Two ways to realization: as sudden illumination and as gradual awakening

Brahmachari class at ISKCON, Melbourne

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you so much. So I will speak on the topic of realization as sudden illumination and realization as gradual awakening.
We all talk about realizations and we need to get realizations of the truths of Krishna consciousness. So what exactly is a realization? Realization is that which is a reality. We accept it to be a reality.
In this world you call it but we our mind especially think that all there is so much pleasure in this world. So when we accept or rather our mind accepts this world is actually a place of misery then that is a realization. So now this realization to understand it in a more analytical way.
See this is a soul. The soul acquires knowledge through pratyaksha and it’s sold as anuman based on the pratyaksha and then there is shabda which we hear from shastra. So when so quite often our pratyaksha and our shabda are contradictory.
Shabda tells us sense gratification means misery. Pratyaksha tells us there is so much pleasure in sense gratification. So there is this conflict between pratyaksha and shabda and the link between these two is done through our anuman through our thinking essentially there is perceiving with the senses there is thinking with the mind there is hearing from scripture.
So anuman that is shastra mulak shastra mulak means that is based on shastra. Anuman that means anuman we often use the word negatively anuman but anuman itself is not negative. If anuman can mean speculation that is which is contradictory scripture that is negative.
But anuman can also be used positively in the market of bhagavad dharma. Prabhupada says Prabhupada says Krishna you must have brought me here for some purpose. I guess like that.
I do the anuman that you must have brought me here for some purpose. Otherwise why would you get me in such a terrible place. So the point is that anuman when it is used in Krishna’s service when it is done So as I said sense gratification scripture tells us it leads to misery but the world shows us so many examples of how sense gratification leads to or promises pleasure.
So now we get realization when our pratyaksha harmonizes with shabda means what that is scripture has told us to be reality we experience it to be a reality we observe it witness it through our pratyaksha and we internalize it so that means to get realization we may perceive so for example say male-female relationships the whole romance industry runs by glamorizing there’s so much pleasure over there but even in our daily life we interact we see observe situations where where male-female relationships go terribly wrong and there are divorces and there are heartbreaks and there are sometimes sometimes violent things also happen so now often when these sort of incidents happen our mind is like padmapatra mivambhasa so Krishna says we should not be touched by material contamination but our mind is not touched by material frustration that means whenever we see such incidents we say okay maybe this is the exception there is so much enjoyment there are so many other people who are enjoying this happened this is so boring but there are so many other places things will work out right so that way our mind keeps us engaged so what we need to do is so realization means when our pratyaksha confirms our shabda what we observe and we see that this is called shabda but in pratyaksha we observe many things so when we do our anuman in such a way that we can harmonize our pratyaksha with shabda then that’s how we get realizations let’s see what this means that we have to do our anuman anuman means our thinking has to be done such a way that whatever we see in pratyaksha we are able to harmonize with what we have heard in shabda so for example Prabhupada worked so hard to run his business and suddenly he lost everything he could have argued in the typical maybe semi devotional you know doesn’t God care for me does God even exist why did God do this to someone who is trying to be devoted to him but Prabhupada what he do that incident happened to him the thinking that he did was in such a way that he harmonized the pratyaksha with shabda what are that this is Krishna special mercy on him Krishna takes away everything from a devotee so that the devotee can become more dependent on him this is what especially ambiya sadhaka means Krishna sadhaka in the renounced order need to do to be able to not be misled by what we see around in the world in the world we may see lot of promise of sense pleasure but if you observe carefully we will also see some incidents of frustration in the pursuit of sense pleasure now what we focus on is important we focus on what the promise of sense pleasure or the appearance of sense pleasure that is there then you may think why am I giving up all this why am I taking to renunciation we focus on the the incidents of frustration that are there of course as devotees our primary purpose for taking to the renounced order is not just frustration with material life but there is difference there is frustration and there is futility frustration means in one particular search we did not get the result so you say I am frustrated but futility means to recognize that there is nothing there so frustration may or may not come but the realization of futility needs to come that it’s not that so quite often especially in places like