The missing self in the selfie

[Talk at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, USA]

ppt:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
In my third year engineering I gave GRE, I got 2350 out of 2400 at that time I was first in Maharashtra and I thought all my dreams have come true now So at that time Am I audible behind? I am more audible behind now? Thank you So at that time I felt that all my dreams were fulfilled now I had a maternal uncle who was in America and he had a business and he did not have a successor So the road seemed to be clear for me to come here Is there too much of an echo? Or you are able to hear reasonably well? So at that time somehow I found that after I got the record score in GRE I was elated for some time But then I realized that there is no happiness in just looking at the mark sheet It is when someone comes and congratulates you, then you feel good And somehow it happened, you could say by destiny Three of my friends forgot to congratulate me So once it happened Second time it happened Third time it happened And third time it happened I was very annoyed for a few moments But after that somehow at critical moments in my life I tend to get a not literally but conceptually I tend to look at myself from above myself Like look at oneself from out of the body perspective So when this happened I just felt that this achievement I look at myself from above and said this achievement has not made me happy It has made me more dependent on others for my happiness So earlier I could just interact naturally with people Now when I interact, I am constantly thinking When is this person going to congratulate me Why is he not congratulating me Does he know what I have achieved? Is he envious? Has he forgotten? How can he forget such a thing? So I realized that I have become more dependent on others So I felt tomorrow I can give another exam I might crack that exam also But this alone will not lead to lasting satisfaction And in my childhood I had been introduced to the Bhagavad Gita But it was just a book from which I had memorized some verses and participated in some shloka recitation competition But nothing to relate with my life directly But it was at that time when I was exploring that I came across the Bhagavad Gita given by a friend I started reading it Actually my first reaction when I got the Bhagavad Gita was I have already read this I know this But then I saw this friend had been substantially transformed So I felt maybe I have missed something when I read this So I started reading at that time I found a whole universe of wisdom about our inner world which helped me to better understand my emotions process my reactions to issues and understand what was truly important in my life So from that time onwards I decided to I graduated, I worked in a multinational software company for some time But then at that time I felt that if I consider spiritual wisdom to be like one mountain scientific knowledge to be like another mountain I felt that we need a bridge between the two And I felt somehow inspired that I could serve as one brick on that bridge So since then I am trying to bring scientific knowledge and spiritual knowledge together in my own small way So currently I have been two months here on a tour of America Just two weeks ago I was in Yale Medical College where I spoke on Science, Spirituality and Self Improvement So today I will speak on this topic of The Missing Self in the Selfie So What do we do here? Any idea? So I am going to speak on the missing self in the selfie and the screen is missing here So About 15 days ago I read an article about a tragic incident that happened in India A group of friends had gone to some river and they were swimming in the river at that time they took a selfie and they were taking the selfie and afterwards they came back, came out and they played it and they looked at the photos and they found that they initially saw that one of their friends was missing and in that selfie they saw that this friend was drowning and he was calling out, calling out but everybody was so excited about it, they were just looking and smiling and looking at the selfie they neglected their friend and they could see that, they got a series of photos so one of them, he himself realized what happened first his face was there and then as he realized he was going down his eyes widened in alarm and he started shaking his hands somehow he didn’t scream, no one knows he didn’t call out, he sank and he drowned over there so they were actually taking a selfie but they missed out something very important so they just missed out on a friend and later they spotted it so when we look at a selfie what the selfie catches and what the selfie misses both are important when we look at a picture of ourselves we see something about ourselves what we see is important but what we see is not the entirety of who we are and we live today in a very externally driven culture where most of us are we evaluate each other we evaluate others and others evaluate us by our looks primarily and yes appearances naturally we like to see how well groomed a person is how the person looks but sometimes you can get way too infatuated by that I was a few months ago before I came to America in August first part of August I was in a university in Karnataka and I was asking the students over there how many of you have taken selfies in dangerous situations so sometimes you know there are certain areas in Mumbai I come from Mumbai where selfies have been banned now sometimes people just want to take a selfie when they are peering out when they are hanging out of a local train and they want to click a photo and some people just fell down and died so Mumbai is currently considered the selfie death capital of the world its not a particularly glorious distinction to have but the point which I am making is that we can get so caught in looking good, looking special looking something distinct there was one boy who wanted to take a selfie of himself while a train was bearing down upon him so the train was coming and he just came in and he wanted to take a selfie and somehow he took the selfie but after that somehow his leg got caught in the rail or something he couldn’t jump out and the phone fell from his hand, the phone survived but he got crushed and the selfie remained but the self was lost so when we get caught in externals too much then we can miss out on the essential so yes looking good in a selfie is important but protecting oneself is even more important so our how we look matters but what matters even more is who is looking so the appearance is what our culture focuses a lot on enhancing and it can be from hairstyles to plastic surgeries to all kinds of enhancements so Oscar Wilde is a British author and he said almost half a century more than half a century ago he said fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to change it every six months fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to change it every six months normally we think of fashion as something very attractive yes it’s fashionable but the same thing that is fashionable today after sometime it becomes old fashioned and for those who pride themselves on being fashionable there is no slight more unbearable than being called old fashioned just can’t bear it so we get caught in ok I want to get a new set of jeans I want to get a new set of clothes, I want to have a new hairstyle different kinds of things we keep doing and we get caught in externals and there is nothing wrong in improving our looks but if that becomes itself an obsession then it is never ending and yes somebody may look great in a selfie somebody may not look so great in a selfie but the selfie is just one reflection of who we are in trying to get better and better selfies trying to have better and better looks so that we can get better and better selfies what about improving our core self trying to become better trying to become who we can best be so the self, selfie only looks at our external appearance but we are definitely more than our appearance we may try to enhance our looks in some ways but ultimately we are a person may look very attractive but they may have a very harsh heart a