Understanding the unborn’s understandings 5 – Why is the embryo’s prayer not answered

[Bhagavatam class on 3.31.21 at ISKCON, Denver, USA]

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna! So today we come to the last session on this understanding the unborn’s understandings.
And for me personally this section was the most difficult to understand. Some of the sections were what I had talked in the previous sessions. How can an unborn child have consciousness enough to pray, to speak prayers? That requires some philosophical reconciliation of science and philosophy.
But this question for me was devotionally challenging. Why? Because the child is fervently praying that my dear lord I don’t want to fall in illusion. Let me stay in misery.
I want to stay in love. And what happens? He still falls into illusion. He despite offering such heartfelt prayers amid such distress it seems as if the prayer is not answered.
It seems despite the prayers that the soul again falls into illusion. The soul is put in a situation where again illusion is thrust on it. So is the lord not answering the prayer? I have asked many senior devotees about this and got some understanding that I will share today.
So basically devotion can have three broad aspects. There is situation, action and intention. So when we have no alternative and then we surrender to god.
That is good but that is not really love. That’s helplessness. It’s good at least you are turning toward god but that is not really love.
It’s like say if a boy proposes to a girl please marry me. Now if the girl, why do you want to marry? Imagine the boy says actually nobody else is ready to marry so you please marry me. That is not going to be a very appealing proposal.
The girl wants to know did you find me attractive? You want to be with me? Not because I was your last alternative and nothing else worked so you came to me. So similarly if nothing else works and we turn toward god it’s good that we are turning toward him but that is not really serious, it’s not really love. So what I talked about situation, action and intention.
So when the situation is helpless and that time we turn toward god it is good but that is not yet love. So what is required for us to connect with Krishna is the intention. And of course there is intention here also but the intention is more based on one’s own inner inclination.
One’s own inner attraction. So what is happening to the child in the womb over here is that the child is based on situation because of utter helplessness turning towards god. And again that is good.
In helplessness so many people can turn towards so many other things and they do. They turn towards drugs, they turn towards alcoholism, they turn towards violence, they turn towards suicide. We could say the embryo is helpless and can’t do any of these things.
That’s okay but still it’s turning toward god. That’s credible. That’s praiseworthy.
But still that’s not enough. So what so real devotion our devotion is tested also when we have options and yet we choose Krishna. Not because we have no options and so we choose Krishna.
So it’s not that the lord is not answering the prayer. Rather just by offering that prayer by being absorbed in the remembrance of the lord the soul gets some solace. The soul gets some relief that the lord is with me.
I can turn towards him. All the suffering which I am going through there is a purpose. It can raise me to higher consciousness.
And the soul is raised to higher consciousness. But there is situational turning toward Krishna and there is intentional turning toward Krishna. I talked in one of my earlier classes about three ways of practising devotion.
Circumstantial devotion or situational devotion then intentional devotion and then there is spontaneous devotion. So circumstantial devotion is what is being exhibited by the child in the womb of the child. And it’s good when circumstantial devotion is there.
But then if we want to personally develop a relationship with Krishna, we have to consciously choose him even when we have options. And that is intentional devotion. Intentional devotion is usually practised with our intelligence.
Circumstantial devotion is practised simply because of helplessness. So by the practise of intentional devotion steadily we become purified. And when we become purified then eventually from spontaneous through intentional we come to sorry from circumstantial through intentional we come to spontaneous devotion.
And spontaneous devotion is what is the characteristic of the pure devotees. Spontaneous devotion is the basis of an eternal ecstatic relationship with Krishna. We always have an eternal relationship with Krishna but right now it might be more of a discipline than ecstasy.
But when we are spontaneously attracted to Krishna as the virtuosis are then that is the purpose and perfection of life. So we need to come to that level of spontaneous devotion and before that we have to practise intentional devotion. So it’s not the Lord has not answered the prayers.
Rather the Lord has accepted from situational devotion to intentional devotion. That is also a progression. And a progression requires a certain amount of graduation.
It’s like if a student is going from say high school to college. Now when a student is going from high school to college that means the student was successful in high school. That’s how they go to college.
University depending on what words are used. So similarly the soul is not that the soul is abandoned by Krishna. Rather the soul is now given an opportunity to be helpful.
To be helped to make a free choice. And it is that free choice in the presence of other options that the free choice of Krishna that indicates our seriousness of devotion. The purpose of this section is important to understand.