Mayapur and other places where the poor Bengalis come and they join Skaunas Brahmacharis and the reason why they join is because they feel that actually Brahmachari life is better than their poverty stricken life and they say no they can actually sing and play Madana and for them it is basically Brahmachari actually joined because of the hope for material improvement and from there they may think that they will go to America or somewhere and become Pujaris over there and then they believe that also and they just try to become they may become what car cleaners in America they could have been Pujaris of DT but they end up outside like that now this is not to criticize anyone but the simple point here is that they for them their conception is actually material life is enjoyable but it is unachievable laughing so so because the enjoyable material life is unachievable so they take out the renounce order and then whenever the enjoyable material life seems to become more achievable they give up the enjoyment they give up the spiritual life whatever renounce order they have taken but for a serious sadhaka they give up material life not because it is too big to achieve but because it is too small to pursue it is too small to pursue yes there is some pleasure there but little pleasure as compared to the huge amount of trouble that is required in pursuing that so it’s not worth it if we have this idea that sometimes it may be that because of frustration we may take to spiritual life it’s fine so that is the initial motive and if that is the motive that that is what is primarily taking us on then after sometime we will get we will find that frustration in spiritual life also then where will we go again back to material life so frustration can be initial motive like in mathematics we have something like which is necessary but not sufficient so some amount of frustration is required in material life but it is the necessary but not sufficient if that is the only motive we have then we can’t continue for long and there is about the so I talked about getting realizations basically we have to think in such a way think means use our thinking faculty in such a way with the prateksha we are able to harmonize each of them so somebody in materialistic life we see that they are enjoying is it possible that they are enjoying in material life yes, temporarily it’s possible Ravana when he was ruling Lanka he had a golden kingdom and he was ruling for a good amount of time but for some time he was enjoying after that there was frustration so like that whatever we see with our senses we can’t live in the world with closed eyes but whatever we see with our senses we need to have the shastric intelligence to harmonize with each other then gradually realizations will come that’s why Prabhupada says that a devotee this is a materialistic speculative a devotee is thoughtful speculative materialistic speculative means Prabhupada writes in Krishna book that materialistic people speculate with their mind about new schemes to enjoy their tongue and their genitals basically the speculation is how can I enjoy my senses better that’s the primary thing that they focus on devotees are thoughtful devotees understand the nature of the world understand what I should be doing in life that thoughtfulness is very helpful for us if we want to pursue in the renounced order steadily now coming to the topic about realization this is how we get realizations when our pataksha harmonizes with shabda or we make the effort to harmonize our pataksha with shabda so realization can come in two ways one is as a sudden illumination and the other is as a gradual awakening so sudden illumination is some experience happens you know we may have some close friends certainly that person had a terrible accident or that person gets paralysis something like that is here somebody is young and healthy one of my close friends and he became a brahmachari in the hostel because one of his close friends he was a complete materialist he used to enjoy and you know he got ill and a person who was like attracting all the girls in six months he became like a rotting corpse he was shaken about it he felt that no its not like a sudden illumination so all of us get some jolting experiences and there is sudden illumination that happens and when that sudden illumination comes sudden illumination means something which is the reality of this world the upheavals of this world bring them forward as a forceful reality so one devotee was there my friend he was actually in Chopari temple and he was just about 100 meters away from the place where the terrorist attacks happened in Mumbai the terrorist attacks happened so he was not very far from that place so he just it was he wrote an article about it that it’s so many where he was living there at that time so Radha Atma was once there in Radha Gopinath temple at that time there was an earthquake and suddenly when the earthquake it was in the early morning maybe 3 o’clock or something like that the devotee was just waking up some devotee was open some devotee was not open and they were in their like this we have multiple beds there are multiple beds everybody Hare Krishna loudly now the next morning Maharaj came when the earthquake was going on Maharaj said I could hear everywhere people chanting Hare Krishna so I was praying to Krishna Hare Krishna let the earthquake go on so this is the example of how sometimes certain events happen and