Varnashrama in bhakti – Focus on replicating the take-off not recreating the take-off point

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

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna so today morning the discussion on the Uddhava Gita is going on wherein we discuss about the importance of the right system the right social situation wherein one can practise Varanashram or and ultimately one can practise spiritual life that is devotional service to the supreme lord so how exactly is such devotional service to be practised and in that connection two distinct examples are given the first example is of the Brahmana who has just been described in the previous chapter is Avadhut Brahmana came to a situation in his spiritual life where he had to reject everything material Brahmana the nominal respect in society but he was completely transcendental to the world and still he practised spiritual life how he learned from everyone everywhere that is described through that narrative now he was certainly an extraordinary person and how people who are not that extraordinary can grow in spiritual life will be described now so I will focus on one metaphor throughout the class and the theme of this class will be what is the role of Varanashram in bhakti how the two correlate the metaphor will be that we need to focus on replicating the takeoff not recreating the takeoff point now when a plane has to fly at that time the plane needs a takeoff point the plane has to have a place where it can fly smoothly on the ground gain momentum and then take off spiritually so the takeoff point is required for a plane to fly in the sky but suppose we have one particular airport in Mumbai and say some other small city smaller city relatively speaking like Nasik an airport is to be built now the topography the surface structure of Nasik is different from Mumbai we cannot have the same takeoff it’s entirely the same takeoff point there or if we consider some hill station someplace like Matheda or somewhere like that where a takeoff point is to be created then it will not be the same as what was there in Mumbai the important thing is not to replicate the exact same geography or the topography of the takeoff points in two places the essential point is that we should take off the plane should be able to fly in the sky so the social structure of Varanashram is like the takeoff point and the process of Bhakti yoga is like the takeoff so Bhakti yoga is the process for raising our consciousness from the material level to the spiritual level it is the process that enables us to ultimately go out of this world and to attain Krishna. Varanashram helps us to live harmoniously in this world and the two can be connected and the two can be entirely disconnected also so the Bhagavatam clearly mentions that the purpose of Varanashram is to satisfy Lord Hari and satisfying Lord Hari is the essence of devotional service so when we satisfy Lord Hari we receive his mercy and then we become attracted to him and ultimately we attain him and then the Bhagavatam also says that in the same section 1.2.6 to 22 where the process of devotional service is talked about so if one performs Varanashram dharma but one does not develop attraction to the Lord then that performance of duties according to Varanashram is so if we elaborately put in a lot of efforts to build a takeoff point but then we have no airport we have no pilot and nobody is taking off from there then what is the use so the important thing is that the takeoff point should be used for the purpose of taking off and interestingly if you consider bodies are flying in the sky helicopters don’t require much of a takeoff point helicopter can just take off from wherever they are so similar the previous verse describe a situation where somebody is so transcendental that they can just take off some people their spiritual urge may be so strong that they do not need any supportive social structure they can just march off spiritually in 6.43 44 45 when Krishna talks about how the yogis who have practised spiritual life in one and then they resume their spiritual practise in the next life is for them they it said that they go beyond Shabda Brahma.
Shabda Brahma is the range of Vedic sound. Vedic sound basically describes Varanashram the system of how we should live materially by which you can progress spiritually but for them it is because the purvabdhya the past practise that one is helplessly forcefully attracted towards the supreme lord attracted towards transcendence attracted towards something higher in life so for them they already have innately the energy to just take off just like helicopter is constructed in such a way that it can just take off without much of a take off on the ground just picks up so like that some souls are special and because of their past spiritual cultivation they have the potency that wherever they are they will take off that leave alone needing a supportive social structure they can even go against the social structure to surrender to the law and to pursue their spiritual growth however most people are not like that and for them there is a take off that is needed so if we consider the history of our movement the first generation many of the souls who were sent by Krishna to assist Shila Prabhupada you could say were like helicopters they had their own spiritual search going on so strongly even before they were introduced to Krishna and they just marched off so Shila Prabhupada started the Krishna consciousness movement without much of a take off point now wherever people were from there just start off they start off practising there are many great souls who are actually seriously searching for something higher some of the illustrious followers of Prabhupada actually went out in search of God to different parts of the world if we consider most of us at least I didn’t go out in search of God devotees came out in search of me and they found me of course even in our case there has to be some spiritual inclination which is there or some spiritual inclination that was activated somehow but the point is that the first generation in our movement was like a helicopter taking off not even the whole first generation Shila Prabhupada even when the movement was very small one of the first things that he did was created the governing body commission he delegated authority and then he emphasised as the years spread that we need a support to social structure by which people can grow spiritually so most helicopter usually is very small helicopter cannot carry 100-200 people so similarly there is one person or a very small group of people who are all very spiritually motivated then in whatever situation they may be put they’ll be able to practise virtual life they’ll just be like helicopters taking off from wherever they are but if you have a large community of people who want to practise spiritual life then we cannot expect them to take off without a proper takeoff point that community becomes like a plane and for a plane to take off we need a proper take off point and that now what do we mean by having a takeoff point to move towards spirituality normally we consider the material and the spiritual to be different and sometimes we say the material has to be given up to practise the spiritual however the bhakti process is not just about giving up the material for practising the spiritual it is also about using the material for practising the spiritual it is if we consider the bhagavad-gita does tell arjuna sarva-dharman parityajya mam ekam saranam rajam just give up all varieties of religion and just surrender unto me and yet at the end of the bhagavad-gita what does arjuna do does he just give up sarva-dharman all dharmas now that a bhagavad-gita i was at a bhagavad-gita programme general and there i was invited to talk on the bhagavad-gita and there some of the children over there in that community they were reciting the bhagavad-gita some important verses and they came to this 18.66 and they recited sarva-dharman parityajya mam ekam saranam rajam so they recited as sarva-dharman parityajya now after that i asked the organisers versus how did you make it sarva-dharman he said actually he quoted some bhagavad-gita scholar who has said that actually krishna has come to establish dharma so how can he tell you to give up dharma actually now when the bhagavad-gita was written down generation after generation somebody forgot it oh so that’s why now we have added that oh it is it is actually meant to be sarva-dharman parityajya now logically it might make sense but it completely misses out on the context of the bhagavad-gita for arjuna a dharma was not an option at all if you see the beginning of the bhagavad-gita there is an ethical tension but there is a moral tension and ethical tension moral tension means one choice is moral the other is immoral and one needs at that time willpower to stick to the moral choice if somebody is tempted by money somebody is tempted by sensuality and no i won’t do this that’s moral tension ethical tension is where there are two choices both of them are good but which is good at that particular situation so arjuna had to choose between the kshatriya dharma and his kula dharma the kshatriya dharma told him that aggressors have to be fought and have to be defeated have to be punished his kula dharma told him that you should always protect the members of your kula so at the before the kurukshetra war his his kshatriya is his varana and his kula dharma went into opposite directions so here also it is a varanashram kulacharam here it is a varanashram and kula one should work according to both of them samacharya one should work accordingly but for arjuna there was a tension between the two so which to choose should you choose the kshatriya dharma which is varana dharma or kula dharma and krishna tells him don’t get caught in whether this dharma is important that dharma is important remember the purpose of all dharma is surrender to me and find out which dharma helps you to surrender to me and in arjuna’s situation it was the kshatriya dharma for establishing krishna’s purpose of establishing dharma he had to fight and that’s why arjuna at the end of the bhagavad-gita is described he has picked up his bow in readiness to fight so the point i was making here is that even for arjuna at that time the takeoff point was not so smooth but the important thing is when we the bhagavad-gita tells in principle arjuna give up for the surrender of krishna but actually arjuna surrenders according to his varana dharma he surrenders by fighting the war so basically bhakti has two aspects one is the world transcending aspect and the other is the world engaging aspect so there are things in this world which cannot be dovetailed in krishna’s service say for example there are activities which break the regulative principles they’re explicitly non-devotional or even anti-devotional they have to be given up but there are many activities in the world which are pro-devotional and they can be used in the service of krishna so if we consider the takeoff point it is on the ground the plane is meant to fly in the sky but as the plane starts taking off it it moves on the ground and as it keeps moving faster and faster and faster on the ground it gains the momentum and then it is inclined upwards as it flies upward it then shoots out into the sky so similarly for us when we want to move towards krishna there is the spiritual energy that that comes from our attraction to krishna now for most of us there is definitely some attraction towards krishna but that attraction is is is not very sporadic it is not consistent so what varanashram does so we if a vehicle is to if a plane is to move it needs some fuel it needs some energy so if we are to move we have to have some energy where will that energy come from in one sense it may come from our