Everywhere in Bhagavatam the narrative is told with a particular purpose. Sometimes we are hearing a class and the speaker to us starts telling some story. Sometimes if they are not very coherent then while we are hearing the story we might be entertained but still we are also puzzled.
Why is the story being told? What is the point of this? So it is important not just to hear the point not to look for the point. It is also important to look for the point of the point. What is the point of saying this point? So here the principle the purpose of this section in the Bhagavatam is not primarily to demonstrate it is primarily to demonstrate how misery is there throughout all of existence.
And that’s why Srila Prabhupada says in his purport that even in the womb there is misery. Come out of the womb there is misery. Throughout life there is misery.
And it’s not that at death misery will end. It will continue even after that. Now of course many people find this a very pessimistic message.
So it just needs to be phrased appropriately. If you say the world is a place of misery it just seems so cold so pessimistic. But if you just phrase it in a different way you say life is tough.
Everybody life is tough. When we say life is tough we are actually stressing the same point. But what we are doing is it seems empathic.
We all find life is tough. But the world is a place of misery that makes it seem as if it’s just a philosophy of ideology of hopelessness. Because for most people there is no conception of any world beyond this world.
So that is one of the defining differences between the pre-modern and the modern times. In the pre-modern times whether it is India, whether it is Native America, whether it is Europe whether it is the Middle East everybody had to understand that there is a world beyond this world. And this world is just a place of journey from here you go to the next world.
But now that idea has been largely removed from the world view of most people. And that’s why if you say this world is a place of misery then existence itself is misery and that’s all there is to it. So it seems very pessimistic.
But if you just phrase it like life is tough you feel empathy. Yeah, my life is tough, your life is tough, everyone’s life is tough. So the same philosophical points we present appropriately then people can then we can relate with people.
So the point of this section is to tell us how life is tough throughout. Don’t have any illusions that life is wonderful. If you see the context specifically within the Bhagavatam at one level it is Kapiladeva who is speaking to Devahuti.
And life is tough for her also. She was a princess born in royalty and comfort and then she was married to a sage and she served him with great austerity for a long time. And then just after finally when her austerity was rewarded her husband at least noticed all that she was doing and wanted to reward her, her husband gave her a son and immediately left.
She could have felt forsaken. And now her son who is the only person for her in her life, he’s also going to leave. So of course there was a Kapila was living in an ashram and just like Sita lived in Valmiki’s ashram with other female hermits.
So like that Devahuti was taken care of. But the point was it was terrible. Her husband had gone and her son was going to leave her and go away.
So Kapila is telling this whole incident or this whole analysis to show that actually it’s not just you who have suffered. Life is tough for everyone. One of the easiest ways or one of the commonest ways the mind gets us is by getting us alone.
It makes us feel nobody is suffering the way I am suffering. And that’s how it makes us feel negative, feel hopeless. It is just the perverted sense of ego.
I want to be great, positively doing wonderful things or if not, then the mind wants to be great by talking about how greatly dreadful things are happening. But if you talk with anyone, if people open their heart, you will find that everybody has gone through such distresses in life. Gone through.
Sometimes people behave badly with us. Now, if we actually talked with them and knew where they were coming from, then we are shocked at how terrible people are. But if we came to know what all they have gone through, we wouldn’t be shocked how terrible they are.
We would be surprised why they are not worse than what they are. Actually, life is terrible and it is a testimony to human character that not everybody becomes degenerated because of life’s unfairness. It’s so easy to become bitter, to become resentful, to become violent, either violent toward the world or violent toward oneself in terms of taking up self-destructive habits.
The stress of this section is life is tough. And now we see this in a bigger context. Chukudev Goswami speaking to Parikshit Maharaj.
Life was tough for him also, terrible. For little or no fault, he was sentenced to die. So now, if we see the parallels, Parikshit Maharaj also prayed in the mother’s womb.
But in his context, it was somewhat different. In his context, what had happened was while he was in his mother’s womb, Ashwatthama had sent a deadly weapon. And that weapon, the Acharya described, would actually kill Parikshit.
But the Lord intervened with the Sudarshan Chakra and drove away the Brahmastra and revived Parikshit. So, that encounter with the Divine which Parikshit had is similar somewhat to the encounter with the Divine which this child in the womb has. The similarity is that there was an encounter with the Divine.
The difference is that there was an external danger from which the Divine intervened and protected. But, in this case, there is just internal misery. But, we see that with respect to the Lord’s protection.
The way the Lord protects is often mysterious. Yesterday, I talked about these four quadrants. Now, comfort and spirituality.
No comfort, no spirituality. Comfort, no spirituality. Spirituality, no comfort.
And spirituality and comfort. So, it’s best to be sustainably situated. We have a reasonable degree of comfort and yes, spiritual.
Sometimes, we are put in the situation of there is no comfort but we can be either spiritual or we can sink towards utter misery. So, these four quadrants, if you want to say. First is simply miserable.
No comfort, no spirituality. Then, if you have comfort but no spirituality, it is like comfortably miserable. Person is imagining they are happy.
And the third quadrant would be where there is no comfort but spirituality. That is, transcendentally absorbed. And here, you could say there is comfort and spirituality that is productively absorbed.
There is too much misery, we can just transcend the world. We could say, productively or transformationally absorbed. Our spirituality has two aspects to it.
Transcending the world and transforming the world. So, transcending the world means, this world is a place of distress. We just have to raise our consciousness beyond this world and get out.
But that’s not the only aspect of spirituality. Transcending the world is what is talked about in four lines in the Bhagavad Gita. Janma karma chamedyam.
But transforming the world is also talked about in the previous verse for a dharma samsthapana phaya sambhavam. So, Sri Prabhupada established the Krishna Consciousness Movement for both purposes. During our morning sadhana, during our classes, during our chanting, we are transcending the world.
Raising our consciousness above the world. But during the rest of the day, we are doing various practical services. So, at that time, we are engaged with the world.
We go into the world. And that is for transforming the world. So, both are required.
Transcending and transforming. So, if the misery is too much, if we are in a situation of no comfort and spirituality, then we can’t do anything to transform the world. Say, if we are in sick and in great pain, we can’t do any practical service.
All that we can do is chant Krishna’s names, get our mind somehow absorbed in them and try to transcend the pain. So, if we are to be productively engaged in the world, then we have to be more or less in the fourth quadrant. Then we can be transformationally absorbed in Krishna.
Here we need to be transcendentally absorbed. So, often, when we are in danger, we see here, I am trying to draw a parallel between Parishit Maharaj’s condition and the child in the womb’s condition. So, Parishit Maharaj was protected in the mother’s womb.
But now, this curse has come upon him. And if we see, as the Bhagavatam’s flow will go on, what will happen is, Parishit was cursed to die in seven days. And after seven days, he dies.
And you say, where is the protection? Where is the protection? See, the protection was that he did not go into the first quadrant. Krishna, the first quadrant of no comfort and no spirituality. Because of the curse, his comfort, what is because comfort? His life itself was going to be taken away from him.
But Krishna gave him the resources through Shukadeva Swami’s presence, through all the sages’ presence to become absorbed in Krishna. And when the Lord apparently doesn’t answer our prayer, or the Lord doesn’t protect us, it just means that the Lord in that situation wants us to become transcendentally absorbed. Not so much transformationally absorbed.
It happens so many times when Prabhupada tries something and it just doesn’t work. Prabhupada just accepted that and moved on. This is how life is.
Sometimes things don’t work. Move on. Of course, eventually, Krishna arranged that things work in extraordinary ways, Krishna Prabhupada.
And that’s how in 10-11 years, he was able to do unparalleled outreach work. But eventually, he did fall sick. And although he was chanting devotees all over the world and thousands, millions were praying for him, for his recovery.
But eventually, the body ran its own course and Prabhupada became transcendentally absorbed. So throughout his life, sometimes Prabhupada was transformationally absorbed where he had the word comforts might be a little negative, but comfort, I’m using the word, sense of resources. The necessary resources for functioning.
So when Prabhupada had the resources, Prabhupada had health, he had disciples, he had wealth. He was building temples, travelling across the world, doing extraordinarily transformational spiritual work. But when it was not there, when the basic resource, the health, was taken away, it was not that Krishna was not answering prayers.
Prabhupada was absorbing Krishna. And that very absorption was the proof of his devotion. Now, one evidence of his devotion was that he was travelling across the world, even in his old age, and sharing Krishna consciousness constantly.
And not only constantly, but potently, bringing about transformation. Extraordinarily unprecedented on him. But then when his body fell apart, then his absorption in Krishna was also the evidence of his devotion, exalted devotion.
So sometimes when Krishna doesn’t answer our prayers, it doesn’t mean that he is rejecting us. It just means that what it specifically means, it is very difficult to know. We may have to pray, seek guidance.
And maybe after the passage of time, we may realise. But we can know that Krishna is always with us. And Krishna is always there to answer every prayer.
The answer he gives may sometimes be such that it may be different from what we are looking for. So, one, I’ll conclude with this point, and then I’ll summarise. I wanted to give a whole picture of all that we have spoken in the five classes.
And then you can have questions. Surrender has many aspects to it. One essential aspect of devotion is surrender.
And one essential aspect of surrender is surrender of expectations. To be conscious beings means we all have expectations. If we speak politely with someone, we expect that the other person should speak politely with us.
And that person speaks rudely, we take it back, what happened? So, in a sense, in everything that we do, we have expectations. In every relationship, there are expectations. But the problem comes when the relationship becomes conditional to the expectation.
It’s like parents naturally will have expectations of children. When the parents go to their adolescence, their teens, their turbulent teens, then the children may not they are dealing with their own issues. Their hormones are rising, their peers are pressurising them.
They are trying to find out their own identity. And that time, they may not respond the way earlier they were doing. And the parents may be like, what is this? If the parents become very judgemental, unloving, critical, the child just becomes extremely lonely.
So, parents will naturally have expectations. Whether the child does the right, their children do the right thing or don’t do the right thing. But the relationship, especially if it’s a committed relationship like that, it has to be there irrespective of expectations fulfilled or not.
So, the same principle applies much more to our relationship with Krishna. That surrender means surrender of expectations also. That when I surrender to Krishna, this is natural, I am surrendering, I expect protection from Him.
Yes, but the way in which that protection may come, we can’t demand from Krishna that this is how you need to protect me. If you don’t protect me this way, then you don’t exist or you don’t care. That kind of demanding attitude is not really devotional.
Prabhupada says in a third canto, that a devotee always desires to see the Lord. But a devotee doesn’t demand to see the Lord. Who wouldn’t want, desire to have the personal darshan of the Lord? But if you start demanding, that is not devotional.
And if you are not desiring, where is the relationship? Where is the devotional? We obviously have to have devotion. So, naturally, when we are in danger, we will desire protection. We will expect protection.
But desiring or expecting, but not demanding. That is the mood of devotion. That is the mood of surrendered devotion.
So, inside the womb, amidst situation, the child turns towards the Lord. And that’s good that the child has at least turned towards the Lord. But when the child comes out of the womb, it is the responsibility of society, of the parents, of the rulers, of the spiritual leaders, of the teachers, to help the child again turn towards the Lord.
And, that is why, that is the mood of the Bhagavatam. One should not become a spiritual master, or a teacher, or a parent, unless one can deliver one’s dependence. Guru na sasyat.
Namo chayeti samupetam. If you cannot deliver. It’s not the Lord accepts the prayer, and the Lord helps the child to transcend the pain of that situation.
But we shouldn’t expect that just because of our devotion, Krishna will change the rules of the game. The rules of the game are this world is a place of distress. Just because we are devotees doesn’t mean we will not grow old.
If we are naive, then people will manipulate and exploit us. Because I was doing it for Krishna. Well, okay, you are doing it for Krishna.
But one part of doing it for Krishna is for doing it responsibly, being an expert. If you are careless about handling money, and somebody steals it. And you say, you know, I am doing it for Krishna.
Krishna should have protected it. Krishna has to protect it. It’s not that devotion means we expect Krishna to change the rules of the game for us.
Krishna can guide and empower us to play the game better. And Krishna can sometimes change the rules of the game also. But that is not the primary mode of the bhagavata.
Krishna doesn’t change the rule of the game for Parishit Maharaj in this stage. The curse by a brahmana, brahmana’s curses are almost un… you cannot counter them. Krishna doesn’t change the rule of the game.
What Krishna does is Krishna helps us to help Parishit Maharaj to raise his consciousness about the situation. So, a child in the womb, the natural course of the game, the rules of the game is that a child in the womb comes out. And when the child in the womb comes out, at that time, the child’s consciousness will be rooted through the body.
And because the body is very infantile, so naturally the child will not have any spiritual consciousness of that. So that, just because the game is progressing according to the rules of the game, doesn’t mean Krishna has forsaken us. See, devotion, if we think that my devotion should relate to Krishna changing the rules of the game, that’s an unrealistic expectation from Krishna.
That Krishna can do it, but that’s the exception. And that is not the mood of a devotee. They won’t demand from Krishna that Krishna change the rules of the game.
There is a story in the Bible that the devil tempts Jesus. And Jesus says, God is always protecting. So Jesus has gone on top of a mountain cave to meditate.
And the devil tells Jesus, okay, jump down from here. Let’s see if your God protects you. He says, I have not jumped down.
If you push me down, then God will protect you. It is not that I will do something foolish and then I demand that God protects me. That is not the game.
We have to act with as much responsibility and intelligence as we have. And if sometimes something goes wrong, Krishna will protect us. But we don’t demand that Krishna change the rules of the game for us.
So Krishna’s protection comes in different ways. And here the protection came in the form of the soul being transcendentally absorbed, even amid greed. And the soul comes out.
It is the responsibility of those who are devoted to Krishna, the dharmic leaders of society to provide the necessary facilities by which the soul can again be transformationally absorbed in Krishna and ultimately can attain Krishna. So I’ll summarise what I spoke today. I spoke broadly on this theme of is the Lord not answering the prayer of the infant? That’s not that way.
What happens is the Lord is answering the prayer, but in a way different from what we would expect. What the Lord does is the Lord answers the prayer by giving the child absorption. So here the child prays and soon the child falls out of the womb into ignorance.
But that’s just the natural course of events. So I talked about when we expect Krishna to answer our prayers, what are we actually expecting? So I talked about essentially when there are two ways of devotion. It’s transcendentally absorbed and transformationally absorbed.
So if there is basic comfort and resources, then we can be transformationally absorbed in changing the world. But otherwise when things don’t change, we have to be transcendentally absorbed. And there is situation, action and intention.
So if situation forces us to do a devotional action, that’s good, but that is not immature devotion. Because it’s not voluntary. So if we turn to Krishna because we have no options, that’s good.
But best is we turn toward Krishna even when we have options. So the child has practised circumstantial or situational devotion. That’s good.
But now the child is allowed to come out into the world, grow and have options. And then society needs to provide the resources by which the child gets the intelligence and practises intentional devotion. So intentional devotion is based not so much on situation as on our intention to practise.
And by intentional devotion we can rise to spontaneous devotion where we attain the Lord. And the purpose of this section is not primarily to demonstrate the Lord’s miraculous intervention in somebody’s life at an external material level. Immediate context of this section is to stress how the world is miserable for everyone.
So that’s how Kapila is consoling Devahuti. Telling her, don’t feel so sorry for yourself because life is tough for everyone. And similarly Shukadeva Swami is consoling Parishad Maharaj.
Yes, life is tough for you, you are cursed to die. That’s how it begins from the womb like that. And then I talk about the parallel between Parishad and this child in the womb.
Both of them have an encounter with the Divine. Parishad is miraculously protected from an unnatural sudden danger. Whereas the child is in a natural distress that is there in the womb.
The child is protected by the consciousness being raised above. But then it might also seem that the child is falling out and the child is not being protected. Parishad Maharaj also, has the Lord not protected him now when he is cursed to die? Yes, he is protected not by bringing him back to a comfortable situation but by giving him the resource to rise in spirituality even in an uncomfortable situation.
That’s the mood of the Bhagavan. So we sometimes transcend the world by our sadhana and sometimes we seek to transform the world by our seva. And sometimes when the resources for transforming the world are taken away from us and despite our prayers they are not being returned, that doesn’t mean Krishna is not answering our prayers.
Surrender means surrender of expectations. And instead of expecting the resources to transform the world we just seek the resources to transcend the world. And that’s what Prabhupada did toward the end of his life.
He just came absorbed in Krishna. And when we learn to practise devotion with the surrender of expectations then we will find that Krishna is always there with us. Sometimes by giving us resources to transform the world and sometimes by giving us resources to transcend the world.
So in the big picture we had five sessions and we discussed in the first session how can the child speak such prayers. So we talked about how the consciousness of the soul doesn’t have to is actually downgraded by the presence of the body and the mind. And the soul can act by non-physical means.
So these prayers are offered although the brain is not developed because the consciousness is independent of the body and the brain. And I talked about various examples of this, outer experiences, gender dysphoria and so many things like that. The second session was okay, the child can speak utter prayers but how can the child speak about God, speak to God.
So we talked about how the soul has potentiality, has divine potentiality. It is like the soil is fertile so eat this Krishna every soul in any species has the potential to know God. And that is what makes our existence ultimately meaningful.
We are all meant to evolve toward knowing and loving God. And then I talked about what is special about a human soul. So that is the covering around the soul are lesser.
The body and the brain are more developed. The mind is less, the mind, the covering of the subtle body is such that there is possibility for perceiving spirituality. So all living beings are driven by instinct.
