To master the mind become conscious of your consciousness

[Evening program at Richmond, USA]

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
I thank all of you for coming here today evening.
And I’ll speak on the topic of the mind and how to deal with it. Now the sixth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita has several verses which deal with the mind. And we’ll discuss several of them today.
We’ll see what they tell us. So 6.5 in the Bhagavad Gita says, uddhare naatmanatmanam naatmanam avasadayet aatmaiva yatmanobandhah aatmaiva ripuratmanah So uddhare, uddha means to deliver, to uplift. So uddhare aatmanatmanam.
So elevate yourself with the mind. naatmanam avasadayet Don’t degrade yourself with the mind. aatmaiva yatmanobandhah The mind is the friend of the self.
aatmaiva ripuratmanah The mind is also the enemy of the self. Naturally the Bhagavad Gita uses language in a multivalent sense. Specifically the word aatma is used in this verse.
And the word aatma comes several times. uddhare aatmanatmanam So twice the aatma has come. Actually the literal meaning of the verse is elevate the self with the self.
naatmanam avasadayet Don’t degrade the self with the self. aatmaiva yatmanobandhah The self is the friend of the self. aatmaiva ripuratmanah The self is the enemy of the self.
Now if we hear so many selves we start wondering what is the self. So the self is the friend of the self. The self is the enemy of the self.
Elevate the self with the self. Don’t degrade the self with the self. So the Bhagavad Gita often uses Upanishadic language.
The Upanishads are books which are meant for very intellectual people. And these books present philosophical truths often in enigmatic forms. And the idea is some people find simple things too simple.
So if some things are explained very simply how can truth be so simple? It must be very complicated. So if we say God created everything what is this? How can God create everything? The primordial cosmological principle which is transcendental to all conceptions of space and time and beyond the conception of the human mind and intelligence manifested by its own omniscience all that exists and all that possibly exists. Somehow in Kali Yuga in the 11th canto it is described as satyatve dharshtyamevati that the audacious are considered truthful.
The more loudly someone speaks one of the assistants of Adolf Hitler he coined a principle he said that the louder you speak, the longer you speak the more whatever you speak is seen as the truth. So when something is spoken in a bombastic way that starts appearing as if it must be true. So impressive.
So the Bhagavad Gita has principles which are actually simple for the simple. But if we think simple there is a difference between simple and simplistic. Simplistic means that the reality actually is complex and we are oversimplifying things.
That is simplistic. But the essential truths of life the Bhagavad Gita explains are not very complex to understand. They are, simple does not necessarily mean easy.
They are not easy to apply in our life. There is an effort required for that. So one of the truths is that there is something within us that works against us.
Whatever it is that we are doing. Say some sports player is playing the biggest match of their life and just when they can score at the last moment suddenly that sports player gets an attack of nerves and chokes. They are prepared for that biggest moment of their life and suddenly they choke.
They lose the opportunity. So something within them works against them. Many of you know about that famous or infamous boxer Mike Tyson.
At one time when he started losing a fight he just actually bit off the ear of his opponent. He just pounced on his opponent and bit off his ear. His opponent was shocked.
What is going on? It is supposed to be a match between boxers not a battle between carnivores. So why didn’t you do that? He said there is some demon inside me. There is something inside me which makes me act against myself.
So that force which is there within us which often acts against us that force the Bhagavad Gita says it acts through our mind. The mind is to understand the simple example it is like the interface between the body and the soul. So when a person is say managing a farm they got a big ranch which they have to manage.
At that time if it is a slightly medieval or pre-modern setting then they don’t have tractors. They need a horse. The horse helps them to go all over the ranch.
They need the horse but at the same time the horse is a bit wild. Sometimes the horse will just throw them off. Horse riding can be elegant, it can be joyous but at the same time it can be dangerous.
The horse just knocks them off, can fall down. Sometimes the horse may stamp on them also. So they need the horse at the same time the horse can be dangerous.
So the mind is like that. The mind is like the horse that we need for negotiating reality. For functioning in this world.
We are spiritual beings and to function in this material world the interface between us and the world is the mind. So in a sense say if I want to look what is there outside. So there is a window over here.
The window is what enables me to see what is there outside. So the mind is like our window to the world. In fact to be more precise the mind is actually more like the chief window to the windows to the world.
That means the senses, the five senses that we have. In the Bhagavad Gita 15.8 Krishna says that Shotram chakshu sparshanam cha rasanam ghanavevacham adhishthaya manaschayam vishayan upasevate So in 15.8 and 9 he is describing how the soul goes from one body to another. In 15.9 he says that these five senses shotra, ears, chakshu, eyes rasanam, the tongue, ghanam, the smell nose for smelling shotram chakshu sparshanam cha the skin by which we touch rasanam ghanavevacham adhishthaya manaschayam All these are centered around the mind.
vishayan upasevate We try to enjoy worldly objects through this. So if I consider the five fingers of a palm five fingers of a hand they are all centered around the palm. The palm is like the mind.
The five senses are like the five fingers. Or to give another example, say there is a very important building in which there is a security monitoring system to check who is coming in and who is going out and there are five gates to enter into that building and there are cameras installed at each gate and all the cameras come to a central monitoring room say the control room. The control room has a big monitor and in that control room we can see what is being shown by all the five cameras.
So what is happening at the five entrance points that is shown by the cameras. So we have this big screen on which you can say that there are five small screens and then as soon as the security monitor the security in charge they see Hey what is that over there? That looks a little suspicious. Then immediately they zoom in.
They press on that and then that window zooms up. That window zooms up and we can see over there what is happening more clearly. So similarly the mind is like the main security window the main monitor in the control room and is connected to the five senses.
So say right now you are hearing. So when you are hearing what happens is that you are hearing and you are seeing. So there are inputs which are coming in from the eyes.
