Two lives one purpose

[Talk at youth meeting, Central New Jersey, USA]

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Heartfelt thanks to all of you for coming here today.
And I’m extremely sorry we got late. We got lost along the way. Coming from Princeton.
So we got late. So as I mentioned, we’re speaking today on the topic of two lives and one purpose. Generally, when we talk about life, we don’t think of life in terms of just a series of linear moments.
If you look back at our life in the past, it’s not that every day comes to our recollection. Our life actually is concentrated in certain moments. Maybe certain moments when we had a big exam or a big interview or some big transition in our life.
And the remaining life just blurs away in a series of days and events without any conspicuous recollection coming up. Especially when we come to teenage years and we move towards youth, that is a time of great turbulence. For many reasons.
When we are children at that time, we primarily are identified by our connection with our parents. You know, OK, he is so and so’s child. She is so and so’s child.
And when we are adults, we have got our own identity. We have a particular degree. We have a particular profession.
And in between the two, when we outgrown our childhood, but we have not yet attained adulthood. That is the time when we are trying to carve out our own identity. And this carving out our identity often leads to an identity crisis.
Especially when we, if we come from a cultural background, which is significantly different from the mainstream culture where we live. So we have a particular sense of who I am, what is to be done in life. And then if we encounter mainstream society, we seem to have a very different set of values.
And then that creates what psychologists call as a cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance means that we have two ideas in our head and the two don’t go together. And we are expected to hold both together.
So in youth, especially in pre-youth phase of adolescence, this whole turbulence goes in simply at the first level because we are trying to carve an identity. All the more so when our own upbringing is not exactly compatible with the mainstream culture that we are in. And further, especially when we come to youth, at that time we have the desires within the body, certain hormones start secreting and a whole new world of emotions and experience starts beckoning us.
In the Ramayana, there’s a very poignant incident which illustrates the fundamental principle for managing ourselves emotionally. When Ram and Lakshman go to the forest along with Sita, Lakshman is seething with fury. Why did Ram have to accept this sentence of banishment? He wanted Ram to fight.
But when Ram insisted, I’ll obey my father, they went to the forest. He was still angry. And when they were in the forest, they were staying in Chitrakoot.
That time they heard some noise, big noise in the forest. Lakshman climbed on top of a tree and he saw there was an army coming. Who is this army? And then he looked, there’s a giant elephant and that elephant had the flag of the king of Ayodhya.
Oh, and he looked carefully and he saw Bharat over there. And Lakshman just exploded. He said, this wicked Bharat.
First he schemed through his mother to have you exiled. And now he has come with the full army to kill you. But he doesn’t know that he will have to pass through me.
And I will today send him and all those who support him to the abode of death. So Ram is the embodiment of calmness. He says, Lakshman, why are you so angry? You know Bharat’s love for me.
It is no lesser than your love for me. Has Bharat offended you in some way because of which you are so angry with him? Normally an action produces a proportionate reaction. You know, if we just, while walking along, we are rushing along and we brush someone.
Our shoulder brushes them and they just come and big punch you in the face. What happened? You know, did you have some bad breakfast today? You know, when one action produces a disproportionate reaction, we understand that something else is going on. Something else has prompted this.
So Ram asks him, what’s going on? Is it that Bharat offended you in any way because of which you are so angry? Or is it that in a rush of emotions you came to the forest? But now when you are confronted with the reality of the austerity of forest life, now you are feeling exasperated, frustrated. And you are feeling that Bharat is enjoying the luxury of royal life and you are in the forest. If that is the case, oh Lakshman, when Bharat comes here, I will tell Bharat to stay here and you can go and become the king.
But each of these statements deflates Lakshman. And eventually when Lakshman comes and Bharat comes and speaks, Lakshman sees how selflessly Bharat is beseeching, begging Ram, please take the kingdom. And finally he takes Ram’s sandals on his head and goes back.
Nowadays, whenever a, say, wealthy patriarch departs, there is a big succession struggle between the progeny. So here also there is a succession struggle. But this is a succession struggle caused by selflessness.
You take the kingdom, you take the kingdom. Normally it’s I want the kingdom, I want the kingdom. So today, say, if one brother gave his sandals to another brother, second brother would probably pick it and beat his brother with the sandals.
So, Lakshman is very deeply moved by seeing Bharat’s selflessness. And afterwards, Ram and Lakshman are sitting and Lakshman asks Bharat, why do I get angry so quickly? Lakshman throughout the Ramayana is known to be impulsive, short-tempered. Why do I get angry so quickly? And then Ram replies, patting him on his head, on his back, he says, you are sentimental.
Lakshman is bemused. He says, are sentiments bad? He says, no, sentiments are not bad. The sentiments are the ornament of life.
Bharat, he said, we need to choose those sentiments that take us towards Dharma and not the sentiment that take us away from Dharma. We need to choose those emotions that help us to make healthy choices and avoid those emotions that pull us away from healthy choices. Actually, in the world we live in today, there is a systematic, sustained propaganda centered on emotionally manipulating people.
What do I mean by emotional manipulation? Actually, nowadays, advertisements are so common that we often don’t see advertisements as just a familiar part of our cultural landscape. There are billboards or promotions, commercials on TV or whatever. But 300 years ago, or even 200 years ago, practically there was very little promotion of any kind.
The only promotion would be a shop vendor, or if a person would be having a cart, taking something along, as far as the person could shout, that would be the promotion. I’ve got this. I’ve got the ice cream.
I’ve got this. I’ve got that. Who wants it? So now, till the start of the 20th century, when the advertisement started from the time of the age of industrialization, mass productions of goods at one place required their distribution and the distribution required their promotion.
Previously, it was mostly self-sufficiency, local self-sufficiency communities were there. But at the start of the 20th century, prior to that, the advertisements focused on the virtues of the products. This product can do this, this, this, this, so buy this.
But in the start of the 20th century, Sigmund Freud, who was one of the most influential psychologists, he noted that people are far more influenced by their emotionality than by their rationality. He said, we all have a rational intelligence, which thinks, deliberates, and then acts. But then we have emotions, which forcefully push us in different directions.
And he gave a metaphor that, say, there is a turbulent ocean on which there is a small canoe. Now the canoe can just be capsized, swept aside, turned upside down by the turbulent waves of the ocean. So our intelligence is like that canoe.
And our emotions are like the stormy waves below. So we all strive to be rational. We all strive to act intelligently.
But often our emotions overwhelm us. Now he did this analysis primarily to make sense of why so many people behave irrationally. That’s because their emotionality is far stronger than their rationality.
But unfortunately, his insights were picked up by the commercial interests, especially the advertising industry. And they felt that we will be able to sell products much better if we could appeal to people’s emotions instead of just appealing to their reason. Instead of telling how good this product is, we will tell them how good this product will make you feel.
And conversely, that means, if you don’t have this product, you’ll feel bad. As if you are missing something, something is inadequate within you. The first mass application of this was done by the cigarette industry.
Now, around the 1920s, 1927, 28, 29, by that time, the harmful effects of smoking had not yet become public. Although some studies had pointed it out, they had been suppressed. And smoking was considered to be a cool thing.