attraction towards krishna but that is not very strong at this stage then we could say it can come from our intellectual conviction and this is what i am meant to do jeeva goswami says that for the sadhaka for the siddha siddha stays on the spiritual platform by their priti the sadhakas stay on the spiritual platform by their buddhi in 3.43 krishna says in this way and with your intelligence understand yourself to be transcendental with this situation you are on the spiritual platform but at the same time that same third chapter this is 3.43 you see it was earlier 3.45 krishna says that that everybody acts according to their nature that so he says that even gyana van even those in knowledge will act according to their nature what can repression accomplish so what he means over here is that our buddhi we are meant to and use to ensure that we go out spiritually but even when we are going spiritually we cannot repress our nature so that nature is what is channelled by varanashram so varanashram uses varanashram basically channels our material energy in a dharmic way we all have certain certain material talent certain material abilities and those are channelled in a constructive way for social and spiritual growth so the social harmony and the social contribution is taken care of varanashram and bhakti takes care of the spiritual growth so basically a brahmana would like to do intellectual work a kshatriya would like to managerial work so by like to do we are not talking simply here about some superficial liking of the mind the mind is not you could say monochrome in the yoga literature it is said that the three levels of the mind because the outer mind the middle mind and the inner mind so the outer mind refers to that aspect of the mind which is connected with the gross body the middle mind refers to the subtle body itself and the inner mind refers to that aspect of the mind which is connected with the atma the soul so the outer mind refers to that refers to how our minds emotions are shaped by our are connected with our physical situation now when we become angry or when we become agitated we start breathing fast and conversely if we are agitated and if we start breathing slowly then just by the slow breathing the mind calms down not fully because there are impurities which are there in the middle mind which also have to be dealt with but the outer mind is very strongly connected with the body so the impressions that we carry so at the level of the outer mind there are many emotions that become somebody look at a sense object and again i get i want this i want that i want that so at the level of the outer mind there are many many desires that may come and go and those are superficial they are there one moment and then after some time they’re forgotten i was once travelling in north india going for a youth meeting in our youth retreat in paranasi so i was sitting in the train at that time i was travelling many years ago and i was chanting and i was chanting at that time one person he asked i want to ask some questions i said i’m busy now later where are you busy this is i’m chanting you can chat anytime he said no i’ll talk with you later so i finished my japanese yes what was your question he said i forgot i forgot the question so actually it was not at all a serious question for him you saw somebody and ask the question but it’s just half an hour later he forgot the question so this is just very this is very superficial curiosity sometimes we see something maybe ask a question but there is also existential curiosity now where one needs certain answers to make sense of life so basically i’m saying that at the mind’s level there are superficial desires which come and go but at the middle mind level there are also deeper desires deeper inclinations people attractions these are what would say what we could say is our varna nature our swabha so the swabha is not something that can be wished away it is something very deep-rooted within us and we need to channel that constructively in krishna service and to the extent this swabha is channelled to that extent we get momentum even in material life there is a great concern for many people have they want to get into their float want to find their shape they want to discover their purpose when they’re talking about discovering their purpose we say our purpose is to go back to krishna so they are not interested in that purpose that is okay what is my purpose while i’m living here what am i meant to do in my life and it’s a very serious search and for many people they just don’t find out what is their nature what are their inclinations and people who can find it out they actually materially speaking are happier than others material happiness doesn’t last for long but there is there are material level material happiness also various levels there could be this material happiness which comes by fulfilling our vasanas now last anger last greed and when we fulfil that there is some pleasure but there is also a ruti varna brahmacharya so when we live according to our basic nature we also get some happiness there and people who are able to do anything anything worthwhile anything extraordinary in the material level of reality material life also they basically are channelling their basic nature in the in i studied engineering so in engineering there are most people who just function they’re just in the engineering to get a degree and get a job but there are some people who just love the subject just keep studying keep studying getting absorbed in that and they do it because it engrosses them so much that’s because they have that is more or less their nature so many people spend a lot of time trying to find their nature even in the material world and if they find it they get relatively speaking some material happiness if they don’t find it then there is extreme dissatisfaction it just plagues them so now when we are practising spiritual life we can’t