You are seeing something from the ears and hearing something and then that is brought together and when it is brought together we perceive it. So when some scientists or not scientists specifically some materialists, some materialistic people especially some people who don’t believe in anything spiritual they claim that all functioning of consciousness all perception, all emotions, all these happen only in the mind. Sorry only in the brain and there is nothing beyond the brain.
Our sense of eyeness, our experience of consciousness all this happens in the brain. That’s their idea. Now there is a fundamental problem with this reduction of consciousness to the brain and that problem is called in the philosophy of science as the binding problem or the integration problem.
What I mean by this is that each of the senses it has a particular area of the brain connected with it. So for example through the eyes the input goes to the optic area the optic nerve which goes to the area of the brain is concerned with the visual signals coming in. Then another area of the brain which processes the audio signals auditoring signals that are coming in.
Like that there are different areas of the brain which receive inputs from the different senses. The problem when there is an attempt to neurally map neural refers to the adjective for the brain so to neurally map the functioning of consciousness the problem is where are all these inputs integrated together because each input is going to a different area of the brain and there is no one area of the brain which is connected to all the areas of the brain. Each area is connected to its neighboring areas.
There is no one area connected to all the areas. So where does the integration happen that is a fundamental philosophical problem. And now to understand why this integration is a problem suppose sometimes nowadays people say share some homemade videos you know maybe they have their baby’s first step or the first food the baby eats or whatever people share this kind of videos or sometimes say if we have some homemade some cheaply made videos some movies are shown so when some things are asynchronized you know say there is a fight going on and one character punches the other character but before you hear the sound of the fist hitting the jaw the other person falls down.
So the audio and the video are not synced together. So if the audio and video are asynchronized then it creates you cannot experience it feels very odd it creates humor but basically it is the synchronization is very important. So now imagine say suppose a parrot flies by right now in front of us just chirping it flies by now we say oh it’s a nice parrot where did it come from? But actually if we consider what all are we seeing? We see the form okay it’s a bird then we see the color oh it’s green color then we see motion okay it’s moving quite fast and then we hear the sound now these four signals form, shape, motion and sound all these four are processed by four different areas of the brain where does the integration happen? That is again a question which simply the neural mapping of the brain cannot answer.
So the Bhagavad Gita’s understanding is that the brain is like the hardware and in the hardware especially if we consider a computer system there is the hardware, there is the software and the user the body is like the hardware the brain you could say like the CPU central processing unit and then we have the software which is the mind and the soul which is the user so actually the inputs which are brought from the different senses they come to different areas of the brain but after that they are integrated not at the level of the brain they are integrated in the mind the mind unites all sensory inputs and they are presented to the soul the soul is like the user so now just to give another example for this that say there are these five gates going back to the earlier example now from the five gates some signals may come into the computer but those signals coming into the computer are not enough there has to be some software which integrates them together and then presents them for the security in charge to see so the integration of sensory stimuli for getting a cohesive picture of reality that integration happens in the mind so when we the soul perceive this is what this person is saying now sometimes we may get we may get discordant discordant signals so if I say yes I will certainly do it now normally as soon as I say yes my head will move like this if I say yes I will certainly do it what is going on here? the audio and the visual they are discordant sometimes our tone speaks more than our speech now if a husband wife are quarreling and the wife says you don’t love me I told you I love you so what happens is so although here both the signals are audio but there is the meaning of the words and there is the tone of the words they convey two very different things so basically the sensory stimuli that come into us we make sense of them and making sense is an activity that does not happen at the level of the brain it happens at a higher level the brain is basically simply the receiver of information the processor of information in the sense of its received so now when we are talking about managing the mind Krishna is saying the mind can be the friend or the mind can be the enemy so what happens is that we have these five windows which are five because the small windows are there in the main big window referring to the five senses but these are not the only five windows or we could say to use a more contemporary example say if you have a browser open with five different tabs there is five different tabs and whichever tab we see some kind of activation focus then that tab opens up that tab uploads the screen so for example if I am speaking right now and then while I am speaking suddenly some big noise comes from behind then what happens that noise is that tab which opens up everybody turns back and look what is happening over there so our consciousness is directed by whichever stimulus comes most forcefully now say I am speaking at a particular volume somebody speaks at a much louder volume somebody screams and immediately the consciousness goes over there now this is actually to some extent essential for our function if some danger is there we need to be aware of it so we often focus our consciousness on one thing but at the same time at the periphery of our awareness we are also aware of other things we may be reading one thing in a particular tab but if some other signal comes up in some other tab pop up comes up, some notification comes up so like that we may be hearing right now but we are also aware in the background ok I am sitting on this floor some of us may find this too hard some of us may find it comfortable some of us may be too sensitized how is the smell of this room some of us may be sensitized to motion what is happening else in this room so like that we are aware of other things also the awareness is meant to be directed by our intention ok this is what I want to do say I want to study and say I want to study at that time my awareness is directed towards the subject which I am studying but then suddenly at the periphery of the awareness many other things are also happening and when the mind is uncontrolled at that time what occupies the center stage of our awareness that doesn’t stay in our control suppose going back to the earlier example of this security monitor so suppose some thieves want to break in many times whenever some thieves want to break in they often create a decoy decoy means they create a set say there is a security guard at one place they may get some two people to start arguing with each other the security guard over there what is this argument this is about a fight breaking up fight about to break out among two people and the security guard goes over there and the thieves rush inside so basically like that our consciousness so now there are five gates over there and in those five gates the thieves are coming in from one gate but somehow they get hold of the software then what happens they may cause another gate’s picture to zoom up and the security guard is watching that picture and what happens is the other gate goes unnoticed and in that way we end up the thieves enter the premises because the person is not aware of what they are doing so researchers have found that many times when people make some resolution I incidentally gave a talk show on new year resolutions so researchers have found that more than 90% of the resolution that people make on the new year are not new they had made the resolution the previous years but somehow they couldn’t keep it so they make the same resolution again now what is it that sabotages their resolutions somebody may decide that I am going to diet, I am going to eat healthy food and they decide to eat healthy food and then suppose say they are working on a table and below that they have some snacks so they have some snack which is unhealthy, fatty and some other snack which is healthy some fruit, some salad, something like that they may resolve actually I am going to eat this healthy snack I am not going to eat that now periodically we get the desire to eat we get what is called a snack attack so now when the snack attack comes at that time if we are conscious ok I am hungry, I want to eat something if we are conscious then we reach out to the healthy food and we eat that healthy food but if we are not conscious if say we are talking on phone we are reading something we are watching something then even without our awareness our hands will go and where will they go? to the unhealthy snack and then we will eat it and then say somebody friendly will say you are planning not to eat what happened? I also don’t know so unconscious decisions are often unhealthy decisions so we make a resolution to do a particular thing but something happens without even our conscious awareness so our awareness is caught somewhere else and the thieves they distract you are watching something else the security guard is watching some other gate and the thieves come in from the other gate so like that our consciousness gets caught in one thing and then we forget another thing and we do something at that level without being aware of what we are doing so basically the mind expanding this metaphor further when we talk about the mind the mind doesn’t just function based on these five windows yes there are these five tabs which are open related to the five senses but along with that the mind has the capacity to open many many more tabs sometimes some people if you look at their computer they have 25, 30, 50 tabs open and so they keep many tabs open like that the mind is capable of imagination and so one way the mind gets thoughts ideas is through the perceptions that are coming in through the senses that is one way in which impression comes in the mind but another way is through recollection sometimes we see a particular object and then we desire that object so somebody is deciding I want to eat regularly and suddenly they see somebody eating something delicious I also want to eat that sometimes we see some object and based on that we get a desire but sometimes we may not even see an object just suddenly the desire comes in the mind oh I could have eaten this and then from that desire starts growing that means the input to the mind is not limited to the five sensory gateways along with that the input can come also from the past memories so sometimes the external object kindles the internal desire sometimes the inner desire appears and then propels us towards the external object now either way we get affected when that desire takes control of the mind so when the desire appears in the mind at that time it’s just the beginning but if it takes control of the mind it dominates our consciousness this is what we perceive the sign of addiction when people get addicted to something see addicts are not bad people addicts are not foolish people but for addicts there are times when their mind gets locked in a particular stimulus they just can’t get out they just can’t think about anything else they want to but they can’t so the mind functions in a particular way and that function is it is a self programming device it is self programming like we have some nowadays we have browsers or google which depending on what we search it keeps repeating those search items so if I say read a particular website regularly if I type Washington post as soon as I type w the browser completes Washington post so like that initially what we do is impulsive we feel like doing it we get an impulse and we do it the impulsive when it is repeated again and again the impulsive becomes compulsive by repetition becomes compulsive initially we will say no to it initially first time when I type w I type Washington post then it gets completed but after sometime as soon as I type w Washington post comes over there so like that the impulsive what we did once, twice, thrice so that becomes compulsive over a period of time so when it becomes compulsive that person moves towards the zone of becoming addicted so addiction basically means that that person’s mind the monitor on the screen that gets locked in a particular vision and they just can’t see anything else even if they want to when it gets caught in that particular vision all that they can feel is I want this and actually speaking initially say somebody is an alcoholic, somebody is a drug addict somebody is a compulsive smoker initially they may do it for pleasure I enjoy this after sometime they do it they take drugs not to just not to get high, they do it just to feel normal initially the desire allures us with pleasure come on do this you will enjoy after sometime it is not so much the enjoyment that allures us, it is rather not doing it tortures us if you don’t do it if you feel so do it, do it, do it, come on I want it, I want it, must do it so the torment of the desire it keeps hurting, hurting, hurting and because of the tormenting desire one just has to do it, not so much for pleasure but for relief relief from the torment so when we talk about mastering the mind or managing the mind what it essentially means is that there are going to be many windows open in the big screen many tabs which are going to be open in some browsers tabs may just be different icons or different slabs that are there, sometimes all the tabs if you open a browser all the tabs are there, small, small, small screens they are like shortcuts the word is split screen we could say maybe 8, 10 sites which we regularly visit, they all appear in micro format over there, so like that there are many things which are there in our mind in micro format and whichever we focus that zooms up so the mind works on the principle that whatever gets our attention, gets us whatever gets our attention, gets us so we will be sitting comfortably in an air-conditioned room after long days of fruitful work and suddenly we start thinking what if I lose my job if I lose my job then how will I pay mortgage for my house if I can’t pay mortgage for my house, then I will have to leave this house if I have to leave this house, we will have to take a smaller house, now what will people think about us, what if we can’t pay for that smaller house also we will have to sell our car oh what if that is not enough then we will be evicted from our house we will be on the streets oh my god, what will happen if I am on the streets if we are sitting comfortably in air-conditioned room and our heartbeats are palpitating what if I am on the streets actually nothing has happened nothing has happened but what has happened is that one tap opened up and we just followed it so about 100 years ago there was a social scientist he said that the biggest problem in the world after 50 years will be that people will have so much time that they will not know what to do with that time because machines will do all the work and what will people do with their time that is not a problem most people have we have machines doing a lot of our work but still we also have a lot of work but still in one sense what has happened is sociologists have found that the time when people think now this is the time when I will enjoy, after doing work just sit and relax in leisure, that is the time often when people start getting worried, when we are busy doing things what happens is if I am driving to a crowded road, if I am doing some work which requires my active attention then the mind can’t open up some other window because even if that window is opened up I am doing something right now, so we may be driving a car and then we may just zone off to somewhere else but then if a turn comes over there the GPS tells turn left we can come back so basically if we are doing something which requires our active attention then that prevents the mind from opening some other tabs and taking our consciousness away but when we are doing something which doesn’t require our active attention then what happens, the mind opens all kinds of tabs and as soon as those tabs open up they can take our consciousness in all kinds of unhealthy directions that’s why I just said that idle mind is the devil’s workshop so what happens in the idle mind is that the mind actually can never be idle so when the mind is idle it has to do some work and if we are not doing some work constructively with the mind then the mind will come up with something else and often it will come with some unnecessary worry or some unhealthy desire something or the other will come up so the process of mastering the mind begins with awareness not just awareness but awareness of our awareness we are always aware we are never unconscious when we say unconscious that means we are not conscious of what we should be conscious of so sometimes people that person is absent minded now what that person is absent minded means what their mind is absent from where it should be so they are doing one thing but their mind is somewhere else so basically what has happened they are doing a particular thing but the mind instead of zooming in on what they are doing the mind’s monitor, it opens up some other tab and then they say most of us know the classic example of a person who puts their specks on top of their head they are searching everywhere where are my specks so this is what has happened what they did, when they did they are not aware of it and although if the specks is there on the head you should feel the sensation but when the mind is zoned off sometimes something that is there on the head also one doesn’t sense it so like that essentially the mind it starts troubling us the specific ways in which it may trouble us will vary according to person to person we all have our weaknesses our anarthas we all have our particular worries and when those worries start troubling us we need to deal with them the worrying situation that is there we need to deal with it practically but when the mind starts opening up a window that window opens up and on that window a horror movie starts playing and then in that horror movie we find that we are not we are not just simply enjoying the horror movie we are not the spectator we are the victim in that movie so that way we often subject ourselves to unnecessary worry and unnecessary misery so it is said worry is the interest we pay on loans we haven’t yet taken so we need to become the whole process of managing the mind begins with awareness of our awareness becoming conscious of our consciousness our consciousness is always there but what am I conscious of instead of being conscious of that which I should be conscious of I am conscious of something else and when that happens that mismatch misdirection between what we should be conscious of and what we are actually conscious of that allows the mind to sidetrack us that allows the mind to abduct us now the process of bhakti yoga is ultimately meant to help us direct our consciousness towards Krishna and Krishna is supremely stable supremely strong supremely satisfying object of thought and when we fix the mind in Krishna it ultimately comes to rest it comes to rest not because of tiredness it comes to a rest because of fulfilment there is nothing better than this yam labh dhvacha param labham manyate na dhikam tatha yasmin sthito na dukhena guru na api vichalyate Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita that once one has attained this higher level of consciousness yam labh dhvacha param labham after getting this there is nothing more to be got manyate na dhikam tatha and once having got this yasmin sthito na dukhena even if there is great misery guru na api na vichalyate one is not disturbed so if we attain the state of consciousness when the mind is fixed in Krishna then we will be supremely satisfied then when the mind is fixed in Krishna doesn’t mean that the mind doesn’t function at a practical level it simply means that it is always sheltered in Krishna and it sees everything in relationship with Krishna the process of bhakti yoga requires, has two parts to it, I’ll conclude with this then we can have question answers one part is where there is exclusive focus on Krishna and then second is where there is background awareness of Krishna so when we are doing direct devotional activities at that time we bring Krishna in the foreground of our consciousness so when we are doing our puja when we are doing our japa when we are doing satsang at that time we tend to focus on Krishna, Krishna is in the forefront of our awareness and such focus on Krishna what it does is it creates an impression like I said the mind is like a software which learns so if I open a particular tab repeatedly that tab starts opening more easily afterwards so similarly when we keep fixing the mind on Krishna during our direct devotional activities that creates a sense of connectedness between us and Krishna that makes Krishna as a regular or even a prominent tab in our consciousness and when Krishna is like a prominent tab in our consciousness then to the extent while doing the direct devotional activities we are focusing on Krishna, to the extent we are connected with Krishna during our direct devotional activities to that extent at other times also Krishna will remain at the background it is not that when Krishna says he is telling Arjuna therefore at all times remember me and fight now Krishna is not telling Arjuna to become like a schizophrenia thinking of two things think about Krishna and fight we can’t hold two things in our mind constantly but the idea is when he says think of me and fight it means that Krishna permeates so much into our consciousness that he becomes the purpose of what we are doing he becomes the purpose of our life say if we have a family and if we go for a job now when we are in the job we may be dealing with clients speaking this, speaking that, addressing this technical issue addressing that technical issue we are involved in the specifics of whatever the problem we are addressing but at the same time we are aware I am doing this for my family I have to take care of my kids I have to have food, I have to have resources for my home so that is the purpose which underlies whatever we are doing even if that is not in the forefront of our consciousness, it is there in the background so Vishwanath Chakravarthy explains that similarly for a devotee Krishna is the purpose of everything that we work and Krishna is in the background of the consciousness specifically whatever we are doing we are absorbed in doing that it is when Arjuna was fighting the Kurukshetra war it was when he was shooting arrows, he was completely absorbed this person is shooting this arrow how do I counter this arrow can I use this weapon or should I use that he is completely absorbed in the practical details of that but his purpose was to serve Krishna now when we have habituated ourselves to making Krishna as one tab in our consciousness through the exclusive or the focused practice of bhakti then having Krishna in the background of our consciousness becomes much easier so just like we have there are people who are VIPs who often have their bodyguards there are people who want to threaten them and if they threaten them, attack them, kill them, they have security they have more Z level security or whatever high level security they have. So like that there is a bodyguard which we have. So when we start practicing bhakti diligently then Krishna becomes our soul guard like we have bodyguard, we have a soul guard the soul’s energy manifests as the consciousness so when Krishna is the soul guard that means Krishna becomes the guard of our consciousness so when the mind starts say somebody tries to sabotage the monitor and open up some other screen and then slip into some other door when that starts happening Krishna is the soul guard he ensures that our