person may look quite forbidden but they may be very gentle in that so we need to understand who the real person is and that applies not only when we interact with others it applies even when we are trying to understand ourselves so we can look at ourselves at various levels first is in the selfie we may look at our externals and try to improve that but that external is only an appearance then what actually is the self we say that I am actually my emotions I am not just my looks I am something deeper, I am my emotions yes, our emotions are much closer to us sometimes we may smile but internally we may be distressed so we may be trying to cover up so the real me is not the smiling person the real me may be crying inside sometimes people have smiling faces but they have crying hearts inside so you may say that the real me is the emotions that I am experiencing and I want to understand what these emotions are, where they come from what it is all about yes, our emotions are very important at the same time we are not just our emotions the Ramayana is a very ancient book of wisdom coming from India and there it is very interesting incident comes I won’t go into the whole story but there are two brothers Ram and Lakshman Lakshman is a little short tempered person and he gets very angry with their fourth brother Bharat and he is about to attack him and Ram says no, Bharat is a very nice person you should not attack him like this but afterwards it turns out that Bharat has actually come with no malified intention comes with very virtuous intention although he appeared like that so then Lakshman as a younger brother asks Ram he says why why do I get angry so quickly and then Ram in an elder brotherly mood pats his shoulder and he says you are sentimental then Lakshman asks are sentiments bad? are emotions bad? he says Ram says no, emotions are not at all bad he says emotions are the ornaments of life they are what make life worth living Bharat adds we need to select those emotions which bring out our best not those emotions which bring out our worst we all are people of different kinds of emotions and emotions are important for us but suppose I get angry with someone there are some people who are short tempered and they know they are short tempered and there are some people who are short tempered and they don’t even realize they are short tempered so they explode at one moment and after they explode they calm down but when they exploded they spoke such things that are like wounds on other people’s hearts so I had a friend like this so what we did was we told him you should not get angry like this you hurt a lot of people so what we did once was when he got angry we just recorded what he spoke we had a phone and we recorded all that he spoke and then we played the recording I spoke that how could I have spoken that, I never meant it so what happens is when anger comes within us anger can make us a stranger to ourselves who is this person speaking so anger is an emotion that comes upon us the different emotions act upon us in different ways in the Bhagavad Gita there are three emotional drives which are considered to be inner enemies trividham narkasyedam dvaram nashinam atmanah kamah krodhas tathalomas tasmad etat triyam tejet 16.21 in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says that lust, anger and greed they drag us into hellish conditions so different emotions these different drives allure us in different ways so anger allures us by giving us a sense of power I have tolerated enough now now I will show you who is the boss now I will put you in the place and you burst out at that time but although anger allures us with power it actually makes us powerless because we end up doing things which we regret later we speak things which we regret later so anger there is an emotion, we feel that we can’t deny that, we can’t wish it away but how can I speak this, I never meant to speak this now what this means is that my feelings are not me my feelings are a part of me, this feeling came of anger came, but that was not the real me the real me is something beyond the real me is something who is not the feelings but the feeler of the feelings so I feel those feelings, I am feeling angry right now but I choose whether to act on the anger or not act on the anger now of course if I have if I have repeatedly indulged in anger then my capacity to resist anger may go down substantially Mark Twain said that giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world I have done it over a hundred times so if I have given it over a hundred times then why is it still there, that’s ok no need for that so it’s once we get caught in a particular pattern of behavior, we think I can give it up but we may give it up, it doesn’t give us up so it may appear as if when I repeatedly get angry that anger is like my default behavior but it’s not, it’s become a habit when it’s become a habit, it becomes difficult to resist but still I am different from that anger that anger comes upon me so when something becomes a habit it inclines our mental floor say this floor, just now we came in the car so we got out of the car, the road is inclined in a particular way so if the road is inclined if water falls on it, naturally the water will flow in a particular direction of the inclination if I don’t want that part of the pavement to get wet it should not get wet, the water should not flow in this direction it’s not going to work, because it’s inclined in that way so similarly we could say that our mental floor in our inner world if we can see that there is a floor that gets inclined in particular ways based on our habits so if I have habitually tended to become angry the next time some provocation comes, immediately I will become angry so all our habits they basically change the inclination of our inner floor and that’s why sometimes some habits may become so ingrained that we may feel this is just what I am I am just like this, I can’t change it it’s not that we can’t change it but it’s that, that will be the default behavior if I don’t want the water to flow in this way just saying the water should not flow in this way is not going to work the water is going to flow and then I will have to consciously use a brush or a mop or something to push the water in the other direction so again we may look at our emotions but our emotions are not us we are the feelers of our emotions so who are we actually? so the Bhagavad Gita talks about a three level conception of the self a three level conception is the body, the mind and the soul so the body is associated with the looks the mind is associated with the feelings but we are not our looks, we are not our feelings we are the person who looks we are the person who feels and that person is the soul so the soul is the spiritual essence of who we are we could compare this to a computer system there is the hardware, there is the software and there is the user the hardware is like the body the software is the mind and the soul is the user now the software may have certain default settings as soon as I click on a link say if a particular browser is the default Google Chrome is my default then that link could be opened with any other browser but as soon as I click that, that particular browser will open because that’s my default so like that, in our life there are certain stimuli we could consider different stimuli that come upon us the stimuli are like a link the stimuli comes upon us certain browsers open in our mind and that is determined by our default settings but whichever software opens in a computer it’s up to the individual the individual is different from the software over there so we have default settings within us and when we look at the self the self is at one level the setter of these default settings but at another level the self is also the receiver of these default settings if say I have got a computer which somebody else has worked on or I myself worked on and now I select a computer I start working on it then the default settings from the past will come upon now I may want to change it now but just by wishing it they are not going to change I have to go into the settings, find out the default and change it gradually it may require work another example is that say if I have repeatedly visited a particular site if I have repeatedly visited NY Times to look at the news now as soon as in my browser I type N it will give an autocomplete NY Times now today I may decide I want to visit some other site I may want to visit some other site which begins with N but as soon as I type N that is going to come if I want to change that I will again and again have to visit this new site so when I visit this new site again and again and when the frequency of my visiting this new site becomes more then this will become the autocomplete and till that time whatever comes as autocomplete I will have to reject that similarly for us when we are going through our life we have our looks externally we have our feelings internally but we are beyond both this so the looks we may try to change in various ways the feelings we may get in different ways some of them may be good some of them may not be good but if we reduce our self-conception to any of these things if I reduce my self-conception to just my looks now if I look very good then I will have superiority complex I think that I look so great and even if we look very good actually that also creates a sort of dependence because when I look very good then I am always looking how many people are admiring my looks and Socrates said that beauty is a short lived tyrant when we look very good then we become controlled by whether others are appreciating my looks or not and similarly if I go beyond that now looks are just one aspect of us but we are talking about externals in general it may be my car, it may be my phone, it may be my dress it may be my house all these things are external to us and they are important for us but they are not who we are if our definition of ourselves or our definition of happiness is just improving these things then we are missing out on something very important so last time when I had come to America in April March April May I had been here I gave a talk in Intel in Phoenix so I spoke about the mind over there and there many different nationalities people were there so I spoke on the topic of how anxiety is increasing in the world today sociologists talk about something called anxiety epidemic where millions of people suffer from anxiety related disorders and there can be very specific reasons for this but beyond the specific reasons this went wrong in my life I lost my job, I did not get a good enough grade or my partner rejected me whatever we might have these specific reasons but underlying that there is something which is universal in all our lives there are some things in our control and some things not in our control when we base our self conception when we base our self worth when we base our self esteem on things that are not in our control then we subject ourselves to enormous anxiety so if my sense of self worth comes from the grade that I am getting if it comes from the kind of job I have if it comes from the kind of partner I have all these affect me but they are external to me if my sense of self worth comes from these things then I am always going to be insecure as long as I feel that if this person values me then I am important, if this person rejects me then who am I if my self worth is coming from externals alone or primarily then that is going to subject me to anxiety and that is why if we want to become free from anxiety we may take some pills, we may do some breathing exercises we may do different kinds of palliative measures which are good to bring the anxiety down at that time but we need to change our focus from external to internal as long as our sense of self conception comes from self worth comes from externals we are going to subject ourselves to enormous anxiety a couple of weeks ago I was in Ohio State University I talked about overcoming our fears and I have talked about what are the top 10 fears of people and how people try different ways to overcome them so now again our fears all emerge from depending too much on things that are not in our control now definitely there are things not in our control and those things affect us if suddenly the temperature goes down and we start shivering, that’s affecting us we can’t say that I will not care for the externals but how much we dwell on the externals is up to us how much we dwell on what other people think of me instead that we won’t worry so much about what other people thought about us if we knew how little other people thought about us now we worry so much what will he think about me, what will she think about me yes, we don’t want to be insensitive to others we don’t want to be negligent of others but they have their life, we have our life it’s not that people have idle lives to think about us so we cannot be so externally dependent and for that so here I talk about the three levels the body, the mind and the soul so when my self-worth comes from externals then what it leads to is even in the internal level of the mind I feel enormous anxiety so the self is not affected either by the physical or the emotional the self is beyond both so I would like you to do a thought exercise now you can just sit comfortably in your chairs and take, close your eyes and take three deep breaths two, now with your eyes closed you will see a inner screen something inside you on which various images come and go you may on that screen see the class where you are in or you may see some work you have to do after this or you may see some friend with whom you had an argument you see a parade of images going on that inner screen or you may just see a pattern of light and dark now whatever comes out of the inner screen the content of that screen is not important the important thing is that you are looking at the screen now try to take a step back and try to look at the person who is looking at the screen you can see a screen on which many things are happening but try to, instead of looking at the screen look at the seer of the screen try to take a step back and try to see who is it that is looking at the screen you will see that no matter how much you move back the seer moves back we can see what is on the inner screen but no matter how many steps we take back we cannot see the seer of the inner screen take 3 deep breaths again and slowly open your eyes so when we see this inner screen that inner screen is like the mind that is where various stimuli come and based on the stimuli we feel emotions but there is a seer of the inner screen so more than 2000 years ago Marcus Aurelius, a Greco-Roman thinker what we are looking for is what we are looking with so in the inner world if I try to look at who is looking you can’t do that because that is who we are we may use a mirror to look at ourselves but what we see is our externals so introspection when we do we may try to understand our emotions I am feeling angry right now, I am feeling irritated I am feeling upset right now, I am feeling depressed right now so we may do this but who is the I who is doing all this that remains forever elusive that I is the spiritual essence of who we are that I is the soul and this I is known primarily through our consciousness the consciousness is the energy of the soul and it is the consciousness that radiates from the soul outwards to the mind to the body and to the outer world and based on wherever the consciousness goes we experience different things so I may be sitting here right now but if my consciousness goes to some quarrel I may have had with somebody feeling my muscles tensing, my heart palpitating I may feel a few months ago there was India Pakistan champions trophy final was there and India was expected to win very easily but India lost very badly so one boy told me after that three nights I could not sleep how could India lose so badly so now this boy was in India the match happened in England why was he so affected because his consciousness was caught over there so our consciousness is our fundamental resource the soul is something which we can’t perceive right now but what we can perceive is that there is an inner seer we can at least understand that and that seer is radiating out an energy that energy is the energy of consciousness in the 13th chapter 34th verse of the Bhagavad Gita it is said that just as the sun is far away from the earth but the sun illumines the earth with light and from the sun when the light comes the earth gets activated the birds start chirping, the plants start having photosynthesis when the sun comes in the sky the sun’s energy makes the earth become active similarly the soul is different from the body but the soul’s energy in the form of consciousness which comes and activates the body whatever we do in our life you may choose to become engineers you may choose to become doctors you may choose to become sports players you may choose to become artists whatever we do, we do with our consciousness our consciousness is our most fundamental and essential resource and where and how well we can use that resource that will determine how well we can achieve in our life how we can find satisfaction in our life our consciousness is usually scattered over hundreds of things and what scatters it is our attachments this boy was sitting in India but because of the attachment to cricket his consciousness got over there and he couldn’t even sleep so we need to become more possessive about our consciousness sometimes spiritual it is said that to become spiritual we should become detached it’s not so much about becoming detached it’s more about becoming attached to that which is most important for us when I’m attached to externals then those externals catch my consciousness and then I can’t do what I want to do but rather when I become possessive of my consciousness my consciousness is my energy I won’t let it get locked here get caught there, get distracted there I will focus it I will decide where this consciousness needs to be focused so when we do that then we can actually bring out our best, we can do justice to our talents, we can make the contributions that we are meant to make and the process of Bhakti Yoga which the Bhagavad Gita talks about many different processes of Yoga Yoga has a physical aspect to it where we do exercises where we try to tune and train our bodies that is a preliminary step it’s an important step but the important what comes afterwards is equally if not more important that is to launch our consciousness like many times in English we use the word Yoga postures Yoga poses or Yoga postures so if we have, the word posture may also be in sports if a cricket player is batting different batsmen have different postures some batsmen stand with the bat erect, bat high up somebody may stand with the bat down somebody may stand with the legs wide apart now the posture is important but what is the importance of the posture when the ball comes, the batsman should be able to hit the ball as effectively as possible the posture itself is not important the posture’s purpose is important the purpose is to hit the ball similarly Yoga involves various postures the purpose of the postures is to launch our consciousness to be able to launch our consciousness in a worthy direction to get focus on our consciousness and then to direct it where we want to and Bhakti Yoga is a process where we center our consciousness on the supreme reality on the infinite consciousness we are finite consciousness and there is infinite consciousness who is known in different traditions by different names the Bhagavad Gita knows him by the name Krishna so when we keep the consciousness fixed in Krishna then that becomes like a anchor for us if we are in a boat the boat is in stormy weather then the waves will simply shake us up and down, up and down so similarly for us when we are living in the world there are the waves of worldly ups and downs so whether it is our looks or our situation in the world there will be ups and downs, sometimes people will like us, sometimes people will not like us sometimes we will get success, sometimes we will get failure so our looks will go up and down our externals will go up and down at a physical level even our internals in terms of our emotions may also go up and down sometimes I feel cheerful, sometimes I just feel why do anything so this also, the Bhagavad Gita talks about three modes sattva guna, rajo guna and tamo guna there are three different ways in which our mind functions so one way to describe the modes is that some people make things happen some people watch things happen and some people wonder what happened so our emotions also go up and down in different ways but when we have an anchor beyond the world and beyond the mind that is the anchor for the self and the anchor for the self is the supreme self so when we connect with the supreme self in a mode of devotion then we get sheltered internally the purpose of the boat is not just to be steady the purpose of the boat is to go somewhere but it can’t go wherever it wants to go if the waves are tossing it here and there so similarly, steadiness is what we get internally by the practice of bhakti yoga which stabilizes our consciousness first in the supreme consciousness and when it is stabilized like that after that, wherever we wish to focus we can focus that consciousness because it is stabilized Bhagavad Gita was spoken to Arjuna who was an archer and he was not just an ordinary archer he was the best archer of his times and the Bhagavad Gita tells Arjuna that whatever work you are doing do it the best that you can in a mode of devotion by your work, worship that absolute so the idea is Arjuna is a talented person he is a committed person but Krishna tells him you connect your consciousness with the supreme do what you are doing in a mode of worship and this will help you to bring out your best the Bhagavad Gita begins with Arjuna losing heart he puts aside his bow saying I can’t fight I can’t fight he puts aside his bow by the end of the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna has picked up his bow in readiness to fight so Arjuna’s bow represents our determination the world presents before us such perplexities and adversities that we lose heart I can’t do it, I give up I just give up but if we understand the spiritual message of the Bhagavad Gita we understand that whatever is happening in the world in terms of ups and downs I am higher than all this, I am beyond all this the circumstances are like carpets they are comfortable below uncomfortable above on my foot they are good but if I am under the carpet, I will be suffocated so similarly for us what happens by understanding our spiritual self identity we see the circumstances matter to me but they are not above me we can keep them below us by our spiritual understanding and our spiritual connection with the infinite the circumstances don’t affect us so much we learn how to face them just as Arjuna picked up his bow by hearing the Bhagavad Gita and became ready to fight similarly in whatever battles we need to face in our life if we get the spiritual self understanding if we get a spiritual shelter in connection with the supreme then our determination will also be restored and we will also become confident to face whatever life sends our way that is how the selfie in a sense represents technology and the product of technology technology can and technology has improved external things in many significant ways but technology does not replace spirituality the technology can improve the outer world it is spirituality that we need to improve our inner world so if we focus only on technology and the products of technology then we miss out on the self we may get better and better selfies but the self will still be missing we will not have confidence, we will not have contentment we will not have a consistent purpose in our life we will be simply shaken by the world’s trends and the mind’s moods but when we have spiritual understanding we will focus on what are my talents what are my interests, what is my aspiration what is it that God has gifted to me what can I contribute in this world and by this inside out approach looking at our talents and trying to develop them we will be able to make the contributions that we are meant to make we will be able to find inner contentment and we will be able to make outer contribution this is the result the rich fruit that we can reap by ensuring that the obsession with selfies does not cause us to miss out on