they awaken us they force us to recognize the reality of the world they force us to practice bhakti seriously or take to the practice of bhakti seriously this also happens when we are able to see things in context otherwise what is this maybe terrorist attack can happen we just increase more security of the temple we try to learn self-defense or whatever we may go in those directions also but if you have philosophical understanding then jolting events in material life they make us more sober and serious about bhakti and whenever such events happen it’s important to meditate on them and try to internalize what we have what has come as a sudden forceful realization at that time to internalize that is important I find your learning very helpful for this especially if you have impactful experiences some very powerful thoughts the impact of those thoughts will go away over a period of time but if we write it down because sometimes even if I after five years I remember the same event this remembrance of that same event may not arouse the same thoughts the same feelings the same inspirations as they aroused at that time so if we write down what thoughts feelings inspirations came up because of that then we can revisit them and get strength from them that is realization as a sudden illumination which happens because of the nature world’s unpredictable nature when it when something happen over now this can also be positive sometimes you say we work very hard and we realize that actually I alone couldn’t have achieved it certainly I work hard but I alone couldn’t have achieved it so when we achieve something sometimes we get that realization that I am a part of something much bigger than me and that something which is much bigger than me that is moving me and therefore through me wonderful things are happening so that time this can be positive inspiring realization also and that can also inspire especially now this 50th anniversary celebration happening now we can see Prabhupada’s movement how it is forward so in the Christian tradition there are Protestants and there are Catholics so Protestants are very strongly against monkhood they say that it’s unnatural but Catholics still have monks within them and Pope John Paul too he was a strong advocate of continuing monkhood in Catholicism and basically the high level priests in the churches they in the Catholic Church are all monks so there is a strong movement that no actually those priests can also be non-monks they can be laity also so he has been opposing it so he made a statement that actually the no to sex is a tangible way for us to express our yes to God so why no to sex because it is the biggest pleasure in this world and not the biggest pleasure but it is the biggest obsession pleasure which becomes an obsession and distracts us from God so by saying no to that we can say yes to God so our purpose is not to say just no to worldly desires our purpose is to say yes to Krishna and when you want to say yes to Krishna I will conclude with one point we can have some questions after that that it is important that we have our priorities right suppose somebody is playing a tennis match so there is player A and player B now player A can win in two ways one is the player A hits a winner something which the player B cannot reach that’s one way to win but even the best of players cannot always hit winners and every time you try to hit a winner the player there is also chance of making greater chance of making an error because trying to hit at the corner so that the other player will not be able to reach if you try to hit the corner you may hit outside you may lose the point also so one way to win is by trying to hit winners the other way to win is by just keeping the ball in play and inducing the opponent to commit errors just keep the ball in play opponent is only going to do it opponent may commit errors so it’s not that this player always has to so if the player A’s victory depends on superlative play constantly nobody can play at a superlative level constantly then by trying to play superlatively constantly player A opens himself to errors and then then sometimes player A may defeat him even if player A is better than player B if player A always tries to hit winners and makes errors then eventually he will lose so on the other hand player A just keeps the ball in play and waits for player B also to commit errors and he can get some points that way sometimes he may hit winners also so the example I gave this for is that when we are battling with material desires now if our focus is on eliminating material desires no I should not be having any bad thoughts I should not be having these desires I should not be having these desires we focus on that’s like trying to hit winners trying to eliminate material desires but if we just focus on keeping the ball in play that means we focus on continuing the practice of bhakti we just keep practicing bhakti by that positive focus the negativity of worldly things will gradually weaken because if it’s not just that we are keeping the ball in play as long as we are practicing bhakti we are also becoming stronger by the practice of bhakti and our capacity to resist worldly desires also decrease no sorry it increases more and more worldly desires decrease and our capacity to resist also increase so in bhakti in our spiritual life there is change of desires and there is change of values change of so we have that famous verse of of yamunacharya yada uddhi mama cheta krishna padara vinde so he says that when i think about krishna then after that thought of sense desire comes in my mind i try to we try to say no to them we try to reject them the temptations will come we don’t have to welcome we don’t have to welcome so that for us as sadhakas if we try to focus too much on change of desire we start thinking oh why is this desire coming why is this desire coming we unnecessarily become discouraged but if we focus on changing our values then we will see that bhakti has changed our values it has actually changed our values earlier you know if some alluring object comes people go into samadhi you know just try to extract every drop of visual pleasure that they can get by seeing that object but now as sadhakas we turn our eyes away from them we may also feel attracted but also some intelligence is awakened and we turn our eyes away we don’t do what does this mean values have changed and this change of values itself represents the gradual awakening how do these values change it’s a gradual awakening that is happening by the steady practice of bhakti the gradual awakening is changing our values so if we keep practicing bhakti realizations will come in both ways as realizations keep coming as they become stronger and stronger then krishna becomes a very tangible reality for a devotee yesterday i gave a class krishna is realer than reality krishna is the world we say is real it’s reality but actually krishna is the reality that is foundational to all this reality he is realer than reality and as we keep practicing bhakti we start realizing worldly things worldly success comes worldly pleasure comes worldly pain comes but my conviction that krishna is my greatest treasure and that conviction when it comes then the world ups and downs cannot shape us much they will affect us but they will not agitate us or worry us we will be concerned but we will not be disturbed by them and we can move on towards krishna steadily after that this is the supreme lord in our heart when we perceive his presence as a reality then all doubts go away all desires end all fruitive activities stop and then we march straight towards krishna this happens by a combination of the sudden illumination and the graduality so i’ll summarize i started by focusing on what is how do we get realizations realization means that which is the reality we accept it to be a reality and that requires realization realization happens when our pataksha becomes harmonized with shabda and for that we need to reorder our thinking so normal speculation is anuman but if in the anuman when the thinking the reasoning the inferring of the mind is directed around shabda that is vichara so when we think in such a way that we harmonize the pataksha with shabda that becomes a realization and we discuss further about how we may get realizations through sudden illumination and such altering things happens in our life when we get see how people mature people are actually miserable how death can come at any time this can come at any time or conversely when we see that something wonderful happens and we are part of it and we realize that something bigger than me is acting through me is engaging and also we get the realization yes i should continue on working any other example that columbus ohio where boy was contemplating suicide then we discussed about realization as gradual awakening that means that yes the sun is rising gradually but we realize it has risen at one particular point like that every day if we are practicing bhakti realizations are awakening in our heart purification is happening and this gradual realizing gradual awakening that happens that is manifest not through the change of desires so desires keep coming in this world because we are exposed to similar but it is manifest to the change of values instead of looking forward to something we look away from that same thing as the values change and through realizing coming to both the awakening and the awakening and the illumination we move onward straight towards Krishna and we are gradually realized that this world is real but Krishna is more foundational reality he is realer than reality thank you any questions comments and it’s late night and I don’t want to prolong the class too much yes so you spoke about how we write write down all the all the sudden illuminations and and you also mentioned similar similar thing in the making the journal and so first question is that life in ashram can be quite demanding most of the times and sometimes you get the sudden illuminations but then things are moving so fast they just get carried away and sometimes you just completely forget so many of these sudden realizations that might strike or illuminations might strike but then we just lose them and that’s one and sometimes we I have personally written down some things here and there but then in the long run keeping track of them is kind of has become little harder so just if you could share how you have done it okay so so given a fast-paced life in the ashram how can we actually find time to keep track of to write it down we have so many things to do how to write down our realizations and how to keep track of them actually yes our life can be very fast and what I do is sometimes if I get a good thought if I am not able to write it down I just record it just one not as powerful but at least some ideas remain and later on that can be added and secondly it is not necessary that we have to keep track of all our realizations it is that some things just like we sometimes compile our notes many times we have notes in our classes but how many of the notes do we refer not much but still just even the act of making notes increases our concentration so without hearing maybe without making notes we may have similar 20% or 50% with notes we assimilate 40% or 70% or 80% whatever so like that just noting down is also way in which we are remembering Krishna it is like when we our whole life is devotedly oriented and then we try to write some realization then we are actually remembering Krishna by remembering how Krishna is acting in our life or by trying to understand how Krishna is acting in our life journal can be either report or it can be also exploration what is happening in my literature try to make sense of it so that way it is not necessary to keep track of everything and sometimes we might just after writing something this is really very good we just take one sentence out and put it somewhere so I usually nowadays I am only in a computer because then it is very easy to cut paste and get sync between computer and phone or whatever but in general it is not necessary that we have to keep track of general just the act of writing itself increases our focus increases our contemplation increases our connection with Krishna at least for that time just like most of the time when we hear classes how many of the classes do we remember that but at least during the period of the classes we are connected with Krishna we have remembered Krishna at that time similarly during the period of journaling at least I find that when I write writing is my main self writing is the time when I am most absorbed in Krishna even when I am speaking I am not absorbed in Krishna because speaking I am observing how people respond and I have to try to think of that and adjust my presentation but in writing I am completely absorbed so that absorption once I ask Jai Dev Maharaj how do we define success in writing Maharaj says Krishna is glorified that is the success that is true we try to glorify Krishna and that is the purpose of our life of course we would like to glorify in a way that people also come to know about Krishna’s glories and people become attracted to Him but that is a secondary result we focus on glorifying Krishna and in one sense when we are writing down his illuminations that is also glorification of Krishna because we are writing down how Krishna acted in our life or how we see how Krishna acted in the world around us so just the process itself is important we don’t necessarily need to have a product tangibly visible from the process the process itself will deepen our connection with Krishna we were mentioning about this desires how we might try to get it happen but change them to spiritual desires and I just had the opportunity to read few things about mind how desires are generated from desire perception just to clarify my understanding in what I read is these desires when they appear they come from the subconscious mind and when the mind is too much agitated those desires from subconscious mind are transferred to the active state and then we act on them and that’s how the whole cycle starts appearance is called vatana which is already there called samskara so the subconscious mind is there like a technical term in shastra so that’s one question I remember saying causal karana sharira I couldn’t understand is there that term so sometimes when reading about the mind you can come across terms like subconscious mind is there something shastric about this and also karana sharira so is there also any scriptural reference for this see first thing is that scripture and modern science or generally modern thought systems they look at the world from different frames of reference and that’s why you may not find exact coincidence between them just like we have ayurveda and allopathy they look at the same human body from different frames of reference so in allopathy if you try to find out where is kapha vata pitta you can’t just find it that model is different that’s why we may not be able to find exact correlates but the but the concept of a subconscious mind that is perfectly valid subconscious mind what it basically means is that there is certain things in our mind which we are conscious of and there is much that we are not conscious of and the whole point that that which is the disposition that becomes a destination that becomes manifest in next life the disposition that is cultivated in this life becomes the destination of the person next life so that is actually what does it mean when I see myself or when you see yourself we don’t really know who we were or what was our disposition in our previous life but that is manifested in this gross form so the underlying this gross form is a lot more which is not visible so the mind what all impressions are there even from our Vedic perspective some of those impressions are manifested as a present body but many other impressions are also driving us and they manifest as a future body or the concept of impressions being there in the mind which are not yet manifest to us that is a perfectly acceptable Vedic conception so in that sense even if there is no term for subconscious mind the concept is perfectly fine and the example of sometimes how do bubbles occur in a still water when somebody throws stones that causes bubbles sometimes fermentation occurs deep inside that’s how bubbles also come so both ways that means our consciousness is like that water body so sometimes some sense objects see externally that’s like throwing the stone inside and then agitation happens and sometimes even if we don’t see anything suddenly we start feeling agitated that’s because fermentation is happening from within some desires of the subconscious are coming out of so that way agitation can happen both so in principle the idea of subconscious mind is compatible with our Vedic understanding now Karana Sharira Sankhya is in itself a whole body of knowledge Yoga is also a different body of knowledge and actually these two the way these two come together for example Sankhya we have various elements now Sankhya itself does not talk about chakras you have various chakras in the body and then you have the prana which moves up the chakras these two are actually different frames of reference and of course there are some thinkers in the Indian tradition who have tried to bring about Sankhya and Yoga together but they are not necessarily they are not the same system basically they also look at the world from different ways Yotram has written a book called six systems of philosophy and there he has gone reasonably deep not very deep but it is spoken at a particular time in history and that time certain terms were used certain concepts were known and scripture addresses the eternal audience but it also addresses specifically the audience which is there just like simply say like I am giving this class so I am recording the class so others will also be hearing the class but this class is primarily meant for you so like that so there is a particular context which is important and that’s why in general if you see Prabhupada’s presentation Prabhupada did not get into technicalities of any terms Prabhupada spoke principles and Prabhupada spoke about conclusive practices so now if we have specific interest in technical terms we need to find out those devotees who are interested in technical terms and we can study them but for our basic understanding and practice of bhakti we don’t necessarily need to go into the technicalities of various things so karana sharira in this background basically my understanding of karana sharira is that karana means cause so basically it refers to that aspect of certain body where the impressions are stored and from which they become the cause of the next body so we could say roughly it equates with the mind but it’s not the whole of the mind in the sense that not every single impression that is there in the mind will lead to the manifestation of the next body certain predominant impressions will lead to the manifestation of the next body so that so we have garuda purana also says this prabhupada did not talk about this so much but garuda purana says that when we move from this body to next body at that time when the soul goes around the soul acquires in between a body that is subtler than the gross body and grosser than the subtle body and with that body it moves on and then it attains the gross body and that intermediate body goes away this happens not in all cases in some cases Prabhupada also talks in few places about the punishment body the soul goes to hell the soul gets a body which is meant primarily for punishment now what exactly is in this body these are technical things we understand the principle underlying it is that a soul has to be accountable for whatever karma it has done specifically how that happens technicality if you get into it it will be we will have to study a lot of things which are not otherwise relevant some devotees they like to quote a lot of Sanskrit sounding terms in their classes and people think oh you know so much shastra but actually yes it’s possible that person may really be knowing shastra no offense to them but the point is how much are those terms relevant today we live in a particular particular world and we have brought up in brought up in a particular way of education and particular way of thinking so if the concepts are relevant to us and the concepts apply to us that is important but just getting into technicalities of things that may not be so helpful of course if we find it inspiring that’s perfectly fine but we shouldn’t think that as a part of my bhakti study I have to understand all these things no as a part of a bhakti study we need to understand how to practice bhakti and how to understand how to remember krishna how to focus on krishna and it’s although every verse in the bhagavatam is important it’s not that every verse in the bhagavatam is is going to kindle our remembrance of krishna in the same way it can if we have that realization but at our level of realization now for prabhupada he could go on the bowery streets and he could see oh this is Vaikuntha you know we don’t see Vaikuntha so prabhupada with his realization can see krishna in every bhagavatam verse also but for us if we make a difference if I am studying too much about say the universal structure is this really true how could it be true if that is what is the thought that is occupying my mind constantly then how much how much we are thinking of krishna in that so if technicalities interest us if technicalities nourish us if we have a forum where we can share the technicalities and benefit others from our knowledge that’s fine but otherwise we shouldn’t think that studying the technicalities