consciousness does not get sabotaged he ensures that our consciousness does not get misdirected at one level we ourselves work to focus our consciousness on desirable things and to protect it from undesirable things but Krishna also protects us the practice of Krishna bhakti it protects us in two ways first is through intelligence and the second is through taste intelligence means that as we keep practicing bhakti our own intelligence becomes stronger and sharper stronger means with that intelligence we can resist if suddenly some say some desire pops up the intelligence is strong we can resist it and sharper means we become aware faster when a particular desire starts opening up say I decide I will not eat unhealthy snack and then I find my hand goes there and I start eating now sometime I become aware after I have eaten half of it, what do I do? but if the intelligence is sharper the reflex action may happen but I am not meant to eat this let me put this aside so we become aware of ourselves faster what we are doing so our intelligence becomes sharper and stronger sharper intelligence means we become aware more quickly and stronger means we can resist better so just by the practice of bhakti our intelligence will become sharper and stronger Krishna said I will give you the intelligence by which you can come to me and secondly Krishna consciousness also gives us taste taste means that we start experiencing higher happiness in the practice of bhakti when that happens then one of the ways in which the sensual pleasures of this world, they allure us by they appear very attractive like say somebody is giving us, we are going to purchase some food item and on the packaging, this is a pizza we go there and I want a pizza, delicious package has a nice big picture, beautiful picture of a pizza and we buy it and after we open it we find there is a dry bread over there there is no pizza at all so the packaging is of a pizza but the content is simply dry bread so next time if we see that pizza I don’t trust this packaging I want to find out what is there inside, so often in this material world we are deceived by the packaging so things appear attractive but actually they are not always attractive they are quite ordinary so the packaging deceives us at that time again, the main monitor is there a person comes in that person appears to be say a friend but actually that person is a thief who has just dressed like a friend so what has happened, if we just look at one glance, we look at one glance, hey this is a friend if we look carefully this is supposed to be a friend but he is walking differently or this is different, that is different, if we look carefully an impersonator can be caught, something fishy can be detected when somebody is impersonating so like that what happens is maya the forces of illusion, the conditioning of the mind they deceive us by misperception, that means we perceive things wrongly and because of that worldly pleasures, even though they give little pleasure, they appear very attractive and that’s why when we say no to them you should not do this it appears like deprivation I feel as if I am losing something, Krishna says he says when we say no to the sense objects it appears as if we are starving we feel as if I am not getting food and somebody tells us you should not eat food, how can I live without food I must eat food, so like that we start feeling this is what I need for my pleasure how can I do without it so currently we have a strong taste for worldly pleasures but the practice of bhakti changes our taste it gives us a taste for Krishna 12.9 in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says by repeated practice of bhakti by that attraction to him awakens we get a desire for him his attractiveness reveals itself to us and when this taste comes then we naturally gravitate towards Krishna right now our consciousness will be naturally gravitating towards some sense objects and that’s why the mind may just be sabotaged by that but just by the steady practice of bhakti our consciousness will start gravitating towards Krishna and the more it gravitates towards Krishna then bhakti practice will become effortless in the initial stage when we work with our intelligence, I said that bhakti practice uses intelligence and taste when we are at the level of the intelligence bhakti practice is effortful we have to use our effort I feel like doing this but I’ll resist this impulse it’s effortful but once we get a taste then bhakti practice becomes effortless and we can also see in our own life there are many things in which we have gone to the effortless stage we might have had some attachments in the past which don’t allure us now they were there in the past but they just disappeared so what has happened there the taste, the higher taste has awakened so strongly the lower taste has disappeared and this will happen for the other tastes also whatever lower tastes we may have whatever worldly indulgences we may be attracted to they will change so by this combination of intelligence and taste bhakti yoga helps us to bring out our best bring out our best ultimately spiritually the soul loves Krishna and finds happiness in love for Krishna that is the ultimate best that comes out even intermediately whatever talents we have, whatever abilities we have whatever contributions we wish to make they also require a focused consciousness so the bhakti yoga process also helps us to bring out that in its best possible way and in that way when we by making Krishna the master of our life we make him the master of the mind also and thus we master the mind we ourselves can’t master the mind but when we make Krishna the master of our life Krishna I am going to work for you I am going to serve you then he becomes like the default tab in our consciousness and he ensures that no undesirable tabs open up he takes charge of our mind he becomes the master of our mind and then he helps us to fulfill our potential, to achieve to bring out our best to find lasting satisfaction in our life so I will summarize I spoke today about mastering the mind and I talked about how the Bhagavad Gita says we should elevate ourselves with the mind and not degrade ourselves so to understand what exactly the mind is I took the example first of a horse which is essential interface for the rancher to function in the farm similarly for us spiritual beings to function in the material world the mind is the essential interface and another example I took was of a security in charge who is watching the who is to ensure the security of a building with many entrances so there is one central window which gives inputs from all the cameras so the various cameras are the senses and the central camera is the mind and we discussed how the reductionistic view of consciousness that consciousness is simply a brain function that runs into the stone wall of the binding problem or the integration problem there is no area in the brain which integrates all the signals coming from various places so sound and speech like a movie the blow is hit later and the person falls first that kind of asynchronous asynchronous processing that doesn’t happen in our life we see hear smell touch simultaneously so where is all the senses being integrated that is not in the brain it is in the mind so the mind is the subtle software interface that integrates the inputs coming from the mind and offers them to the soul who is the user so there are this five windows that are tabs that are open and whatever gets our attention gets us whatever we zoom our consciousness on that window pops up so now along with these five there are other tabs which are also there based on our particular attachments our particular experiences and sometimes the mind gets caught with some input coming from the senses sometimes the mind gets caught with some recollection coming from the past and either way we are often the mind works against us we all have this experience we want to do something and suddenly at the last moment certain emotions come up certain distraction happens we start worrying and we lose our nerve it happens in sports it happens in ordinary people this mind works against us what happens is instead of focusing on the present moment instead of doing what I should be doing now the