the self so I will quickly summarize and you can have a few questions so I spoke today on the topic of the missing self in the selfie so how these kids who had gone for a trip they are so caught in looking at a selfie that they didn’t notice that one of their friends was drowning they just missed him completely it’s tragic similarly today when people look at selfies they want to look good in the selfie they may go in front of a train they may hang out of a train because so much we want to look good in the selfies selfies are nice to look good in but the self is more important we can’t afford to lose the self for the selfie so what is the self? we are not our looks fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to change it every six months our looks are important but they don’t define us similarly our emotions are also important but when I get angry then afterwards what did I speak? I would never have spoken such a thing our lower emotions can make us unrecognizable to ourselves so we are not our emotions also Ram tells Lakshman emotions are the ornament of life but we need to choose the emotions that raise us up not the emotions that drag us down so we are neither our looks nor our emotions we are the person who look at our looks we are the person who feel our emotions and that person is the soul so there is the hardware, the software and there is the user so the hardware is the body, the software is the mind and the soul is the user just as the software may have certain default settings like that our habits are like the default settings that have happened at the level of the mind so we may at present be short tempered we may be externally obsessed with our looks or with other gadgets in the outer world this is a habitual pattern, it’s like the inclination of the inner floor so if you want to change it, it will require conscious effort we can’t expect that the water will not flow in this direction we have to push it in the opposite direction and for that I talk about what exactly is the self we did this thought exercise where we can see the inner screen but we can never see the seer of the inner screen that seer is the soul whose energy is consciousness and the consciousness is what we use for doing anything and everything in our life and spiritual growth is not so much about becoming detached from things it is more about becoming attached or possessive about our consciousness I want to invest my consciousness in things that are important for me not on whatever the world deems important or whatever my moods feel like right now so for that to distance ourselves from the outer world and from the inner mind we need to not just understand intellectually that I am the soul but also connect with the supreme soul so that connection with the supreme soul which happens through bhakti yoga acts like an anchor which stabilizes us amidst the wave-like ups and downs of the world and the mind so yoga with its postures is meant for launching our consciousness in a desired direction just as in batting the posture is meant for hitting the ball in the desired direction so that launching of the consciousness happens through the process of bhakti when we practice the devotional connection with Krishna that stabilizes our consciousness and then with the stabilized consciousness we can focus wherever we want we can work in a mood of service and worship and while doing so just as Arjuna got disheartened because of worldly adversities we also when we get disheartened if we get the spiritual understanding of ourselves then the circumstances which seem like a carpet above suffocating us by spiritual understanding we see that actually they are meant to be below me, I am above them and then as the same Arjuna put aside his bow in disheartenment he picked up his bow in confidence like that our determination will also be restored by understanding our spiritual self identity and as long as our sense of self worth is based on externals whether it be people or things or careers or whatever we will subject ourselves to anxiety those things are important but we are different from those things and when we can go inside out understanding who we are for the self self represents technology and products of technology that is improved in the outer world but that alone can’t bring satisfaction we need to improve our inner world we need to better understand ourselves and act in the world based on our talents, our interests what are our gifts so when we do that then we find inner contentment and we make outer contribution we can all by equipping ourselves with the spiritual knowledge that is given in the Bhagavad Gita we can fulfill the destiny that God wants us to fulfill we can make the best contribution that we are meant to make and we can find the satisfaction that we have always been looking for thank you very much Hare Krishna are there any questions or comments so if we have certain default reactions getting angry and others have provoked us how can we avoid that yes, I was hoping somebody would ask this question because I started the metaphor of the floor but I did not complete it so I gave the example of water flowing in a particular direction if I don’t want the water to flow in that direction I have to do three things first is restriction, redirection and reconstruction that means the water is flowing in this direction first is restriction I create some kind of bund, a small wall by which the water can’t flow in this direction that’s not enough the water will keep flowing and eventually the wall will also get eroded so I have to push the water in another direction that’s redirection and third is reconstruction change the, reconstruct the floor so that its inclination is not in this direction it is in this direction so same way for us, when we have certain default behavioural patterns then we have to restrict ourselves restrict means we have to create certain barriers for ourselves by which we will not not succumb to those kind of behaviours so for example if I know that in particular situations I get angry then I may consciously decide I will avoid those situations not that I am running away from them I will deal with them when I am calmer so if somebody is an alcoholic and this is their home, this is their office and in between is a bar where they have been frequenting repeatedly then they may well have to decide I cannot go by this road, I may have to go by some other road although its longer but in the long run I will save more time because if I succumb, I waste so much time so we do need external supports so now what specific external measures we may take we will have to find out based on our nature our situation, our particular weakness but we all have to do that without an external restriction its almost impossible external change is is almost always necessary and almost never sufficient it alone is not going to work we need something more after that but that’s the first step, second step is redirection, that means when my thoughts are going in a particular way I try to get them to go in another direction so we have to maybe if my particular weakness is anger then I may read some I may keep some quotes about anger with me some thoughts about why anger is bad or we just as I said connect with higher consciousness we chant some mantras pray, have a picture of Krishna just pray to him, take a few deep breaths basically we have to get our thoughts out of there, out of the stimulus which is causing us anger and what method we use to get the thoughts out, that’s up to us whatever works we can find it out that’s redirection otherwise the water keeps coming, coming, coming, eventually the pressure will become too much so usually when we get angry we think we have only two options, either expressing or repressing, but neither is healthy if I repress then I feel angry, I feel choked and eventually I will express myself in an ugly way if I express myself the other person feels hurt so we need to go beyond both of these expressing and repressing to processing so when I just move away from that situation and I calmly think what exactly was the cause and how do I deal with this so I am a writer so I often correspond to people by emails by messages so when somebody does something which makes me angry I just vent out my anger by writing a mail but I have a policy for 24 hours I will not send that mail and when I do this when I do this many times in those 24 hours that person only apologizes or clarifies and things get settled but after 24 hours if the issue is not resolved I go back and visit the mail so when I just vent myself at that time I feel some release I have expressed myself but after that when I go and look at it again this point makes sense but I could maybe word it a little more carefully this point I am making too much judgment I don’t know enough information I am assuming that person’s motive is like I need to get more information this point is too harsh I better not write it so I process it and then after that when I send the email I find that things often get resolved much more amicably so processing means not that we express not that we repress but we use our intelligence to go through it if something has made us angry if we just try to push it aside eventually it will come back and push us aside so we have to process it this is basically what I am talking about redirection at that time get the thoughts away from there and then revisit once again and over a period of time reconstruction that means find an alternative way to deal with that situation not just alternative way to deal with that situation create an alternative behavioral pattern so for example when I start getting angry if that’s my weakness then I may decide that whenever I get angry I will take some deep breaths I will chant some mantras, I will read some quotes so I can change the mental equation so that I won’t go in that direction and thus we can by restriction, by redirection and by reconstruction we can change our default behavioral patterns do I believe that everything is ordained by destiny do you believe my answer is ordained yeah, actually definitely there is something called destiny but destiny determines what happens to us it does not determine how we act in the Mahabharata there is a story of Dhritarashtra who is a very attached king and his son Duryodhana is very vicious and Vidura as a sage as a saintly advisor of Dhritarashtra repeatedly tells him don’t let your son Duryodhana go on this evil path stop him so then Dhritarashtra at that time takes the course of destiny and he says that if it is the will of almighty destiny that our dynasty be destroyed then who am I, a tiny mortal to come in the way of destiny so Vidura replies at that time that destiny determines the consequences of our actions not our actions themselves destiny determines what the consequences of our actions not our actions themselves so in terms of more analytical detail there are three factors there is karma which is our action there is daiva which is destiny and there is kala which is time so karma plus daiva plus kala leads to phala which is food so action plus destiny plus time leads to result so an example could be from an agricultural setting a farmer sows the seeds and ploughs the land that is the action of the farmer then the rains come on time and in appropriate quantity that is destiny and then the season passes that is the kala, that is the time and then there is the harvest so all three are required action, destiny and time all three when they go through then the result comes so one extreme is to say that nothing is destined that everything is in my hands this is in Vedic parlance it is called as karma vad that karma our actions determine everything this may seem very empowering if I want to do this I will do it by the sweat of my brow and by the brilliance of my brain but actually it is not empowering it is very burdening because sometimes we may just do our best and still the results may not come so we have to acknowledge that there is something beyond which also gives the results and when we acknowledge that then we don’t get so worked up when things don’t work out because I tried my best but destiny was not favorable this is not a pessimistic attitude this is a realistic attitude so by recognizing the role of destiny in our lives we can ensure that failure remains just an event failure does not become a self-definition a failure is an event that happens in my life I am not a failure because that failure happened to me so one extreme as I said is to think that nothing is destined and everything is in my hands the other extreme is to think that everything is destined this is fatalism, this is daivabad and that is definitely not neither is it true nor is it the scriptural teaching we have certain things in our hands and we need to do the best in our situation so what we can do that is our free will that is our duty, that is our karma what is beyond us that is destiny so I actually have a three part seminar on my website thespiritualscientist.com I will give one metaphor for this and I will conclude this answer that life is something like playing a tennis match in a tennis match sometimes the player is serving and sometimes the player is returning now while serving the player has much more freedom can serve on the forehand, serve on the backhand serve into the body and while returning the player has much lesser freedom wherever the ball comes you have to get the racket there and get the ball back into the play so sometimes in our life by the arrangement of destiny we are serving and sometimes we are returning so now if I am returning and I expect the freedom of serving if I am returning and I say I will hit from the forehand but the ball comes on the backhand and I just hit air nothing happens like that so sometimes destiny puts us in constrained situations and at that time we just have to make the best of what we can just get the ball back into the play but that does not mean that is how it is always going to be eventually my turn to serve also comes and if at that time I don’t take initiative then I am losing the opportunity so we all are sometimes in situations where our choices become very limited where what we can control is very less say I decide to select a particular subject for my college studies and then I have to study that subject only I can’t study some other subject so once I have chosen the subject basically I am receiving at that time now this is the book I have to study, this is what I have to do but I have to choose an elective, that is the time I am serving so life involves both this, sometimes serving, sometimes returning sometimes we have greater freedom, sometimes we have lesser freedom but all the time our actions do matter one illusion is to think that my actions don’t matter at all the other illusion is to think that my actions alone matter the balanced understanding is our actions, destiny and time all three combine to determine the result how is destiny created? it is by our past karma so whatever we have done in the past in this life in the previous lives not necessarily seven it can be different number depending on how long we have been in this world what kind of karma we have done in the past till we become spiritualized till that particular point we keep taking birth so when as long as we are attached to the world either doing good things and enjoying the world or doing bad things and enjoying the world either way as long as we are attached to the world we stay bound over here but when we become more attached to the source of the world and the world when our attachment to God becomes greater than the world then we don’t come to the world again so then we attain God and that’s when we get liberation I have seen hypnotized and then they take you to the last venom is it possible or not? is hypnotic regression possible? I have a whole book on demystifying reincarnation I have a whole book on demystifying reincarnation that I have analyzed about has been found to help people deal with certain fears like you said if somebody has great fear of heights that person may be taken by hypnotic regression to a previous life this kind of hypnotic regression therapy and he takes the person to a previous life and the person remembers, I fell from a big height and then that person gets freed from that fear. So, a hypnotic regression as a therapy has been found to be beneficial in terms of helping people deal with fears.
