Understanding what is mental and what is spiritual

[Bhagavatam class at ISKCON, Chowpatty, Mumbai, India]

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, here the purpose of surrendering to the spiritual master has been talked about. So, therefore means there is some reasoning given earlier. Therefore, one should surrender to God.
What is therefore? The perceiving that is, that actually in the material world, there is, whether in this planet or in higher planets, there is no enduring happiness. And therefore, we should surrender to God. Being inquisitive about that which is our long-term good.
See, if there are two words I use, shreya and uttama, the word shreya is often contrasted with the word prayers. Shreyas means that which is for our long-term benefit. So, there is long-term fulfillment that comes.
And there is prayers, which is short-term gratification or titillation that comes. Two other words which I use in the Indian parliaments are also nishreyas and abhyudaya. Nishreyas refers to achievement.
So, nishreyas refers to fulfillment and abhyudaya refers to achievement. So, in today’s world, there is an enormous emphasis on achievement. What have you achieved? You know, I’ve got this many marks in my exam.
I’ve got this much. I’ve got a job which pays me this much salary. I’ve got this big house.
I’ve got this car. What have you achieved? That’s what counts. And that’s what people think that’s what counts.
But there are many people who have achievements, but they have no fulfillment. So, achievement is a sense that I have done something, that this is what I can show tangibly what I’ve done. Yes, some of us may be able to do extraordinary things.
Some of us may not be able to do. It depends on our abilities, our situations, our destiny. Many factors are important.
But when we define our self-worth solely by our achievements, then we achieve something significant. But if there is no fulfillment, then it all becomes pointless. So, the abhyudaya is achievement.
Nishreyas is fulfillment. And we need, it is not that we need only fulfillment or only achievement. We need both.
I come back to this point. Let’s go over Jigyasu Shreya Uttamam. So, for Shreya, for that which brings fulfillment, once you inquire about that.
Another word that is used is Uttamam. So, the word Tama refers to darkness or ignorance. Uttama refers to that which takes one beyond darkness, beyond ignorance.
So, we inquire that which is fulfilling and that which is illuminating. So, Shreya refers to Jigyasu Shreya Uttamam. So, inquire about that which is fulfilling.
Uttama, that which is illuminating, that which takes us beyond darkness. And who can do this? Who can illuminate us? Shabde Parinchanshna That, that is the transcendental word of God. One who is expert in that, Shabde Parinchanshna, the transcendental words, Vishnatham, one who is expert in that.
Brahman Upasamashrayam. And not just expert in terms of just verbal delivery, but it is in terms of living, in terms of knowing how to live life according to scripture. Brahman Upasamashrayam.
So, Upasamashrayam means that actually when we take shelter of the Lord, then our infatuation with worldly things goes down. So, the spiritual master knows scripture, not only theoretically and expertly in terms of quoting from here and there, but also lives in scripture in terms of being attached to the goal of scripture, being attached to the Lord. Manjula Prabhupada met George Harrison.
At that time George Harrison was quite interested in Eastern spirituality and he had met several other teachers also. So, he asked a question which is there for many people who are not connected with any particular particular path. They say, how do we know which is the right path? How do we know which is the right path? So, Prabhupada replied that, you see, what is the life of that country? Scripture tells us, Vedaistha Sarvairhamev, by all the Vedas, I am to be known.
So, scripture is telling us be devoted to Krishna. And then, if there is some teacher, no matter, they may be teaching valuable things, they may be teaching useful things, but are they teaching us about transcendental knowledge? Are they themselves attached to Krishna? If they are not attached to Krishna, then they they will be teaching some things and there will be some value to it, but that is not transcendental knowledge. Today I will focus on the theme of the difference between the mental and the spiritual.
The mental, psychological, emotional, that is one aspect of it. And the spiritual, transcendental, devotional, that is another aspect. So, I will focus on this theme because in today’s world, the word spirituality is very commonly used.
And the word spiritual means whatever people wanted to do. The word spiritual has almost become bereft of any etymological content, in the sense that people may say, oh, my office is very spiritual. Okay, what does it mean? My boss is a very spiritual person.
Good. But what do you mean by that? Their idea of spiritual is that generally, if anything makes me feel good, feel nice, if I feel calm, if I feel relieved, if I feel peaceful, then that means it is spiritual. So, I go to a mountain top and there I may see such a beautiful sight.
This is spiritual. So, now it can be. I just, two, three months ago, a couple, a month ago, I came from a tour of the west.
So, when I was in Canada, the devotees took me to Niagara Falls. And when I was there, I was just looking around, reading about literature about it. I was there, understand what it is all about.
So, I had a talk over there also. But there, many people say that visiting Niagara Falls is a very spiritual experience for us. Now, what exactly is the spiritual aspect of it? So, people go there, they see the sight, it’s a lot of water falling down.
And in a way, if we look at that, okay, it is a spiritual experience. What does spiritual mean? They simply think that something, some experience that is different from their normal experience, they call it spiritual. So, people live so close, often live in metropolitan environments where they do not see the beauty of nature, the serenity of nature.
So, any experience which they get, different from their routine experience, they call it a spiritual. So, that is why I said that the word spiritual can mean many different things to different people. So, on what basis do we decide what does spiritual mean? There are two words, there is spirituality and there is spiritualism.
Prabhupada does not use the word spiritualism very much. Spiritualism has a very different context. The Bhagavad Gita offers us a three-level vision of reality, that there is matter, there is mind and there is consciousness.
So, that matter refers to physical things or we could say body, mind and soul. Now, this triad level of reality, three levels, this is different from the western or mainstream intellectual conception. So, there we often hear about like mind over matter.
Mind over matter means they say that actually the way you think, the way your attitudes are, that will shape the reality. So, often when they use the word mind over matter, actually that is based on a philosophical misunderstanding because mind is also matter. Mind is matter although it is subtle matter.
So, what happens is that there is the body, there is the physical level of reality and in mainstream discourse today anything apart from the physical that is referred to as spiritual. So, and the words mind and soul, they are often conflated. Conflated means they are confused.
Both of them are thought to be like the same thing. But they are different. So, the mind is like the intermediate level of reality that connects spirit with physical matter.
Because sometimes when we use the word matter, we refer to the body, but the mind is also matter. So, the body and the soul are connected through the mind. So, the body is gross matter, the mind is subtle matter and the soul is spirit.
The soul s characteristic is defined by consciousness. The soul s energy is consciousness and that consciousness radiates from the soul through the mind into the body and then it comes out. So, that means the soul is the root of consciousness, R O O T and the mind is the root of consciousness, R O U T E. The soul is from where consciousness comes and the mind is from where consciousness is channelled.
So, sometimes people say somebody is absent minded. Now, when they are absent minded, actually what has happened is that the soul is there, the consciousness is there, but say if somebody is sitting here right now and say I am speaking, you are hearing. Now, somebody is absent minded.
That means what has happened? Their body is here, the soul is also here, but the mind is somewhere else and because the mind is the root of consciousness. So, what has happened is the consciousness coming from the soul is rooted somewhere else. So, it may be oh I have to go home and do this work or maybe you know today there is this match is there, I want to go and watch this match or whatever.
So, the mind gets rooted in that direction. So, the mind is the root of consciousness, the pathway of consciousness and for most people this differentiation between the mind and the soul is not very clear and that is why anything different from the physical, anything from the gross material, they think of it as spiritual. So, spiritual is that which is connected with the soul and now spirituality is actually big business also.
I was just in, I was giving a talk in a hospital in New Jersey and there after that the head of the hospital, he said that many companies are now giving multi-billion grants to investigate the correlation between say mindfulness and health and they found that if people become more aware, more mindful, then that helps in the healing process and that is why there is a lot of interest in this. Now, the term mindfulness has been drawn from Buddhist literature. The concept of mindfulness is also compatible with the Gita’s understanding, but generally when people talk about mindfulness, they think of mindfulness as a very spiritual concept.
It can be, but it is not necessary. When people use the word mindful, it simply means be aware, be aware. What happens? Our mind today is very agitated.
There is a characteristic of Kali Yuga also, Upadritah. So, the Upadritah is disturbed, the mind is agitated. When the list of characteristics of Kali Yuga is described, Trayee and Alpaish Sabda, Kala, Vasmin, Vijna, Mand, Sumand, Matayo, Mand, Bhagya, Yak, Upadritah.
So, here is he, certainly. So, all the characteristics are listed, but this last characteristic is listed with emphasis, certainly. That means we may find people who are fortunate, we may find people who are intelligent, we may find people who are healthy, but still we find that they are disturbed.
This is a defining characteristic of Kali Yuga, that people are disturbed and doesn’t relieve from the disturbance of the mind. At one level, the disturbance is a characteristic of the material world itself. Because in the world, things are constantly changing and change causes uncertainty, change causes fear and we want relief, we want some shelter.
So, to some extent, anxiety is natural, a disturbance is natural. But in today’s world, disturbance has been heightened to unnatural proportions, to an excessive amount. So, what does that mean? That the mind is not able to find any stable shelter.
I was at a conference of science and spirituality and one psychologist, he was giving statistics, he was talking about an anxiety epidemic. And he said one significant feature of this anxiety epidemic is that normally anxiety is caused by uncertainty. If I have to catch a flight, if I don’t know whether I will reach on time for the airport or not, then that uncertainty causes, that causes anxiety.
So, now if we compare say the first world with the third world. I am saying the third world, there is far more external uncertainty than the first world. So, for example, in many parts of the third world, you turn on a power switch, you are not sure whether the light will come on.
If you turn on a water tap, you don’t know water will come out. Now, relatively speaking, in the first world, there is certainty. So, if we say that anxiety is caused by uncertainty, if uncertainty goes down, anxiety should go down.
But paradoxically, it is in the first world that anxiety levels are higher. Not only is it that in the first world anxiety levels are higher, when people from the third world immigrate to the first world, their anxiety levels go up. So, whenever I speak this in America, and many Indians are there in the audience, they all nod.
Actually, our anxiety, we are more comfortable, but we are comfortably anxious. You know, we are sitting in an AC room, physically comfortable, but the mind is worried. So, what has happened? Why is it that if anxiety is caused by uncertainty, uncertainty has gone down, then why has anxiety gone up? Now, that is because there is another factor for anxiety, another cause of anxiety.
That outer uncertainty can cause anxiety, but more fundamentally, anxiety is caused by inner instability. So, anxiety is at the level of the mind. So, mind is the intermediate between the body and the soul.
So, at the level of the body and outer things, there is uncertainty that will cause anxiety. But the mind is also connected to the soul. If there is inner instability, then that causes anxiety.
But inner instability, that means that as the world has progressed in the technological sense, it is actually also regressed in the psychological sense. So, how has it regressed? The world has progressed technologically, but it has regressed psychologically. Regressed psychologically means that there is greater affliction by problems in psychological level, because the spiritual foundation of life has been removed from our world.
Most people, whether in the East or the West, before the advent of the modern age, they had some spiritual understanding of life. They understood that life is meant for something more than just immediate body gratification. They understood that there is a higher meaning to life beyond what we achieve in this world.
So, they are not really focused on the other world. The number of people who focus on the spiritual are always limited. Manushyanam sahasreshu, as Krishna says.
But at least there is a background understanding that this world is not everything. And then, if there is another world to be aspired upon, so then what happens is, even in this world, there is some uncertainty. There are ups and downs.
They can be tolerated. But if there is no understanding of some higher goal to be aspired for, then if things go wrong in this world, then what is the point of living? And this has been the conclusion of most materialistic philosophers. So, there is one, Frederick Nietzsche, he said that, you know, best is to have never been born.
Because life is so miserable. If at all you are born, it is best that you die early. If you live on, then existence is miserable.
There is another philosopher, Albert Camus, he said that, he said, actually, life is misery. Therefore, the only philosophical question worth asking is whether to commit suicide tomorrow or today. And he wrote tomes of books and he says, don’t commit suicide today.
So, there is, when there is no understanding of a higher purpose to life, then at that time, when there are upheavals at the level of this world, then they can completely devastate us. Yes, when there are problems, we all feel disturbed by it, we all feel distressed by it. But the magnitude of that depends on our underlying conception of life.
If my whole sense of identity and self-worth comes from my bank balance, and if the stock market crashes, then it’s not just a crash of the stock market, it’s a crash of my own self-worth. If I don’t have this bank, what is the point of living? No. Who am I? No, I thought I was this multi-millionaire person and I don’t have that.
Who am I? So, people just, they just don’t know what I’m living for. So, people identify with a particular relationship. No, I’m this person’s partner, I’m this person’s husband, this person’s wife.
And if that relationship doesn’t work out, if that relationship is my defining identity, if it doesn’t work out, then people get shattered. People either become suicidal or they become homicidal. Either they want to kill themselves or they want to kill the other person.
So, why? Because we all need some sense of meaning in our life. We have to have some sense of purpose, some foundation to our life. So, when there is no spiritual foundation, then we get some other foundation to our life.
And that foundation, whatever we get, it may be my marks, it may be my spouse, it may be my bank balance, it may be my looks, whatever is my foundation, that foundation is not stable. And when that foundation collapses, I have nothing to stand on. So, anxiety can be caused by outer uncertainty, but it can also be caused by inner instability.
When people don’t have a stable foundation on which to base their identity. See, people may not have a conception of a soul, but everyone has a conception of the self. In a sense, the self is the soul.
But people may not believe in the soul, people may not know about the soul, but everyone has some conception of the self. People talk about self-confidence, self-esteem. So, now my conception of the self, what is it based on? So, if my conception of myself is based on, I am such an intelligent person, I can just remember anything, speak anything, I am so brilliant, then I find that I have got Alzheimer’s.
Who am I? If my intelligence was the basis of my self-conception, and if I find my intelligence deteriorating, then I don’t know what to base my life on. So, like that, we all have some conception of the self. Now, if that conception of the self is not spiritual, if it is based on something else, then when that shakes, and we become not just shaken, we become, we can become shattered.
So, anxiety in today’s world is even among, in the developed world, in the first world, that anxiety is caused because people don’t have a spiritual foundation in their lives. So, whatever it is that they have, at one level, they are very proud of it, they are very possessive of it, at another level, they also know that it can go at any rate. We deny that reality forcefully, that it can all be stripped away.
But, you know, if we ask someone, you know, are you going to die? Nobody will say that I am going to live forever. But when people talk about death, they talk about it in a very abstract, remote sense. You know, almost as if it is going to happen in the distant future, and it is going to happen to someone else.
This American comedian Woody Allen, he said, it’s not that I am afraid of death. I just don’t want to be there when it happens. Now, we can’t do like that.
Death is an event that is going to happen to us. We can’t aim, I am going to identify with my body, and the body is going to be destroyed. Then I am going to experience the trauma of death.
So, when people talk about death, even if they talk about it, you want to deny it. And one way we deny it is by thinking it is going to happen in the future, remote future, and it’s going to happen to almost like someone else. So, we talk about it in a very abstract sense.
But even if we do that, there is this reality is undeniable, and that gnaws at the foundation of our existence. And that is why if we want to deal with anxiety, yes, we can try to create some more certainty, more reliability in our life. So, people when they have anxiety, they take relief from anxiety through financial security.
If I have more money, then I will have more, if something goes wrong, I always have a bank balance to fall on. Yes, there can be financial security, there can be social security, there can be various kinds of security that are there. But if we do not have a spiritual foundation, if the search for security is ultimately the search for spirituality, the search for security is not a search for money, it is not a search for a one zone house, it is not a search for a stable job, it is not a search for a trustworthy partner, it is ultimately a search for spirituality.
And so, when people do not understand this, then what happens that they need some stable foundation, which they do not have. So, the external world agitates. And anything that can take people away from the external world, they call that as spiritual.
So, anything that we feel good, clearly makes me feel good, that they call as spiritual. Now, yes, there are many things which can make one feel peaceful. And sometimes these methods of feeling peace, they may work also effectively.
But there is a difference between pacification of the mind and purification of the mind. Pacification of the mind means that the mind is agitated and I calm it down. And when the mind is agitated, we do not need to calm it down.
But some people say that, you know, if you just go to a scenic place, go to some hill station, go to some river, and you feel so peaceful, you feel so close to nature, feel calm, feel calm. And yes, people do feel calm. And there are some spiritual teachers, spiritual in double course.
So, they say that you know, you mentally project yourself to a peaceful place. So, before I was introduced to the Bhagavad Gita to Prabhupada, I was connected to another spiritual teacher. So, he would, he would say, you know, he would do what is for him meditation was projection.
This projection means when you sit and meditate, you project yourself mentally to your pure place. So, imagine, so he said. And in a very sweet, serene waltz.
So, imagine, you are on the banks of the river. The river water is flowing by slowly and slowly. You can feel the breeze in your face.
Your muscles are relaxing. The birds are chirping in the background. You can see a mountain on the other side.
The clouds are touching the peak of the mountain. The trees are moving gently. You are peaceful.
You are home. You are at. So, now people do this exercise.
Yeah, actually, if you do this and imagine that way, people do feel peaceful. So, yes, there is pacification of emotions, pacification of the mind. That is possible by various means.
But more than the pacification. So, when this whole projection is going on. One time, this projection was going on.
And suddenly, in the neighborhood, there was an explosion. What happened? And then the whole. Is there a gunshot? Is there a bomb explosion? What happened, you know? People were sitting and meditating.
One moment, the next moment, there was a tarapeet. Everybody was coming out. So, this is useful.
The mind is agitated, you can pacify it. But pacification is different from purification. So, purification means we find out what is it that makes my mind agitated.
And free my mind from attachment to that agitating object. So, as long as we have material attachments. As long as there is grief, there is pride, there is lust, there is anger.
Then these are the forces that are causing agitation of the mind. And if these forces are not dealt with. Then even if there is pacification of the mind by some meditation, by some projection.
Soon after that, there will be agitation again. So, what has happened is the pacification is only temporary. There is no transformation.
So, when we stick only at the level of the mind. We equate the spiritual with the material. Sorry, with the mental.
And then we equate anything which makes me feel good, feel peaceful. We call it spiritual. Then we do get relief.
But that relief doesn’t last. What spirituality as is understood in the Bhagavad Gita is that beyond the mental is the spiritual. And the mental needs to be directed towards the spiritual.
That means our emotions need to be directed towards the supreme spiritual reality. That is Krishna. And when we direct our heart towards Krishna, when we become attached to Krishna, then that also brings pacification.
But that pacification is through purification. That means when we are attached to Krishna. Mayi asattamana.
Krishna said in 7.1 in the Bhagavad Gita. Mayi asattamana. Make your mind attached to me.
Then it is not that we become neglectful or apathetic about the worldly things. But rather, we have our vision fixed on something bigger than the world. So, we understand that this world is big, but Krishna is bigger than the world.
And then our attachment becomes fixed on Krishna. When there is no Krishna in our life, then the problems of this world can seem gargantuan. They can seem unmanageable.
But bhakti means, so when pacification is done, there are all these problems in the world, all these things agitating, just don’t think about them. Think of something peaceful. Yeah, that’s good.
At least the agitation is stopping at that time. But what next? The problems are still there and the attachments are still there. The agitation is going to come back.
But when the mind is attached to something higher, then there is not just pacification alone. There is purification. When we are attached to Krishna, Krishna is the supreme unchanging reality.
And attachment to him brings the supreme stability. When we become attached to Krishna, we become free from fear, we become free from anxiety. How does this happen? Because we become stabilized in our connection with Krishna.
And it is this stable connection with Krishna that brings us stability, that brings us freedom from anxiety, that brings us serenity. So when there is only pacification without purification, that is like taking a painkiller. When I have pain, I take a painkiller.