At the same time, all the people, all the young men who could smoke, they already started smoking, who had the financial power to smoke, they already started smoking more or less. So how to expand the market? At that time, one of them, one of the marketeers who had studied Freud’s ideas, they got an idea. And he said that, actually, we have not tapped 50% of the market because women don’t smoke.
So now, smoking was considered a quintessentially masculine thing. So how to get women to smoke? So they designed special thin cigars, cigarettes, which would distinct from the male cigarettes. And then, during the 1929 American Independence Day parade, they had some of the most celebrated female icons.
And the most photogenic points during the parade, they had all been paid, and they flipped out the cigarettes. And they lit it and started smoking. Thousands of cameras clicking, clicking, clicking, clicking.
And they asked, what are you doing? And they were told, we are lighting the torches of freedom. This was the time when the suffragette movement was gaining momentum. And the idea was, oh, women have been repressed for so long, and now they’re going towards freedom.
So because they emotionally captivated, or they emotionally coupled the idea of smoking with the idea of freedom, literally, within just a matter of months, thousands and thousands of women started smoking. They thought, oh, this is the way we are expressing our freedom. Now, how lighting a cigarette leads to freedom, that is a reasonable question.
But when the emotions were activated, nobody asked that reasonable question. And only a decade or so later, that the harmful effects of smoking started coming out, especially the harmful effects of smoking for women, and all the more so harmful effects of smoking for women who are pregnant. But by that time, literally millions of women had got hooked to smoking.
This, perhaps, is a sinister example. But this principle… Sorry. Okay, it’s not audible.
Sorry. Okay. Is it better now? So I was talking about how Lakshman was told by Ram that we should select the emotions that bring out the best within us.
But I give this example of the Torches of Freedom campaign to illustrate how the materialistic culture today often expertly brings out the emotions, it kindles the emotion that brings out the worst within us. And there are various kinds of subtle and not-so-subtle ways in which people today are pressurized to be materialistic, more and more materialistic. And this pressure actually applies to everyone.
But it applies all the more so in the phase of adolescence and young adulthood. Why is that? That’s because that’s the time when we are trying to carve out an identity for ourselves. And we want an identity which looks cool, which is acceptable and respectable in our social circle.
And if the social circle happens to be materialistic, then to be cool in that social circle, we have to become a fool. What does that mean? We often have to do things which we would normally not do, which we know are harmful, but they’re just the glamorized thing. And in that way, we end up getting caught in things which are unhealthy for us.
Again, going back to the point of freedom, there’s a tremendous stress on the idea of freedom in today’s world that we all should be free to do what we want to do. And especially if we come from a cultural background that is religious, often religion is thought of as very restrictive. Oh, you should not do this.
You should not do this. You should not do this. That is the idea.
There is an atheist gag about Christianity. They say the Bible started in the beginning was the word and the word was God. So the atheist gag is in the beginning was the word and the word was no.
The idea is no, don’t do this. Don’t do this. Don’t do this.
So often religions are thought of as restrictive. And the idea is, oh, if I did not have this religious restriction, then I’d be free to enjoy. However, there are two kinds of freedom.
There is freedom for and there is freedom from. Freedom for and freedom from. Say a simple example.
Say this is a hostel where two kids are staying. And this is their university. And along the way, there is a drug joint or a drug peddler.
Now, one of the kids has never taken drugs and knows that drugs are bad. I’m not going to get into this. But that kid just walks by.
And even if they know that there is some drug peddler over there, don’t bother about it. Just move ahead. But say one of the kids has taken some drugs.
Once, twice, thrice. Then if it’s taken a few times, and every time that kid starts passing by, a thought comes. Maybe I should take.
Maybe I should not. I should. I should not.
I should. I should not. That conflict sucks so much of the mental energy.
And the person keeps indulging more and more. Every time we actually indulge in something, Asha, Pasha, Shatair, Baddha, Kama, Krodha, Parayana. In the 16th chapter, 12th verse of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says that every desire that we have, the desire can become like a shackle.
Asha, Pasha and Shatair, Baddha. We can become bound by hundreds, thousands of desires like this. So when we have a desire like that, so that person who has indulged in drugs, each time they indulge, their desire becomes stronger.
It becomes a tighter shackle. And thereafter, as the shackle becomes tighter and tighter, initially, whenever they pass by that place, they may think, maybe I should take this, maybe I should not take this. But if they keep indulging, then as soon as they come out of their house, first thing is, oh, I want to eat this.
I want to take this drug. And sometimes when people wake up first, first time they wake up from sleep, the first thing they think is, oh, I have to get this drug. I have to go high.
So actually, physically, there are no ropes binding them. But they are bound. There is freedom for and freedom from.
So the child may say, the kid may say, I want to have freedom. Why do my parents, my this, my that, they tell, don’t do this, don’t do that. But freedom for, I want to have freedom to take drugs.
But that kind of freedom is actually not free, it is binding. Because they got bound by that habit, which has become a, see what is impulsive initially, becomes compulsive eventually. Impulsive means, I just like to do it, I’ll do it.
But compulsive means, I can’t give it up. It’s forcefully dragged towards it. And eventually it becomes addiction.
People get completely trapped. I’m writing a book on spirituality and addiction. So I did some research, and one of the key steps for person is to ever break free from addiction is to recognize that I am bound.
Most addicts just don’t recognize that. They don’t admit that. So I read the story of one drunkard, alcoholic.
You know, he was one night, in a cold night, he’s in America, around 3, 3 o’clock in the morning. Suddenly, he got an irresistible urge to drink. Got up from his bed, went to the fridge, and he found the beer he wanted was not there.
So he said, okay, got into his car, and said, right, it’s freezing cold. And the desire was so strong, just got in the car, rushed out. And then he came to the nearby bar, and he asked for that beer.
He said, it’s out of stock. So frustrated. He got out, and when he had to go half the way across the town to the other bar where he could get it.
And as he was going along, his car started sputtering. And it broke down. Exasperated.
Just got out of the car and started running towards the bar. Now he’d been in such a frenzy, just woken out of bed and started running, that he had not put on any warm clothes also. It was a cold night, just running, shivering.
Finally got to the bar, asked, give me this beer. He said, yes, got the beer. As soon as he got it, he immediately drank a sip.
He thought, no, I spent so much time and effort to get here. I will savour this. See you later, I’ll go back to the car.
And he started going back to the car. And as he was going along, it was snowing, so he slipped. As he slipped, he had not put the lid properly on the bottle.
And the whole bottle slipped on him. And he just fell on the ground and he was, the cold snow was below him, the chill air was above him, and he was bathed in the beer. For a moment, there was this fury at what happened.
But then, he looked up and he saw all these buildings, all the lights were closed. He suddenly started, what am I doing? What am I doing? I could be peacefully sleeping, comfortably in a warm bed. Here I am, bathed in alcohol, lying in a cold snow.
What am I doing? That was the time it struck me, actually, I am bound, I am enslaved, I am addicted. So the freedom for often actually ends up binding us. Many of the indulgences that are glamorized in today’s world, they often end up becoming compulsions or even addictions.
So freedom for is not the only kind of freedom. That is a kind of freedom, but that is actually a freedom that is binding. It is, on the other hand, there is freedom from.