But whether that necessarily implies that what the person saw in that regression was a previous life or not, that is something which is open to debate. Because during hypnosis, a person is very highly vulnerable to suggestion. So, if the hypnotizer suggests something, that suggestion may be taken by the hypnotized person as a recollection.
So, that’s why hypnotic regression is not the most reliable way of determining the authenticity of past life memories. You can have other factors. There is also the other thing that happens sometimes.
Sometimes when a person goes into regression, certain emotions may get triggered and the person’s behavior may change, not in a positive way but in a negative way. Some fears may come up also because of what one sees in the hypnotic regression. It doesn’t happen very often but it can happen.
But there are, Joel Whitten is a researcher, he has written a book Life Between Life and there he has talked about xenoglossy and xenography during hypnotic regression. Xenoglossy is speaking in a foreign language. Xenography is writing in a foreign language.
So, in the book I have talked about one person, Harold, whom he studied. So, during hypnotic regression, he said that he was a Viking warrior and then he spoke certain things and then Joel Whitten told him to write certain things down and he started writing those things down. And when he wrote those things down, it just appeared like gibberish.
But eventually, when they investigated, they found, they took the script to linguists who specialize in the language of the Vikings and he found he had written perfectly legible text. And another time, again he was taken in hypnotic regression and at that time, he again wrote something which seemed like just scrolls. But then when he took it to a linguist, they found that he had written something in a language that had existed from the 2nd century to the 6th century and is extinct now.
Barely half a dozen people all over the world, they know that language. And he had no contact with anybody knowing that language. In fact, after he came out of hypnotic regression, at that time, he said, what is this? This doesn’t make any sense to me.
This is just scrolls. But the linguist recognized it. So, there are cases of this xenoglossy and xenography.
So, these cannot just be suggestions because neither the suggester nor the suggested had any knowledge of that language. So, hypnotic regression may help as a therapy, but as an evidence for the reality of past life, that is debatable. But within hypnotic regression, there is xenoglossy and xenography, where there is tangible evidence that this is what the person wrote and the person couldn’t have known that in any other way.
Then that is much stronger evidence for past life memories. What does it mean to be consistently content with the self? In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna talks about satisfaction as an austerity of the mind. This is interesting.
When you talk about austerity, say like I fast, that’s an austerity, I see. But so how can satisfaction be an austerity? What he means is that in every situation in our life, there are certain things which we have and certain things which we don’t have. So, if I look at the things which I have, I can be satisfied.
If I look at the things I don’t have, I will be dissatisfied. So, suppose after this program there is prasad, food for all of you. No, no, suppose food is there actually.
But suppose there is a special kind of feast where every one of you is going to get a plate with distinct items. So, what’s on your plate is going to be different from my plate and your plate is all different. Now, all of us have got delicacies.
But when I have the delicacies in my plate, instead of looking at and instead of eating what is on my plate, I start looking. Oh, he has got this. Oh, he has got that.
Oh, he has got that. Then seeing what everyone else has, I’ll become dissatisfied. So, contentment means look at what is there on your plate and delight in that.
So, contentment means that we focus on our gifts, we focus on our abilities. All of us have been given gifts. Some of them may need to be discovered, some of them need to be developed.
Some of them may just need channels externally so that they can produce the results. But contentment doesn’t mean passivity or lack of ambition. It simply means focusing on our strengths and using those strengths.
And more importantly contentment, so contentment with respect to our gifts in this world, contentment has one aspect. Another aspect is contentment also means that we recognize that we are at our core spiritually. So, no matter what happens in the world, we have an eternal spiritual relationship with our Source, with God, with Krishna.
And His love for us, His concern for us, our relationship with Him does not depend on externals. So, that security that we get by our inner connection with Him, we would like to do wonderful things in the world also in a mood of service to Him. But whether they work out or not, we are stable in our inner connection with the Lord.
So, that also brings contentment. So, contentment comes by seeing our inner connection with our Source and seeing the gifts that we have and focusing on them instead of just looking at what everyone else has. So, any other questions? So, what are my views about religion? Religion is a very multivalent word.
So, different people have different ideas that pop up in their mind when the word religion comes. Now, religion can be seen as a cultural phenomena. Religion can be seen as a particular social designation.
Religion can be seen as associated with a particular set of practices which people of different groups follow. But these are all valid aspects of religion. But they are not alone what religion is.
I explained in the talk that how we are at our core souls, spiritual beings. And now, just as in science, there are two aspects. There is theory and there is experiment.
The theory postulates. When Newton saw the fruit falling, he postulated there is a law of gravity. And the experiment is what verifies or disproves.