mind suddenly opens up some other tab and it consumes our consciousness and then because of the fear that comes because of that tab being opened up we can’t perform so often when people are at leisure when they are supposed to be the most happy now all my work is done now I can relax that’s the time when the mind opens up the tab of worry and shows a free horror movie in which we are not the spectators we are the victims so as whenever we have something that requires our conscious attention then the mind can’t open up some other tab but as soon as we don’t we are not requiring conscious attention the mind can open up another tab so the way to mastering the mind the first step is to become conscious of our consciousness and this process as I said that subconscious decisions are often unhealthy decisions and if I decided to eat healthy food and a snack attack comes if I have a if I’m aware I’ll take a healthy snack if I’m not aware I’ll take a unhealthy snack so if I’m aware of if I’m conscious of my consciousness we can we can act in a wise way now the process of Bhakti Yoga involves becoming conscious of Krishna and when we make Krishna as one tab in our consciousness by exclusively focusing on Krishna Bhakti has two aspects to it one is the direct awareness of Krishna focused awareness of Krishna and the background awareness of Krishna in either ways Krishna acts as a stabilizing strengthening satisfying presence in our consciousness when we focus on him exclusively that is the time when we connect with him we make him a prominent tab in our consciousness and when that happens whenever we are doing any other things also he stays in the background as the purpose of our work and he is like people have bodyguards to protect them he becomes like a soul guard he protects our consciousness from consciousness of the fundamental energy of the soul he protects that energy from being misdirected he ensures that no unwanted tab opens up and distracts our consciousness from where it should be and how does this protection of Krishna manifest practically it manifests through intelligence and taste whatever intelligence we have already the practice of Krishna consciousness makes it stronger and sharper so stronger means when an unwanted tab is opening up we have the strength to resist it and sharper means when it is opening we become aware of it faster and again we can resist it so when we are working at the level of intelligence bhakti practice the process of managing the mind is effort full but along with that bhakti practice also means taste so whatever we have taste for our thoughts naturally go towards that in fact addiction means the person’s consciousness gets locked in a particular tab this can’t think of anything else so when we get a taste for Krishna then our consciousness naturally goes towards Krishna and then the unhealthy taste that are there they cannot sabotage our consciousness so once we get a taste for Krishna then bhakti will become effortless so we need to go through the effortful phase using our intelligence and practice in bhakti and then we will come to the effortless stage we can experience ourselves we have some activities where we are already in the effortless stage with respect to particular battles with temptations and as we keep practicing bhakti with this combination of intelligence and taste we can bring out our best spiritually in terms of love for developing our love for Krishna and finding satisfaction internally and materially practically in terms of whatever roles we have to play whatever talents, skills we require for that we can make our contributions more effectively when our mind is focused where it needs to be so when we focus the mind on Krishna then he takes charge of our mind when we make him the master of our life he becomes the master of our mind and he enables us to use our mind for our benefit and thus we can bring out our best in life thank you very much Hare Krishna so are there any questions or comments yes ma’am so you mentioned like personally I don’t have like any mortgage but I know that sometimes but I can get addicted to ideas and I know a lot of people get addicted to distractions where you know like you’re draining your time you know that somehow you mentioned that you are conscious of this happening and that something is wrong it’s hard for people who are addicted to something to kind of get it to go so how does like how does one who is addicted to something like practically you know go from this state to living a productive and more godly life ok so if someone is addicted even to relatively harmless things let’s say somebody is addicted to ideas some people get addicted to distractions so how does even if we know that this is not good we can’t give it up so how do we go from there to the stage of becoming more productive and more godly in our life firstly the word addiction it usually connotes something very serious to use addiction for trivial things sometimes it may it may devalue the gravity of the problem drug addiction or alcohol addiction these are life threatening issues now distraction is usually not a life threatening issue if I am driving and if I am distracted then it can be life threatening but it is also damaging but it is not really life threatening so the point I am making is there are there are degrees or levels of addiction so basically the Bhagavad Gita explains that there are three modes of material nature that is sattva guna, rajo guna, tamo guna the mode of goodness, the mode of passion and the mode of ignorance the modes are basically you could say broad broad ways in which consciousness interacts with matter, broad patterns in which our mind functions so now there can be some addictions which are in the mode of ignorance which are destructive for ourselves and destructive for others so say substance abuse, there are addictions in the mode of ignorance there can be addictions in the mode of passion, some people they are addicted to power whatever situation they are in they want to become more powerful than anyone else in that situation they will play all kinds of power games compulsively even if they don’t need to, some people may be addicted to money they are addicted to money for what? they have enough money but just they have to keep getting money, keep earning it becomes a compulsion definitely not as destructive as say alcohol addiction, that’s an addiction some people may have addiction to something in the mode of goodness some people may be just addicted to books keep reading, keep reading, keep reading there is it’s good to read but after reading we need to apply also some people just keep reading, reading, reading reading and then, so all that information information but there is no transformation so we have to always be aware of the particular particular way in which we may be attached and the purpose of our life so in any activity that we do there is the purpose of our overall life this is what I want to do and there is the pleasure of that activity so when say if I want to study and I want to do well in my career but then the IPL match is going on in India, I want to watch their IPL matches so now the pleasure of say watching a cricket match and the purpose of having a good career in my life now these two are going in conflict now whichever becomes prominent in my consciousness if the pleasure of watching the match this team at this level, this team at this level if they win this then this will happen, if they win this, this will happen so the mind gets consumed in that so once then if that pleasure of the particular distraction that becomes more prominent in our mind then the purpose of our life then the pleasure will dominate us that means the pleasure and purpose there are two different tabs which are open and because if we are particularly attached to something then the tab of that activity is quite prominent it is there in the forefront so now for us to resist that the purpose tab has to be made more prominent and the whole purpose when we study philosophy, when we attend classes ultimately these classes are not just for ok it’s good to go and hear some spiritual stuff but the point is that we have to the study of philosophy is to reinforce our ultimate purpose in life so every time we hear spiritual wisdom