So the other student who never takes drugs, just go to school, go to university, just do your work, go ahead on with life. So freedom from certain desires, certain ideas, certain options, that freedom from is actually a very empowering form of freedom. So certain things, okay, I am not going to do them.
So that, when that option itself is not there in one’s mind, it’s actually a big relief. It’s a big relief because so much of the mental energy is saved. So when we talk about traditional cultures or even a bhakti culture of which many of you are born, in which many of you are born or brought up, so it may seem that we are having some restrictions because of which we can’t do this, we can’t do that.
But although there is some restriction in the form of freedom for, but there is a big empowering, relieving freedom in the form of freedom from. So many things that we are actually saved from wasting our mental energy. And moving further in this point, so when we talk, the topic today was two lives in one purpose.
So the idea is that we have our material life and we have our spiritual life. Especially when we are in youth or in young adulthood, we have a lot of dreams for our life. You know, we want a career, we want a position, we want a good partner, we want a bright life ahead of us.
And on the other side, sometimes the spiritual life, which you have to practice, it may seem sometimes that it is going to check me, I mean choke me, I may feel like that. It’s not going to allow me to grow. However, this, the perception of the conflict between spiritual and material life comes when we let materialism define what material life means.
The difference between material life and materialism. Materialism means that matter is all that matters. That material enjoyment is the goal of life and that is all that one should be seeking.
The Bhagavata 16.8 Krishna says that Somebody says that? What else is there in life apart from material enjoyment? So when we let materialism define our material life, then we say, I can’t do this, I can’t do that. What is this? My spiritual life is choking my material life. But materialism, the way it defines material life, that is actually a very disempowering definition.
It will make us compulsively hooked to materialistic things. So material life can be defined in a different way. The Bhagavad Gita actually is a very materially affirming book.
If you look at Arjuna, Arjuna wanted to renounce the world at the start of the Gita. Krishna said, no, you do your work, do your work. So the Bhagavad Gita says that It says, by your work, worship the Lord.
By your work, worship the Lord. So what this means is, Krishna is not saying that worshipping is, OK, you just go to temple and do some kirtan, do some worship, do some religious activities. That alone is not worship.
He says, by your work, you can worship. So when we see material and spiritual not as two distinct lives, we understand that there is one source of everything. It is God, whose parts we are as spiritual beings.
And it is God who has given us our material talents, material interests, our material situations. It is by His arrangement that they are there. So the material and spiritual, we may need to separate so that we give some time for our spiritual activities.
But afterwards, we see everything as connected with God. Everything can help us to grow. So for a devotee, the vision is not that this is material life and this is spiritual life.
Ultimately, in everything, I am meant to love and serve and grow. We are, whoever we may be, we are ultimately souls. We are parts of Krishna.
And through all our activities, we can grow in our relationship with Krishna. So I said materialism’s definition of material life is, you get more and more enjoyment, more position, more power, more pleasure, more sensual indulgence, and then you are happy. But a spiritual definition of material life is something very different.
It could be put as, now what we are is God’s gift to us. What we’ve become is our gift to God. What we are is God’s gift to us.
So we all have our talents, our abilities, our interests, and these are by God’s arrangement. So we are meant to use them. Now when we are materialistic, when materialism defines our worldview, our self-conception, one of the most damaging results of that is that we constantly are subjected to a comparative mentality.
Somebody looks better than me. Somebody speaks smarter than me. They can do this better than me.
They can do that better than me. We all have certain material attributes and they are givens. We may not be able to change them.
And materialistic culture always shows us the perfect models in everything. So if it is a figure, you may see in Hollywood or certain other places where perfect models and if we start comparing ourselves with them, always feel, you know, I’m not good enough. But if we understand that I am at my core spiritual, whatever I have materially, that is by God’s arrangement.
And we don’t, you know, if God, in material life we often feel, that person looks so much better than me. If only I was like that person. And that person has such a better memory.
It maybe has such a smarter appeal, whatever it is. If only I was like that person. So much mental energy goes in negative self-comparison.
I’m not like that. Of course if you are good in something, then there is the opposite of that. There is positive self-comparison.
No good. No good. I am so great.
But either way, actually, when we have a spiritual self-conception, when we let spiritual wisdom, Gita wisdom, let it define our material life, we understand that we are, what we are is God’s gift to us. So we don’t have to become someone else. We simply have to become the best we.
If God had wanted us to be someone else, He would have made someone else. He has made you, you. He has made me, me.
So of course we want to improve and become better. But that improvement is not horizontal in terms of imitation, becoming like someone else. That is vertical in terms of individuation.
We have to individually bring out whatever is best within us. So what we are is God’s gift to us. And what we become is our gift to God.
That means we have certain talents, we have certain abilities. And all these talents and abilities, they need to be developed. Arjuna, as most of you know, was a great archer.
But Arjuna did not become a great archer simply by doing his devotional activities. Not by chanting Hare Krishna or reading philosophy. Arjuna worked at his archery.
So he was tireless in working at his archery. Why did he do that? Some of you may know the story of how diligent Arjuna was. Once when he was in his Guru’s academy in the Gurukul of Drona, at that time, in the night, he just returned and he was eating his meals.
And there was a lamp nearby and suddenly there was a gust of wind and the lamp got extinguished. So then he was eating his meal and he found that his hand automatically found its way to the mouth. So he started thinking, hey, if in the dark my hand can find its way to food, then maybe in the dark I can shoot arrows also.
And from that time he started practicing archery based on just hearing sounds. He could shoot invisible targets just by the sound that they would make. And that proved vital in eventually his attaining many important victories.
So that’s how Arjuna got the name Gudakesha. Gudakesha means one who has conquered sleep. So the point is that Arjuna was diligent.
He had certain archery skills and he worked hard to develop those skills. So we all have certain talents, but if talent is here, achievement is here. The bridge between the two is actually built by commitment.
So commitment bridges the gap between talent and achievement. And if we want to commit ourselves to something, the commitment is actually much more possible with a spiritual worldview than with a materialistic worldview. Because in a materialistic worldview, we are always caught in this pleasure, that pleasure, that pleasure.
Materialistic worldview is by nature very short term. I want this. I want that.
I want that. And we just crave for it. We can’t sustain anything.
Whereas a spiritual worldview, we understand that this is who I am and this is how I am going to develop. So we are not insecure. In a materialistic worldview, we are always insecure.
Am I on the right path? Maybe I should be doing this. Maybe I should be doing that. Now whatever is glamorized by society today, we start doing that thing.
So when that happens, the materialistic social mirror is ever changing. Oscar Wilde said that fashion is a form of ugliness. So intolerable that we have to change it every six months.
So what is considered a fashionable today? Hey, you’re such a nice, nice dress. Then after six months, it’s an old fashioned dress. Old fashioned? No, I don’t want it now.
I want something new. So when we constantly keep looking at ourselves in the social mirror, then we always stay insecure. But if we are looking at ourselves in the spiritual mirror, we understand that we are parts of God.
However we are, God Krishna loves us. He cares for us. Based on that, we can do our best.
So commitment becomes much easier when we are practicing spiritual life, when we have a spiritual understanding of life. And that way what we become, what we become is our gift to God. So from talent to achievement, we require commitment.
