The Password for Happiness – Utkarsh Camp 2013 Pune

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
The person becomes very drunk That person falls into a gutter and is lying there with the gutter water going through his mouth He says, my dear friend, why are you suffering like this? Please come out Who is saying I am suffering? I have to get out of here So when a person is very intoxicated, the person doesn’t even understand that he is suffering. So later on we will discuss some statistics about suffering but the fact is everybody is suffering Now the second response can be You have to learn to live with this man This attitude may lead to some solace, just live with it But does anyone want it? Nobody wants it So that means what is this mental adjustment? Okay, I don’t want it, but somehow I have got it, what to do with it now? You know, I don’t want stormy weather to block my journey, but it has come What is it? Life is like this, what to do now? So it’s basically an expression of helpless frustration What to do? You can’t do anything about it And some people go further and they say, actually misery adds to the spice of life Misery, when you have misery only, then you can actually taste happiness, can actually enjoy happiness Now, if this were true then people would go out of their way to get misery so that they can enjoy pleasure That means, if a student is always a topper throughout his career He says, every time I am a topper I am not enjoying anything Now, at this point then I will be happy Or a businessman A businessman is thinking, last 25 years every year I am getting bumper profit. It’s become boring now Let me just bore my factory So when I have a big loss then after that when I get profit, I will be happy If misery were a necessity for experiencing happiness, then people will go out of their way to get misery so that they will get happiness afterwards.
Nobody goes out of their way to get misery Therefore Actually, this is just a rationalization Rationalize Rationalize means, we argue so that something false appears true Rationalize R-A-T-I-O-N-A-L L-I-E-S These are rational lies, which we tell So what happens by this? We perpetuate our suffering So now Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita that this world is Dukhalayam It’s the abode of misery So now let us look, this is a small exercise for you You can just So here is So this is the life of an average person from childhood to old age So now, which problem, which anxiety is experienced by a person at what age? You can just stick that in your workbook So you have 5 minutes for this It’s quite simple You should be able to do it quite easily So you have 2 exercises here So first you can do in 5 minutes, second also you can take 5 total 10 minutes you have And in the second exercise where there is the fifth right column activity or situation, wills That wills refer to not the will power but that refers to the the legal agreement or legal document that a person writes down when he departs, before he departs from the world That is what the wills refer to over there Can you go down? Next page Fifth one, wills That doesn’t refer to will power It’s not a verb It is a noun over there It refers to what you call as wasihat The legal document for telling how the property is to be divided after my death 4 minutes Hare Krishna How many of you have finished? Oh good, most of you How many of you want one more minute? Ok, almost everyone has finished Good So let’s go over it now So on the first side demanding toys and chocolates Five year old child Five year old child How many of you got it right? Very bold All of us have gone through this phase So yes, we know it Better paying job with more prestige One person, one person Somebody can speak, then we can have different people speaking After doing job, this is The last on this page Ok, any other options? Ok, this is a slightly delicate case, it can apply on both cases We’ll keep it and we’ll come back to it later We’ll see how which applies specifically Parents pressure, peer pressure You work day and night at the cost of health and play Yes, buoyant and standard That’s correct When you work hard for competitive exam there is always the anxiety of when you are losing both for you and your parents Before getting into engineering Who else has got something else? Ok, very good How many of you got this right? Ok, very good Thank you Complete about 50 subjects and give exams Yes That is your Present predicament Not wanting to go to school Sorry School going child Yes Parents are also put to anxiety to protect you from sickness, fire Caring for a baby Yes, caring for a baby Work 16 hours a day that forces you to put relationships, good health Personal money Everything in the back seat Oh yes, high paying job It’s true If you don’t have a child, everybody asks Where is the child? Yes, after marriage So now, in one sense these miseries are not exclusive They overlap Different miseries can come at the same time but specifically after marriage People have this expectation When will you get a child? And better paying job with more prestige That is After doing job for a couple of years Because initially I just want to get a job somehow or the other Once you get a job, then more and more I want more and more That’s how it works It’s interesting that All of you know The problems that come after you get a child So before that only I got all this knowledge So, body is not cooperating Eyes are blurred When you get old and diseased Yes Then Growing up without falling prey to drugs Yes Growing up, having a boy child Correct Nobody should exploit her Or she should not elope with a boy Which one? Grown up teenage daughter Spouse should not be a demon Demon does not mean Some person with nails Some horns coming out of the head Or teeth coming out of the mouth Demon is a mentality That is the marriageable age How many of you got all right? Oh, good percentage How many of you got 12 right? Oh, very good Thank you So now, what about the 7th stage of life? Bedridden in old age Yes, when I am bedridden Then I have to keep taking pills again and again To somehow try to cure myself What is that it is said? A doctor cures your ills with his pills And cures you with his bills A doctor cures your ills With his pills And cures you with his bills That’s how it is After marriage? Yes, bills are there Prior to death? Bills, yes All anxiety is there All relatives and children How much are you going to give me? That anxiety is there School-going child? Drills Drills? Because when a child is going to school, what does he have to do? There are drills Drill to follow the day discipline There are march past also, which is a drill Old age? Hills Yeah, hills, all different diseases come up Newborn child? Spills, yes He spills milk, he spills water He makes his diapers dirty Teenage? Thrills, yes So, actually speaking The only situation Where there is Some semblance of pleasure Is in the teenage and youth The only situation where there is a semblance of pleasure Is in the teenage and youth And actually Our happiness In life Is primarily in the expectation You keep it there Expectation means In the future I’ll get happy So there is that saying When I was a child When I was a small child at home I was longing to go to college And be free When I was going to college I was longing to have a job And stand on my own feet When I had a job I was dying I was dying to get married and enjoy When I was married I was dying to have a child And have my Xerox copies When I had a child I was dying To just have enough money To retire When I retired I was dying to get my children married Now I am dying And I realize I forgot to live I forgot to live That’s how life works Life creates hope Something in the future will work right And then my life will become wonderful So Our life basically Is battling the present Miseries and hoping For future pleasures Battling the present miseries And hoping for the future pleasures That is how we live life And this is something which all of us can Practically experience So Now, once we have recognized Yes, life There is a lot of suffering So, what is the Cause of suffering If we have recognized that We have to go a little bit deeper If you see, most people As I said, they just don’t think about the suffering And they think, okay Maybe life is like a gambling match Some people win, some people lose Some people are happy, some people are suffering Yes, actually everybody is suffering But even in the suffering, there is degree Some people suffer more, some people suffer less So people think, okay, all the suffering is just by Is it by chance Or is it by plan If it is by plan Then who would want to cause me suffering Why So first point is That whenever we recognize That there is something happening in this world There is Nothing that Happens by chance Sometimes people write this The essence of the Gita Now, I have read The full Gita several times I have never found any verse Which is anywhere close to this It is not there anywhere actually And anyway The whole Gita is not about What happens But the whole Gita is about what we do The whole purpose of the Gita Yes, at one level we can say Ultimately everything is under the control of God And in that sense, everything that is happening is for the good But that is not the essential message Of the Gita The essential message of the Gita is what Arjuna is wondering What should I do And I am asking you What is the right thing for me to do And the whole Krishna says This is what you should do That means Our life will be shaped By our choices And our decisions Our life will be shaped By our choices and our decisions And our choices and our decisions Need to be based on knowledge Not on some sentimental hope That things will become right in the future So When we look for happiness in life If our hopes are being thwarted The Bhagavad Gita says that yes Ultimately everything is under the control of God But at the same time It is our choices that have consequences So could it be that Maybe I am making some wrong choices Some wrong ways in which I am acting Because of which things are going wrong Because of which I am suffering in life So first thing is If it is by chance that suffering comes Then life is basically hopeless I just try to struggle on And battle on in life And just hope that I am not one of the unlucky ones That’s all I can do And that is actually the philosophy of helplessness So if the suffering in this world Is by plan Then what is that plan? I need to understand it When I understand it then I will see how I can get away from suffering But some people say You are all being very pessimistic There is Life, there is some suffering, some happiness Sometimes happiness, sometimes sorrow People have this sort of dialogue But actually if you look at life We will look at it tomorrow Life is largely misery But more important than that is Yes If a person is Sick If a person has a glass of water I will take two examples First glass and then sickness If a person has a glass of water And if it is half full And if I say it is half empty Then that is pessimism That is negative thinking But if I am thirsty And I tell Prabhu Can you please get some water I say that the water or glass over there is here It’s empty Prabhu, just think that the glass is full If the glass is empty And I think the glass is full Is that positive thinking? Is that optimism? No, that is stupidism That is stupidism To think that The empty glass is full Is not positive thinking It is stupid thinking So the real solution is Accept that the glass is empty And then think how can this glass be filled So if the glass is empty Admitting that it is empty Is not pessimism It is simply realism Accepting things really for what they are Or for example If I have some pain in my body And at that time I go to a doctor The doctor thinks This person has got a very serious disease If I tell him He may get depressed So let me not tell him about the disease only Will you want a doctor to do like that with us? No At least if there is some treatment By which the disease can be cured Then you would want the doctor to help us To let know the disease so that we can cure it Now if I have the symptoms Say if I have cough Or say if I have loose motions And sometimes people say By my effort I will make things right Ok, I am miserable now But by my effort I will make things right By my will power Now imagine if somebody has loose motions And he says Just keep the Desktop there So If I decide If somebody says that ok I have got loose motions By my will power I will not go to the spa I will cure What is going to happen? First of all it is not going to be successful Second is going to be torture Isn’t it? So if I have a disease Imagining that the symptoms are not there Or trying to suppress The symptoms That is never going to work So if I have a disease If I am suffering in the world I say I am not suffering at all And even if I am suffering I have to go to the root cause If I am coughing This cough is causing me so much problem Next time when cough comes I will just cough I will not cough That is not going to work I have to go to the root cause Find out that root cause and cure it So When we are saying here that Material problems Are there throughout life Does it mean that a student should not go to engineering college Should not take up a job Should not go through life No, we have to have a proper process by which to do these things If a patient Who is sick Just by his own ignorant efforts Tries to curb and cure the symptoms It is never going to work So at a material level If we try to solve the problems They will never get solved Because at the material level Life is made to be problematic So here there is a story Which Srila Prabhupada tells This is from The life of Srila Prabhupada told by one of his Intimate disciples His name was Hari Sauri Prabhu So he tells how When they were in Vrindavan at one particular time They found that In the Electricity box that was there Where the wires were all Coming together near the window A sparrow was coming and A heap arrow, a speed arrow, a heap bird, a she-bird Were coming and making a nest over there And they were chirping, chirping, chirping So they were disturbing Srila Prabhupada And because it was near the electricity It was dangerous They could get electrocuted So Prabhupada told them Actually there is a hole over here where they are coming Just cover the hole And he covered the hole And after sometime, so the bird had made the nest The nest just got, the access to it got ruined The straws were thrown away And then after sometime They found that both the birds had come together Tried to pull out the paper With which they had stuffed over there And started making a nest over there again And again Prabhupada told this devotee Go and remove everything And he removed everything and again They came and put it there And now these birds were working very hard to Make up a nest over there But they were not seeing That the person who had removed the nest And who was going to remove the nest From there was just standing right next over there So They, because the birds Don’t have that much intelligence They just didn’t understand That all our efforts to make a nest Over here Are systematically frustrated Are systematically Thwarted by somebody according to a plan And again and again The birds were coming and trying to make a nest Prabhupada told them that just close the window And stuff this empty area Completely with a cardboard box They just can’t come in And they are pulling out the nest The birds were chirping, chirping, chirping And finally They couldn’t do anything So when there is suffering Animals just think, I don’t know what is the cause of suffering Let me try to rectify it Animals don’t think deeper Human beings have the capacity To think deeper I am suffering, why am I suffering So When we think deeper Then we can actually Go to the root cause Finally we can solve the problem After going to the root cause Similarly, Darwin recognized That this life is full of struggle And danger And who survives? One who is the fittest And to some extent that idea has come in corporate life Yes, I have to be the fittest I have to get the top marks, I have to be the topper among the exams I have to be the top in the Company performer So people think, yes if I become fit Then I will survive Darwin had the idea, survival of the fittest Prabhupada Offered a one sentence refutation He said, even the fittest don’t survive Even the fittest Don’t survive The Death rate is 100% Everybody has to suffer and die So All of us, there is a Hindi lecture Prabhupada says that No one wants to be old But nature makes everyone old Quietly Effortlessly Or rather helplessly people are made into Forced to become old Forced to get disease Sushil Prabhupada was talking with a young man He said, I am not suffering Prabhupada said, will you not have to grow old? He said, yes Do you want to grow old? He said, no Therefore you are forced to grow old He said, no, nobody can force me to grow old But won’t you have to grow old against your will? He said, no But that is just biological nature That means biological force That means there is biological force Which is forcing us To accept something which we don’t want So When our efforts for happiness Are being thwarted Rather than me like a bird Who just again keeps trying to make the nest again and again And again I think, what is the cause? What is the cause Because of which I am not able to enjoy life? We will make plans If you see that way Whether a person is Very successful in life Or not successful in life I have a devotee friend who is an astrologer So many people come and ask him casually Panditji, can you tell What is there in my hand? He says, yes, I will tell you He looks at the hand He says, you are going to grow old You are going to get deceased and you are going to die He is in shock of his life He says, no, no, no What is going to happen before that? Well, what happens before that Whether you become a millionaire Or whether you become a stair popper How is that going to make a big difference? Why is it not going to make a big difference? It’s like Suppose somebody tells us that You can study 20 years After that you will get an engineering degree Which will last for one day Just 20 years Study for a degree that will last for one day What is the use of that? So like that we work so hard In life and at the end of it What we achieve is for such a short time After that it goes away In the end In youth, people ruin their health To gain wealth Then in middle age People lose their health to gain wealth Then in middle age And old age People lose their wealth to gain health And in the end They lose both health and wealth That is how it is It is unfortunate, it is tragic But that is the reality So what the Bhagavad Gita tells us is We want to be happy But life forces us to be miserable So what is the reason for this? Bhagavad Gita tells us Essential incompatibility In the way we are living We are eternal but we are living in a temporary body In a temporary world So if we strive to go towards the eternal world Then we will become truly happy And if we strive to live at a spiritual level Then we can become happy even in this life So how that is We will discuss a little later But the essential point we are discussing is Rather than just struggling on to somehow or other Become happy in life By hoping that things will work out right for me We need to go deeper and think Okay, what is essentially wrong in life? So let’s look at some This slideshow, can you turn on? The password for happiness Let’s go quickly, quickly, fast Skip the first slides Okay, fine Anyway, so just go back one slide Just go back one slide No need to play, just go back one slide So this is a book Written by American sociologist Dr. David Meyers And it is called The American Paradox Spiritual Hunger in an Age of Plenty So he analyses American society Systematically For various parameters And This is A summary of his statistics So what is he saying here Compared America from 1960 to 2005 So he says From that time the divorce rate Has doubled The teen suicide rate has tripled The violent crime rate has quadrupled The prison population Has pentupled The number of children born outside marriage Has sextupled And the Depression rate has gone to 10 times the pre-World War II level So now here This is just plain objective statistics And he asked A cross section of American People As compared to 20 years ago And today Is it easier or more difficult To raise your children To become good human beings And an overwhelming majority Nearly 100% of the parents Said it’s much much more difficult So from objective sociological parameters People Are suffering The America that we see on Star TV Or in the movies Or maybe in the newspapers That is actually a fantasy America That is not the real America The real America Is what is seen through statistics like this Yes there are comforts There are luxuries There are gadgets But do they make people happy If they ask that question The answer is overwhelming no Now what do the suicide All these rates mean Divorce is one of the most Traumatic events in life For people And especially if there are children They just can’t The scars last Throughout their life for the children So Divorce is something which is very rupturous And it Obviously indicates that people are so miserable That they can’t live with each other Now suicide Indicates that I am so frustrated That I have no hope for improving my life I just want to end my life Now actually According to WHO 4 years ago I had written an article on suicide In Times of India So there it was explained that Actually 1 million people Commit suicide Every year This figure of 1 million Suicides per year Means 1 suicide every 40 seconds That means Since we started this class Almost 80 to 100 people Have committed suicide It’s a horrifying statistic And this figure of 1 million people Committing suicide This is more than The figure of the number of people Who are killed In wars and murders Combined together That means More the number of people who are being killed By others Are the number of people who are killing Themselves Who are killing themselves So WHO calls Suicide a tragic social health problem So this indicates that Things are seriously wrong Similarly what does violent crime indicate? At society People are not happy with the way things are And that’s why they are resorting to criminality And similarly prison population also Indicates that Society is spending so much energy Which could have been used more productively For schools and education And development work Just going to try to keep the Lawbreakers in jail And what happens when children are born Outside marriage It’s miserable Because outside marriage means Men and women have premarital contact And then the man says I don’t want to marry And somehow the girl is not able to abort This percentage doesn’t include Abortion at all According to statistics The number of aborted children Vary from anywhere between 25-50% That means Almost half of the human population that is born Or one fourth Is aborted Figures are horrible There is a movie called Silent Scream Which shows how Actually the embryo is a child A living person And when the object For killing the child Comes into the female body To crush into the womb The child is trying his best to save himself So that object comes to catch his head And crush the head And when the object comes and the child is frightened He goes to the other corner of the womb Tries to escape and comes down And then again the object starts coming to catch him And then again he escapes And then again the object comes And this child eventually gets tired And then That is like a clamp which catches his head And crushes his head It’s horrible That movie is called Silent Scream Because the embryo’s scream We can’t hear It’s a silent scream But apart from the children who are Killed in the womb Those children who are born If they don’t have a proper family Then what happens? Without the proper family Only a mother is there The mother has to struggle for a job And take care of the child The children grow very unloved, uncared, unprotected They are miserable Now at a material level The European Union Many of the countries there are like welfare states So welfare states mean If you don’t have a job Government will give you some regular money For your maintenance And the government said that In European countries That actually if women are single And they use the word Single mothers For that So for maintaining them What we will do is We will give them some money So that actually speaking They can take care of the child and they can live properly But the terrible problem With the situation is that So when a woman is going to college And she is going for a job She has to struggle and work 8-10 hours And then she gets a job But on the other hand The woman just goes to some man Gets herself impregnated Gets a baby And the government will maintain her for free So for a woman From an economic point of view Becoming unchaste And begetting a child Is more economically feasible Than actually being chaste And trying to live an honourable life So it’s completely Completely perverted set of values In many of these welfare countries The government gives Money to the unemployed people So even men What do they do? They take the money and they use it Not for getting their food Or getting their basic necessities They will take them to get stoned And take drugs So at a material level Things are simply becoming worse They are not improving at all And of course depression indicates Depression is not just a small thing This is clinical depression Which actually lasts for a long time And is very difficult to get away with These are very serious statistics Which indicate that something is Seriously wrong with the way Our society is going And as India is becoming more and more westernised The same pattern of problems Is going to invade India And actually India is going to get the worst Of both the worlds Because in the west At least there is the comfort of technology But in India Because the population is so high And to some extent technology is so primitive That India gets the social Cultural problems of the west And it doesn’t even get sufficient technological benefits So the situation Can become a disaster To some extent it’s already a disaster So the point he makes is that We may have technologically improved But we have sociologically degraded Sociologically we have degraded Terribly Now degradation is not just in terms of moral values Some people say men and women are cohabiting But that you only think is wrong We think it is right There is no problem with that We are not talking here in terms of moral values These things are degraded We are talking in terms of objective social parameters Who will say that divorce is good Who will say that More people going to jail is good More people committing suicide is good There is no moral judgment over here There is simply objective facts Which indicate that Life, people are suffering So The Harvard Medical School They decided to do a Review of children Of young people Who are Living a very easy going life In the colleges They are enjoying going to the beaches Going to the parties, going to Disneyland And in America There is a lot of free sex, free mixing So when they went and interviewed a cross section Of these people I have explained this in my article In book Science and Spirituality Made for each other article So there they described They found these young boys and girls Who are like the What might be the dreams For most Indian boys and girls You see them on Star TV And think that they are enjoying life so much And they found That all these young people They were haunted by feelings of Loneliness and guilt Why loneliness and guilt? Because they knew They were having physical contact with people But it was just Raw lust and enjoyment And they knew that they were using others And others were using them Actually there was no Real connection of the heart over there So the modern society In the name of pleasure Is actually trapping people In a lot of suffering So now First that we discussed is from our Universal life experiences Or life observations Secondly we discussed from Statistical point of view Now let us discuss from the point of view of Logical and philosophical analysis Move forward This is the graph of Happiness versus time So what is the nature of this graph? Actually if you look at it Material happiness It moves down When we are young As I said in teenage and youth there are thrills Yes I think I can enjoy But the body’s capacity to enjoy Is even in youth Limited And as we grow older The capacity keeps going down down down And then as A person comes into middle age and old age And a person can’t eat much And for most people The enjoyment that they constantly dream about is sexual enjoyment And If people become sexually impotent That is the worst nightmare Of their lives So if they are living in their body just for the purpose Of sense pleasure And then they just lose the capacity for sense pleasure They don’t know what to do So the graph of happiness versus pleasure It goes down down down And it doesn’t stop at zero It goes down to negative Because the same body Which promised us so much pleasure in youth It will give us varieties of sufferings In old age It gives us varieties of sufferings So many different kinds of diseases that may come I’ll discuss about this graph Elaborately later But let’s look at spiritual happiness now So Spiritual happiness may initially seem a little Like say now We did some kirtan We did some dancing, we watched some drama We feel there is some happiness But after some time we feel Okay I’m not feeling so happy now I don’t feel always happy in spiritual life also Yes Actually spiritual happiness comes by the Contact with Krishna By the remembrance of Krishna So when we are not yet advanced devotees Then our remembrance of Krishna is very little And that’s why our happiness is little But as we Keep practicing bhakti And keep increasing Our devotion to Krishna Then our remembrance of Krishna will increase And when the remembrance of Krishna will increase Our happiness will increase by that I’ll explain this So basically the graph of Spiritual happiness will keep increasing Anandam budhi vardhanam pratipadam Poornamrta swadhanam Anandam The ocean of happiness which keeps increasing Now let’s look at it from Another way as talked about in the Bhagavad Gita Go ahead So this is not your PNP diode It is a This is This is poison and Nectar Hey this is This is just Change it upside down The material happiness should be below and spiritual happiness should be above So So Material happiness N represents nectar and P represents poison So Krishna said in the Bhagavad Gita That Just delete and type it Anyway this way you’ll never forget this What are you doing? Okay just leave it as it is Don’t write anything I’ll just explain We’ll do it afterwards Just go back to the slide bro Yeah So These two verses N is nectar in the beginning And poison at the end No no no When I said Just delete both the titles I’m saying Don’t keep it as it is It’s misleading Just leave it without the titles Delete upper one also So nectar in the beginning Poison in the end Now what happens with sense gratification Material enjoyment And it seems very pleasurable initially And afterwards As the body grows old So many complications come up And we suffer That is material enjoyment And spiritual happiness It may seem like poison in the beginning But it is nectar in the end Initially it may be difficult for us to practice But eventually so much happiness waiting So it’s like a child is there And the child doesn’t want to study When the child studies Then he has a bright career ahead So for him the study is like poison in the beginning But nectar in the end Whereas the child says I just want to play He plays now He doesn’t study but then It’s nectar in the beginning but poison in the end So now there was some survey done by Stanford University researchers About Children Whether They can understand this long term perspective So what they did in Stanford University They got a group of children And they gave them a sweet, a marshmallow And they told them, ok you keep this sweet And you stay in this room For 20-30 minutes, I’ll come back So if you don’t eat this sweet In the next 20 minutes, till I come back Then you’ll get one more sweet If you take it, you’ll get only one sweet If you don’t take it, you’ll get two sweets So let’s play the video now Sound is on Marshmallow for you You can either wait And I’ll give you another one if you wait Or you can eat it now When I come back, I’ll give you another When you’re up to But stay in here and stay in the chair till I come back Alright Alright I’m gonna go do something And then I’ll come back It smells yummy It smells really good Ok Stay in the chair Ok Pause it Hare Krishna So Now Stanford University researchers They divided these children into two groups Those who Took the marshmallow And ate it, they called them as grabbers And those who Restrained themselves And decided that they will not eat it They called them as resistors And they decided that we will Observe them As they grow in their life How it happens to them 10 years, 15 years 20 years down the line And when they observed them after 15 years The contrast Between them was Dramatic The contrast was That On various Parameters Of development and success Individual behavior, relationship Building, academic success And Personal confidence All these parameters These boys who were Resistors, these children Boys and girls They Fared much better Than the boys who were the grabbers Is the Recession PPT on there? Just Go to Eva, fine Maybe I’ll show that I’ll do the analysis of all of that tomorrow So This type recession On top REC SSION SSCE Dot Go down No, no Go down It’s a PPT Page down, quickly We should arrange this so that laptop is here Ok, it’s not here I’ll show this to you tomorrow in the morning So essentially, on various parameters They found that these boys who were grabbers They fared Much, much more poorly than the Boys who were Resistors So In one sense, modern Statistics are confirming Both the negative and the positive So if you look at this Those people who just go out And grab for the moment and enjoy They get nectar at the moment But there is a poison You look at all the statistics that are there But those people who are ready to Resist, tolerate the poison For them there is a nectar waiting A long and large amount of nectar waiting And that is something Which is essentially the principle Of the Vedic literature The Vedic literature tells us that There are two kinds of happiness There is Shreyas and there is Abhyudaya Abhyudaya means instant happiness Shreyas means long term happiness So human life Is meant for pursuing long term happiness And there is A higher happiness that we can pursue So when we try to pursue short term Pleasures, now we are not talking About the karmic reactions and suffering That will come in the next life We are talking about the suffering that are coming Even in this life that we can see with our own eyes So therefore The principle is that If we can learn to resist our impulses So this research is quoted by Dr. Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence And he says the single Strongest predictor Of a person’s Success Is The ability to delay Gratification for a higher purpose The ability To delay gratification I want to enjoy But if a person can delay his gratification Ok not now, I will enjoy later For a higher purpose If a person can do this, this is the single Strongest predictor Of success in a person’s life So materially Itself we can see that The restraint Can give large rewards In the long run So we will continue this discussion tomorrow morning And there we will discuss So we started the discussion philosophically Of the nature of material pleasure So tomorrow we will discuss further The nature of material enjoyment And we will discuss towards the end The nature of spiritual happiness And then we will discuss what is actually the password for happiness For all of us So are there any questions today? We have a few minutes Yes please Hello It is still that If a soul wants Goes away from the Krishna Then it Gets in misery And it can’t enjoy happiness But as we know that Krishna Is supreme controller And he can change any law Or principle for his sake And he is loving towards soul Then can he Change the law that Soul can enjoy without Him because he is loving Towards soul So for the sake of soul Can he make the Laws that soul Can change and why Does he don’t make that Good question So can Krishna change the Nature or the law that Soul cannot be happy without him And out of his love let the soul become happy without him only So actually for Understanding whether this is possible or not We need to understand What is actual happiness If we think that happiness means Getting all the things that I want to enjoy I want best food I want best this, I want best that And I will enjoy We have a very superficial understanding of enjoyment That may just titillate Our senses That won’t satisfy our heart And after sometime we will get bored with it What will really satisfy our heart Is the happiness that comes from love The happiness that comes from love Is what truly fulfills our heart And If we want to get the happiness of love We need a worthy Object of love We need a worthy object of love If a person is attractive If a person has good qualities If a person is wonderful Then we can naturally love that person And we can get happiness by loving that person That means our happiness depends on love And love will bring happiness When there is a worthy person to love Now Because the soul has been in the spiritual world Originally And the soul has experienced the happiness Of loving Krishna And Krishna has all the six opulences He is the most beautiful, the most intelligent The most wealthy The most strong, the most famous And the most detached So Because of this Having tasted the joy of loving Krishna Now We cannot be satisfied By loving anyone else Because we have already experienced Such a high happiness That we can’t So if we are to be happy Separate from Krishna Then Krishna has to create Somebody else Like him With all the six opulences Whom we can love If Krishna creates somebody like that With all the six opulences Then everybody will be attracted To that person And then that will become the same situation That was in the spiritual world So There is no possibility For us To be happy Just in isolation By our own gratification Our happiness is only through love And love requires the worthy object So there cannot be any substitute for Krishna If there is a substitute for Krishna This world becomes like the spiritual world Because that substitute will become all attractive And will attract everyone So essentially It is not that Krishna is forcing us But Krishna Krishna Provides us facility To experiment Whatever way you want to enjoy you try it It is not that Krishna Krishna is causing all the sufferings of material existence Yes actually There is suffering of old age, disease and death Is it caused by Krishna? It is not caused by Krishna Actually whatever sufferings come in our life They are the result of our own past bad karma Whatever we have done Krishna wants us to be happy And this question arises Because we think Actually when we are in the spiritual world Krishna is the enjoyer and I am not the enjoyer So why can’t I be the enjoyer Separately Why can’t I enjoy But actually Krishna has arranged life in such a way That even in the spiritual world We enjoy more than him The devotee Actually gets more happiness than Krishna The example is given that The devotee is like the prema ashray And the lord is the prema vishay The shelter of love and the object of love So if a person is carrying a Lamp in his hand And by carrying the lamp in the hand The person is giving light to somebody else To see Naturally because the lamp is in this person’s hand That person will get more light So like that The soul is the abode Of love And Krishna is the object of love So in the spiritual world The soul gets more happiness than Krishna That’s why Krishna Has provided us The best possibility That there can be Krishna for some souls Who have the Who do austerity or do some karma They can get Everything material that they want So I explained first At the level of love There is no possibility for us to love Anybody other than Krishna Because that other person has to be equivalent to Krishna And by loving Krishna We are not losing, we are gaining more than Krishna But still somebody says Why can’t Krishna arrange that Whatever is my desire, that desire gets fulfilled Then I’ll be happy So this actually happened To Hiranyakashyapu Hiranyakashyapu became almost like The supreme controller of the universe And everything That he wanted he got If it was too hot He did not have to turn on a fan Or AC, he just looked at the sun And the sun would decrease the temperature He had such absolute control But Even after that He was not satisfied Why was he not satisfied? Because his senses were not Controlled Why does he have to control his senses He can get whatever he wants But the nature of the senses is that They always want More than what we can get They always want More than what we can get What is our conception of happiness When we are saying that Why doesn’t Krishna allow us to be happy separate from him Ok, some people have a conception that Ok, I want to be happy by eating Now, even if I had All the food in the world Could I eat all the food, the most delicious food And Even if I could Hypothetically speaking, eat all the food Still the mind would desire Something else So, why is that? Because by definition There cannot be any substitute For God So essentially the happiness that we Are meant to find in relationship With Krishna When we try to find it somewhere else We open the door For frustration for ourselves So even if Krishna provides us The best of enjoyment Material level, as much as we want Still Our mind will want something more Why? Because no matter how great the enjoyment Of this world, it is ultimately finite And Krishna alone Is infinite So we have experienced the joy of loving Krishna Who is infinite And no matter how Great the enjoyment that we get now What we will want is Something more Because no matter how great it is Still it cannot compare with the infinite So therefore, Krishna can Provide us material facilities for enjoyment But they will not lead to enjoyment They will lead only to further Aggravation of our craving Aggravation of our Dissatisfaction I want more, I want more, I want more And you think, why should this happen like this? If I enjoy, I will be satisfied No, how does a person become a drug addict? Or an alcoholic? A person takes alcohol He takes more alcohol, he takes more alcohol And does he become satisfied? No, his craving Becomes an addiction which traps him Completely So imagine a person who could drink alcohol 24 hours a day Would he be happy by that? No, because the mind will want something More, more, more So, if we are asking, why does Krishna Not let me be happy in this world? And that means, actually we have not understood What is the definition and the requirement Of happiness The definition of happiness is that which comes through ultimately love And the requirement of happiness Is truly satisfying The ultimate object of love So therefore When we turn back to Krishna Then we get the supreme happiness So Krishna has Arranged this world in a perfect way for us Krishna could have made this world A total place of misery If he had made this world Completely and constantly miserable What would have happened? He would have got used to it Just like A person who is blind Imagine If there is a kingdom where everybody is blind Then nobody will notice their blindness Isn’t it? A blind person He doesn’t know that he is blind Because there are other people who can see And they tell him, this world is so beautiful So if there is a place Where everybody is blind Then what would happen is Nobody would notice their blindness And people would just live on happily like that Not happily, but whatever They would just live on like that So if Krishna had made this world A total place of misery We would have got used to it So if Krishna Had given us as much material Enjoyment as we want We would have got It is possible to some extent the heavenly planets The higher planets, they can get as much Material enjoyment, not as much as they want But lot more than what we can get But what happens? Does that satisfy? No It is constantly distracted Constantly distracted Now Indra He has so many Apsaras in this spiritual world In the heavenly planets But still he is attracted To sometimes some other woman and he gets into trouble He sometimes gets attracted to a sage His wife and then he gets cursed by that So even if Krishna provides A lot of enjoyment Still the craving for more will continue, continue, continue So in the earthly Planetary system, Krishna has made the arrangement So that there is suffering And there is also The hope of happiness There is not much happiness But there is the hope of happiness Now what happens is The suffering makes us say, something is wrong here Something is wrong here And the hope of happiness makes us feel There must be happiness somewhere The hope of happiness makes us think There is real happiness And we try here, we try here, we try here And we don’t get it And then we start thinking, where will be real happiness In 1968 when Srila Prabhupada did the first Ratha Yatra, at that time Many hippies had come for the program And the hippies like to do crazy things And sometimes they would like to dance On the streets And they would get caught and arrested and chastised by the police But now Prabhupada arranged Ratha Yatra They were dancing on the streets and the police was Escorting them along And they were very happy with the whole thing And when Prabhupada gave the lecture at that time, he said I know all of you young hippies You are not very much appreciated In your country You are criticized as frustrated people But I appreciate all of you Prabhupada said Human life is meant to be frustrated Human life is meant to be frustrated If you don’t become frustrated, that is animal life What do you mean by that? If you don’t become frustrated, that is animal life Animal, whatever pleasure it gets It just is A cow gets the grass to eat It doesn’t think, today I have to put masala on the grass Today I have to put sugar on the grass Today I have to put Some other spice on the grass It is satisfied with whatever it is getting But in the human body We want more happiness Than what our body can provide And this Forces us over a period of time To look for some happiness Beyond the bodily happiness So what Srila Prabhupada is saying is Human life is meant to become frustrated Vedanta Sutra says Athato brahma jijnasa Enquire spiritually Now Prabhupada explains When do people enquire spiritually? When they will become frustrated materially When they will become frustrated materially Then they will enquire spiritually So therefore, actually speaking Krishna Has arranged this world in such a way That the miseries of the material world Coupled with the hope of happiness in this world Makes us look for happiness And it is like There are multiple choices We take the wrong option, I don’t get happiness I take the wrong option, I don’t get happiness I take the wrong option, I don’t get happiness And finally, when we come to the right option But when we come to the right option Even after coming to the right option We think maybe I should take the wrong option Maybe I will give it one more try It becomes like that for us But Krishna has arranged the world perfectly for us So that we can turn back to him And become supremely happy And become supremely happy So this is what we can think about it tonight And tomorrow we will continue this topic At that time we can discuss this once again Thank you very much Tomorrow we will have questions Thank you very much Thank you Hare Krishna Just wait for one minute So now we will proceed for prashanam In Yogashala And please honor prashanam Quickly Ok When there are few important announcements Like Specially from Deities here Please don’t dry your clothes On any wooden items Like parapet wall and everything Please dry them only on Rope lines provided And please don’t dry your clothes On the windows Because the curtains are there They may get damaged And wet And if possible Fold your beddings after getting up And keep them nicely in stack Because