is important or essential or indispensable for my practice of bhakti we focus on whatever is favorable in our practice of the central practice of bhakti that’s what we focus on does it answer your question so thank you very much see you then yeah govind how much time what exactly you mean by mental health okay yeah so how to stay mentally healthy or stable not getting agitated by either the desire that come up or the uncertainties that come up about whether we have made the right choice or not see you bye this world is a place of misery that’s true for everyone whichever ashram one is now for us sadhakas if we live in the renounced world quite often our mind uses a lot of problems and often the mind’s problems are more than for the world’s problems also because see the world is going to give its problems if we interact with the world more and more and the world gives us problems through the interaction in the world so if I have a family then I have to deal with the family’s mind and senses also and somehow my karma comes through them but when I’m not interacting so closely with others then most of my karma has to come through my own mind so sometimes it may appear as you know I’m a brahmachari but my mind is more agitated than other people it’s not exactly like that it is just that the circumstances are such that we are not interacting so much with the world so therefore the interaction the agitation that are due they may come through certain sources such as the mind but regarding staying mentally healthy we all have to recognize firstly our capacity that means say if somebody can lift 20 kg weight and that person sees somebody else oh they are lifting 40 kg weight he can also lift 40 kg weight I’ll enjoy myself so all of us have different levels of mental capacity also how much anxiety can we take how much burden we can take how much say exposure to agitating stimuli we can take so if you find that our capacity can also increase over time but we shouldn’t think that that will happen over time so since we take care of our bodily health we find that something is agitating us too much we may not be able to give it up but we can try to create some arrangement by which we can regulate that agitation some service troubles us too much within that service also we can okay maybe if I don’t do service but I’ll take some breaks in between or I’ll do something else in between or whatever we think in that way if we think that my mental health is my responsibility okay I’m in this situation I have to do this service how can I keep myself as calm as possible some agitations are now already but within that how can I keep myself as calm if I think like that then I will be able to find ways actually when we try to whatever service is there if we try to improve that service not improve that service necessarily we improve things in that service but try to improve our doing that service also not just in terms of the quality of the product we are getting through the service but also improve in terms of how we try to improve our consciousness while doing that service and the attempt to improve actually gives us the realization of the padam buddhi yogam tamena vama payam tatha I can do this so we will see that we take the responsibility I have to take care of energy health then you will find ways in which you can do that second thing is that with respect to our decision the mind will mind specializes in making us miserable so whatever we do the mind is not going to allow us to be peaceful you may think oh maybe I became a machaj I am not right but you know you become a brahastan oh I made a big mistake so what happens is the mind is not going to allow us to be peaceful it will always find some reason to be dissatisfied there are some people who are who are you know in english called whiny whiny you know they are always complaining the mind is a whiny kind of person always going to complain this is not meant to say that whatever whatever is the opportunity that is always the right decision you may need to change the decision in the future the point is that when the mind starts second guessing things maybe it is right maybe it is wrong so at that time that is not a good time to do something worthwhile and that way you can calm the mind because the mind will keep on dissatisfied and when we see reasons around us for being satisfied whatever it is then we can counter the mind dissatisfaction yes last question for two questions okay um first one of course you spoke about the realization how obviously see the perfection through shabda and and that’s if i do come to realization um my understanding of realization was that it’s once it strikes then it kind of stays forever but but from this definition it feels like it’s like it’s an it’s an regular affair so every time you see something you have to compare it and and for so long as you’re able to do that you are in that realized position but when you’re not doing it okay you’re not so my question is how to sustain you know their position and grow from there and not kind of fall back okay so realization if we consider it as then it seems something which has to be repeatedly done again and again because realization is sometimes thought of as something which once you get it stays forever yeah both are true because in the subtle body which interfaces between what we are hearing from shabda or what knowledge we acquire from shabda and what we are getting through pratyaksha in