The pain goes away. But actually it is not that the pain has been cured. The pain has only been covered.
The pain has been covered, not cured. Like that, through various things which people call us spiritual, but which is simply mental, we will get relief. But that relief will not last.
Because what has happened is, it is simply pacification. It is not purification. Our attachment to that which we are attached to is still there.
Our attachment to agitating things is still there. So if after that, again I come back and again I become attached. So I may go to a serene place and I feel relaxed, I feel peaceful.
Then I come back to the city and again I am agitated. And again all those anarthas, all those anxieties, worries, they all start troubling me. So then there is no transforming issue that has happened.
In bhakti, also sometimes we may feel like that. We may feel that, you know, when I go to the temple, I feel very peaceful. But when I go back again, my consciousness goes to material things only.
Sometimes I go to yatra, I feel like I have gone to the spiritual world. But then I come back from yatra, I find all my anarthas are still there. So is it that in bhakti also, there is simply pacification, not purification? No.
Both are there. If we consider our own life, say a few years before, when we had not started practicing bhakti, at that time, if we consider we had so many more attachments. And every attachment causes anxiety.
If I am attached to something as simple as drinking tea, and if I don’t get tea, I get agitated. If I am attached to watching a particular TV program, and if I don’t get in time to watch the TV program, then there is so much agitation. So, if we consider, we may have some anxieties now also, we may have some agitation now also.
But our attachments have gone down substantially. And the anxieties associated with the attachments have also gone out. Actually, the more there is attachment, the more there is anxiety.
16.11 Krishna says that as long as there is kama, as long as there is a desire to enjoy the external, then there will be anxiety caused by our inability to control the external. I want money to enjoy, but money is not ultimately in my control. So then money will cause me anxiety.
So we will see that many of our attachments have indeed gone down. And comparatively speaking, our anxieties have also gone down. Yes, there are still anxieties, because we are living in the material world.
And when we experience relief, when we say come to a temple, or when we go to yatra, it’s not that, you know, we become purified then and we become impure. It’s not like that. What happens is, when the environment is very spiritual, that spiritual environment propels our consciousness further ahead than when it actually is.
So that means in very intense spiritual environments, we get glimpses of advanced spiritual states. We are not there right now. So it is not that, you know, when we go to yatra, we become pure, and come back to city, we become impure.
It’s not like that. Our consciousness is on the gradual path to purification. But when we go in intensely spiritual environments, where we have vibrant spiritual association, where there is spiritual vibrancy in the environment itself, then that propels our consciousness forward and gives us glimpses of advanced spiritual states.
And when that external propelling force is no longer there, then our consciousness comes back to where it is. But that experience we got, that experience of freedom from agitation, that experience of serenity, that experience of sublime spiritual sweetness, that can act as an inspiration for us. Yes, this is for real.
I have experienced it myself. And if I perceive in this spiritual path, then I will experience this more and more and more. So the process of bhakti is what brings both pacification and purification.
But the lasting relief from anxiety, the lasting satisfaction that will come through purification. And purification requires consistent application. We steadily keep practicing bhakti, by that purification will gradually happen.
Now, I’ll talk two more points and then we can have question answers. First point is, sometimes in bhakti, so there is pacification and there is purification. So pacification is like the pain killer.
And the purification is like the actual curative medicine. So when we are being treated, if we are in a lot of pain, we need both. We need pacification also and we need purification.
And sometimes what is considered spiritual by many people today, that is only the pain killer. There’s only pacification, but there’s no purification. Now, conversely, sometimes in our spiritual life, it may happen that there is purification, but there is no pacification.
That means, we may find that our bhakti practices are making us more agitated. Sometimes in a new and devotee community, there’s some misunderstanding. Or sometimes something happens in our spiritual life, because of which we become agitated.
So then we may feel, I came to Krishna for peace, but it seems because of Krishna, my peace has gone away. So what is happening? What have I come here for? We have to understand that, yes, we have come to Krishna for peace, but we have come to Krishna for ultimate spiritual peace. It is not just temporary transitional peace.
Now, when Prabhupada was in America in the 1960s, at that time, the Vietnam War was going on. And there was strong anti-war sentiment among the American youth, because they felt this war is just for arms sales and there is no purpose being served. So then Prabhupada was speaking in the Bhagavad Gita, which talked about a war.
And people were very disturbed by that connotation. He says, you know, Arjuna is a nice, peace-loving person. So why is Krishna having to fight? So then one person asked Prabhupada the question.
Most of the people who would come there were hippies, but there was one goldsmith. He was a lawyer who incorporated this coin. And he said, Swamiji, why is God advocating violence over it? Shouldn’t God advocate peace? So Prabhupada answers that, you know, even if there is no violence, still there are hundreds of things that will take away your peace.
So we think of peace and violence only as opposites. But even if there is no violence, you know, all of us, we may not have physically experienced much violence. But can we say that we all experience peace all the time in our life? No.
So physical violence is one thing that disturbs peace. But there are many other things that disturb peace also. You know, there is verbal violence.
There is mental violence. The mind gets agitated. That also disturbs our peace.
Because somebody makes our mind agitated. That is mental violence. That also disturbs us.
So to Prabhupada’s point was very foundational. He says, don’t think of peace simply in terms of external peaceful situation. Peace ultimately comes, peace comes not from an external calm situation, but it comes from an inner spiritual connection.
When we are internally spiritually connected with Krishna, then we get real peace. Because that, in the Bible it is said, this is the peace that passes all understanding. The peace that passeth all understanding.
I mean, from the material perspective, it appears there is no peace over here. This person is agitated. There is so much trouble.
But internally, because there is connection with Krishna, there is peace at a deeper level. So the point I am making here is, that in bhakti also there is peace of mind. The pacification happens.
But the real result of bhakti is not just pacification of the mind. It is purification of the mind, by which there is attraction of the heart to Krishna. There is connection with Krishna.
So there is peace at the level of the mind, and there is peace at the level of the soul. Peace at the level of the mind means, that there are no agitating stimuli externally. There are no agitating emotions in the mind.
But peace at the level of the soul means, the soul is connected with Krishna. The soul is secured. No matter whatever happens, Krishna will protect.
And sometimes to do that, sometimes what may happen? The pacification, the peace at the level of the mind may go away. Because of whatever circumstances are there. When that happens, we shouldn’t think bhakti is not working.
So I am getting so agitated. How is bhakti working? But actually that is an opportunity for us to take shelter of Krishna. And then experience spiritual peace.
So bhakti will offer mental peace also. That means my mind will also become pacified by the practice of bhakti. But sometimes even if the mind gets agitated, if we still connect with Krishna, we will realize that there is something beyond the mind.