that wisdom should make the purpose tab more prominent the pleasure tab is always going to be there and there are so many things in this world which will make the pleasure tab prominent but hearing philosophy hearing the Bhagavad Gita it makes the purpose tab prominent this purpose is important for me and why is it important for me see for new people the sabotage, the inner sabotage that happens is spiritual stuff, it’s not for me it’s not for me it’s not important, I don’t believe in it, I don’t care for it it’s irrelevant that’s how they get sabotaged in their spiritual life but for those who are spiritual practitioners the sabotage happens in a more subtle way that’s important but this is urgent and yes this is done yeah that’s important but this is urgent and then the urgent just keeps replacing the important throughout our life so for us when we are practicing spiritual life we will never say this is unimportant it’s important but this is urgent and this urgency just keeps going on and on and on and on so what happens is when we understand the philosophy then we understand this is important and this is also urgent sometimes in emergency other things maybe have to be done but I have to make time for this also so basically when we are trying to overcome some distraction to which we are habituated the first thing is just say no I won’t do this that will not work we have to find out what do I want to do the most effective way to say no to something is to have a yes for something better burning within us it’s when we have something yes burning then what happens is saying no becomes easier so the whole purpose of philosophical study is to make that yes burn brighter within our consciousness for us it should never happen that oh now I have one hour what should I do maybe maybe I can check my social media messages maybe I can just look at the news maybe I can watch something maybe I can read some scripture maybe I can talk with this person maybe I can do that and then usually when we don’t know what to do when we are unsure of what to do the mind will choose the path of least resistance and the path of least resistance is usually the thing with which we are most habituated the most addicted that’s why if you have a purpose it shouldn’t happen that I have one hour and I don’t know what to do rather our purpose should be so clear that I have this much time and I have this many things to do not that we feel burdened by that but we are aware of that as soon as I get time immediately I start doing that so if you decide I like to study scriptures I want to understand this Bhagavad Gita so we decide I am going to study this I want to complete say if I reach 10 pages everyday the Bhagavad Gita is 800 pages I can complete it in about 80 days in less than 3 months I can read the whole book just by reading 10 pages everyday ok let me do that and some days we may not be able to read at all we will just be too busy but other days we have time and if that purpose is prominent as soon as we have time we will start doing that so if we make the purpose prominent then the process will not be so difficult to follow if the purpose itself is not prominent we know I should not be doing this I should be doing this but we will feel I will do that afterwards let me do this right now so if we make the purpose prominent in our consciousness then the process will be, the process is available for most of us but we just have to make the purpose prominent and by studying the philosophy by associating with those who have made the purpose prominent then that helps us to have that yes burning within us and once the yes is burning then saying no to something else becomes much easier now if we are doing nothing and some friend some person whom we don’t know very well you know who is not a very who is not a very close friend of ours they say come lets go out for a walk ok I am not doing, come lets go anyway I am bored but if we are sitting with someone whom we love someone with whom we really want to spend time and at that time come lets go for a walk no I want to be here so when we have something more important to do when we have a more important person to meet with to say no to somebody less important is not so difficult you can do it courteously but still we will do it, we will do it unambiguously no doubt about it otherwise you know if we are bored with the person we are with and there is another person who is also a boring person no should I do this, should I do that should I do this, should I do that then we might just get lost but if we are clear that this is what I want to do so yes becomes always easier to say no becomes easier to say when we have yes burning within us does it answer your question yes any other questions yes on ok yeah my question is you talked about practice as we are on practice also we are not perfect practitioners practice also we make some mistakes and making mistakes is not you can commit to mistakes it is one of the but if I repeatedly commit some mistakes the same mistakes again and again after a certain period of time like 3 months because 3 months my focus is on Krishna again I repeated the mistake and then again because of good consciousness I realized but again after some time hmm because of my previous habits and you talked about the memory also ok yeah and second also you talked about so how can this previous habit because we have the taste about that one unmeasured food you know that ok this is unmeasured food we have the taste oh I know this is for the this taste is very good for this food or something and then our consciousness becomes unconscious we will decimate whatever we eat so how to tackle this so we should not commit to mistakes yeah ok so if we decide to do a particular thing or not do a particular thing we stick to it for some time maybe a few months but then after there is a relapse so no we should never make giving up something as the standard of the practice of our bhakti bhakti is not about giving up things it is about taking up things taking up our service to Krishna doing things in Krishna’s service yes as a part of doing certain things in Krishna’s service we also have to give up some things but when we measure the standard of our bhakti based on what I have given up it’s not a Krishna centered focus and the nature of this world is that all of us are vulnerable to lapses some things can go wrong and it is if we have made my resolution is I will give this up I think that is the standard of my success in bhakti when I feel for three months I was successful and now I have become a failure but it’s not like that the standard of success in bhakti is how much I am connecting with Krishna and this particular activity disconnects me from Krishna and that’s why I don’t want to do it but the central focus in bhakti is connecting with Krishna so yes after three months I had a relapse in a particular thing but if I focus too much on that then I may think that oh the three months was all waste because ultimately I didn’t succeed no three months I connected with Krishna and that is a success we don’t have to measure the standard of our bhakti simply by what we are giving up we can measure the standard of our bhakti by what we are doing it’s one important thing actually this is a big subject but you know sometimes we make our bhakti too much renunciation centered the battle against temptation is different from the war for devotion the war for devotion is a big thing within that the battle against temptation is one thing we want to win this battle but this battle is not the war the war for devotion is the war for connecting with Krishna the battle against temptation is the battle to avoid something which disconnects me from Krishna our main purpose is the war for devotion it is not the battle against temptation of course if we are progressing in devotion naturally we will win the battle against temptation but our purpose is not winning the battle against temptation our purpose is winning the war for devotion connecting with Krishna now with respect to the temptations now all of us have different capacities for dealing with temptations there are the six opulences of Krishna there is beauty, strength, wealth, knowledge, renunciation, fame now we understand that these opulences come by past good