And that steady commitment is much more possible when we are spiritually minded. I’ll conclude about this point of commitment one more, with one more incident, then we can have some question answers. I was in Melbourne, I was giving a talk in a university there.
And then one girl asked this question. Why is it that traditional cultures are against love marriage? I said, actually, it is not that traditional cultures are against love marriage. First of all, the problem is not with love marriage, the problem is with the nomenclature.
When we have this idea, love marriage versus arranged marriage, the implication is that in arranged marriage there is no love. Which is not at all true. And what we call as love marriage, if we shifted the nomenclature a little bit, and we changed it to say infatuation marriages versus thoughtful marriages.
The point is that there is an initial attraction. It’s possible. But yes, a boy and a girl see each other and there may be love at first sight.
But the stability of the relationship will depend not on what one feels at first sight, but it will depend on what one feels after many sights. Initially there may be a lot of attraction, but initial attraction is often simply hormonal. Now when two people meet each other, certain hormones are secreted in the body, either because of physical characteristics or personality traits, whatever it is.
They feel attracted to each other. So that’s why the word is there, fall in love. Why the word fall in love? Because when we fall, it’s involuntary.
I’m walking along, I slip and fall. There’s a higher force which takes control of me and makes me fall. But that’s why the same people who fall in love, after sometime they fall out of love also.
Initially they may say, I can’t live without you. And then six months later, I can’t live with you. What has happened? It’s actually emotions which are driving the person entirely.
Emotions are important. But within a materialistic context, if the worldview is primarily materialistic, then the emotions just keep changing again and again and again. This emotion, that emotion, that emotion and we just become like puppets of other emotions.
But when there is a spiritual understanding of life, then also we acknowledge the emotions. But we understand that the emotions have to be harmonized with the long term purpose of life. So when there is commitment, any relationship that it may be, only when there is commitment, the relationship has, can bring stability.
It can have longevity and it can actually bring satisfaction to the heart. So the point is that in spiritual life, it is not against relationships. It’s not against material life per se.
Spiritual life is definitely at conflict with material life as it is defined by materialism. But the materialistic definition of material life itself is flawed. The Harvard Medical School, they did a survey, especially of kids in America, who had, who were a part of this free love or free sex culture.
And they found that most of these kids, they felt profoundly lonely. Although their bodies came in contact with many other people’s bodies, their hearts were lonely. They actually felt, they knew that others are using us, using me and I’m using others.
So that, that whole culture of so-called free love or free sex, they did not actually bring love. They did not bring connection. They did not bring fulfillment.
It only brought loneliness. It only brought insecurity. So we don’t have to let materialism define material life.
When we understand the spiritual holistic worldview, then material life also becomes harmonized. So we have a spiritual life, we have a material life. But the purpose is one.
The purpose is we want to become the best that we can be in a mood of service to the God who has made us and in a mood of service to others with whom we are related in connection with God. So that one purpose, if we have, then we will be able to harmonize our material and spiritual life. Rather than seeing them as contradictory, we’ll see them as complementary.
Our spiritual life will give us the emotional stability and maturity for commitment in our material life. And our material life will be where we also express our spirituality. One way our spirituality is expressed is through our growth and our devotion for Krishna.
But we also have our talents and we develop those talents and contribute to those talents. So the material and spiritual life become symbiotic. So what we become is our gift to God.
So Krishna wants every one of us to become the best that we can be. And by cultivating a mood of devotion to Him, we will find the forces that stop us from being the best that we can be. Those forces will be cleansed from our heart.
And we’ll be able to bring out our best. We’ll be able to make substantial contributions in whatever area we choose to. And along with those contributions, because we are doing them in a mood of devotion, those contributions will bring satisfaction.
But this way, both our lives can serve the ultimate same purpose of our growth towards satisfaction, growth towards fulfillment. So I’ll summarize. I started by talking about how, especially in the young adulthood, we search for identity.
We have outgrown our identity as children of parents, but we have not yet achieved our identity as independent professionals or independent. So then at that time, that search for identity can lead to identity crisis. And we are especially vulnerable to peer pressure, the pressure of the materialistic culture in defining our identity.
And doing things which may be against our best interests, but we do them just to conform and get a sense of identity. In that connection, I talked about how the emotions are very strong in young adulthood. And I connected two incidents.
One was from the Ramayan, where Ram tells Lakshman, emotions are good, but we need to choose the emotions that bring out the best within us, not the worst within us. And I talked about how the torches of freedom campaign. Basically, the psychological understanding that our rationality is like a canoe, and the emotionality like a turbulent ocean below.
And often our today’s culture, it systematically and sinisterly brings out our emotions in order to manipulate us. So we may feel that a spiritual culture with a religious background to it, it restricts our freedom. But there is freedom for and freedom from.
And freedom for often is actually disempowering. It is binding. Like a kid who has taken drugs, every time they pass by, the whole mental energy goes, should I take it? Should I not take it? Should I take it? Should I not take it? A kid who has decided, I’m not going to take drugs, they just pass by without any thought about it.
So freedom from, when it’s free from those unhealthy desires, so that we can focus on more important things in life. And like the alcoholic who was bathed in beer, I’m bound. So freedom for often leads to bondage.
The desire becomes like a shackle that drags us here and there. So if we let materialism define our material life, then we will never be satisfied. In the name of freedom, we will become more and more bound to unhealthy things.
But if we let a holistic understanding of life shape our understanding of material life also, then we will see that the same God whose parts we are, that same God has also put us in a particular situation in material life. And we can serve him directly through our devotional activities and also through our material life. So what we are is God’s gift to us.
Whatever we are, we don’t have to become a Xerox copy of someone else. We don’t have to imitate, we have to individuate. That is, if God had wanted us to be someone else, he would have made someone else.
He wants, he has made you, you. He has made me, me. And we just have to become the best we.
And the process of becoming the best we requires commitment. So the bridge from talent to achievement is through commitment. And commitment basically means there is emotional stability.
So when there is too much materialism, the emotions go wild. And we cannot have the commitment necessary for translating our talent into achievement. But in the spiritual world, like Arjuna, he had his talents and he committed himself to develop his talents and he became a great archer.
So like that, by committing ourselves through the stability that comes from spirituality, we will be able to better translate our talents into achievements. And it’s not just with respect to talents, also with respect to relationships. If we have a materialistic worldview, then we are simply driven by our emotions.
The same infatuation that makes people fall in love, afterwards when we start seeing the other person’s other side, then we fall out of love. So I can’t live without you becomes I can’t live with you. So even with respect to relationships, we need commitment.
Love at first sight is fine, but love after many sights is more important. And that requires commitment. So with the commitment, we all can bring out the best within us.
Because spirituality helps us become free from the forces within that block our best from coming out. And when our best comes out, we all can make valuable contributions externally and find lasting satisfaction internally. Thank you very much.
So I see there are a lot of questions. Thank you so much. Yeah, there’s quite a few questions.
I just wanted to ask actually, if anyone wanted to, before we go to the poll, anyone had a question they want to ask directly? I want a couple, but… Give me the bowl also. We’ll start with you later. So thank you so much.