But we human beings can choose to regulate our instincts and seek something higher in life. So Dharma, the capacity to ask not just how, how to live, how to survive, how to eat, how to mate but why to do all this, why to live and why question asking is what human beings have the capacity for. And that question ultimately when answered can take us towards transcendence, towards the Lord.
So we ask this why question either when life becomes unbearable or when whatever we have sought and got is unfulfilling. We seek and don’t get and life becomes unbearable. We seek and get and life turns out to be unfulfilling.
That’s often when we turn and start asking the why questions. And in yesterday’s class I discussed about yes, we humans have the capacity to turn toward God but when is that capacity activated? We talked about the relationship between spiritual development and material development. So the four quadrant approach and most people feel critical about spirituality because they think that if I become spiritual then I’ll have to go into the first quadrant No material, no spiritual I’ll just be miserable.
And science has led to progress in the second quadrant where we have material development but no spirituality. But if you want to grow spiritually for sustainable growth we need to have basic material development, material resources and then we can spiritually focus and grow. But sometimes we are in the fourth quadrant, we are in this lower quadrant where material comfort has taken away from us and still we need to practise that devotion.
So distress itself does not produce devotion it is the desire to turn toward Krishna that produces devotion. And in today’s class I discussed about how does the Lord not answer the prayers? He does sometimes by providing us resources for transforming the distressing situation and sometimes by providing resources for transcending that situation. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna Yes, sir. … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Okay. So is this circumstantial some special mercy given by Krishna to the soul where the soul can offer prayers? It could be.
In the first session we had discussed this point about Prabhupada said some fortunate souls in the mother’s womb make these prayers. So what does that mean? That fortune could be as you said Lord special intervention to give that realisation or it could be some past spiritual grace because of which at that time amid danger that remembrance comes. But we see that spiritual spiritual realisation is okay, let me put it this way that our spiritual credits are eternal but our conscious spiritual realisations they can keep oscillating that means whatever if I want to turn toward Krishna the attraction toward Krishna which I had developed in the past that’s always with me with that I can turn toward Krishna but whether I if I don’t want to turn toward Krishna … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … is the brother because of which I was insulted.
But if that very brother, of course, later on the wounds were healed and they were happily together. But when that brother was killed, the Parishad Maharaj became so angry that he started indiscriminately killing all the yakshas. And then higher beings had to come and tell him, stop.
So now if somebody has had darshan of the Lord, what more realisation can you ask for? But then it seems that he forgets everything. So we see that Priyavrata is already renounced and it is with a mood of service that he enters into the household to rule the world. But then again he gets entangled, he gets attached.
Of course, he comes out of it eventually. But the point on our present status. The only insurance is that we make a consistent habit of turning toward Krishna in the present.
And that habit will be our momentum. If repeatedly I keep turning toward Krishna again and again and again, then in the future also it is likely that I turn toward Krishna. Now what there is an insurance for is that if we turn away from Krishna, we will come back.
Because nothing else, once we have tasted Krishna, nothing else will be fulfilling enough. And eventually we will get disappointed, frustrated and turn toward Krishna. But how long we stay away from Krishna, that will depend upon how stubbornly we want to explore something else.
So in that sense, the free will is always there with us. So it could be the child’s, the Lord’s special mercy by which the child is able to remember. It could be some past bias by which the child is able to remember amidst the difficulty.
And we see that this happens, sudden transition in people’s spiritual inclinations. Chitraketu as Uttarasur is suddenly fighting. He is actually fighting fearfully and suddenly at one point, first he says, I will just, you are the killer of your brother, you are the killer of my brother, you are the killer of your guru, you are the killer of a Brahmana.
Indra, I will kill. And then I will offer water to my brother and I will be satisfied. Then he is like, when he is Kshatriya, suddenly his mood changes and he says, if however you kill me today, then I will offer this body to Mukunda and I will give up this material existence.
And then suddenly he starts offering his transcendental prayers. So what has happened over there? He had spiritual inclination, but as long as he was in the Rakshasa body, that Rakshasa course of mentality was going on. But then at a particular time, the recollection came up.
So now is this situational? Well, it is of course, the recollection came from the situation, but that situation was not the sole thing. He already had his credits and they were just awakened. And then he became completely absorbed.
And then he left his body and attained the Lord. So sometimes situations can obscure even those who are very spiritually advanced. Because we live in the material world and material consciousness can easily overwhelm us.