So, in the realm of spirituality, just as in science there is theory and experiment, in spirituality there is philosophy and religion. So, philosophy is akin to the theory. The philosophy tells us that we are at our core spiritual beings.
That there is a higher spiritual reality. So, all this is philosophy. Now, at the level of theory, we don’t know whether it is true or not.
It’s only experiments that tell us whether it is true or not. So, religion is meant to be a set of practices that helps us to realize what the philosophy has taught. राजविद्या राजवोहियं पवित्रमिदमुत्तमं प्रत्यक्षावगमं धर्में सुसुखं गर्मोवियं Bhagavad Gita Krishna says that when we practice dharma, प्रत्यक्षावगमं religion is that set of practices which gives us direct experience of higher spiritual reality.
So, if religion is practiced with that purpose of experiencing spirituality, then different people can have different religious practices. So, I come from India and most of the times when I go going for a program, I go and sit in the passenger side. But the passenger side in India and passenger side in America is opposite.
So, I often go on the opposite side. So, now in India we drive on the left, in America we drive on the right. The rules are not just different, they are opposite.
But the purpose is the same. The purpose is the regulation of traffic. So, like that in religions, there are differences.
But the purpose is the same. Purpose is to raise the consciousness of spiritual level. Now, if this purpose is forgotten, then there can be conflicts.
Oh, you should drive on the right. You should drive on the right. No, you drive on the left.
You drive on the right, drive on the left, you can have a world war based on which side you drive on. So, like that when people get caught in the externals, then religion can become a source of great conflict. But it is not so much religion that is becoming a cause of conflict.
It is people who have anyway a nature of being confrontational, of being quarrelsome. These religions are the source for perpetuating their quarrels. So, religion can raise us to spiritual consciousness if we understand its purpose and we pursue its purpose.
But if we divorce it from its purpose, then it can cause a lot of confrontations. And it can be misappropriated. So, if people don’t see the religion as a spiritual search for truth, then it can become a political search for power.
And then politics is often quite dirty. The dirt can come in religion also. But religion, if it is understood as having a purpose to apply and experience what is taught in the philosophy, then it can enhance our spiritual experiences and thereby it can actually strengthen our moral fabric.
So, it can be a source of good if it is understood in the context of its purpose. Does it answer your question? So, how can we avoid good karmas from creating a good destiny? It’s not that we have to stop doing good karma. It is more that we have to do the good karma in a mood of devotion to God.
Because as long as we act for our self-interest, the law of karma binds us. What is the most unselfish act that a person can do? It’s not so much of an act. It’s more of an intention.
It’s an intention. So, the example could range from various things. Say for example, a soldier may kill on the war field when an enemy is attacking.
And the soldier may get a medal of honour for that. Medal of bravery for that. But if a soldier comes back and in a quarrel with somebody, shoots someone, he is put in a jail.
So, it’s not so much the activity of shooting, but the intention with which it was done. So, if one is acting on behalf of the state, protecting the state, then one is not culpable for that. Similarly, when we cultivate a mood of devotion, and it’s not just a mood in an abstract sense, that means we understand the philosophy, we practice bhakti, we chant the holy names, we make God our purpose, God our goal, and then we do our work in a mood of service to Him.
And that enables us to, because we are acting on His behalf, then we do not get bound by the law of karma. If we are not acting that way, we do get bound. So, in our situation, as your student, at this stage, try to bring as much as possible the activities of bhakti in your life.
So, at this stage, you could begin studying the Bhagavata regularly, coming for programs like this, chanting the holy names, whatever you can in your time. These all help you to make, to spiritualize your consciousness. Spiritual intention will ensure that the other things also become spiritualized.
You are saying something? Yeah, good question. Does God exist as a power, or does He exist in the forms like Ram and Krishna, which we are going to do? I understand. I agree with what you are saying.
But there is definitely a power that exists. And if you consider further, the power is not just a power. If you consider that in this world, we see there are people and there are powers.
There is a personal and there is an impersonal. So, if we start with a particular depiction, okay, there is Krishna, there is Ram, there is that, how can this be God? We need to, rather than looking at depiction, we need to look at definition. See, the absolute truth is defined in the Bhagavad Gita, in the Vedanta Sutra as the cause of all causes, the source of everything.
And the source of everything needs to have within it, in potency at least, or in potential at least, that which is present in what has emanated from it. So, in the world that we have, we have personal things, we have persons and we have impersonal reality. So, in the absolute also, it cannot just be power.
There is power and there is a person. Somebody may hit a ball with great power and that may go good for sixer. So, at one level, the power took the ball across the boundary.
But there is a person who exerted that power. So, there is Shakti and there is Shaktimaan. So, now what the identity of that Shaktimaan is, that is a secondary question.
The primary point is that there is, if we see there is power and powerful, there is energy and energetic in this world, the source also there has to be energy and energetic. So, there is, in the books of spiritual wisdom, a description of the definition of God, a description of the further characteristics of God. And, so this is the world of matter where we live.
And there is another arena that is called a spiritual world. So, from, in that spiritual world, the souls purely exist and God also exists. parastasmat bhavonyo vyakto vyakta sanatana So, this is beyond this world, that spiritual world exists.
So, from the spiritual world, when we descend to this world, so when God himself descends to this world also, so then, he manifests a particular point of times in history. So, that may be as Ram, that may be as Krishna. So, they are not stories that were created, nor are they histories that happened sometime ago.
They were histories. Mahabharata is real. Yeah, of course, there is a lot of evidence for that.
And there was one story that the hundred sons that Kaurava had, who is the name, Dushasana,