It was a very clear path and it was very illuminating of the things that we do, but we don’t really realize where it comes from. One question I had was, there are certain material activities that are not necessarily directly detrimental as much as, like, you know, alcohol has had this much use, where we obviously detrimentalize, but there’s like some bonding material activities that we take part in that are detrimentally long-term, but we can’t really see the immediate detriment to this. So for those things, it can be actually harder to push away from them because… Can you do an example? The immediate effects are not so strong.
I’m trying to find an example that doesn’t relate to it. Okay, so for example, like, we might be really attached to making money, like a career, right? And we know that we need the money, but then at the same time, it’s detrimental, like the hunger that we have for money can be detrimental over time. So in that sense, like, I’m being because we need it and we’re going after it, but it’s detrimental because we become… Maybe another, okay, I’ll do one that’s more pertinent to my, maybe we’ll all be speaking here.
Like, for example, like, I love doing my hair. Well, I change my hair every other month. And it’s okay.
It’s not like killing me, but, you know, it takes time. It’s time-consuming, right? So it’s like pushing away from others. I could be using that time for something else, right? So it’s finding me, right? So like that attachment and that, like, but it’s not necessarily like, you know.
Okay. I got the question. Thank you.
Yeah. So, but the question is, like, how do we kind of free ourselves from those attachments, but it’s permanent, not like artificial? Because once it becomes artificial or we’re doing it because we feel like we have to or we should, then it’s kind of hard. Then it’s like, it’s easy to kind of bounce back.
Like, we might be able to stay away from it for like a few months. But then, like, once we get it, once it, like, you know, sparks again or triggers again. Okay.
So what about certain activities in our life, which are not necessarily directly detrimental, but they take time and we feel like doing them. But at the same time, we know that they are consuming our time and energy. So how do we deal with them? See, I’ll give one metaphor which will address this, many questions in this area.
That when we are living in the world, our present existence is like a deceased condition. And the practice of yoga, yoga chikitsakam, bhakti yoga is the chikitsa, the medicine, the therapy by which we’ll be cured. We’re eternal beings, but we are currently identifying with a temporary body.
And the healing is when we realize our spiritual identity. So when a patient is sick, at that time, when the patient is sick, they may be in pain. So now the doctor will give a curative medicine and the doctor will also give a pain medicine.
So now the pain medicine is important in the sense that the pain medicine provides immediate relief. And the pain medicine and the curative medicine work complementary. So similarly for us, the practice of bhakti yoga is like the curative medicine.
Our whole material life, in a sense, is like the pain medicine. So Krishna says that one who eats too little or eats too much. Such a person cannot be a yogi.
Why? If we eat too much, then again the mind becomes obsessed with food. Then we can’t think about higher spiritual growth. But if we eat too little, then also we are constantly thinking of food.
So not having food is a pain. So hunger is a big problem in the world. But are all the well-fed people in the world happy? No, they have their own set of problems, isn’t it? So food is vital, but it is like a pain killer.
It’s essential. So extending this metaphor further, our whole material life, whatever we need in it, or whatever we feel we need also, that is like a pain killer. Now, when somebody is in a hospital, there are two extremes.
One is to go on a campaign against pain killers. Give up all pain killers. The other is to go on a campaign for pain killers.
Thinking that, oh, actually I take this pain killer, my pain goes away. Why do I need to take this medicine at all? So the point is, in material life, if we become too averse to material life, I can’t do this, I shouldn’t do this, I shouldn’t do that, then again that’s obsession. We are obsessed with what I should not do.
So the whole point is our mental energy should be free for focusing on Krishna, on higher spiritual things in our life. So if we are too strongly against material things, that consumes our mental energy. And conversely, if we are too strongly for material things, that also consumes our mental energy.
I want this, I want this. The idea is that, oh, if I just get this one thing, I’ll become happy in my life. So then, both ways it is a problem.
Now the dicey thing here is, that with this metaphor is that, different people require different dosages of pain killer. So, say for example, somebody who has been born and brought up in a rural city, simple city, not much technological amenities. If they come to a city and they get lot of technological amenities, they can use them, but they don’t need them.
But somebody who has lived in a city and then you go in a rural setting, without any basic technological facilities, that itself becomes such a big trouble. So the point is, that we have to decide, what is the dosage of pain killer that I need, so that I can focus. So, now, just like with respect to food, we learn by experience.
How much should I eat? Sometimes we eat too much, and then we feel drowsy, we feel heavy, we become obese, and this is just not worth it. So same way with sleep. Sometimes we feel, I want to work, I want to achieve, so I won’t sleep.
But then, we may sleep less at night, but we are sleeping throughout the day. So just as we learn to achieve and arrive at a balance ourselves, similar with respect to food and sleep, similarly with respect to material life in general, whichever activities we may be involved in, we arrive at a balance that way. That means, that if I get too obsessed with it, then it consumes my thoughts, and I am not free to think about higher things.
But if I am too militant against it, then also it’s a problem. So usually with respect to our material desires, we all have to learn how to deal with them. It is not that the formula for dealing with material desires, which works for me, will work for you, or which works for you, will work for someone else.
We all have our own mind, we all have our own background, our own conditionings. So we need to find out, what is the level at which I can be in material life, by which I can peacefully focus on my spiritual growth. Some of us may need to work through some desires.
Some of us may have certain desires, some of us can just hear about philosophy, and we feel, there is no point in indulging in this, I’ll just give it up. Some of us may want to fulfill some desires and gradually work through that. That’s fine.
So the important thing is that don’t see the painkiller as a replacement for the medicine. That’s my material life, whatever I need to do, I’ll do it. But I won’t let it take up so much of my time that I can’t practice, focus on spirituality.
So based on this broad understanding, we could classify our material activities into three levels, three kinds. There is pro-devotional, there is non-devotional and there is anti-devotional. So, for example, alcoholism, drugs, these activities are anti-devotional.
And they need to be given up. Of course, one can start practicing spiritual life even when one is doing these activities. But they will impede the spiritualization of our consciousness very much.
So they need to be given up. Now, pro-devotional activities are those things which we can use. They are not directly devotional.
Say, somebody wants to learn music, somebody wants to learn singing, somebody wants to learn some talents, say, video processing. So, that’s a talent we can use. It’s a pro-devotional activity.
Now, you can use it in devotional service. Then there are non-devotional activities. They may not be directly usable in devotional service, but they’re not anti-devotional.
So if we could, whatever our material needs and material desires are, if we could find the fulfillment for them in the pro-devotional range of activities, that is the best. So, I used to love words. Since my childhood, one of my hobbies was just to pick up a dictionary and memorize words.
So, now for me, writing is an activity I simply love. So, I love writing, but by Krishna’s mercy now I am writing for Krishna. So, if we can find out something in our, say, if we consider this one circle to be our material life and another circle to be our devotional life, if we can find something that is at the intersection of the two, and then we develop that, then we will be able to not only develop the material talent wholeheartedly, but also we will be able to use it constructively in devotional service.
So, it’s best to find something within the pro-devotional activities and then we can let them do. But otherwise, if there are some non-devotional activities also which you feel like doing, then that’s up to us. We have to find out which consumes too much mental energy.
That, oh, I will not do it, I will not do it, I will not do it, I will not do it. We are thinking so much about that, that actually we are not doing anything constructive. Now, our purpose should always be clear that our focus is on the war for devotion.