the subtle body there is the mind and there is the intelligence both are there so when the intelligence gets it that is one level of illumination yeah now i understood it so sometimes some concepts you may not understand but after some time we hear some answer some point yeah it’s like illumination so when the intelligence gets it that’s also a big step forward but a bigger step forward is when the mind gets it that is at least if my intelligence i understand this is undesirable then i will try to resist it when the mind pushes against pushing towards that if my intelligence itself is not convinced then when the mind proposes i will immediately accept it so intelligence accepting it is one level of we could say internalization or realization and that requires repeated reminders so we hear again and again then we are reminded and let we could use the word here intellectual conviction that that becomes that stays and becomes stronger but at a particular time the mind gets it yes not much pleasure so for example we might have been eating meat but now we don’t feel allured by meat at all what happened the mind has got it no pleasure when the mind gets it and at that time we were studying bhakti so the mind getting it once it gets it it’s more or less permanent so that level of realization is much deeper and we also have got that level of realization in some cases some things but initially at least we cannot get that level immediately at least we have to get the intellectual level realization so it’s like a three-step process first there is intellectual conviction then there is the practice of bhakti and then there is the purification of the mind so the intellectual conviction that is also one level of realization that is what there must be some truth in it and by that we apply ourselves in the practice of the process of bhakti once we get the higher taste of bhakti and lower taste of other things is exposed and then there is nothing there that’s a deeper level of realization last question so in the retreat you mentioned I’m just trying to explain the question correctly but you mentioned about how mind gives you all the different challenges and sometimes we go like up and down and when we are going too much up and down we take up responsibility and that way you maintain steady graph I was just wondering I had a question then but it was not relevant for the class in the ashram what responsibilities do you suggest we should be taking on to have the steady graph moving up so what responsibilities can we have in the ashram to keep our mind’s sine wave from not shaking us from staying steady actually our daily sadhana itself is just applying us to the daily sadhana is not easy if we do that that itself brings a certain level of steadiness because even going through the externals of it on a regular basis is not easy it requires some level of subordination of the internal sine waves so that itself is strong but along with that if we can look within the ashram for something which which connects us with Krishna strongly it means I talked about the concept of deepander something which stimulates spiritual thoughts within us and by that we become that is one thing with which we connect with Krishna so once one devotee how do we become serious about Krishna consciousness somehow or the other so what he meant is that find out one thing in Krishna consciousness that you can become serious about and become serious about that one thing and from that one thing if you become serious we develop a connection with Krishna through that and gradually from that one thing once we get connected with Krishna we become purified and our connection with Krishna in other things will also expand so if you can just find out one thing yes this is studying scripture memorizing verses or reciting Vaishnav songs or doing this one thing this is something which really connects with Krishna and I will become committed about this one thing and you know we can also try to create some service around it if I find studying Bhagavatam very nice very nourishing for you then to be able to do that maybe I can create a Bhagavatam study circle where other devotees who are interested in Bhagavatam I can call them so our commitment doesn’t have to be self-centered we can try to relate that commitment in a way that we can also contribute to the community in some way and then we won’t face much opposition in doing that and how that can be adjusted that we can discuss with senior devotees think and plan ourselves but if we can find that one thing which we can commit ourselves to through that we can do many other things and gradually our stability in one limb of bhakti will gradually bring stability to all of our bhakti that’s how that that that the circum the magnitude or the scope of our connection to Krishna will gradually expand we need one place where we connect with Krishna first and then from there we can expand the scope gradually when enemy attacks enemy first they are coming into enemy territory they first get what is called a beachhead if a if a ship is attacking a coastal area then they want to first land at one place and that is that place they captured from there they can send their troops inside and they can conquer much more so like that we have to find out one beachhead one place we try to conquer this is one thing which I can do in Krishna bhakti and through that through becoming committed in that we can expand our commitment elsewhere