In the first canto of Parpot, Prabhupada says, the self-realised soul is always alert. No, this is not self-realised. The liberated soul is always alert to avoid being entangled by material illusion.
Now, when I read it, it struck me. If you’re already liberated, why do you need to be alert? Isn’t it? It’s we who are conditioned, we need to be alert that we don’t get caught by illusion. But liberated doesn’t mean that they don’t even sense illusion.
Liberated means they recognise how dangerous illusion is. And they are alert to know this not-so-complete. Yes, I agree with you.
See, the body and the soul are two distinct things. And the kind of body we have, that will express itself in some ways. There was a prominent Hindu leader, a Hindu Jain Sangha leader.
He told Prabhupada once. Giraj Nath told me this past time. He said, Swamiji, you speak verses in a very Bengali way.
You pronounce verses in a Bengali way. And Prabhupada said, what can I do? I’m Bengali. Very nonchalant about it.
I’m Bengali. So, although he’s a soul, he’s from the spiritual world, but his body is born and brought up in Bengal. So, his pronunciation is Bengali.
You cannot expect Prabhupada to speak his English. He was 19, 20, 30 in English. That’s what he learned in school.
He’s not going to speak 21st century English. So, the body will affect the expression of devotion even of pure devotees. But if somebody’s soul is temporarily covered, then it will affect even more.
So, the body is meant to be a channel for expressing one’s devotion. But then the expression of devotion will be expressed according to the channel. And if the body is demoniac, then unless the soul is extraordinarily evolved, then there might be some demonic actions till the point that transformative moment comes up, where one recollects the past.
So, that’s what, as you said, Bali Maharaj, he seems to first want to fight against Indra and take over his throne. And he also wants to, when he’s giving charity also, he’s thinking primarily in terms of, I’m a Kshatriya who will honour my work. He’s not thinking, this is Vishnu and out of my devotion to him I’m giving.
That whole comes later. After he’s bowed and he’s lost everything, then he says, I give my everything to you. So, it’s the Kshatriya nature which is initially coming and he acts according to that.
Eventually, the Kshatriya nature is transcended by the devotional nature. So, there’s this dynamic of both. Sometimes our conditioning nature becomes the channel by which we express our devotion.
Sometimes conditioned nature obscures our devotion. And sometimes, rarely, our devotion transcends our conditioned nature and we act accordingly. Good question.
Thank you. So, when we have options, then how can we develop the intelligence to still seek guidance and turn toward Krishna rather than only seeking guidance when we are in trouble? There are two different aspects here. One is the idea of being in the guidance of someone.
The other is also, Srila Prabhupada wanted us to be independently thoughtful. Not independent, but independently thoughtful. That means, while we always should feel dependence on devotees, dependence on our spiritual guides, dependence on Krishna, but that dependence should be more of a spiritual dependence.
It shouldn’t be emotional dependence or even intellectual dependence. Why? What do I mean by this? Emotional dependence means that, oh, if my spiritual guide, spiritual mentor, spiritual master doesn’t talk to me, doesn’t smile at me, doesn’t speak kind words to me, I feel as if I’m alone and bereft and my spiritual life is useless. That kind of emotional dependence will lead to too much emotional neediness.
And intellectual dependence means that we are constantly, for every decision, we don’t do it, we just keep asking. Prabhupada often said Krishna consciousness is also common sense. So, we need to use our common sense and we also need to take our decisions.
But with respect to major decisions in our life, we need to have authorities whom we consult. So, on one side, we need to develop, we want spiritual dependence, but not just intellectual dependence. See, some people think that surrender means to outsource your thinking to your spiritual master.
I remember one devotee told me, I love Krishna consciousness. Why? She says, I don’t have to think, I just have to obey. Really? That’s what you love about it? I’m not very comfortable with that answer.
See, life is complex. And to take intellectual responsibility for finding a right path, it’s demanding. And many people would just prefer a formula.
You know, do this, do this, do this, and your life is perfect. But life doesn’t have a formula like that. Even in the Bhagavatam, if we see, even when Krishna is directly present in front of Arjuna, it’s not that Krishna always guides Arjuna.
When Ashwatthama is to be punished, there are two parties. There is Bhima who is saying, punish him, and Draupadi, and Aditya is saying, let’s forgive him. Now, Krishna doesn’t tell Arjuna what to do.
Krishna lets Arjuna decide based on the principles, his understanding of the principles. And of course, Krishna ratifies the decision. But the point is that we don’t want, we don’t, rather than seeking specific guidance for each situation in life, which we just can’t get, because everybody’s busy, everybody’s life is different.
But it is more of studying scripture regularly with the devotees, and by that we develop our own inner compass. So, to live according to scripture is more than, is not so much each time asking questions, asking guidance for every small thing from somebody who has spiritual guidance teaching a scripture, but rather primarily learning scripture from them, and letting that scripture knowledge seep into us so that it shapes our inner compass. And with that inner compass, we take decisions.
So, of course, when we have major decisions to take, we should always seek guidance. But in general, if you consider there are things which we know we should do, and there are things which we know we should not do. So, if we do the things which we are meant to do, and if we avoid the things which we are not meant to do, then by that we are showing Krishna that we want to live according to his guidance.
And then, he will give us the guidance from within more and more. So, Prabhupada says in the lecture of introduction, he says that if one comes to the mode of goodness, then how to advance further will be revealed from within. That means, when you come to goodness, the disorientations because of our worldly desires, the disorientation of our inner compass decreases.
We align more and more with Krishna. So, yes, we seek guidance for important decisions, and we seek to study scripture under guidance so that we can develop our inner compass. Does that answer your question? Yes, we have time.
Thank you. Yeah. Yes, I’ll ask a question on behalf.
And everything has to come to be provided for by the parents, and the culture that they’re born into, say, Krishna conscious culture and other culture. And in the coming time, when we actually, it’s necessary to challenge that, it’s actually one has to answer, one has to assert their independence, and we’ll also make a series of bad decisions, and some good decisions, and they’ll have to come to that realisation of what about the Krishna, which hopefully much of what they were thinking in the beginning was, was right. But then they come from independence, independent, to independence, to humanised, to actual choosing.
Now, I don’t want to, I don’t want to assume that there’s a movement going on to embrace any kind of borderline restraint going on, because the Jiva, as a microcosm of the Jiva’s, you know, journey, they’re dependent on Krishna all the time, and they have to be a Christian. So, Krishna’s actually not just a Christian. Krishna’s actually a human being.
Also, the child has to be free, but Krishna’s soul, by definition, has other desires, and Krishna’s also very much a platform. And that impact is not there between the realisation, the spiritual platform, and the human desires. That’s the place where the Jiva’s actually coming to, actually choosing Krishna, as a mature, a person sitting on his feet all the time.
And I think how a whole lot of times, actually, that the reflection of that leader is the part that falls out, and then his whole, his whole thing of, you know, the vibration, his way of helping to play out, you know, the whole energy, is irresponsible, it’s just a thing, it’s what is here. And ultimately, all of your learnings, based on my desire to clear up the question, to choose him as soon as possible. Yeah, thank you.
Beautiful reflection that when we have dependents as our devotee children, they just choose Krishna because their parents are coming to temple, they come to the temple. Then adolescence, they become independent, and they say, I don’t want to choose Krishna. I want to do other things in my life.
But then eventually, they have other options that they turn toward Krishna. That’s, you could call that an interdependence. It’s a nice revolution.
And how much somebody will assert their independence, or how long, that will vary from person to person. But ultimately, we all come to a level where we turn toward Krishna, because as you said, we have seen it all. So now, how much we have to see, how much we have to see so that it is enough for us.
That is something which will depend on how seriously we hear about Krishna, how seriously we contemplate our experiences in life. Otherwise, it’s we can never literally say that I have seen it all, because there’s always something more in the world. But sometimes we get that realisation, it’s enough, everything else is going to be more of the same thing.
No need for that. So how does that realisation come faster? It’s difficult to say. Broadly, I’ve seen three broad factors in that.
One is that if we associate with very serious devotees, who have a strong desire for Krishna, then that brings that desire for us. And secondly, if we have our illusions exposed before us, that means in a very stark way, that this is what I thought, and this is what it is actually. And if at that time, so this is all our illusions, our illusions are always exposed sometime or other, but what happens is maya creates another illusion.
But if we are exposed to such a stark way, this is how this is. So the association of intense devotees, the exposure of our illusions, not exposure to illusion, but exposure of our illusions. And finally, some attraction of oneself toward Krishna.
Both of these might be good. We have intense devotees, we have serious devotees, we have serious bad experiences of the world. But neither of these will keep us steadily on their own.
We need some steady connection, steady attraction to Krishna as such. So if we have these three broad things, then it’s much faster to come back on the right track and stay on that right track. Thank you very much.