karma, somebody is very beautiful, somebody is not so beautiful, just because somebody looks very good that does not mean that they are automatically spiritually advanced, somebody we understand somebody is very wealthy that doesn’t mean they are automatically spiritually advanced just as wealth and beauty can be used in Krishna’s service somebody has wealth they can use it in Krishna’s service they have much more stability they don’t have to worry so much, they can serve Krishna better but wealth itself is not a sign of spiritual advancement just as wealth and beauty can come by past karma, even renunciation can come by past karma so of course renunciation can also come by practice of bhakti by practice of bhakti, vairagya comes but for some people giving up something may be relatively easier for some people because for them by their past karma renunciation is opulence that they have for others by their past karma renunciation may be opulence they have relatively lesser so now those just as those who have wealth can use it in Krishna’s service, similarly those who have renunciation they can use it in Krishna’s service, if they have renunciation then they will be less distracted in the practice of bhakti but still that renunciation has to be used in Krishna’s service so sometimes when we make renunciation the standard of our devotion then what is happening we are we are focusing on something that could well be a result of past karma this devotee is doing this, I am not able to do this and therefore what is the use of my practice of bhakti no, my practice of bhakti should be going on with respect to renunciation this devotee may be starting from here and I may be starting from here but that devotee by practicing bhakti is moving like this by my practice of bhakti I am also moving up so if I consider that devotee’s renunciation although both of us may have come to bhakti at the same time but you know the renunciation level which we may be at may be different because it is a result of past karma and whichever level we are at from there we will move up by the practice of bhakti but we don’t have to make renunciation the standard of our devotion we have to make our connection with Krishna so rather than thinking oh after 3 months I again relapsed what is the use now focus on what did I do for those 3 months those 3 months I was connected with Krishna ok this lapse happened let me try to understand what happened exactly why it happened ok you know when this happened I could have done this but I did this you know we learn from it ok you know this is the way I succumb to this this is how the temptation came you know if I can avoid this exposure to this temptation I can avoid myself putting myself in this situation I can do that whatever it is practical but the more important thing is 3 months I stayed connected with Krishna without being distracted by the temptation let me again connect with Krishna when we make our bhakti rather than Krishna centered rather than renunciation centered then we won’t become too discouraged by lapses we will stay encouraged in moving forward towards Krishna now of course some lapses may be very serious say if somebody is doing something unethical that person cannot just say it’s just my conditioning and we have to what the lapse we are talking about we will have to consider that in specific cases but if it’s just a higher level of purity that we are aspiring for and we are struggling with a higher level of purity that’s perfectly ok, it’s a gradual process we just keep focusing on the practice of bhakti and gradually we will move towards higher levels of renunciation also so rather than worrying about the lapses whatever we focus on what we are doing between the lapses if we are connecting with Krishna then gradually those lapses will decrease in frequency and then they will go away does it answer your question? any other questions? sometimes at work there is an adverse situation and the mind is it’s leaning towards reacting to the situation where the intelligence is telling you don’t react you can’t and I try to not always but sometimes try to chant it so how can one train one’s mind to always remember Krishna in adverse situations ok so in adverse situations especially in our workplace the mind tends to just react impulsively and we try to chant to ensure that we don’t react but how can we remember Krishna and respond properly in those situations? when someone is troubling us or some problem is coming often our attitude is you know if that person is troubling you know I want to get even you did like this to me I will do like that but you know there are different anarthas which tempt in different ways say lust tempts by promising pleasure anger tempts by promising power you did like that I will put you in your place you know if you know we are physical I will beat you up I will lash you with my words I will give you a piece of my mind I will put you in your place so anger allures by what by power it makes us think by becoming angry I am going to show my power but actually anger makes us weak because often we act in a destructive way so when we are troubled by some situation troubled by some person I am just taking one specific example of say a troublesome colleague troublesome boss or somebody person who is troubling us and putting us in a negative situation our tendency might be to get even but that getting even is often based on the illusion of strength that anger creates our first purpose should be not to get even but to get safe say for example if I am going through a forested area and at that time suddenly a snake bites me and the snake bites me I can feel the sting and suppose I look I see the snake slithering away you snake how dare you bite me I will crush you to death and I start running after the snake to pound it to death even if I reach there even if I crush the snake and I kill it what is happening in the process the poison is rushing going through my body you know it is going to reach my heart it is going to reach my brain it is going to kill me so at that stage I don’t have to get even with the snake you know I have to get safe you know I cut the part and get the blood out make sure the blood doesn’t go to the body I get safe now the snake is a menace and it needs to be dealt with appropriately I may deal with it I may get someone else to deal with it but that’s later so when we are troubled by someone at that time we need to understand the first thing I need to do is get safe not get even so get safe means now I am feeling angry now I am feeling irritated now I am feeling depressed so let me get safe let me come back to an emotionally healthy state so if we have this clear that my priority is not to get even so get safe then we will not react but rather we will move back to a territory where we can calm ourselves down we get safe after getting safe yes snake is a danger we have to deal with it this person is too irritating this person is irresponsible this person is backbiting whatever it is I have to deal with it but once we are in an emotionally stable state then we can respond naturally so at least intellectually if we are clear what is my priority first to get safe not to get even then we can find out what to do practically generally when we have to remember Krishna it may not be chanting in the mind may help but we have to find out whatever helps for us for some of us we might just have some kirtans which we like keep it in our phone and just hear it hear it for a few minutes we feel calmer some of us may have some pictures of Krishna darshan we just take that and it calms us down some of us may find that having some some talks which we hear maybe some quotes which we have heard in some class some examples at some point it just gives us a strength it calms us down so we we don’t have to necessarily deal with the mind in a stereotyped way this is what I should do to remember Krishna we have to find out what helps me to remember Krishna and make that particular thing accessible to us so that remembering Krishna is basically like returning back to the safe territory by remembering Krishna we get safe we become emotionally calm and then we can find out how should I deal with the situation does it answer your question Hare Krishna so so we shouldn’t stop yet