wish away our material body and our material mind we have to find out how we are meant to move forward in our spiritual life and for that if we can channel our material nature and its energy so we want to move towards krishna one way is the attraction towards krishna that will help us move the other is the intellectual conviction so intellectual conviction is important for fighting against the vasanas fighting against lust anger greed but the intellectual conviction cannot suppress the sabhav the basic nature nigraha kim karishasi arjuna krishna is asking arjuna here arjuna you are a kshatriya if you try to be forgiving if you try to be non-violent you are acting like a brahmana you won’t be able to act like that therefore it says act according to your nature so the principle is that in varna ashram there is the material energy which we get when we act according to our nature and that material energy is used to create spiritual momentum that is used to help us not just move materially on the horizontal plane but move also move horizontally and then take off vertically so when we work according to our sabhav according to our nature we move forward in our spiritual life much more smoothly because there is not there is some inner friction that is there because our we have to we have to fight against our lower desires but then there is also the spiritual there is also the inner harmony that is there because we are working according to our nature now this of course brings us to the ever-present question that just as that is which is asked by materialistic people that is also asked by devotees how do we find our nature how do we come this how do we understand what is our nature the first principle there is that we generally can’t understand our nature so easily unless we are having some very special talent and have some special circumstances which reveal that talent to us the mind in rajoguna is always looking for something new something new something new so if you ask the mind mind means i talked about the outer mind the middle mind the inner mind normally to the outer mind that is active very much if we ask the mind what is my nature the mind will reply whatever you are doing right now that is not your nature all i need to say is oh you are doing right this this is so miserable this is so incompatible this is so frustrating this is not your nature and then whatever we do the mind will keep us dissatisfying that because the point is that the mind always likes the path of least resistance it doesn’t want to work hard it doesn’t want to apply oneself and even when we are working very even when we are doing something which we like to do the mind is so fickle that it doesn’t it sometimes isn’t like even that thing which it normally likes so for example i like to write writing to the time when i get most absorbed but there are times when writing is so so difficult there’s one devotee long ago many of them 15 10 10 12 years ago one devotee told me he says your service is very nice you just sit in the room and write he says we have to run around manage this solve this problem do this do that and what happened he had to give his exam he had to give his bhakti shastri and he had to write essays and he had to write those essays for three days and say i don’t want to do this ever again so anything that we have to do just sit down write organise the thoughts it’s not that easy so the nature of the mind is it makes us feel like what others are doing are so easy it’s so easy so an author has said that writing is very easy all you have to do is sit in front of a computer and glare at the monitor till drops of blood form on your forehead till drops of blood form on your forehead that no ideas come you don’t sweat over there you get so frustrated so there are times when author just feel i don’t ever want to write so one of the most prolific authors in the world he had a he had a policy how did he write he said every morning he would go into his library and he would just take off his outer clothes and he would give them to his butler and he said till noon he said don’t give me this clothes back i cannot come out of the room till noon and even if it didn’t feel like writing he kept writing the point which i’m making over here is that even if we are doing something that we like to do even if something is according to our nature it is not that the mind will always like to do it so that’s why for understanding our nature also we need to go beyond the outer mind the outer mind is always filled with circumstantial emotions hey i like this i don’t like that i want to eat this i want to watch this i want to do that so the process of initially involves learning the principle of subordination learning the principle of obedience by which whether i feel like it or don’t feel like it i do it that’s why by the bhakti is we are given the vidhi by the shastra by the guru and when we act accordingly then basically we learn to go beyond the outer mind the outer mind is where our circumstantial emotions temptations cravings all these keep coming and when we go beyond the outer mind then we can go to the middle mind the middle mind is where our subhava is situated and then we can we can discover that and we can persevere in that so to the extent we work according to our nature our material energy becomes channelled for our spiritual purposes because if it’s only the spiritual attraction towards krishna that is to take us towards krishna the energy will not be much but if you’re doing something which we like to do not again like in a superficial sense but in substantial sense somebody just loves to sing for krishna they can go on lifelong singing for krishna somebody loves to manage and then organise things and then you have to do it for krishna they’ll be happy to do it so so when this this is the point of arunashram that we are meant to take people that their material energy can be used to power their spiritual journey