What determines whether we learn by intelligence or by experience?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Okay, so when do we learn things by intelligence? And when do we have to go through experience to learn things? Is it determined by, say, our past? Or what can we do to change it? It’s a… first of all, we have to be clear that learning by experience is not always a bad thing.
Because we have to see what we are experiencing. And sometimes some experience also teaches certain things, and we learn them much better through the experience. So if it’s like a disastrous thing that somebody is doing, then that is something which has to be considered.
So that had better be avoided. But it depends on the… It also largely depends on the strength of the conditioning from the past also. We all come with certain samskaras from the past.
And certain things we just can’t do without at a particular phase in our life. So even by intelligence, I understand this is insubstantial. But no, it doesn’t seem insubstantial at that time.
It doesn’t seem just temporary or flickering. It just seems irresistible at that time. So then if a desire is troubling us too much, then we may have to do the needful to go through that experience.
The important thing is not to shift our purpose. It’s like if I’m going in this direction, I may go by this path, I may go with this path. So sometimes we may fail.
Sometimes we may set certain standards, and we may not be able to stick to those standards. So I gave a whole class in New York. This topic of that even if we fail, we can fail in Krishna consciousness, not fail out of Krishna consciousness.
What does that mean? Fail out of Krishna consciousness means, say somebody wants to fast. And they feel very hungry. I want to eat, I want to eat, I want to eat, I want to eat.
Now because of that, they just give in and they eat. Now you could say from the standard of fasting, they have failed. But somebody can fail and then they think, oh, this fasting doesn’t work for me.
If I become Krishna conscious, I will transcend all bodily needs. And I couldn’t transcend hunger, therefore Krishna consciousness doesn’t work. And not only you have fasting, but you also lose faith in Krishna consciousness also.
Then that means we are failing out of Krishna consciousness. But, okay, Krishna consciousness, if I understand Krishna consciousness, ultimately the connection of the soul with Krishna and that soul’s connection will be naturally channeled through the body. And different bodies have different circumstantial needs.
So my body can’t tolerate hunger. So Ayurveda says that if somebody has a very high Vata Prakriti, Vahapitta Prakriti, then you can’t tolerate hunger much. So whatever, certain bodies can’t tolerate hunger.
So accept that. And, okay, it’s not that Krishna consciousness is not working. Krishna consciousness in this pattern may not work for me.
Then I’m failing, but I’m failing in Krishna consciousness. That, okay, instead of thinking of Krishna consciousness as, see, this is a success, this is failure, and we think this is Krishna consciousness. But Krishna consciousness is so big, that this is success and this is failure.
We think success is Krishna consciousness. But Krishna consciousness is so big that Krishna consciousness includes success and failure. Sometimes I may eat food, and then I may sit down and chant, I may sit down and hear, and I’m able to be more Krishna conscious by that.
So it may well be that somebody who’s fasting, they may apparently be here, and they’re successful in Krishna consciousness. But if that person is looking down at others, this person eating so much food, somebody fasts and then goes to the kitchen and says, who is eating what? This person is so attached. This person is such a sense gratifier.
Then their body is fasting, but their ego is feasting. And they’re not going to be Krishna conscious. So we shouldn’t reduce Krishna consciousness to one standard and success in one standard.
So even if we can’t be here, we can be here. And this is not failure. Failure is Krishna consciousness is so big that it accommodates failure also.
That is the mood of Apichet Sudracharo. Even if somebody commits the most reprehensible of activities, but still, if they remain determined to serve me, then they have to be considered well situated. They have to be considered.
The word sadhu can mean good, sadhu, sadhu, very good. Or it can mean, sadhu can mean saintly also. So some acharyas say that this means saintly, that they be considered saintly.
Some others say that it’s good. They’re still good because they are moving towards the good purpose. So we have to just see how much inner resistance we face when we are doing a particular activity.
So if we can’t, if we process with our intelligence, but still there’s a lot of resistance from inside, then we may have to, you know, we can’t be here, we’ll have to be here. We have to learn through experience. So we shouldn’t consider learning through experience as a failure because we are learning.
We just go through the experience and don’t learn. Then we keep repeating the experience again and again and again and again and again and then that is falling out, that is failing out of Krishna consciousness. So we don’t have to, whatever happens, if we decide I’m never going to stop trying to be Krishna conscious, then we want, we will find that Krishna consciousness is very accommodating.
It is very broad in scope and we can find our way to be Krishna conscious. What happens is that Krishna consciousness is not so difficult, but we are attached to a particular way of being Krishna conscious. Either we ourselves are attached to being Krishna conscious in that way or others are attached to that we should be Krishna conscious in that way.
Then that is what the problem comes up. But if we recognize that I have my body, I have my mind and it is with my body and my mind that I have to practice bhakti. So how can I do that best? So I can take guidance from others, but I have to learn it myself.
We don’t work for our body and mind. That is like simply pandering to the body and mind. That will make us fall out of Krishna consciousness.
But we can’t work against our body and mind also. Because there are resources. So we have to work with our body and mind.
So that means that there will sometimes be conflict, but we can’t have a state of constant inner conflict. There is a constant inner torment going on. Then we have to make sure that we are fighting that battle at a level which we can win.
Not at a level that we are constantly being wounded and crushed. So thank you very much.