Our focus is not on the battle against temptation. The two are related but the two are not the same. There are specific temptations which you have to fight and we fight against them.
But our focus is on the war for devotion. Do devotional activities wholeheartedly. And while fighting that war, one battle is the battle against temptation.
Sometimes we just make the battle against temptation as the center of our whole consciousness. Should I do this? Should I give this up? Should I do this or should I give this up? It doesn’t matter, it’s not that big. Focus on practicing bhakti.
And if you start practicing bhakti, we start saying yes to Krishna, then whether to say yes to other things, how much to say yes, whether to say no, all that will fall in place on its own. So focus on connecting with Krishna wholeheartedly and other things will fall in place. Does this answer your question? Thank you.
There are lot of questions here. How can peer pressure and influences be totally avoided? Actually, they can’t be avoided. But we can place ourselves in that social circle which actually pressurizes us for doing good things.
We are by nature social creatures. So, our desires are not just linear. They are triangular.
Triangular means that it’s not just that we see something and we like it. Sometimes it happens. Like a few months ago, there was this video game Pokemon Go which became very popular.
Now initially when that game came, I thought okay, there are so many video games, one more new game has come. What is the big deal about it? But then, say somebody was thinking like this, they saw somebody playing Pokemon Go, clicking on fingers, trying to catch Pokemons. And then they say, what’s so great, let me play it also.
They start playing it and then they get caught in that. Friends say, no, no, I want to play now. So what happened? Just seeing the game doesn’t kindle the desire.
But you see somebody else playing the game, and then that kindles the desire. So the desire is not just linear from us to the object, it is triangular. From us to someone else doing that activity, and then we feel like doing that activity.
So especially in spiritual life, our desires grow much more triangularly than linearly. That means, if we see somebody else doing a devotional activity, if we see somebody doing Kirtan and they just absorb in ecstasy in Kirtan, maybe there is something special in this. I also want to taste this.
They also get absorbed in it. So when we say peer pressure, basically means, it’s like these triangular desires are going towards materialistic things. We see somebody else doing something and we feel like doing it.
Or we feel impelled to do it. So if we have spiritual association, if we have devotee association, or association of spiritually minded people, then that will create the triangular desire for good things within us. And by having that desire for good things strong within us or strengthened by the peer pressure, that will bring out the best within us.
So we can’t avoid peer pressure, but we can counter it by having peers who pressurize us to do good things. So the word pressure sometimes has negative connotation, but here it simply means that our desires are kindled in a particular way. That’s why spiritual association is extremely important.
And when spiritual association is not possible, then what we could do, even in our social circle, whatever we have, we can find out those friends who are not too grossly materialistic. Even in the materialistic circle also, there are some people who are just, you know, there are three modes of material nature — goodness, passion, ignorance. There are some people who are just totally irresponsible.
Some people are just passionate about, I want this, I want to enjoy this, I want to enjoy that. Some people are more thoughtful, contemplative. So even within our social circle, in material life, we can try to bond more with people who are in a mode of goodness.
That way also, the pressure which is there, it won’t push us down to materialistic things. Now, we need a sense of belonging, a sense of acceptance. And where we get that, that will determine whether that will bring the best out of us or bring the worst out of us.
So by selecting our association, we can learn to channel the power of peer pressure to bring out our best. If traditional cultures are not against love marriage, why can’t we have them in ISKCON? Well, I don’t think there is any law banning love marriages in ISKCON. The point is that I don’t think there is any law like that.
Nobody can make a law like that also. We are not like a police state where people are going to be punished. The point is that there is this whole phase of there are psychologists who have examined the psychology of love and they found that romance on an average has a bench life of two years.
What that means is that when two people are attracted to each other, it’s primarily a hormonal attraction. And you feel like, I want to be this person. This person is the be all and end all of my life.
You feel like that. That feeling actually lasts for between a year to two years. And then afterwards, gradually, during this period, what happens is, as they say, love is blind.
So, we don’t see whatever shortcomings might be there in the other person. But afterwards, we start seeing that. Initially, if we had placed the object of our love on a big pedestal and every small flaw that might be there, that becomes like a hole from which that person keeps falling down from the pedestal.
So, the extent to which we have lifted that person up, afterwards, we bury them under the ground. How could you do this? How could you be like this? So, the point is not against love marriages or for love marriages. The point is that decisions should be done thoughtfully, not impulsively.
So, even if somebody wants to pursue a relationship, what is important is that you don’t act hastily. Be patient, be thoughtful, let time pass, observe each other, and then you can develop a relationship. It’s not against love marriages.
It’s more against getting carried away by what we feel is love, but may just be initial infatuation. So, there is definitely a need for warm relationships in whichever relationship we have. And we need a culture which facilitates long-term good relationships.
Okay. When we say freedom from, then what about onion and garlic? Sometimes we are told to avoid it, but it’s difficult to avoid. So, what to do? See, as I said, there are anti-devotional activities, non-devotional, pro-devotional.
So, onion and garlic is not directly anti-devotional. It is tamasic. Tamasic means the mode of ignorance.
Onion and garlic may have certain medicinal properties, but at the same time, the overall effect of them on our consciousness is, it drags it down. It creates lethargy. So, we try to avoid them as much as possible.
But again, as I said, sometimes we make the battle against temptation more important than the war for devotion. So, how to adjust this practically is something which can be seen in a called time-based circumstance. It’s not such a big issue that we need to obsess too much mental energy on it.
Nowadays, one advantage of the individualistic kind of individualistic culture that is there in today’s society is most people let you be what you want to be. If this is what I do, fine, you just be what you want. People start objecting when we start imposing our ideas on them.
So, the postmodern ethos which is very much there in today’s world is that, if something works for you, I am interested. So, a typical example of a postmodern psychology is say, if a couple comes along and says, we have been married happily for last 25 years. People say, please tell us, how do you make it work? Interested in hearing it.
But if the same couple says, we have been married for 25 years and we believe that divorce is a sin against God and anybody who is divorced will be punished. The same audience will throw stones at them. Get lost.
So, the idea is, if we are following something but we don’t impose that on others, most people will leave us alone. So, it’s only when we try to make it into an issue that we feel they have to follow. Then people become very standoffish.
People become very counter-aggressive. So, we can do this in a non-intrusive way and move on to more important things in our life. How can we overcome our past, not become overwhelmed by the future and truly feel the happiness of the present moment? Yes.
Very good question. In fact, I gave a class on this topic in Dallas. Be not fretful or fearful.
Be faithful. So, fretfulness is about the past. Oh, you know, this went wrong.
He did like that. She spoke like that. Fretfulness.
Fearfulness is about the future. What if this goes wrong, that goes wrong, that goes wrong. So, be faithful means we understand that God has a plan and I just need to do my part in that plan.
That way, we can free our mental energy from the past and the future and focus on the present. So, the whole idea is that yes, bad things have happened to us in the past. We ourselves may have done bad things.
But Krishna is so expert that He can bring good even out of the bad. So, what has happened? It has happened. In the Mahabharata it is said that lamentation achieves nothing except to sap the mental energy of the lamenter.
So, what has happened? It’s over now. Just close that chapter and move on. So, if you understand, if you have this faith that Krishna can bring good even out of the bad, then we can just leave the past behind and focus on the present.