At a philosophical level, when we start practicing bhakti, it is easy to understand I am not the body. But to understand I am not the mind, that takes an effort. And to distance ourselves from the mind.
So what will happen is, there are some stimuli that agitate the mind. Some of us may be very sensitive to words. And somebody speaks one harsh word, we get very agitated by that.
Now another person, they are not so sensitive. They just speak the word and they go away also. And they don’t realize.
You know, it’s like they have caused an earthquake in our heart and they think they are in paradise. So what happens is we get agitated. And that is just the tendency of the mind.
So if we are particularly vulnerable to verbal attacks, and we get very agitated by it, so that agitation will still be there. Just like say some people, they may be physically a little weak. So some people they are punched, and some people you punch them on the back and nothing happens.
Affection. Some people punch them on the back and they start coughing. You know, why did you punch so much, you know? So different people have different physical levels of strength.
So like that, different people have different mental levels of strength. So some of us may get more agitated by just some word that I have spoken. So when that happens, the mind is made in a particular way.
And that may not change immediately. But if we take shelter of Krishna, then we’ll find that the magnitude of that agitation, the duration of that agitation will decrease. So if I can say, you know, my mind gets agitated, like a big wave.
I’m so agitated. The agitation will happen, but the agitation will not be so much in magnitude, it will not be so long in duration. It will come back to calmness quicker.
So sometimes, in some situations, when a patient takes a painkiller and a medicine, the patient might feel, I’m quite okay. But when the painkiller is stopped, then the patient realizes, hey, you know, I am sick. I need the medicine.
So what happens when we are practicing bhakti? Bhakti has a balance program. Materially also, if we practice bhakti nicely, our relationships also improve. We learn how to deal with people.
We learn how to balance our work and home and our bhakti. And we find that in many ways, when our material life will become more peaceful, better. But sometimes that may make us complacent.
And then we will hear things like, Krishna is happy there, I’m happy here. Now, when we start, when a patient who’s on painkillers starts thinking that I’m okay, then what may happen is the patient will stop taking medicine. So like that, when there is pacification of the mind, he may become complacent in our bhakti.
So what happens is Krishna arranges things in such a way, the material world itself is constituted in such a way that suddenly things become agitated. And then at that time, we need to choose. You know, I’m practicing bhakti still I’m agitated.
So what is this? So then either I can go outward thinking that bhakti doesn’t work, I just become materialistic. But that is if I don’t have proper philosophical understanding. My proper philosophical understanding, then I’ll go inwards.
I’ll go deeper towards Krishna. And then I’ll experience that there is calmness even amidst the agitation. Yes, this when this person spoke like this, this person spoke like this 10 years ago, you know, I would have been fuming for weeks.
But now I just calmed down within a day. What has happened? The agitation has gone down. So then we will see that there’s a shelter beyond the state of the mind.
That my state of the mind was agitated, but I found a shelter. So that means what is happening? Sometimes Krishna takes away the painkiller. So that we realize how important the medicine and we take the medicine home.
So when we find within bhakti we are agitated, it is not that the bhakti is not worthy. It is just that we need to go to a deeper level of bhakti. And so when people talk about mindfulness, you know, in a mindful, they think that’s being aware.
In bhakti to be mindful means to make the mind full of Krishna. Make the mind full of Krishna, become attached to Krishna. And the second point I’ll conclude with this is that there is a difference between cultural bhakti and spiritual bhakti.
Cultural bhakti means that, you know, yes, bhakti is something which, you know, my parents did, my grandparents did, my community does. So I do it. So when we practice bhakti simply because it is a part of our culture, it is good.
At least we are coming to temple, at least we are doing some bhakti activities. It’s definitely better than being impious. But we may not have a very good philosophical understanding.
So from the cultural bhakti to go to spiritual bhakti, what is what forms the bridge is philosophical bhakti. Philosophical bhakti means we understand philosophically how Krishna is the ultimate goal of life. He is the ultimate reality.
Siddhanta baliya chitte nagane anas, Iha hai te krishna lagi sudhrudha manas. Chetan Chaitanya says that don’t think all this philosophy is right. What is this? I don’t, I’m not interested in this.
I come to temple for some peace of mind. And you give such complicated classes. I come to temple to become refreshed, but I’m exhausted now.
So Siddhanta baliya chitte nagane anas. This is all philosophy. This is very tiring.
I don’t want it. Don’t be lazy like that. Understand philosophy.
Why? What will happen? Iha hai te krishna lagi sudhrudha manas. By this, by philosophical understanding, the mind will become firmly fixed on Krishna. Firmly, strongly, sudhrudha manas.
Without philosophical understanding, we think Krishna bhakti is nice, but there are so many nice things in life. This is also one nice thing. Yes, there may be many nice things in life, but they are all temporary.
Krishna is an entirely different category. So what happens is without philosophical understanding, Krishna just remains one thing in the many things in our life. Yes, you know, there is sports, there is hobbies, there is this, there is Krishna also.
It’s good at least Krishna is there in that list. But, you know, when we, when Krishna is just one among the many things in our life, then actually we, we under tap the power of connection with Krishna. We can’t fully benefit from the connection with Krishna because Krishna is not just one thing among many things.
Krishna is the one thing that underlies all other things. He is the foundation of everything. And what does it mean practically? How will it make a difference? See, when we practice bhakti at a cultural level, our self-conception remains largely material.
I think I’m a businessman. I think I’m a housewife. I think I’m a mother.
I think I’m this and that. And then we identify with whatever roles we are playing in the world. And then whenever there is agitation and trouble in the roles, we become shattered by that.
But when there is proper philosophical understanding, then we practice bhakti at a spiritual level. Practicing bhakti at a spiritual level means it changes our self-conception. Practicing bhakti is not just about chanting Hare Krishna, coming to a temple, going for yatras.
All these are wonderful. They’re essential. But this should change our self-conception.
Self-conception means I understand that I am a part of Krishna. I am a servant of Krishna. And as a servant of Krishna, I am the husband of someone.
I am the wife of someone. I am the father of someone. I am employing this company.
I am the boss of this company. Whatever other roles we have, we see them as services. Narada Bhakti.
Narada Muni says bhakti means sarvopadhi niruttam. Become free from all designations. So if I identify, if my first identity is with my designation, if I identify myself as the mother of someone and then if my child is going on the wrong track, child is not listening to me and I know my whole life is a failure.
What did I achieve? But no, my first identification should be I am a servant of Krishna. As a servant of Krishna, Krishna has sent this child in my life and I will try to serve this child. I’ll try to care for this child.
I’ll help this child to grow up properly. But we are meant to do many services in our life and sometimes there are factors beyond our control because of which some services work, some services don’t work. Even for Srila Prabhupada himself, he was a pure devotee with a completely pure desire to share Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s, Krishna’s message, to share Puri Puri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s prophecy.
But even for him, there were so many reversals, so many things that didn’t work out. He started a business. His purpose was to assist his spiritual master mission by financial contribution.
Didn’t work. Somebody cheated him. Things went wrong.
Then he started an organization, started League of Devotees and the very people who were supporting him, they worked against him and that which was going to be his international headquarters was practically evicted from there. He tried so many things. He went to America and a person, David, who was going to become his first disciple, he went mad in a drug-induced mania and came to attack Prabhupada.
Prabhupada had to flee from there. So today’s Guru Purnima and Prabhupada is a paramount example of Guru for us and we see that even in his life, there are so many things which he tried which didn’t work out. But what was his determination never failed.
Empowerment doesn’t mean absence of obstacles. It doesn’t mean absence of failures. Empowerment means perseverance amidst obstacles and perseverance amidst failures.
Prabhupada had many obstacles and many failures also in external sense. Internally, whatever he was doing was pleasing Krishna and in that sense, it was always successful. But externally, all things didn’t work out.
So when we practice, we have philosophical understanding and we practice bhakti at the spiritual level, then we identify ourselves as servants of Krishna and whatever we are doing, it is a service to Krishna. So I have a job and in this job, this job which I am doing, it’s a service to Krishna. Sometimes people think, what if I lose my job? If I lose my job, then how will I pay the mortgage for my house? I can’t pay the mortgage for my house, then I’ll be on the streets.
Oh no, if I’m on the streets, what will I do? Right now, I’m sitting in an AC room, but I’m worrying what will happen if I go on the streets. It’s just the mind is taking us on a wild ride. So if I identify myself, I’m a servant of Krishna.
As a servant of Krishna, I’m doing this job. Okay, this job doesn’t work out, something goes wrong, I’ll pick up something else. No, Krishna will provide for his devotees.
वो पार्ड़ावदा यामिश्चियं यातना नयिवामि प्रभवन्ति पापरपवन् स्वामीन नुष्टितर्ण आलस्यं विपनिय बक्ति सुलवं धार्यस्व नारायन लोकस्य विषना पनोधन करो तास्यस् सकिन नक्षिमा Mukund Malaswamy’s Kulshikar Maharaj phrase, Oh my dear mind, don’t worry so much. Sir, the mind is lazy in working and busy in worrying. So, maavir manda mano vichit.
Don’t worry so much. In this context, he is talking about bahudhaya nishchiram yatna. You may think that I have done so many sinful activities and so many reactions are going to come.
How will I deal with them? Don’t worry about it. Why? naivami prabhavanti paarparapavah swaminanushridhara Don’t you know that your lord, who is he? He is two qualities. That is, paarparapavah.
He is the enemy of sin. When he is present, sin and sinful reactions will flee away. And not only that, he is shridhara.
He is the lord of the goddess of fortune. So, he is the enemy of sin and he is the lord of the goddess of fortune and he is your lord. So, why are you worried? He says lokase vasana panodam karo People in general who are not even really devotees, they come to him and thousands of people come to the temples, mosques, churches, they go and pray and their prayers are many times answered.
That’s why they keep coming. So, even people in general, the lord fulfills their desires. Then, dasis kim nakshamaha When somebody who has devoted oneself to serving the lord, why will the lord not protect the devotee? So, therefore, alasyam ratanya bhakti sulabham dhyayasvanarayanam alasyam ratanya Give up laziness.
Don’t be lethargic. Don’t be apprehensive. Bhakti is very easy.
Just by the easy process of bhakti, dhyayasvanarayanam Absorb yourself in Krishna. Meditate on Krishna. When we absorb ourselves in Krishna, we will find that whatever happens.
In the world many things will go wrong, but Krishna will always be with us. And in the connection with Krishna there will always be shelter. So, Krishna is the supreme spiritual reality and the supreme purpose of spirituality is to connect us with the supreme reality.
So, rather than getting enamored by some conceptions of spiritual which may be simply practically beneficial but which are not transformational. We focus on the pure spiritual conception which is both transformational and ultimately transformational and ultimately supremely beneficial. So, I’ll summarize.
I spoke today about how we should go to a spiritual master for inquiring about shreya uttama that which is fulfilling and that which is illuminating. So, in life today people pursue achievement, abhyudaya but they don’t pursue nishreyas, fulfillment. If we achieve a lot but we don’t have fulfillment then we will be dissatisfied and we should pursue that knowledge which illuminates us, gives us a clear understanding of reality.
Uttama. So, then my focus of the class was on this tama part that one part of the darkness in today’s world is that people equate the mental and the spiritual. So, anything which is different from their routine experience, everything that makes them, anything that makes them feel good or calm, they call it as spiritual.
But the Bhagavad Gita explains that beyond the physical there are two levels. There is mental and there is spiritual. And the soul is the root source of consciousness and the mind is the root, the pathway of consciousness.
And real spirituality is that which connects not just at the level of the mind, at the level of the soul which connects us with the Supreme Soul, Krishna. So, when people practice whatever they call as spirituality that may sometimes be pacification of the mind. But that is like a pain killer.
So, we need to, we need not just pacification but purification. So, agitation is caused not just because the external circumstances are agitated but agitation is caused because we are attached to things that are uncertain, that are unstable. So, I talked about how anxiety is caused, can be caused by external uncertainty.
But even when external uncertainty has gone down in the first world still there is anxiety. Why? Because there is inner instability. Inner instability means people don’t have a solid self-conception.
Their self, their sense of self-identity is not based on something stable and spiritual. So, when their sense of self-identity is based on something external, it may be their wealth, it may be their family, their intelligence, their looks, then because this can be lost anytime, so there is existential anxiety. And the reason for this anxiety is that externally things are different.
Death is unavoidable. And we cannot wish death away. We deny death by thinking that it will happen to someone else or some other time and it’s almost like I won’t be there.
No. Death is going to happen to us. So, what we need to do is we need to have a understanding that the self is the soul.
And our self-conception should be based on our understanding of the soul. The soul is indestructible. The soul is a part of Krishna.
And when bhakti, what we do is going beyond pacification to purification. To getting the soul to become attached to Krishna. And that brings the ultimate pacification.
So, in bhakti we get pacification and purification both. So, sometimes when there is intense spiritual environment around us, at that time we experience spiritual emotions far ahead of what our level is. So, it is not that we were spiritual and again became material.
Rather, we got advanced experience in spirituality. So, in that sense what we experience in bhakti is different from what people experience by shallow form of spirituality. They feel peaceful in peaceful circumstances or just projecting oneself to a peaceful place.
But again, when their mind gets agitated when the world creates some agitation they get agitated again. But in bhakti it is our heart that is being redirected towards Krishna. And that is what brings ultimate pacification.
So, sometimes it may seem that in bhakti the pacification is not coming rather agitation is coming because of bhakti. So, that is like if a patient becomes complacent because of the painkiller and doesn’t take the medicine very seriously the painkiller is stopped. I am sick, I need the medicine.
So, there is peace of mind and there is the peace of the soul. Sometimes when the peace of mind goes away, then we have to choose. Now, either we can just give up bhakti and go back into material life or we can go deeper into bhakti beyond the mind to the level of the soul.
And then, if we take shelter of Krishna by serious practice of bhakti, if our mind is vulnerable say to verbal attacks, we will be agitated still. But the magnitude and duration of that agitation will become much lesser because we have spiritual shelter. And lastly, I talked about how we need to go beyond cultural practice of bhakti to spiritual practice of bhakti through philosophical understanding.
When we practice cultural bhakti, we still identify ourselves at the material level as a professional, as a whatever material designation is. And when that designation is threatened, we feel agitated. But with philosophical understanding, when we identify ourselves as servants of Krishna, then we see everything that we do, all our relationships, all our work, all our occupation, vocation, as a service to Krishna.
And some services will work out, some services won’t. But that doesn’t affect our self-identity. Because I am stable as a servant of Krishna.
And even for Prabhupada, also, not all the services that he started work out. So empowerment doesn’t mean obstacle, absence of obstacles or reversals. It means perseverance amidst obstacles and reversals.
And when we are philosophically grounded in understanding that Krishna is the ultimate reality and I am his part, I am his servant, then no matter how much ups and downs come in our life, we will stably move towards, we’ll be founded in the peace that passeth all understanding. In the sublime spiritual peace that will help us to face with no matter the biggest problem that life may send. So, with bhakti philosophy we understand, last part of the conclusion, that when nothing is left, Krishna is still left.
And he is our ultimate shelter. Thank you very much. Are there any questions or comments? You can send the mic there, I can just hear the question.
You can send the mic there. Yes please. You can ask the question.
So, in Bhagavatam we see many devotees renounce their family, renounce the world and focus exclusively in bhakti. But say, in other traditions or say in Pandharpur, Vithar, you know it is that a devotee is serving his parents and the lord is waiting for him to complete his service to his parents and then the lord waits for the service. So, how do we understand this? There is an essential principle of bhakti and there is a contextual application of bhakti.
So, if we see this, even in the Bhagavad Gita and the Bhagavatam itself we see this difference. The Bhagavad Gita, there is practically no verse which endorses strongly renunciation of the world. Krishna talks about how the yogi is going to the jungle in the sixth chapter but then he says, Arjuna, you practice bhakti.
Bhakti is the easier way to control the mind. And bhakti means you remember me and you fight. So, the context of the Gita is that Arjuna, for him, dharma is to fight the world.
For him, he needs to be engaged. And because he needs to be engaged, for him, renunciation is not appropriate at that time. So, the essential message of bhakti is that we have to devote ourselves to the lord.
But for Arjuna, that devotion is through his dedication to his duties in this world. In contrast, if you see in the Bhagavatam, Pariksit Maharaj has been cursed to die in seven days and he has also accepted the curse. He decides, I am not going to try anything to counter it.
Then, the whole thrust of the Bhagavatam is just renounce the world. Just focus on Krishna. Everything is a distraction.
To think that we are the protectors of anyone, we are the maintainers of anyone, that’s an illusion. The story of Bharat Maharaj is told, how he tried to protect a deer and he got distracted by that. But, we see that same Pariksit Maharaj, when he was ruling as a king and when a cow and a bull were being attacked, he did not think, oh, if I try to protect this cow and bull, I will become attached to them, so I should not try to protect them.
That time he intervened. So, the context of the Bhagavatam is, it’s helping a person to prepare for death. At that point, everything in this world is a distraction.
So, there is single-pointed focus on the other world. So, the contextual application of bhakti for Pariksit Maharaj is very different from the contextual application of bhakti for Arjuna. So, in today’s example, today’s world, we could say, there is some young energetic devotee, maybe that devotee is frustrated because of some difficulties.
You know, I will just go to Vrindavan and I will chant 128 rounds every day. Now, he is like that devotee. Now, you know, don’t do that.
You will have beauty of energy. You will just become a Sahajiya by that. And better stay here.
Some other servant, Bhagavat, will encourage that devotee to be actively engaged in doing service. Now, on the other hand, say some devotee has got cancer and it’s terminal, it’s incurable. And then that devotee, there is no chance of recovery.
Then that devotee starts thinking, you know, okay, I was managing this project, we will take care of this. Then the devotee is guiding him, just forget that now. It’s Krishna’s mission, Krishna will take care.
So, you focus on fixing your mind on Krishna. So, there is context which is very important in understanding content. If we take the content without the context, we can misapply and we can make a mess of things.
So, in, as I said, what would be appropriate for us? So, in that particular context, now, that story of Vitthal is told, but we don’t, it’s just that much, that story is primarily told to talk about how Vitthal is standing on a brick. But beyond that, you know, it’s quite likely that the parents of that particular bhakta were also great devotees. And by serving them also, you are serving them.
And was it that for him it was a choice between, it was not a life-changing decision. Whether I serve my parents first and then I serve the Lord. Or whether I serve the Lord first and serve my parents.
So, we can’t take that example as a basis for deciding how we can practice bhakti. That example is an illustration. But we have to understand the essential principle of bhakti is that I am meant to serve Krishna.
And then, in my context, my context means my familial context, my social context, my psychophysical context, I have to find out how best I can serve Krishna. So, if I can serve Krishna by pronouncing the word and practicing bhakti as an enunciator, that’s wonderful. If I can practice bhakti best by being engaged in the world as a householder, that’s also wonderful.
So, from the bhakti perspective, whatever is anukul, we take that. And whatever is pratikul, we avoid that. Is the answer your question? Yes, please.
Thank you so much for that talk. Probably, we’ve learned in various classes that we must not give up. I mean, we should continuously strive in devotional service.
We may end up with failures, however, we should continue. However, in the example that we know that, yes, Prabhupada, he wanted to serve his own master financially and his business state. And he gave up that business.
I am not bashing him, but at what level should a person devotedly decide that yes, I should not pursue beyond this and yes, this is not a good problem. So, we sometimes show that we should never give up, we should keep persevering in our service to Krishna. But then we see that Prabhupada was doing his business and then at one particular point, he decided to just stop it and do some focus on direct service to Krishna.
So, at what point can we decide that this is enough, it’s not for me and I should do something else. There is the intention to serve and there is the form of service. So, for a devotee, the form of service can change according to time and place circumstances.
The intention to serve doesn’t change. Shri Prabhupada writes in a purport that a devotee may be perplexed, but a devotee is never discouraged. Perplexed means that I don’t know what to do.
Should I be continuing with this service or should I do some other service? That kind of indecision, that is perplexity. But discouragement means I don’t want to do anything. I just don’t want to serve Krishna.
I don’t want to do anything. So, a devotee is never discouraged. Devotee’s intention to serve Krishna never wavers.
That is already strong. Specifically, how we serve Krishna, that has to be determined by time and circumstances. The example is Kunti Maharaj says Ganga flows towards the ocean She says She says that just let my mind constantly flow towards you.
See, the Ganga flows towards the ocean. Now, the Gangas flow towards the ocean. It’s not always straight.
If we look at a topographical map of India and we see Ganga, it’s not always a straight line. Like this, like this, like this. It’s a winding journey.
Because the topography at a particular place may not be conducive for the river to flow. The river will move that way. So, its intention is to keep moving towards the ocean.
But exactly how it moves towards the ocean, that will be shaped by the territory around it. So, like that, our goal is always to serve Krishna. But how specifically we serve Krishna, whether a particular ashram we serve, a particular service we do, a particular preaching program we do, taking a particular responsibility, a particular department.
Should I continue in that? Should I do something else? That’s something which we have to decide based on timely circumstances. So, such decisions should be taken in the mode of goodness, not in the mode of passion or ignorance. That means, say, if I have experienced frustration in a service and I have tried and again and again there have been obstacles and I have not been able to do it.
Then if I give up the service because of frustration, then sometimes that kind of giving up of a particular effort may be in the mode of ignorance. So, now, yes, it’s possible that this particular service requires a particular frame of mind or a particular nature or a particular talent which I don’t have. So, it may be best that I don’t do the service.
Somebody else does that service. But that recognition need not be born primarily out of frustration. That recognition can also be born from reflection.
So, if I’m in frustration, I give it up because I can’t do it. And I start feeling that I’m worthless, I’m good for nothing. But when I’m in the mode of goodness, when we, before taking any major decision in our life, we pray, we chat, we get ourselves in a calm, reflective state of mind and then we objectively analyze the various parameters.
If I do this, this is an advantage, this is a disadvantage. If I do this, this is an advantage, this is a disadvantage. And then, based on that, then we arrive at a decision.
Then that decision is based on not because I can’t do this, I give it up, but because there are other things which I can do and I will be better able to contribute to other things. So, that’s why I give this up. There’s a difference between, say, frustration and renunciation.
Frustration is because I can’t do this, I give it up. Renunciation means because I have something higher to do, that’s why I give this up. So, the focus is very different in the two cases.
So, as devotees, we need to do due reflection. And we can, of course, consult senior devotees. They will also give us a different perspective on things.
And generally, it’s best not to take this decision, kind of decision, instantaneously. Maybe we can gradually. Say, if the thoughts are in the mind, get them out.
Write them down. When we write things down, the thoughts are inside the mind, they just create congestion. Should I do this? Should I not do this? The mind is in an auto-loop.
Do this, don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this. I just don’t get anywhere. So, get the thoughts out of the mind.
Write them down. And then, just the distance between us and the thoughts, it gives some objective. Yeah, this makes sense.
This is not really valid. This, I need to get more information about this. This, I have to consult with someone else.
And then, basically, when you write things down, we get a snapshot of our mind. A picture of our mind. And, of our mental state, basically.
And if we decide that this is a major decision in my life, I’m not going to take it one day. Let me do reflection on this for the next six months. Then, it’s, we don’t constantly keep thinking about it.
Because, see, serious issues, life-changing decisions, they cannot be a result of background thinking. That means, you know, I’m doing this job, I’m doing this, and at that time, I start thinking of this. Major issues, if we start thinking that way, that sort of thinking simply drains us.
It doesn’t illuminance. It just confuses us more. So, when the thought of, should I do this, should I not do this, that thought comes in the mind, then, instead of, we decide, every week, maybe this is important, maybe one hour, I’ll sit and think about this.
So, write everything down, and if in the week, course of the week, a new thought comes, new idea comes, just note it down. Don’t think too much about it. And then, at the end of a week, when we have some time, then add that and think about it oneself.
And then, what I have written earlier, I’ll be able to bring reflection back to it. See, okay, this is a value point. I didn’t think about this.
I didn’t think about this. And then, if you do it for a persistent period of time, basically, what are we doing by this? You know, by this, we are making our intelligence the counsellor of our mind. You know, the mind is saying this, but then, how valid is it? I have to use my intelligence to evaluate it.
So, I use my intelligence, yeah, this is a value point, this is not a value point. And then, if we find, if we keep doing this, the regular reflection for a few months, after six months, I find that the way, overall way, I was thinking at the start of the six months is the same as I’m thinking right now. After six months.
That means, this is not just passing desire that has been born from circumstantial frustration. This is something which is a lasting inclination, enduring inclination within me. This is something that I strongly want to do.
So then, when we have done this due reflection, then after that, whatever decision we take, we will take it with confidence and we will execute it with conviction. Otherwise, we take some decision on the impulse, on the force of the moment, and afterwards, when we are doing something, we may have taken the right decision. But we are second-guessing ourselves.
Maybe I should not have done this. Maybe I should have done this. So then, even the right decision will not be executed rightly because we are half-hearted.
So, it is best that we take major decisions when we are in the mode of goodness and do due reflection in the mode of goodness and then we take decisions like this. So, it is not that one form of service is right and another is wrong. You have to see what is right for me.
Now, the devotees who are associated with this form of service, they may tell me, you know, you should do this service only. Devotees who are associated with that form of service, they say, you should do this. Come here.
So, we can’t let ourselves be buffeted around by opinions of others. We take input from others’ opinions, but ultimately it is we who have to do ourselves. So, it is we who have to live the life.
You know, it is even our spiritual master, even our spiritual master cannot live our life for us. I have to live my life. My spiritual master will guide me and the instructions are very important, but I have to live my life.
So, then we have to be ourselves convinced about the course of action. We consult others, but it is based on our conviction that we make a decision. And then whatever decision we make, based on what is uncool for our bhakti, what is favorable, we do that and we may either continue the same form of service or we may change over to a different form of service.
Does that answer your question? Thank you. Shall we stop here? Thank you very much. Granth Raas Shri Madhvabhutam Ki Jai! Shri Prabhupada Ki Jai! Gaur Bhakta Binda Ki Jai!