that is the expertise of arunashram now i started by talking about how there is our purpose is to replicate the takeoff not the not recreate the takeoff point i’ll conclude with that explanation that what determines now we say when we work according to our subhava according to our material nature then we can move towards krishna with greater energy but what determines our subhava what determines our nature is it birth only is it for a birth means that say we are born in a particular dynasty particular family particular national particular country particular gender particular socio-cultural context that birth is definitely an important factor but the mistake of arunashram was to reduce subhava to janma janma birth does contribute to determining our subhava now at the time of the varna at the time of the mahabharata itself there was a celebrated conversation between yudhishtira and nahusha and nahusha is asking questions to yudhishthira and yudhishthira says that actually because there has been an intermixing of the varnas for so long we cannot determine the varna just by janma and therefore ultimately we have to look at achara what is the person what how does the person act that is what will determine the varna now he’s talking about intermixing thousands of years ago when the mahabharata was spoken the mahabharata describes a culture but it is not necessarily the ideal vedic culture krishna speaks the bhagavad-gita and he says i am speaking this because there is dharmasya glani now where is the dharmasya glani at that time the dharmasya glani so the decline of dharma is the setting in which the mahabharata was occurring and krishna can establish dharma so thousands of years ago if the janma alone was not birth alone was not enough to determine the varna the nature what to speak of now so basically our achara is determined by five factors there is janma there is the birth then there is the potion potion is our upbringing how are we brought up and that has to be very carefully understood because our potion it creates a substantial amount of impressions within us and then beyond that is our sangam our association even if somebody has got a very good upbringing good karma from the past but still if they get into bad association they will start acting in a bad way ajamila is the example of that beyond that there is swetcha we all have our free will and lastly is krupa is mercy so our janma janma which determines our which indicates our purvakarma the samskaras our janma our poshana our sanga our swetcha and krupa so our janma poshana and sanga they push us in particular directions and it is our swetcha we can go in that direction or to some extent we can resist that so somebody for example how potion may affect somebody may be from childhood may be just involved in eating meat and that’s just natural for them but then if they understand oh this is what animals go through there’s one western thinker he said if slaughterhouses had windows and nobody would kill animals nobody would eat meat he’s just not aware of it but if they come to know about it now in india even now in many movies and contemporary culture he said if you have to become modern you should become you should eat meat but in the western world actually eating meat is old-fashioned if you want to become cool if you want to become trendy become a vegan stop eating it so that culture changes but the point is we have swetcha the past may have created a certain kind of inclinations within us so these things our janma our poshana and our sanga these create propositions come on do this do this do this now of we always have free will whether to accept the proposition or not accept the proposition but if a person has always eaten meat and they have no reason not to eat meat then they just accept the proposition now some people may understand i don’t want to eat meat because it’s causing so much pain to animals but still the desire will be very strong that’s so our by our swetcha we can fight against the force from the past but sometimes the force from the past may be too strong or from the present also sangha associated with the present also but what krpa does is krpa does two things first is it makes our swetcha strong it increases our power and it decreases the power of the past the the samskaras that are there within us they stop troubling us that much and both of these ways our behaviour can change so bhakti is dramatically powerful in empowering our swetcha and disempowering our past influences us so bhakti empowers us to go past our past to go past our past whatever our past may be now for us when you are talking about the now when you say go past our past that we are talking primarily about the vasanas the outer mind where there are this craving that craving that is there but from our past we also get our swabhava so swabhava also is not determined by by the up by the purva janma alone it is determined by the poshana by the upbringing also and that’s why to understand one’s swabhava one has to look holistically at the person and one of the key points of conflict between the first world and the third world is the role of women in society where i just came from america and okay for three months i was there i came yesterday morning itself so one of the common images in the western media about india is oh just see how these people these indians they put down their women they abuse their women they torture their women there is so much violence against women now actually speaking to some extent it is true and it is horrible the way things happen but in america also now there is a huge campaign called me too me too campaign is that there are several women who have said that they were harassed in their workplace that in order to grow in their profession their bosses extracted sexual favours from them and there was a nobel academy award winning movie director whose academy award was taken away because he had exploited many many many women many famous bollywood hollywood actresses that day so the principle that there is the sexual force which will be abused that is universal but the point is that this is how it is depicted in the western world so now one of the defining differences between the first world and third world is what is the role of women and actually prabhupada so in the western world is considered that women also have to have autonomy that they should be able to do what they want to do and that’s how their childhood itself they are grown up like that now prabhupada talks strongly about how women should always be under the protection but then what does protection mean protection does not mean restriction protection means facilitation facilitation so that everybody can grow accordingly there are lectures where prabhupada says that in a conversation with prabhupada he says that the western women are different now they have been right from their childhood they have been born and brought up to be just like their boys like like their brothers and he says in our movement these brothers and sisters they are all doing wonderful service to each other the prabhupada wanted varanashram but at the same time prabhupada sent out devotees for good distribution and devotees means even women went out for good like prabhupada wanted varanashram in a rigid sense of women always under protection when a woman is going out all alone to distribute books where is the protection prabhupada did not restrict people he doted people so basically if you see prabhupada when he when he preached and engaged people it was according to their portion since women have been brought and born and brought up in a traditional setting in a traditional setting who have been trained to take up the traditional social role of women he encouraged them to do that and those who have been born up in a born and brought up in a society setting where they have been trained differently he engaged them according to their nature the principle of protection is always there but how it is applied will vary according to time and circumstance last year when i was in denver we had gone to a programme and it was a college programme so there are a couple of brahmacharis who conduct that programme and actually it’s not last year it was a year before that so there were some students who came for the programme in the west gender separation is almost impossible especially in college outreach so there were boys and girls also there for the programme so i gave my classes normally quite philosophical so the first question after i finished my class i explained about various things the first question a girl asked me says all of you are monks where are the nuns she didn’t ask any other question nothing about the philosophy where are the nuns so i just look at the two dudes over there they’re black so then i answered actually you know we have a small centre here and we we have some monks over here we have some delhi we have a big centre in la where we have facility for nuns also and i said if you want to start a facility for nuns you are welcome you can start over here now i just spoke that as a joke but this year when i had gone to one centre that same month he said you know you had come for that programme she that mataji was in the temple now she was serving as a brahmachari so the point is that this is what people look at this is what people look at they have particular vision they say that okay why do you have only monks over here so then after that those devotees whenever they go for a programme they always take some matajis with them for the programme so the devotee will do the class the mataji will do the kirtan and they say okay there are there are men and there are women so if you see there are only men then people get put off people just not just women feel what is this only a man-only project but also men also they start thinking in the western world is so if if there is any establishment only men people start thinking that these are these are these are not straight people when they are of a particular sexual orientation that’s why there are only men over here there are no women over here so we people have their own mind frame which they come and we need to channel it accordingly so basically to the extent whatever is people’s portion so another i’ll conclude as saying that we have to replicate the take-off point not replicate the take-off not recreate the take-off point so one very deep-rooted need which is created by the modern upbringing or the contemporary upbringing is the need for autonomy people want to feel that i am my own person and i want to do what i want to do and Prabhupada talks in the Isopanishad that every soul has his own initiative and this initiative is meant to be used in Krishna’s service so the need for autonomy is a natural human need we are souls who have been given free will by Krishna so when the autonomy is suppressed repeatedly then people just can’t function there is a disciplining required the people who work in the army for many many years especially in lower positions where they’re simply told to obey if they retire from the army after that you just don’t know what to do because they have never developed a responsibility for taking decisions just tell that they need someone to tell them what to do what to do what to do what to do similarly people who are in jails you know if even if they have somehow somehow got in jail because of accidental crime or because of being framed or whatever i was talking with a devotee western out was in jail outreach he’s telling that many of them relapse and they relapse not just because of bad association if for many years they’ve stayed in jail then they just just need someone to tell them what to do and if there is no one to tell them then they don’t know what to do and that’s why they go and join some gang where somebody will tell them what to do so you know though we all sheila prabhupada