Similarly, about the future, you know, as I mentioned in the introduction, I write articles in the Gita every day at Gita Devi. So, one such article was, now worry is the interest we pay on loans we haven’t yet taken. So, actually, most of the things we worry about, if we see, more than 90-95% of those things, they never happen.
What if this goes wrong? What if that goes wrong? So, we recognize that more this worrying is simply sapping our energy. So, the future is in, we don’t know what the future holds, but we know who holds the future. When we have faith in Krishna, we don’t know what the future holds for us, but we know that Krishna is always in control.
He holds the future. So, that way, when I talk about faith, it’s not just a conception that God is in control. That faith is actually realized through practice.
So, if we practice mantra chanting, mantra meditation, if we study the philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita, our faith becomes intellectually grounded and it becomes personally experienced. And then, we can actually recognize that the past and the future, past is over, Krishna will bring good out of it. Future, now Krishna will take care of it.
Let me focus on the present. So, that attitude of devotional service, Krishna, I am here to love and serve you. Please guide me how I can serve you in the present moment.
That will help us to fully focus on the present. And that way, we can relish the beauty, the sweetness, the opportunity of the present moment. So, if we wish to feel free from our parents, how do we know whether the desire is genuine or it has come from a resentment when both feelings are present? Yeah, I saw one devotee.
You know, he was… Sound is not coming. I saw this one devotee. I was talking with him.
And he said, there’s a phone. I said, what phone? He said, jail. I said, what is this jail? He said, this is the number of my home.
So, some people just have so much resentment. So, if the parents are parented in a very restrictive way, in a very coercive or restrictive way, then this kid may feel, you know, home is like a jail. I just want to get out of there.
That’s very unfortunate. We don’t, in a sense, choose our parents, but we do choose our present and our future. Now, for most of us, we all go through different phases in our relationship with our parents.
When we are small, our parents are like God for us. They are providing everything. Our parents are perfect.
And as we start coming to our teenage years, we start saying, you know, actually, you know, my parents, this is not right, that is not right, that is not right. And then, what happens is, in early childhood, everything my parents say is right. And when you come to young adulthood, everything my parents say is wrong.
So, often, many people do certain things not because they want to do them, just because they want to rebel against their parents. That’s how they do those things. So, we have to know that we are individual souls in our own right.
We have our own destiny to fulfill. And our parents are definitely going to play a valuable role. Whatever kind of parents we have had, you know, that is ultimately shaped us in a particular way.
But we shouldn’t let let either the aversion to parents or attachment to parents shape our life’s choices. So, aversion to parents means out of resentment to our parents because, you know, if I do this, this will hurt them. That’s why I’ll do this.
Or because this will please them, so I’ll do it. Now, neither of those are sustainable. We have to find out what is the best for us.
And the most reliable way to find this, our desire for freedom from parents, is actually patience. Patience means that if we are feeling in a particular way, see, as long as thoughts are in the head, they keep congesting the head. So, get the thoughts out.
Write them down in a journal. And then, when we write them down in a journal, that just getting them out creates a certain level of objectivity. You can evaluate, this makes sense.
This is not very reasonable. Here, I’m just getting too negative over here. And then, instead of constantly thinking about them, when we get those thoughts out, that is like a snapshot of our mind that we have got.
And maybe if it’s a major decision we want to make in our life, maybe about a career choice or a life partner choice or whatever it may be, then we can keep periodic, don’t make an immediate decision, but keep periodically revisiting the issue. Maybe every week, spend some time and revisit that. Whatever you have written down, maybe I need to add this point, I got this thought, I had not thought about this.
And then if you find after six months, after one year, our overall thoughts remain the same, then that means that is not driven by attachment or aversion. That is something which is our own authentic need. That’s the way we want to express ourselves.
But sometimes when you write it down after one month, hey, what was I thinking at that time? This doesn’t make any sense. I don’t feel like that at all now. So, by getting our feelings outside of ourselves and keeping them for analysing later, we will be able to find out which are our lasting feelings and accordingly we can choose.
So normally we think of our emotions only in two options. Either I express them or I repress them. But actually there is a third option.
That is we process them. Process them means we get them out, but analyse them afterwards and then decide whether to act on them or to move beyond them. How can we practically begin to cleanse our heart and be an insecurity of a negative self-conception? Yeah.
See, satisfaction is not just an emotion. It is also a decision. Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita that manah prasada samyaktam.
Satisfaction of the mind, he says, is the austerity of the mind. In 17.16 he says. That means I am not feeling satisfied now.
Oh, I am feeling inferior. I am feeling inferior to this person. I am feeling like this.
I am feeling like that. These feelings may be there, but often our conception, what we think about is based on our conception. Say imagine now, no need to imagine, it is real.
You are going to have food after this soon. So now suppose there was a feast after this program. But this is a special feast in which everybody is going to get different items.
So now what is in your plate which is different from her plate is different from my plate. Suppose I get the feast and instead of eating I start looking, what is in her plate? What is in his plate? What is in his plate? Oh, I don’t have that. Oh, I don’t have that.
I don’t have that. Well, eat your feast. I bother about what is there in other people’s plate.
So similarly what happens is that we have a negative self-conception. We are not even looking what is there in other’s plate. We are not looking at what is there in our plate.
Some of our talents may be immediately evident. Some of the talents may need to be discovered. But whatever it takes to gracefully navigate our life journey, we haven’t provided that.
That is Krishna’s arrangement. We may need to develop some talents more but we have what it takes. So if we have this spiritual understanding of life then we will not get caught simply by craving for certain glamorized talents.
But rather we will focus on whatever talents we have and we will develop those talents. So by recognizing, by accepting that everybody has been given some gifts. That way we can avoid this negative self-talk.
So if we focus too much this person can do this, this person has that. When our vision is on others too much we feel insecure, we feel envious. But when our vision is focused on service to Krishna then we start seeing it is that I have for serving Krishna.
So by connecting ourselves more strongly in devotion to Krishna we can overcome this rejection. How do I make healthy relationships in material social circles if they are defined by materialism? Yeah. Actually we do have a professional life, an academic life where we need to relate with people who are materialistic.
At the same time in every relationship there are, whether it is explicitly spoken or not, there are terms of the relationship. And sometimes we let others define those terms too much. But it doesn’t have to be like that.
That means that say when we are dealing with others, you know, if they start talking about certain things which we are not interested in, start talking about say some anti-devotional things, you know, we can just maybe at that time stop talking about those things. But they may or may not respect it. But we have made our position clear.
And then if they are again talking about this we can just switch off. We can just start doing our work not paying attention. And basically we we spend a lot of time thinking about what other people are thinking about me.
Actually, let’s turn it around. And how much do we think about other people? You know, this person was dressed like this. Why did they dress like that? What were they thinking about? We have our own life.
And we have so many things to think about in our life. How much do we really think about other people? So, we would not worry so much about what other people thought about us if we knew how little other people thought about us. Nobody has time to think too much about others.
Everybody is busy in their own lives. So, if you just recognize that actually everybody’s life is a movie. And in their life’s movie they are the hero.
