction. Did I answer your question? Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna.