The wealth of emotional health

Podcast Video:

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.

Hare Krishna. I'm happy to be here with all of you today. So I'll be speaking on this topic of emotional health, the wealth of emotional health.

I'll speak this in broadly three parts. How emotional health is vital, is a vital wealth for us in fact. How modernity impoverishes us emotionally and how we can become emotionally enriched.

Let's begin. Now what do we mean by emotional health? If we consider physical health, there are some broadly defined parameters for understanding it. Now emotional health, there is no standardized definition but I've looked at some broad parameters over here.

The sense of wellness in our inner world that leads to positive, purposeful, powerful thoughts, emotions and intentions. Let me unpack this a little bit. Emotional health refers to firstly our inner world and in our inner world, there are broadly three phases of emergence.

Whenever anything pops up first, it's a thought. Just like sometimes when we say, I just got a thought. When we say that, what we mean is something has popped up inside us.

The thought is the first stage and then while thinking about it, we start developing some kind of emotions in relationship with it. We like some things, we don't like some things. So that is emotion.

And then based on the emotions, I don't like that. I'm moving away from here. That's some kind of intention comes up.

So basically thoughts, emotions and intentions, these three are the dynamic actors in our inner world. And when you talk about emotional health, it's not just about emotions. It's about what happens in the inner world.

Whatever emerges in our inner world, emotions are the intermediate among the three. So we cannot talk about emotional health in isolation. We need to talk broadly about inner health in terms of thoughts, emotions and intentions.

And we look at these three things, positive, purposeful and powerful. And we look at how we can develop this. And when all three are combined together, then we have a sense of wellness.

And that sense of wellness is emotional health. So now why does emotional health matter at all? If you look at it, our happiness depends more on the thoughts inside us than on the things outside us. The thoughts inside us as contrasted with the things outside us.

Now we might be sitting in a very comfortable chair in an air-conditioned room in a sea-facing bungalow in an elite locality. So the things around us are rich, but the thoughts inside us are not. Then we can't be happy.

In the Mahabharata, this is vividly depicted through the example of Duryodhana. Duryodhana was a powerful prince of a prosperous kingdom. He was still extremely dissatisfied.

Why? Because although he had every luxury that a human being could crave for, his father Dhritarashtra told him that you have wealth, you have comforts, you have followers, you have a kingdom, you have citizens, your desires and orders can be obeyed by these people. What are you lacking? But what was he lacking? In his mind, he was constantly thinking about the Pandavas who were his cousins, but whom he considered then to be his mortal rivals. And because of that, he was never satisfied.

So he was sick emotionally. He was sick with envy, sick with anger, sick with frustration. And thus, actually our emotional health, it matters enormously.

The things outside us, when they are proper, we stay in proper physical health. But even if the things around us are proper and our physical health is proper, that doesn't necessarily lead to wellness or happiness. So that's why our emotional health matters because the thoughts inside us matter.

In fact, they matter more than the things outside us. I want to talk about, say, lack of emotional health, emotional sickness or emotional poverty. What does it mean? Emotions that create and perpetuate a state of dis-ease.

Dis-ease, here we have separated the word into its etymological components, that lack of ease, lack of comfort or pleasure. So when our thoughts grow into emotions and they make us feel uneasy, feel uncomfortable, feel unhappy. So emotional impoverishment or emotional sickness, the two distinct metaphors over here, the wealth of emotional health.

So if you're considering health, the opposite of that would be sickness. If you're considering wealth, the opposite of that would be poverty. So either way, loneliness, depression, anxiety, anger, distractedness, all these symptomize a sense of lacking within us.

They all keep us feeling incomplete. When we are lonely, when we are depressed, what happens? We feel that things are not the way they should be, whatever be the specific things. But our thoughts are what are creating this.

So let's move forward. Now, quite often when we are emotionally sick, we eventually make ourselves physically sick also. Psychosomatic diseases are a huge threat in today's world.

Psychosomatic means they originate in the psyche, the mind, and they manifest in the body. Psycho, soma, soma is the body. Conversely, there is an increasingly influential branch of immunology called psychoneuroimmunology.

And now with the corona pandemic widespread, how the human immune system can be enhanced is widely being studied. So psychoneuroimmunology. What is that? The immunology is of course the study of the human immune system.

Neuro refers to the brain, psycho refers to the mind. So the psychoneuroimmunology is how our thoughts lead to the production of the enzymes and the chemicals, the biochemicals in the brain, that eventually lead to health or sickness. So one simple metaphor to understand this point of health and sickness in terms of emotions is that, where do emotions occur? The Bhagavad Gita explains that our existence is three levels, body, mind, and soul.

That is like this metaphor, you have the computer system, the body is the hardware, the mind is the software, and the soul is the user. So when we are emotionally sick at that time, it's like a virus in the software of the mind, a virus. We see this, a system could be very new, but recently one of my friends got just a latest phone, but that phone came with the inbuilt virus.

And if you look at the phone, its design is so sleek and shiny and attractive, but if you try to use it, nothing works. So the hardware is perfect, the software is useless. That's how if our emotional health is lacking, then even if we have physical health, it becomes of no use.

Recently, we have had a Bollywood celebrity committing suicide. Before that, there have been Academy Award winners, and even comedians in America committing suicide. So now, of course, suicide is a complex problem, and each particular suicide case is a tragedy, and there are specific causes.

Along with that, there is a serious universal cause. Basically, suicide means the mind kills the body. I repeat this, suicide essentially means the mind kills the body.

The mind doesn't just harm or hurt the body, but such thoughts, emotions, and intentions are generated in the mind that it ends up destroying the body itself. So emotional sickness can have devastating and fatal consequences. So the first part was why emotional health is vital.

The second part is how modernity impoverishes us emotionally. That's what I'll discuss now, and then we'll move to the last part. For the second part, let's look at it.

There are broadly three things which we need for a sense of stability in our world, for a sense of health or enrichment in our inner world. And modernity has eroded all of these. The first is a loss of structure.

Now, what do I mean by loss of structure? Human beings have lived on the earth for millennia, and from a material perspective, living conditions have always been difficult. But before this current pandemic, for the last, after the Second World War, for the last 50-60 years, we could say, humanity has had a relatively peaceful phase in history. Prior to that, life was, prior to that and through most of human history, life has been incredibly tough.

But what sustained people, clear, if you consider medieval times, say 500-600 years ago, physically, many of the comforts that we take for granted today were not there. We didn't have fans, we didn't have electricity, we didn't have air conditioning, we didn't have air transport, we didn't have telecommunication. So life was much tougher in the past.

So modernity has given us a lot of progress in those terms. But simultaneously, while giving some things, some things have been taken away. One of them is structure.

What do we mean by structure? All of us, we need some sense of supportive structure in our lives. For example, if a child, let's consider infant, if there is too much constant change in the environment of an infant, then the infant's growth becomes impeded. Say, if the caregivers, if there is no constancy in that, so if there is no mother and the infant is handed from one baby to another, to another, to another, then that can have devastating consequences.

So what happens is, right from infancy, we need some structure. So for example, one sense of structure is our family. A bigger sense of structure is our community.

A bigger sense of structure is our profession. A bigger sense of structure is our nation. A bigger sense of structure is our understanding of the world, is God and our place and purpose in the world.

So basically, when there is no structure in our life, how does that impoverish us? See, structure brings certain amount of stability in life. Imagine, you wake up one day and you find you are in a train. Hey, how did I get in this train? And where is this train going? And nobody can answer the question.

What will happen? You don't know where the train is going. You don't know how long you'll be in the train. You don't know when you'll be told to get out of the train.

You don't know where you'll go after the train. You don't know whether you'll get food on the train. See, then what happens is there's too much uncertainty.

So of course, at the very least, we are in the train. But suppose somebody is in a train and their transportation is also continuously being changed. So when there is no structure in life, that wrecks havoc with us.

So the mind gets constantly filled with uncertainty and anxiety when the structures that bring coherence to our life are disrupted. So for example, now has the family is disintegrating for various factors. The very fact that urbanization and industrialization led to relocation of people, emigration of people from one place to another, from villages to cities, from cities to different countries.

And the structures that gave support to people have become destabilized. This is, of course, a complex subject. And I'm not going to go too much into this right now.

But this is just a broad explanation of how modernity, it has led to a lot of progress externally. And in that sense, we have more and more resources of physical health and physical well-being. But simultaneously, it has led to certain erosion of vital things, so loss of structure, and then there's a loss of meaning.

Why loss of meaning? Because there's a prominent scientist, Steven Weinberg, he said that the more the universe becomes comprehensible, the more it seems pointless. Because what has happened is, as Alfred North Whitehead said, echoing Steven Weinberg earlier to him, he said that, what are we, are we just electrons orbiting aimlessly and endlessly in the cosmic void? What is the point of life? And when there is no meaning to life, I'll talk about meaning a little bit more when I come to it. But the point is that the materialistic worldview that has come about as a byproduct of material progress has led to an erosion of meaning, and then loss of direction.

Loss of direction means, where do we want to go? What do we want to do with life? For many people, this itself is a big question. It could be with respect to careers, with respect to life partners, it could be with respect to even day to day. What am I meant to do? What is the direction in which I should go in my life? In the past, there was a certain amount of rigidity.

But along with that, the problem, the solution was that, or the plus point was that, for most people, they had a sense of direction. You're born this way, this is what you do, and this is how you go through your life. There was, of course, a certain lack of autonomy because of that.

And I'm not here adulating the past or condemning the present. It's simply analysing why there is so much disruption in our inner world. When we, it's like, suppose somebody is in a boat and the boat doesn't have, it's just all around is just water.

And the boat doesn't know where they want to go, where they should go. Then even the smallest of breeze can just sweep a person away. One who is committed to nothing will be distracted by anything.

One who is committed to nothing will be distracted by anything. And that's what is happening in today's world. Today, probably the biggest source of entertainment is the media, is basically movies and the internet and everything.

And what is there a sense of direction in what we do online? No, we just go here, go there, go there, find out what is to be done. And for most people, this kind of entertainment is the thing that they look forward to the most in their day and their life. So naturally we end up impoverished.

So now how can we become emotionally enriched? So I'll talk about how three things matter for us, a sense of purpose, a sense of progress and a sense of power. So if we want to become emotionally healthy, what do we need? We need these three Ps in our life. Let's look at what this means.

And when we talk about purpose, things will always go wrong in our lives. And we need to understand that what we fear is not pain, but purposeless pain, purposeless pain. If you are walking on a road and say, there is a thorn or a nail lying there and it pierces into our foot, we would be annoyed, we'd be angered, we'd be alarmed.

Who is this fool who let this drop over here like this? But if we had to go to a doctor and take a tetanus shot, then in one sense, the sensation of piercing is the same. But we would ask them to go to the doctor and extend our hand or extend our leg wherever we are going to get the injection. And not only would we take the shot, but we would pay them for giving us that shot.

Now, is that injection not painful? Yes, it is. But our problem, the negativity, the negative emotion, there is negative sensation, there is negative emotion. The sensation in both cases is the same.

In both cases means when a thorn is piercing our foot, and when a shot is being given into our foot or our leg, wherever. So the sensation is the same, but the emotion is different. When we, when I say a nail pierces into our foot, we might get alarmed, I am going to get tetanus now.

But once we take a shot, we feel relieved. Although there is a painful sensation over there. But at an emotional level, there is relief now I'm saying.

So what we need in our life is purpose. What we fear in our life is not pain, but purposeless pain. So life will give problems to everyone.

And just the problems themselves don't cause emotional negativity or emotional impoverishment. Problems alone don't take away our emotional health. I earlier talked about structure.

Structure and purpose are quite related to each other. So to the extent we have a sense of purpose in our lives, to that extent, problems become bearable. Pain becomes manageable.

We will see that when if we go to some place just to be comfortable, say we go to a resort where our purpose is primarily to enjoy. Then, say even if the AC is not high, AC is not high enough, there's AC but it's not high enough, we will feel annoyed, we will feel angered. The smallest of inconveniences will annoy us.

But consider an athlete who is preparing for us a 100 meter sprint Olympic gold. They will voluntarily work hard, do enormous workouts. Why? Because, because they have a purpose.

So if we want emotional health, we need a purpose and we need a purpose centered on something bigger than ourselves. Often, when people come and talk with me, I spend a lot of time in the West, in America, Australia, I spend about nine months a year outside India. So when I'm in college, universities in America and other places, many times students come and say that they suffer from depression.

Now, sometimes depression can be a clinical problem where it requires medication. And those are cases which are there, but they are exceptional. In general, depression is basically a diminution of spirit.

And one way depression, non-clinical depression can be dealt with is, what I recommend is, do something for someone else. Do something for someone else. If some friends, some relatives, some acquaintances, they've done something good for you, just send a simple note of appreciation to them.

Or if you know somebody needs something, just do something for them. As soon as we get a purpose, the mind's hold on us decreases. See, purpose itself creates an energy.

And now, we all can have our own purposes. And we need to have those purposes. We need to find out, say, for example, when I earlier talked about structure, say, if somebody is a part of a family, then just being a part of a family gives them a particular structure and a particular purpose.

Okay, I had to play this role, I had to do this thing, I had to do that thing. Now, that may be done with resentment, that might involve anxiety, agitation, all those things. But those roles, if they're accepted, they give a purpose.

Now, how we take up a purpose, society and social structures give us certain purposes. Ultimately, beyond such subjective or contextual purposes that we have, we all have a spiritual purpose. Each of us is a soul.

And we are on a multi-life journey of spiritual evolution. And on this journey of spiritual evolution, we all have an opportunity to make every situation into an opportunity for our growth, for our growth, growth in our understanding, growth in our capacity to love and to serve. So, spiritual wisdom can give us an enduring purpose that nothing can take away from us.

Then, second thing is progress. Now, we talk about progress. And in today's world, progress is talked about mostly in terms of economic development, all these countries progressing, how the GDP is improving, the country is progressing, we have got paved roads, we have got electricity, we've got water supply.

So, all those are important here. And those are parameters of progress in terms of the outer world, the physical level. Now, how do we get a sense of progress in our inner world? Many of us may feel that I lack self-esteem.

Now, if you want a sense of self-esteem, it doesn't come simply by we or others patting ourselves on our back. Oh, you're a good person. That's fine.

We all need some encouragement, some appreciation. But if we have a sense of low self-esteem, what will give us self-esteem is we moving toward a valuable purpose, set up a goal, set up a purpose and move toward it, even if it's by a microscopic degree. So, that sense of progress will create positivity.

It could be something extremely simple. It could be, suppose we feel that, oh, I would like to read some wisdom texts, but I'm never not able to do it. So, there are wisdom texts like the Bhagavad Gita, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata.

How do we, I'm not able to read them. What do you do? Just set up a direction and move towards it. Can you read one paragraph per day, one page per day, one sentence per day? See, one sentence, what difference is it going to make? It is going to make a difference because here in terms of inner enrichment, progress comes when we set a goal for ourselves and then we see that we are progressing toward that goal.

It could be anything. If it's for waking up in the morning, we want to wake up early, we want to sleep early, we want to regulate our lives. So, no need to set up an expectation for the rest of our life for us.

Say, tomorrow morning, if I can't wake up at this time, I want to wake up at this time, if not at this time, at this time, if not at this time, this time, not at this time, at this time. Set up some goal. Don't just live in and here it could be a tiny goal, doesn't matter.

But if we do that, what we'll find is that will create positive emotions within us. If we wait for good things to happen to us, people to recognize us, people to value us, yes, that will happen, but that may not happen at the time when we need it. That's why if we can create a sense of direction, have a sense of progress in a inner enrichment for us and from a spiritual perspective, we understand that whatever happens in our life, sometimes we move forward in our goals, sometimes we seem to be moving backward.

We may be in some competitive area externally. Sometimes we are on top, sometimes we are sliding toward the bottom. But actually, the Bhagavad Gita tells us, The Bhagavad Gita says our progress depends on our, our endeavor.

In the inner world, our progress doesn't have to, doesn't require the others, the world to recognize us. If we are endeavoring, we are progressing. This is especially something that happens when we learn to grow spiritually.

So, what does growing spiritually means? That, I'll conclude with this last part. This is, I talked about how do we become enriched internally? There is purpose, there is progress and there is power. So, often we think of power in terms of being able to do what we want to do.

Say, the President of America can just sign one page and say, stop all immigrants from coming to America. There's so much power in this. You may think, oh, I don't have much power.

But actually, power is not simply in terms of doing everything we want. It is, power is in keeping small things small, so that we can focus on big things. No matter how powerful we become in life, we will never be able to do everything that we want to do.

That's just not possible. No matter how powerful we become, the President of America might be considered by some people to be the most powerful person in the world. But the American President can't control China.

The American President can't control the protests that are turning into riots in his own country. The American President can't control whether they will win the next elections. So, if we think of power in terms of gaining more and more influence in the outer world, yes, we may gain it.

And if we gain it, we can use it. But that will not lead to inner enrichment. There's a former American President who said that, he was asked after his tenure ended, four-year tenure ended, he was asked, how was your experience in the White House? So, he said that basically, I felt as if I was four years talking on a phone with nobody at the other end.

Because even in the White House, there are so many pressure groups, which cannot be disrupted. So, the point I'm making is that we can seek outer power. But all of us in whatever situation we are in, we need to learn to say, okay, this is a small thing, this doesn't matter for me, this is what matters.

We focus on the big things. So, these three things, purpose, progress and power, they're not just linear, they're cyclic. When we focus on the things that really matter for us, then we can progress in those directions.

When you progress in that direction, that reinforces it, this is the purpose, this is where I want to go. So, basically, what the Bhagavad Gita and the Bhakti tradition tell us is that the universe itself moves purposefully. Bad things happen in life.

But beyond whatever bad things are happening, there is a higher plan to everything that is happening. And everything that happens may not be God's plan, but God's plan can work through everything that happens. I repeat this, everything that happens may not be God's plan.

But God's plan can work through everything that happens, through everything that happens. in the Mahabharata, when the Pandavas were just small children, at that time, they, they, because their father passed away, they came to the kingdom of Kurukshetra, of Indraprastha, of Hastinapur. And then Duryodhana there started conspiring against them.

So Duryodhana had Bhima poisoned. And when Bhima was poisoned, he was poisoned and he was tied and thrown into a river. It was terrible.

Bhima was just a teenager and Duryodhana was also a teenager. But he was so malicious that he tried to assassinate his own cousin. And then what happened thereafter? That was not, was Bhima, was Duryodhana's poisoning Bhima a part of, was that what God wanted? No, that was what Duryodhana wanted.

Duryodhana was evil and he did what he wanted to do. But through it, Krishna's plan was working. How was Krishna's plan working? That Bhima was thrown into the ocean, thrown into the river, certain snakes bit him.

And the snake's poison and the poison which Duryodhana had given to Bhima, they counteracted each other. And Bhima came to consciousness and he just hurled away all the snakes. The snakes were alarmed to see this human being was immune to their bites.

And then later, seeing this amazing prowess of Bhima, he was taken to a celestial domain where he was given celestial nectar. And by that, he emerged stronger. So the Lord's plan was that Bhima becomes stronger.

But there was a, there was some disaster that happened. But through that disaster, something good came out. So when we focus not on the small, small things, oh, why did this happen? Why did this person do like this? Why did this person do like this? There'll always be people around us who will irritate us.

But we focus not on why is this person irritating me? But how can I grow through this? How can I grow in my emotional resilience? How can I grow in my focus on my purpose? If we grow, we will find that our power will increase. And thus, inner enrichment will be a result. Inner enrichment doesn't mean that bad things don't happen to us, or that bad thoughts don't come upon us.

But rather, bad thoughts don't stay within us. Because inside us, we understand that there's a wellspring of all positivity, God is himself present in our hearts. And when we connect with the divine within us, then that brings about a flood of positive energy, or positive thoughts, positive emotions, positive intentions, and that cleanses us.

So that devotional connection with the divine for emotional healing. The world can hurt us in many ways, but greater than the world's power to hurt is God's power to heal. Greater than the world's power to hurt is God's power to heal.

If we keep looking at the world and dreading the world's power to hurt us, we will always stay emotionally impoverished, we'll always be emotionally sick. But instead of obsessing with the world, we focus on the source of the world or the Lord of the world. We find the potency to be strengthened, and we grow to whatever life sends our way.

That is the way to emotional health. I summarized what I spoke today. I spoke broadly in three parts.

I talked about what is it that causes, what do we mean by emotional health or emotional sickness. So the emotional health I talked about how the inner sense of wellness that comes when our thoughts, emotions and intentions are positive, purposeful and powerful. So in our inner world, things start with thoughts, something pops up within us, then it leads to the thoughts inside us, determine our well-being, more than the things outside us.

And modern society, through technology, we have progressed a lot in terms of thoughts, but in terms of improving the things outside, but the thoughts inside have become impoverished. I talked about the model of the body, mind, soul, the hardware, software and user. And why is the software getting corrupted with viruses? These are three things, loss of structure, loss of meaning and loss of direction.

This is what has resulted because of the various sociocultural changes that modernity has brought about. And then what can we do? We can't change things at the macro level, but at an individual level, we all can work for doing these three things. Purpose, we all can have a purpose in which we are moving.

What we fear is not so much pain, but purposeless pain. So negative negativity, inner impoverishment, inner sickness is not caused by outer problems, but it is caused when we see those outer problems, when we feel that the outer problems are purposeless. A nail going to our leg will annoy and anger us, but an anti-determinist shot going to our leg will relieve us.

Then when we talk about progress, it's not in terms of the increase of our bank balance or the nation's GDP, but it is more in terms of the valuable direction or purpose for us and we take steps in that direction. Even if we take small steps, we will find that our purpose will, our positive feelings about ourselves, our self esteem will improve by that. And lastly, I talked about power.

We may feel that, what difference can I make? The power I have is so limited. It may be so, but just by gaining more power, we won't be able to make much differences necessarily. Power here refers to the capacity to keep small things small so that we can focus on big things.

And by spiritual understanding, we know that, we come to understand that actually the universe moves purposefully. So even when bad things are happening, rather than obsessing on those bad things, we understand that there is a higher plan. Everything that happens may not be God's plan, but God's plan can work through everything that happens.

So we focus on the big thing of how can I cooperate with the divine plan? How can I get out of myself and act in a mood of service? When we do that, we will move forward. And greater than the world's power to hurt is God's power to heal. Thank you very much.

Yes, yes. We have a few questions. Thank you very much.

The way you structured this subject, very, very comprehensible, very, very concise. Thank you. So, you know, you said focusing on God is one of the ways to be more balanced and centered.

But the environment around me is such that there is loud music, it's unclean, people are not too supportive. In such a situation, I'm not able to manage my thoughts and emotions. What do you suggest? Who is not supportive? The family, the environment around.

Okay. In that case, I think this is a universal problem. Let me just draw something over here if I can.

Okay. Let me just do it straight away. See, there are three factors over here.

So we are here, say God is here, and our family members are here. The ideal situation is when these are complimentary, that means we are moving in our, we are trying to grow devotionally, and our family members also supportive. When these, they basically are in concord, they're in harmony.

But if they are not, then keep the three separate. Quite often what happens is, when we start doing something spiritually, we want our family members also to do something spiritual. And so to say this is the relationship between us and God, this is the relationship between us and them, and this is the relationship between them and God.

So now we live relatively speaking in a liberal society. So if we want to grow spiritually, if you want to do certain practices, over a period of time, we will get the space. We may have to do some negotiation of specifics, but quite often the problems come when we want others to also do what we are doing.

And in trying to compel them to do that, we end up straining our relationship with them. So the more we pressure them to do, you should do this, you should not do this, or this is right and this is wrong. No, don't.

If you find us that they are somewhat unreceptive or hostile to our devotional growth, then don't intrude in their life. See these two, see, give priority to your relationship with Krishna, but simultaneously give due priority to your spiritual growth, but simultaneously give due importance to your relationship with them. Do what it takes to develop that relationship also.

So once they find that we are not encroaching in their space, they won't encroach in our space. That means, see, different relationships work best at different distances. So different distances mean sometimes we may want very close proximity in the relationship, but say if we are spiritual and they're not spiritual, then in that dimension, we may not have proximity.

But okay, this is what you want to do, this is what I want to do. So don't judge them because they're not practicing something spiritual. Don't condemn them.

So I talk about spiritual presentation in three ways. There is prescriptive, normative and descriptive. Prescriptive means you should do this and you should not do this.

Nobody likes prescriptions. Even when they are coming from a doctor, if the doctor is not doing something which is palatable for us, we forget to take it. So with our relatives and others, nobody likes to be prescribed, do this or don't do this.

So don't be prescriptive. Normative means this is right and this is wrong. Say for example, eating meat is wrong, don't stop eating meat.

No, don't be normative. Normative is making a, so prescriptive is making a judgment about them. Normative is making a judgment about rightness and wrongness.

Descriptive is more of what I do and why I do it. Okay, why don't you eat meat? Okay, I don't eat meat because I saw how much violence is done against animals. And I don't want to be a part of it.

So we are not judging or condemning them, they're simply presenting our case and do it objectively. And gradually if we negotiate, we give them their space, they will give us our space. So if you keep these three things distinct, our relationship with the divine, our relationship with them and their relationship with the divine, don't force them in any way and do what it takes to maintain that relationship.

Then we may not be able to do all the things that we would like to do for our spiritual growth. But that's okay. We all can move at our particular pace in our spiritual journey.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Prabhuji.

Very well answered. I think it takes a lot of maturity to live a life of interdependence. At the same time, ensure that you're growing spiritually.

And possibly that's an indicator that you're growing spiritually when you're able to get along with people who are with you. Prabhuji, we have a question that in the pandemic, in the current pandemic, there is so much of negativity in the atmosphere, whether it is business, whether it is social life, whether it is family life, that there's a lot of negative thinking. Now, how do we deal with that? Okay.

So how do we deal with the negative thinking amid the pandemic? Yes. Broadly, in any situation we are in, we can look at what is wrong and feel sorry for ourselves or look at what is right and feel positive. So yes, there are things which are wrong.

But if you want to look at the world, the worst of it is. So we need to have a source of positivity accessible for us. So as it is said, count your blessings.

You know, I wrote an article, the title, count your blessings and make your blessings count. What that means is that, say, when we are in a reflective state of mind, write down what are the things that are good in your life? Because the world will give us so much negativity, this is bad, that is bad, that is bad. But still, say, if we are just alive, then there is more right than wrong in our lives.

There are many countries, most of us might be of 30, 40, 50, whatever age. But there are so many people, millions of people who die before they attain whatever age we are at right now. So if you're just alive, there is more right than wrong in our lives.

So write down what are the things that are right in your life. And then keep that note, it can be a physical notepad or a digital notepad. And when negativity starts coming in, look at that, read that, try to contemplate that.

And that will create positivity. And of course, spiritual practices can, as I said, if we connect with the Lord inside us, that can give us positivity. So mantra chanting, prayer, study of wisdom texts, these are also the ways of perceiving or accessing a non material positivity.

When I talk about counting our blessings, it might be okay in the world that things are wrong, but things are right also. So both ways, by looking at the good things in our life, and by looking at the spiritual sources of positivity, we can counter the negativity that is there in the world. Thank you, Prabhuji.

Truly, a grateful heart attracts the Lord and a lot of positivity in our life. So sometimes I get thoughts, which I'm not able to comprehend. Why am I thinking? Why am I so low in my thinking? So are these my thoughts? Are they coming from somewhere else? How do I make sense of all these thoughts which I get in my mind? Okay.

When we get say negative or distracting or destructive thoughts, where do they come from? I talk about the metaphor of the mind like the software. So imagine if you have a phone. Now on the phone, say right now, if you are on your phone or on your laptop, you are hearing this class.

So there is one main thing that is the focus. But simultaneously, there will be notifications coming up. Maybe your friend updated their Facebook photo or something, some other WhatsApp messages come.

So what happens is our mind is like that. There is one thing we want to focus on, but there are many other notifications that keep coming. So now some notifications on our phone, we can turn off.

But sometimes we can't turn off, just pop up. But then we decide, okay, I don't need to pay attention to this. Or at least I don't need to pay attention right now.

So basically, our mind is like that software and the software of the phone, which keeps giving us notifications. So within our mind, many thoughts will pop up. Now, if you consider the word thought, we often use it in two different senses.

One sense is I just got a thought. That means something popped up inside. The second is, I have given this a lot of thought.

When I say I have given this a lot of thought means I have analysed it, I have deliberated it and I have come to some understanding. So the second sense is much, much broader than the first. So what we need to do is not every thought deserves our thought.

Not everything that pops up inside us deserves to be contemplated on. And that's why when you talk about and I talk about the purpose, when we have something meaningful to do, then we won't get distracted by this idea, that idea popping up within us. So yes, that many thought that poppers come from the mind, which is like a auto thought generator within us.

And we need to use our intelligence to know which thoughts to focus on and which thoughts to neglect. Okay. Yeah, thank you.

Thank you very much. So we need to filter, you know, what we need to take in and what we need to throw out. A lot of relationships today start on a high note, but we are seeing the divorce rates are very high.

Relationships are not continuing. Where are we going wrong emotionally? So relationships are not stable, divorce rates are going high. So what are the reasons for this? It's very complicated.

Let's say three broad factors. And we'll talk about what is in our control, what is not in our control. Also, the first is when two people, well, let's consider marriage itself, and two people come together in marriage.

So first is that in the past, there was a significant amount of respect for the institution of marriage itself. So for people, getting married was often more important than who married to. In the past, we see the past, most of society is much more hierarchical.

Now they are much more horizontal. So what happens is because of this, earlier marriage was seen more as an obligation, now it is seen more as an option. So because of this basic difference, one of the results of progressive liberal ideology is that all institutions are devalued, whether it be nation or state or family or any authority.

So that deterioration in the value of the leg. Roji, we are losing your voice, Roji. The increased likelihood of relations.

So that means that, am I audible? Yeah, you Am I audible? In the last 60 seconds, your voice has not been very consistent. Can you check your internet connection? Is it good enough? Yeah, I was hearing somebody else's voice. So was somebody else speaking? Yeah, I just tried to tell you that the voice was not very consistent in the last 60 seconds.

So yeah, so that's why the first point in the sanctity of the institution of marriage itself has become devalued. That's why if we have a materialistic culture, then everything is utilitarian. Nothing is sacred.

Utilitarian means if this works, good. If it doesn't work, what's the point in continuing? So that's why the purpose of relationships is not just material gratification. The purpose of relationships is spiritual evolution.

That means when we come together, it's not just that you make me happy or I make you happy. Yes, that's a part of it. It's not that I want that you should make me unhappy or I should make you unhappy specifically.

But the purpose of relationship, that means we both grow spiritually. So that higher purpose is missing. But the first point of the sanctity of the institution.

Prachi, can you switch off your video? Maybe we can hear you better then. What can I do about it? What is the point of it all? So now, beyond it all, of course, as I talked earlier, the structure of the society has changed so much that there is too much expectation from the institution of marriage today. So in the past, people often lived in a bigger community, whether it was a joint family or it is a broader community.

And people's emotional needs, people had their cousins, grandparents and their parents and other people who all took care of their emotional needs, various emotional needs in different ways. But in today's world, often what happens is too much pressure and expectation from that one relationship itself. Because quite often, we live in smaller family units and there are a huge amount of generational gaps.

So the best thing that we can do is that we depend on emotional stability or smallest. A small harsh word can become unbearable. But if we grow spiritually and then we will be able to deal with the relational challenges better.

So there is no easy solution because society itself has become very complex. But stabilizing, so we could say, I talked about three things, the changes in the cultural conception of marriage, the changes in the conception of the purpose of life and the changes in the supportive structures around marriage. So we could say these three, if you are in the ocean, these three are like big waves that are coming and the waves can sweep away people when the stormy waves come.

So we can't stop those waves from coming because they just, waves are waves, but we can try to hold on to anchor. So if our spirituality becomes like an anchor, then we will be less swept away by those stormy waves. That's how we can deal with relational challenges more maturely.

Thank you, Prabhuji. Prabhuji, your voice has not been very good while you were answering the last question. So maybe you can switch off your video while you answer the question.

It may just get better. So, Prabhuji, there is a question that yes, we need to have a purpose, but sometimes when we lose our purpose while we are traveling towards it, we get back to our old ways of being and doing and how do we help such people? Yeah, sometimes we may relapse to our older ways of thinking and acting. Just don't be too hard on yourself.

Life is gradual. And if we try to look at our emotions on a day-to-day basis, our emotions will still be like a sine wave. Sometimes we may feel good, sometimes we may feel bad.

So our spiritual growth is seen not so much in terms of our change of emotions because they are transient, but in the terms of change of our emotional level. Emotional level means that say in the past when the sine wave went low, you might sink deep down into a depression. Now also the sine wave will go down, but its magnitude will not be that much.

Its depth will not be that much. So the crests and troughs, instead of being this high, they'll be this high. And not only this high, this rather, it will be moving up.

So as long as overall our emotional level is rising, that's fine. On a day-to-day basis, we will tend to have our ups and downs. And apart from that, if we have some like-minded friend with whom we can confide, then that can help us enormously in realigning ourselves.

Our mind presents us hundreds of options at every moment. And the way we deal with these options is actually by outsourcing our sanity to the world. What do I mean by outsourcing our sanity to the world? That means, say, if suddenly somebody starts laughing or crying or doing something unusual, and people around are like, what are you doing? So what happens, say, if right now I'm speaking, and say, if this were a class where I was able to see all of you and you're able to see me, and if I spoke something and every one of you started frowning at me, started glaring at me, the next day I would think, what did I speak? That would make me think.

So what happens for most of us, if we get too caught in our head, what is right, what is wrong, we might get way off track. But if we have somebody with whom we can share our thoughts, share our troubles, share our trials, then they can help us realign ourselves. So that's how by looking not at the daily oscillation of our emotions, but at our overall emotional level, and by sharing with a friend, we can stay spiritually progressive.

Thank you, Prabhuji. I like the terminology, outsource your sanity. And yes, your friends are all around you to provide you that service of listening to you, of understanding you, of empathizing with you.

Prabhuji, sometimes I have the intelligence of knowing what is right, but I give in to temptations, and I feel very guilty and incompetent. And that, you know, puts me down. How do I deal with that? Okay, if you feel guilty because of temptations, first thing is that Shaknoti Hai Vyasorum Prakshar Vimokshana Kama Krodhot Vamam Vedam So the Bhagavad Gita says temptations will come.

We don't have to welcome. Temptations will come. That's just the way life is.

From outside, from inside, temptations will come. But we don't have to welcome means that we don't have to delight when they come. Nor do we have to become dejected when they come.

They will just come. Sometimes they'll be so overwhelming that they know it's over. Suppose if you have ever played an arm wrestling match.

Now, suppose we are playing an arm wrestling match with somebody who is much stronger than us, and then they've just got our arm right down. It's almost touched the table. Now, we may think that even if I resist, what do I do? This person is so strong.

Eventually, I'm going to succumb only. So let me just give up. That's an understandable feeling.

But suppose it's a timed arm wrestling match. A timed arm wrestling match means that they have to get our hand down in say three minutes. So if we can just hold on for three minutes, then if we just survive the present round, if we just survive the present round, then we will resume on neutral ground.

We won't resume at the same point, we'll resume at the neutral ground in the middle. So similarly, sometimes when our urges come upon us, the temptation comes, we start to know this is so strong. And even if I resist it, eventually, I'm going to succumb to it.

So why bother to resist? Yeah, that's a feeling that's natural. But it is it is not counterfactual. Why? Because say if an urge has come upon me today, it's not in the urge is going to be there 24 hours a day.

The urge sometimes has a surge, becomes very strong. But it's like a timed arm wrestling match. Timed arm wrestling is not going to be there forever.

Just endure it. And if you endure it, if the urge went this way up to the top, then it's going to come. So whenever it comes back, on the next hour, when it comes back, it's not going to come at that peak, it's going to start from here.

And so basically, the point is that we don't have to give in to the urge just thinking that it's just inevitable, resisting it is impossible. That's one thing. And even if we know what happens, okay, the urge comes, we succumb to it.

But what do we do in between the urges? The urges are not tormenting us constantly. It's not the temptation. Even if it's a temptation is 24 hours a day.

Temptation doesn't tempt us with the same intensity 24 hours a day. Suppose somebody alcoholic, and their home is like a bar. But still, it's not that they crave 24 hours with the same intensity.

So rather than obsessing over whether we can resist the urge, when the surge comes, and that becomes very strong, focus on what we do between those urges. Rather than simply lamenting, oh, why did I succumb? Why am I so weak? Focus on doing some things which make us stronger. Read something to read something some wisdom, some spiritual wisdom to nourish the intelligence, do some activities to purify yourself.

Do some mantra chanting, do some sacred activities, some devotional activities. And then if we are become making ourselves stronger in between these two urges, whenever they come, then that is what will last with us eventually will become strong enough that when the urge comes, we'll be able to resist it. So guilt is good, if it helps us recognize that I shouldn't just nonchalantly or casually succumb to the urge.

But if guilt makes us constantly think of why did I succumb, why did I succumb, why did I succumb, then that guilt is unhealthy. Because what are we doing, we are focusing on what happened when that surge came up, and we are not doing something constructive in between those surges. Okay.

Thank you, Prabhuji. It's all about developing your emotional muscle and that comes to use when you have to face the surge. Prabhuji, can we take a couple of questions more? Are you okay? Yeah, sure.

Two questions we'll take. I can see some questions in the chat. Are you asking those also? Yes, Prabhuji, I am quite aligned to those questions.

Okay. So they are asking that you told us to focus on the big things. So can you tell us what is the difference between a small thing and a big thing? Okay, one way to know what is a small thing and what is a big thing is, basically, it's in the light of the purpose.

Suppose if you're driving to some important meeting, if you're driving there, then you see maybe a new shopping mall has opened up and you say, let me go and buy something over there. Or say, in the theater, some new movie has come up, I want to watch that. Now, if where we want to go is important, then okay, this is not that important.

So basically, purpose provides perspective. So if we keep our purpose in our mind, then that will help us decide what we should do, what we are able to do and what we are not able to do. What is important for us and what is not important for us.

So Krishna says that in the Bhagavad Gita in 1830, he states that when we, when our intelligence is spiritually directed, we are basically stabilized. So that purpose, so regularly studying spiritual wisdom texts by which our purpose stays clear, then that can help us in the light of the purpose to decide what is important, what is not important. Otherwise, just on the spur of the moment to decide is important, is not important, that's very difficult.

We need to keep the purpose in mind that will help us decide. Okay. So Prabhuji, how do I know that I'm living a life of purpose? Are there any indicators of that? Okay, how do we know we are living a life of purpose? Basically, the world, everybody has some purpose.

Even if somebody turns on it, okay, I'm just bored, how can I just find something entertaining to while away my time or whatever. So to forget my problems. Quite often our materialistic culture around us, it reduces our purpose to two essential things, collection and consumption.

Collection, the buy option, eat this, watch this, touch this, enjoy this. So if you consider from one perspective, progress and success in material terms is defined in these terms, collecting lots of things and then consuming lots of things. But if you look at it from a deeper perspective, what actually brings deep joy to us is not collection or consumption, but connection and contribution.

When we connect deeply with other people, somebody who is important for us, somebody who understands us, somebody who we want, who matters for us. When there is a connection with people, even if you consider the times when we went, say, to a health station, whatever, it is not just going there. It is quite often connecting, connecting with other people.

That actually brings us fulfillment. So connection and then contribution in terms of that our existence and life in the world matters. That somebody's life became somewhat easier because of us.

So we all have certain abilities, certain resources. And if you understand that we have been placed here, this world by God, and we all have a particular, we all have some contribution to make. So it's not that there is some secret code that we find.

And then, okay, this is my purpose. It's not like that. It is we are not like programmed robots, whose success is perfect harmony with the programming, whether it is our own biological programming, psychological programming, or even God's programming.

It's not like that we have free will, and we are meant to use our free will properly. So properly means that now it's not that there is that, that each of us, we find the way in which we can connect deeply with the people important to us, and we connect with the divine inside us. And then with that connection, we make a contribution.

So that which helps us to make a connection and make a meaningful contribution, these two parameters can be used to discern whether we are moving forward in a meaningful purpose in our lives. Okay. Thank you, Prabhuji.

I think I like your three two C's and three P's and the way you simplify the concepts so we can remember it very easily. Prabhuji, last question is, are we born with a purpose? Is the purpose to be discovered or is the purpose to be created? Or is it a combination of both? Both. Is the purpose to be discovered or created? Well, there are two distinct aspects to it.

At a spiritual level, we are all meant to evolve. So that, you know, we are all loving temporary things in the world. And yes, we might get some pleasure by the love of those temporary things.

But eventually, those temporary things will be taken away and there'll be distress for us. But beyond the temporary, there is the enduring, and the most enduring reality is God. So in terms of that ultimate, the most important connection that we need to develop is with God.

And so in the sense that we need to develop our connection with God, that purpose is to be discovered. If the purpose is there, we discover it. But specifically, how we go about doing it.

I talk about connection and contribution in terms of developing, making the connection with the divine, that is like a given purpose, we just need to discover it. It's like a map is not there, we find the map, it's like that. But in terms of how we make our contribution, that's something which we can make.

Because we all have our particular abilities, we by our choices and by our circumstances, we develop certain abilities, we may not develop certain abilities. So there is abundant room for individual expression in the way we manifest our purpose. So it's both a discovery and creation.

Thank you. Thank you, Prabhu. Thank you.

So thank you very much for your attention and participation. Very thoughtful questions, and it was a pleasure and honor to be with all of you.