Transformation is inevitable – positive transformation has to be intentional

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Prabhu? Adaptation is critical for transformation. We all can be either adaptive or maladaptive. In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says in the eighth chapter that there is nothing that is there is nothing that is as consistent as change.
And how we respond to change determines our situation in life. Whether we move forwards or whether we move backwards. Whether we grow or whether we wither away.
In nature this is called the phenomenon of adaptation. Adaptation means that we recognize the changing circumstance and make changes in ourselves so that we can survive and possibly even thrive in those changed circumstances. So adaptation is a response to outer transformation.
But it is not just a response driven by outer transformation. It can be triggered by that outer transformation but it is also done in a way that promotes survival that aids in growth. Without this positive focus transformation is inevitable.
Positive transformation isn’t. Change is the very nature of nature and left to itself change is often matter of deterioration that whenever something changes it actually deteriorates. It actually makes things go down go worse and when that happens when things grow worse then it’s not possible for us as mortal beings to resist the many complex challenges that we face without doing the necessary thing for responding correctly.
So if it’s very cold then we need to get some warm clothes. We need to move to a warmer place. Our body will try to adjust the temperature in itself to some limits but beyond that we will freeze.
Now the need for for we adjusting to the changing environment at a physical level is obvious common sense. It’s essential, it’s undeniable, it’s uncontroversial. If we go to America during the cold season there we will have to dress in the warmer clothes.
There is just no alternative to that. Similarly applies to our inner world, to the mind, to the conceptual world that we all have inside us. That means that we are not just products of our situations, we are also products of our dispositions.
By products I mean that we are determined by these things to some extent at least not entirely determined but we are shaped by these things. And just as different organisms need to come up with different adaptations based on their own particular physical makeup. Similarly we all have different mental makeups and we all need to come up with the appropriate adjustments as per our mental situation.
If we don’t do that then we deprive ourselves, we hurt ourselves, we may even end up killing ourselves. It is of course we could say that the environment that led to our death which is true but it is also our failure to respond to the environment appropriately that led to the death. So moving on in other words in our life if we take things ahead if we recognize that we are at our core spiritual beings that we cannot get out of our present situation without giving ourselves a reality check about what that situation is how it is affecting us in particular we will be overwhelmed by the situations.
The alternative in the natural world to adaptation is annihilation is extermination, extinction. The organisms that don’t adapt they become extinct. Now similar sobering realities await us also.
If we go from one job to another job we go from one financial situation to another financial situation that means we are earning much more earlier but then somehow stock market crashes or we go from one job to another job where the scale is not that good or suddenly the inflation shoots up so if our financial situation changes then we may have to moderate our expenses accordingly not doing that will mean that we will end up in heavy debt and to avoid this adaptation is the only way. Similarly then we in the course of our daily lives face problems of various kinds especially problems that sap us psychologically problems that affect our morale internally problems that disorient discombobulate us then we need to learn what it is that we need to respond maturely and thereafter it is for us to make that response. Nobody else can do that response for us.
Nobody else can make that change for us. There is adaptation and there is transplantation we could say. Say for example a gardener if the environment becomes too cold for certain plants to survive.
So for example Tulsi especially in the western world because it is so cold it is difficult for Tulsi Devi to survive so in the western world Tulsi may be put in the put outside for people to see it may be put outside sometimes but it may not be put outside sometimes also that means that it may be put elsewhere we may have to most of the time place it in place a plant which is sensitive to extreme cold weather you may have to put it in a warm situation now while doing so we need to recognize that not all plants which are situated in the same situation will survive so by learning to appropriately adapt ourselves to our circumstances you all can not only go through life but grow through it so rather than having an unrealistic expectation rather than having an unrealistic expectation that change shouldn’t happen internally externally or that we should be able to just go on unchanged despite external changes we need to acknowledge that it is by Krishna’s arrangement that change is an innate feature of nature and if we to harmonize harmonize with this changeable nature of changer and learn to respond appropriately so for for the lower species their intelligence manifests primarily through their instincts wherein they are governed they are driven by their instincts to do things so when there is adaptation there is remarkable cleverness but that cleverness is not something which is necessarily consciously thought and chosen by the living beings by those organisms rather it is an intelligence far greater than theirs the intelligence of the indwelling super soul in their hearts that enables them to make these choices and we too can by recognizing that that same super souls guidance is available for us as insight as inspiration and also as scriptural texts from external sources we can actually become more comfortable with the idea confronting this way when we can make changes to our life based on our situations then we can go through and grow through life and this adaptability is vital for us to learn especially when we are trying to practice spiritual life and while practicing spiritual life we are living in circumstances which are very different from a traditional setting and what to speak of distant tradition even recent tradition the last few decades there have been such dramatic changes in the world so we need to learn to be adaptive and just as for a organism the purpose underlying adaptation is clear the survival and growth is similarly for us we have our principles we have our purposes which we learn about from scripture and then while maintaining those purposes those principles how we adapt ourselves is what will determine our capacity to grow to thrive as individuals as well as individual exemplars of timeless spiritual