said we have to become independently thoughtful we give up our autonomy voluntarily to krishna so that we can serve him but krishna’s love is such that he gives us our autonomy back that means krishna engages our free will into his service it is not that we are meant to reject our free will we are meant to use our free will in his service and as a devotee grows spiritually that need for autonomy is not taken care of is not provided for a devotee is not given a facility by which they can grow in devotional service then they will not be able to move forwards in bhakti to the extent this autonomy is provided for to that extent the devotee will grow in spiritual life and that as we grow forwards as we find out how best we can serve need for autonomy means what and need to understand our nature and work according to our nature so that when we do that then we get satisfaction which is both a combination of material and spiritual it’s material because of our nature it’s spiritual because it is done for krishna and that’s how we move steadily towards krishna so i’ll summarise i spoke today about how in varanashram we have to replicate the takeoff not recreate the takeoff point started by not an aeroplane it needs a place to take off a helicopter can take off on its own so like that those people who are already spiritually inclined or spiritually advanced from previous life even without a supportive social environment they can just take off and that’s how many of that’s how sri prabhupada started movement in the first generation with people who were already spiritually very motivated but if there’s a large community hundreds of people are there that can’t fly like a helicopter that means a plane and a plane needs a takeoff point so traditionally the takeoff point was varanashram varanashram means that we all have a particular material nature if we don’t work according to it we feel very incompatibly situated very dissatisfied so we can move towards krishna the plane when it’s just to move towards krishna it can take off because of spiritual attraction towards krishna it can take off because of it can get the energy because of intellectual conviction that i should go towards krishna but the spiritual attraction for most of us is not much and the intellectual attraction krishna says can’t go against our basic nature so the what will give energy to the plane to move on is psychophysical harmonisation when we harmonise with the psychophysical nature then the the energy that comes by working according to our material nature is used to move towards krishna then how do we discover this nature for that i talked about how there is the outer mind which is connected with the body and the circumstances the middle mind which is where our most of our deep rooted impressions are stored and there is the inner mind which is connected with the soul so if we rely on the outer mind it will never allow us to be steady in anything even the things that we actually like to do according to our nature so therefore the first principle in trying to discover our nature is to learn subordination whatever i feel like doing i don’t i put it aside and do what i am told to do by that we learn to go beyond the outer mind when we come to the middle mind where which is where we understand our nature when we come to the mode of goodness then we start understanding okay this is what uh what’s what i this is what my deep rooted inclinations and our art so how do we determine this subhava deep inclination even in the time of mahabharata it was not simply by janma because interbreeding leads to janma is not very strongly indicative of the purva samskara that we may have so janma is one factor then there is poshana the upbringing and then there is the sanga the association and there is sveksha and there is kripa so the janma poshana and sanga they create propositions do this do this and the sveksha by a free will we can either accept or we can reject the proposition and when we practise bhakti and get kripa then our sveksha becomes stronger and the purva and the other factors the negative forces coming from that become weaker so we can we are better able to resist divasana but the vritti the basic subhava that is something which we are meant to channel krishna says even the knowledgeable can’t repress that so our subhava basic nature is shaped not just by the our janma but also large significantly by our poshana then i talked about the upbringing in today’s world is such that there is a great need for autonomy that is created in people it is always there because autonomy meant people work according to their nature so i talked about how the social position of women and the depiction of women negatively in western work in the western world about india but it is there everywhere because everywhere people have asanas by which uh the exploitation will happen and that has to be combated but then we talked about the poshana if by the upbringing women have also been trained to be autonomous then they have to be protected but they also have to be given autonomy and that’s what shiva prabhupada did when he engaged people in krishna service and for us the need for autonomy means that we do follow instructions but we also learn about ourselves so that even when if in the future we are situation where we don’t have an what to do then we won’t become like retired army officers or released released prisoners who just don’t know what to do by the steady practise of bhakti under guidance when we come to the mode of goodness then we can understand what we are meant to do according to nature and we use that autonomy to increase our spiritual momentum by which when we work according to our nature then the psychophysical harmonisation gives us the energy for our spiritual elevation and our takeoff towards krishna thank you very much so are there any questions or comments so so today we will discuss about the universality of the vedic spiritual path