And we are simply extras. So, in their life’s movie we are simply extras. You know, in a movie, how many people notice what is the costume that an extra is wearing? See, like that people really don’t have time to worry, people don’t have time to think about what we are doing.
So, it is we only who take it too seriously. If we just decide to be ourselves people will push us a little bit. But afterwards this person is like this, they will accept it.
So, we can to some extent set the terms of our relationship with others. And not in an arrogant, not in a morally patronizing sense that you are wrong and I am right. This is the way I live.
I am not interested in these things. And if we set the boundaries, I am saying in English that good fences make good neighbors. So, like that if we set fences in our relationship properly then we can have people with very different world views.
They can be good friends. You know, online there are some Muslims who are very good friends of mine. And we focus on the commonalities.
And we know we have our differences. We don’t mind that so much. So, if we set the fences then we can have relationships as are required in our maternal life also without too much difficulty.
It’s microscopic. I really want to save space. How do we overcome depression due to due to can you read this? Relationship and expectations.
What is the first word? What is the first K? Grades, pressure, relationships and expectations. Okay. So, how do we overcome depression that may be caused by these things like grades, grades, pressure, relationships and expectations? Yeah.
Depression is a is a big problem in today’s world. And in some cases it may be because of a neurological problem. If there is some structural problem or if there is some chemical deficiency then it may need to be clinically treated.
In such cases the often the tendency in today’s world is to pathologize human problems. And you know trying to take a pill to solve every problem every every unpalatable feeling that we get that doesn’t work simply makes leads to chemical dependency. So, in special cases we may need some medical treatment.
But in general it is more of a change of the focus of our thoughts. See, all of us have a mental home. Just as we have a physical home where we go and stay.
Like that we all have a mental home. That means when we are not doing anything when we are not consciously thinking of something what are we thinking about? Now, that mental home can be energizing or it can be draining. So, if my mental home is you know, how good do I look? Oh no, they look better than me, they look better than me.
And we by the negative comparison we start feeling we start feeling drained. So, the whole process of Bhakti Yoga is not just about chanting some mantras or attending some programs. All that is fine.
The ultimate purpose of Bhakti Yoga is to change our mental home. Is to make Krishna our mental home. dhautātmā puruṣāḥ kṛṣṇa-pāda-mūnaṁ namo yati muktaḥ sarva-parikṣeṣa-pāṇḍha-sva-śaraṇam yatha Bhagavatam says that just as a travel weary person when they come back home they just feel relief, they feel joy.
Like that a devotee when the thoughts come back to Krishna the devotee feels at home. The devotee feels comfortable. So, if we make if by the practice of Bhakti we make Krishna our mental home that means when we have nothing to think about consciously we just try to bring our thoughts to Krishna.
It may be it may be we may hear some nice kirtan we have some attractive photos of Krishna we may think of some service to Krishna whatever it is that way this mental home that we have that will shelter us. Otherwise we will have some kind of some some socially defined parameter which becomes our mental home and that will drain us. So, at a fundamental level depression is because Krishna is not our center something else is our center.
And then as per that center whatever we have if we are not up to the mark we feel depressed. But when we have Krishna as our center now Krishna’s love for us doesn’t depend on who we are. Krishna’s love for us is based on who he is.
He is pitaham asya jagato mata dhata pitama He loves everyone irrespective of how we are who we are. Now of course Krishna’s love for us doesn’t depend on who we are. But our experience of his love depends on who we are.
That means the sun is always giving light. But if my eyes are closed I can’t see the sun. Similarly Krishna always loves us.
But if we are too infatuated with something materialistic then we see Krishna’s love only if that thing is fulfilled and if that thing is not fulfilled we feel Krishna doesn’t love me. Krishna doesn’t care for me. So then we can’t pursue Krishna’s love.
So ultimately if we center ourselves on Krishna that will give us a security a sense of security a sense of strength that can uproot depression at its at its base. Now that is our ultimate solution and practicing bhakti is very important. Along with that if we find ourselves getting depressed now we have to monitor our association.
There are some people who just like to pass negative comments about others. Often a cause of depression is depressing people. So if we find that there are certain people who just speak and act in ways that depresses us then we need to keep a safe distance from them.
We respect them but we keep a distance from them. Because the see the whole point of expectations that others have expectations are meant to bring the best out of us. Expectations are not meant to crush us.
They are not meant to burden us. So it’s natural in every relationship we have expectations. But the expectations need to be expressed in a way that inspires us and doesn’t burden us.
If somebody is doing that then we have to find some some circle some friends who accept us for what we are. Yes we all want to become better but friends who accept us for what we are in that association when we are not constantly being judged not constantly being measured constantly being evaluated then we get some security. And in this connection it’s very important for us to find out our strengths.
We live we live in a culture where much education is standardized. So say everybody will be rated according to some grades and we may or may not have the talents to do particularly well in the grade rating system. But if we are aware of our talents and we can gradually move our career towards the areas where we are talented.
So becoming aware of ourselves How do we know what is our talent? Two things basically. If there is something which we feel comfortable doing yes I just like doing this. And secondly if we are competent doing that.
We like to do something and we are good at doing that. We can assume that this is a place where I have my talents. Krishna says Guna Karma Vibhagash People are divided according to their qualities and activities.
Qualities means we feel comfortable doing it. Activities means we are competent doing it. So that way if we find what we are talented at then that itself gives us a sense of self worth.
And that self worth which we get from there that helps us to counter the depression. So overall by cultivating the spiritual Krishna at the center of our consciousness by keeping a distance from people who depress us by their heavy burden of expectations and by trying to understand and focusing on our talents we can counter depression. So are there any other questions or should we stop here? It’s been quite a long session.
Any other final words? So thank you very much for your kind attention for your thoughtful questions. Pray Krishna. So if anyone is interested Brogy is also an author of about 20 books and a lot of his wisdom and more can be found in those books.
So we also have a few of those books here as well today. So if you’re interested in those in any of that material please see myself. They’ll be up here.
I’ll speak a few minutes about the books so that they can know what is there. Take out one one copy of each. So this is especially I would say suited for for people at your age.
This is Mind It, 64 Reflections on Managing the Mind. It’s based on seven verses from the Bhagavad Gita. Explains how the mind works and how to deal with it.
It’s frequently unanswered questions. It talks about God created everything, who created God. Is there any objective proof that reincarnation is for real, God is for real.
So 52 questions like that are there over here. This is, I think there’s one more box or some other books. The Spiritual Scientist.
This is, as I mentioned, I write articles in Times of India and various other newspapers. These are articles which are published in various newspapers. They are combined together over here in this book.
This is the Searching Eye. It’s basically spiritual wisdom, how it helps us to make sense of life in today’s world. Say, we see suicide, we see chronic depression, we see sexual violence.
So these things, the phenomenon prevalent in society, how can spiritual wisdom help us to make sense of it and be a part of the solution. yeah, Spiritual Scientist Volume Series 1 and 2 is two similar articles. This is some of the older articles which are published in Times of India and Series 2 is second set of articles.
So we have these books. If any of you want, please feel free to have these books. And as I mentioned, I also have a website called Gita Daily where you can subscribe and you will get daily a small article on the Gita.
We also have audio and a video in case you prefer that. And the subscription is free and you can connect with the wisdom of the Gita thereby. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna.