When Not to See God’s Hand in Our Life | Chaitanya Charan | Washington DC

Hare Krishna………

Joyous sweet Krishna.

Namaste. Krishna. So welcome, everyone, for our Sunday program. So let me start with thanking today’s sponsors. Today’s main sponsor we have is from BISAL, Gochan, and, sponsoring for Liam Gautam’s first grand ceremony, Anna Prasan.

So can you please come up? Okay. Thank you. Let’s take picture. They got married here many years ago.

How many years ago? Five. Five years ago. Okay. That’s Thank you.

Thank you very much. So next, we have Shivani Bagel sponsoring for her birthday. Happy birthday, Shivani. Can you please come up? Hare Krishna.

Thank you. So next, we have Mandira Srestha sponsoring for husband, miss Sombar Srestha. Sabi Badev, Sombar ji, please come up. Happy birthday. Thank you.

Pastor, thank you. So the next we have in the memories, we like to request everyone, please and for three times. We have Imangshu and Archana Srivastava in memory of Krishna Srivastava. If you can come up. Hare Krishna.

So the next we have P Chandra Chudamani in memory of P Parvati. So like to chant one mantra for three times. The next, we have Ram Kumar Kasap in memory of his sister-in-law, Okay. Okay. Can everyone see the screen?

Okay. So so today, today’s program, we have, chanting Kirtan usually happens after the program here. We move to 02:00 because at, we’re going to have a class. My highest grace, probably here at the temple. Yeah.

Yeah. Right here. So the will be starting at 02:00. Okay. And, Hindi class means not Hindi speaking class, but in in Hindi will be downstairs by Sam Krishna Prabhu.

And connect with it. Oh. To you, one bath. Okay. And we have a program down in the same place.

Our old Yeah. Next to the bathroom where my office is to be. So so there and then what we have is right below us. Okay? There is a sign there that says.

Yeah. And, that’s all. Will be also downstairs. Right? Yeah.

Okay. That’s good. I’m giving a is here. Haribol. Hare Krishna.

Is Sachi Prabhu here from Nivindavan and his wife downstairs? Mataji is here. Can you please stand up? So we like to welcome our new newly moved in devotees at the temple. So family, Shaji Prabhu and Mataji and two kids, they’ll be helping us with lot of catering, hopefully, restaurant, and so on.

Let’s welcome them with big round of applause. Thank you. And we also like to welcome Gorvani Prabhu. Haribo, welcome. I just saw him singing with he was singing and Soni Nigam was sitting next to him, following him.

So that was good achievement. Thank you. Thank you. Krishna. Hare Krishna.

Thank you all for coming today. Am I audible to everyone today? So, I’ll speak today based on the Bhagavad Gita on the topic of spiritual growth. So I’ll answer three questions. I’ll be writing something and drawing something over here.

So what do we mean by spiritual growth? Why would anyone pursue spiritual growth? And how can we pursue spiritual growth? Nowadays, the word spirituality is used very widely and often it is used to mean anything that makes us feel good. Oh, I went to that mountain trek.

It felt so spiritual. Or I went to this place. It felt so spiritual. So we often associate spirituality with anything which makes us feel calm, good, peaceful. Yeah.

That’s one aspect to it. But we will speak about this based on the Bhagavad Gita that spiritual growth can be explained in a simple way through one diagram. So everything that I speak today will be centered on this one diagram. See, normally, when we go through life, for us, there is the world. And the world is very big.

And God, even if he exists, he’s small. So when I started my spiritual journey about thirty years ago, I when I came to know about the Bhavita’s wisdom, I started sharing it with everyone. And one of my uncles told me, yeah, I believe in God. He’s happy there. I’m happy here.

So the idea is God doesn’t feel very important or relevant for us. The world is very important. World means that, okay, what kind of job I have? How is the weather today? Do people respect me or not?

Or how many people are following me on social media? So the world is very big. Now this bigness is in terms of not just the size, but we think the world matters a lot for me. The world will determine how much happiness I get in my life, and the world will determine how much distress I get in my life. So it’s big not just in physical terms, but in psychological terms in terms of how much it mattered to us.

But if this is this path of spiritual growth, as we grow spiritually, what happens is the world becomes small and God becomes big for us. That what happens in the world matters. But our relationship with God, that matters even more. So, This is the basic journey talked about in the Gita from 7.16 to 7.19. At 7.16, Krishna says different reasons people may come to him.

But in 7.19, he says, That’s a person who understands God as the supreme reality. Krishna is what matters most in my life. Such a person is very rare. So for the person whom the spiritual matters more than the material, the source of the world matters more than the world, that person is a spiritually advanced person. Now, when we say God becomes bigger and the world becomes smaller, why why would somebody do that?

In one sense, we see the world in front of us and yes, I can eat this, I can watch this, I can buy this, I can wear this. These things are tangible. So in one way to understand this is, the world refers to the externals, that is things. And God is inside us. So we all want to improve the quality of the things inside outside.

But God is the one who can most enrich the quality of our thoughts. We may have the best things in the world but one of the things most lacking in today’s world is peace of mind. People go, oh my mind is so restless, mind is so agitated. Because we are so caught in improving the externals that what effect it is having on our internals, we are not that concerned also. What to speak of being aware of it.

So, God can enrich us with wonderful things externally. But what? When God becomes big, that means our thoughts become enriched, our thoughts become elevated. So broadly, this is spiritual growth. Spiritual growth means the invisible reality, the reality of our thoughts, their quality, and the direction of those thoughts going towards god Krishna, that becomes the most important thing for us.

So now so I said I’ll answer these three questions. What? I’ll keep some time for question answers also. So what is spiritual growth? God becomes bigger in the world for us.

Now why may somebody pursue spiritual growth? Broadly, there are two reasons. Generally, most of us, if we consider this is the world over here, so most people are caught in the world. No. I want to become famous.

I want to become wealthy. I want to become powerful. I want to become popular. And if God is above us, when will our vision turn from the world to God? There are broadly two reasons.

The first reason is when we think, I am not good enough for the world. I am not good enough for the world. That means, oh, I have this problem and I can’t solve this. Or, I have this desire, I can’t fulfill it. Maybe some maybe some money is up there that God will help me.

When I was in India, I was staying in Pune in our the ashram where I was staying, the temple was right next to a school. And we realized that April and May seemed to be the month of students’ devotion. That the students would not come throughout the year, but April and May, they would start coming. Why is that? Exams.

Oh, I’m not really prepared well enough for the exam, but, oh, God help me. So, when we face problems in life which we feel we can’t solve, that is the time this is where we feel I am inadequate, I am insufficient. That the world is big, the world is troublesome, and I need some resources beyond myself to help in facing the world. So, in the Christian tradition, there is that prayer, oh father, thou art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Give us our daily bread.

The idea is that at a time when there was scarcity, where there was shortage, so people were not sure whether they would get bread. And then we go to God for getting something which we feel we cannot get on our own. Nowadays, most people, especially in the world, western world, are not really worried about bread. They may be worried about butter for their bread, but bread is so, that particular prayer may not resonate. So, God is not so much seen nowadays as a cosmic supplier, as a cosmic therapist.

We go to God, but I am not good enough to control the world, to get things right. I don’t have peace of mind. So you go to God to get peace of mind. But basically, at this point, I am not good enough for the world. And so Krishna talks about this as people who are distressed and people who are desirous.

So distress means, oh, I have this trouble, I cannot deal with it. Desire is, I want to get this, but I’m not able to get it. So please, oh, God help me. So yesterday was Hanuman Jayanti. A few months ago, I was in India in Varanasi, and I was going for a talk and I saw there’s a small Hanuman temple on the side of the road and on top of the Hanuman temple it was written.

I was quite amazed by that prayer. It’s in Hindi. I’ll say it in Hindi further. I’ll speak in English. You are a celibate from birth.

Please give me a woman. So it is you’re praying to God, but what we are praying is, okay, I cannot get something God by order. Oh, God, please help me to get it. So this is where I am not good enough for the world. Now this was also to some in some ways, my introduction to spirituality.

Many of you noticed when I came in, I need crutches for walking. So when I was one, my mother took me to a polio clinic, to the hospital, to get a polio vaccine. But somehow, we live in a small town in India, and the fridge in which the vaccine had been kept was had had a poor outage the previous night, and the caregivers didn’t notice that. So because of that, when that vaccine was given to me, the germs had increased because of the increased temperature, and the vaccine, instead of preventing polio, ended up causing polio. So now I don’t remember that, but my first memory of that was I was about two and a half or three, and a distant relative had come to meet, that she was consoling my mother.

It’s so sad your son got polio. And I remember my mother’s voice, very calm, clear, confident. She said, whatever he lacks physically, God will provide him intellectually. Now, I don’t know why she said that, but somehow they had stayed with me. And I found that, yes, as I grew up, I couldn’t play outdoor game like other kids could.

I could say this was unfair. I didn’t do anything to do deserve this physical disability. But then as I started studying, I could read things fast. I could remember things quickly. I could articulate things well.

So I some part of me told me from inside that, yeah, I didn’t do anything to deserve this intellectual ability either. So, life is unfair, but in the big picture, life is fairly unfair. Fairly unfair means sometimes we get more than what we deserve and sometimes we get less than what we deserve. So, basically, when we pray to God, sometimes our prayers may be answered, sometimes they may not be answered. But at this level, we go to God because I have problems and I feel I can’t solve them on my own.

And so this is where I am not good enough for the world. Now there is now in this case, what happens, even when we approach God, the interest is not in God. The interest is in the world. So basically, God is like the means and the world is the ends for us. That so if God fulfills our prayers, thank you, God.

Bye bye. And if God doesn’t fulfill, what is the use? I’m not going to come here again. So at this level, it’s good that we are starting a relationship with God, But this is not a very steady relationship. And most of the religions in this world, they operate at this level.

So here, God is a tool to get the things that we want. But God is happy that at least we are connecting with him for that reason. I’ll be connecting with him that, oh, even if you’re in trouble, like a child who has become young and has gone away from the parents, child gets in a lot of trouble and finally comes to the parents. Can you help me? Are the parents going to say, you know, you remembered only when you needed some help from us?

No. The parents are going to say, if you’re in so much trouble, why didn’t you come earlier to us? Well, the parents are going to be happy with the child connected with them. Similarly, Krishna says the word Udaraha. Udaraha means, oh, you’re charitable.

You are so good that you are connecting with me. And Ramanacharya in his commentary here explains that normally, you know, if there is a charity, there’s a giver of charity and there is a receiver of charity. So normally, we would consider the giver to be charitable. But here, it is we who are going to God. And Krishna says, if we go to God, Krishna says, it is we who are charitable.

So how when we are receiving charity, why would Krishna consider that charitable? Because Krishna is so eager that we have a relationship with him. Like the parents are so eager to have a relationship with the child, even if you need money from us, at least stay in touch with us. So that is Krishna’s love for us, that he wants us to be in touch. So even when we are the receiver, Krishna says, oh, you are so kind, you are so charitably.

So he says that in 7.18 in the Bhagavad Gita that even if you come to me for any reason, that is good. So why might somebody consider, going back to the starting diagram, so when we are not able to fulfill our desires, at that time we may consider, oh, the world is big, but maybe there is somebody bigger who can control the world and who can make things happen that I can’t make them happen. So at that time, God becomes bigger than us. Now the other dynamic, there’s another reason why we people may turn towards God. That is if the world is here in front of us and God is above us.

The first reason is that I am not good enough for the world. The other is the world is not good enough for me. The world is not good enough for me can seem very egoistic, but this is not a matter of ego. It’s a matter of realization. Realization that the world promises many things, but it doesn’t deliver on those promises.

Even when our desires and dreams are fulfilled, still they fall short of our expectations. They don’t live up to the promise. So that’s when a person starts thinking, maybe there is something more in life. I I want to be happy always, but nothing in this world really provides lasting happiness. Maybe there is something beyond this world.

This is the fourth category which Krishna calls as gyan. Among the categories of people who come to him, he says in seven sixteen, that those who have got the knowledge to understand the insubstantiality of the world, that what the world offers is not enough. And that is the time they turn towards God. Okay, I can get fame, I can get power, I can get wealth, I can get lots of things. But all of us to some extent have had some of our desires fulfilled.

Nobody can say all their desires have been fulfilled, but it takes a sharp intelligence and of course some divine mercy to recognize this one truth, you know, that fulfillment of desires does not equate with fulfillment of heart. If one can get this particular realization, it’s one of the strongest stimulations for spiritual growth. We all have many desires that drive us. I want a bigger house. You know, I want more designer clothes.

Now I want more followers on social media. We all may have many different kinds of desires. I want to be the CEO of my company. Yes. Now these desires may drive us and yes, we can all have desires and we can pursue them.

But when we start thinking that the fulfillment of these desires will make me happy, in reality we find, yes, it makes us happy. But not for very long. For a little bit the happiness is there and after that it just disappears. So that’s so the whole world’s propaganda is, okay, fulfill this desire and fulfill that desire and fulfill that next desire. Most people will say that’s the nature of life.

You know, you fulfill one desire and then you move to the next desire. You move to the next desire. But, you know, fulfilling every desire is hard work. And how long are we going to keep walking on this treadmill of desires? Try to fulfill it and when?

When will we actually get fulfillment? So what the Gita’s message is about, no, it is fulfillment of desires that are largely associated with getting things. Improving the quality of things that we have. But that does not fulfill the heart. So you could say over here, here it is that we approach God as a shock absorber.

Shock absorber means that life gives us a lot of shocks and life does not fulfill our desires, life hands us unwanted trouble And then we turn to God, like, oh, I want to soften the shock of life. But at this particular point, when the world is not good enough for us, this is where God becomes a goal transformer for us. It is at this point, we don’t turn towards God to turn back towards the world. No. This is not the we turn towards God because we are interested in God.

So this is the state of being, of being wise, of being enlightened. When I was studying my engineering, since my childhood, I always had the desire to be number one in my class. And India is a country where there is a lot of academic pressure for performance. And I was very good at my studies. There are many times when I was joined number one.

There’s one year when I became number one in my class, but somehow my teacher did a wrong assessment and another student came number one. Then when I looked through the question, answer paper, I saw that actually I had she had given me a wrong answer for an answer that was correct. I told her that and she said, yeah, it’s true. Actually, you are the first. But, she said, This is my first year in the school.

And, if a teacher makes a mistake, it’s a problem. But, if the mistake is very visible. Who comes first to the class? It will be very embarrassing for me. Can you let it go?

One part of it, I didn’t want to let it go. I want to be first. But I talked with my mother. The mother said, you know, if she’s requesting you, she’s your teacher. You should listen to her.

So I let it go, but a part of me was still craving. I want to be the first in my class. Unambiguous, like, no. This undistinct number one. So then, I studied engineering.

At that time, I gave the, GRE exam for coming to America. And since my childhood, I allowed English and English words, so I was very good at vocabulary. Often, Indians, when they do GRE, they’re always good at math and analytics, but language, they are a struggle. So when I gave GRE, I came first not just in my college, it was the first in the history of my college. I was first in the entire state of Maharashtra.

There’s several millions of people and students also. So I was on top of the world. Yahoo! Kind of thing. But then, you know, when the mark sheet came by post, at that time we didn’t have emails.

So, I was very happy. But after five minutes, I realized that looking at the mark sheet doesn’t give much happiness. And then, the congratulations started pouring in. I became a celebrity in my college. And everybody was congratulating me.

I was very happy. But then somehow it happened that three of my friends, you could say acquaintances, not very close friends, but three of people whom I thought were friends, they all forgot to congratulate me. And now, when the first person forgot to congratulate me, you know, at that time, I was annoyed. When the second person forgot to congratulate me, I was irritated. When the third person forgot to congratulate me, I was enraged.

What is going on? I didn’t want to sound pathetic by asking them, why are you not congratulating me? It would sound so needy. So I was wondering what to do, and somehow, it was at that time, I felt as if I had an out of body experience. Not literally, but almost conceptually.

I felt as if I was looking down at myself from above. And that part of me which which was looking down at me from above, it said, hey, wait a minute. You thought coming number one will make you happy. But instead of making you happy, it has only made you more dependent for your happiness on others. Isn’t it?

That in the past you could just hang out with your friends but now you are becoming so needy for their appreciation, congratulation, felicitation. So I looked ahead in my life, I thought whatever I plan to achieve, you know, I might come to America, I might get to an Ivy League university, I might write some award winning papers, whatever, I might do some discoveries or make some inventions, whatever I thought would be success, I realized that all of it would still keep me dependent on this external validation appreciation. And I started wondering, is this really what life is meant for? Is this what will bring me happiness? That’s when, fortunately, a friend gave me the Bhagavad Gita.

I read the Gita in my childhood, but it’s only as a book of official piety to memorize my some verses, to please my parents, to win some Gita Shloka celebration contests. But here I pour it as a book of wisdom. And then I found a verse six twenty two in the Bhagavad Gita. Says that and that state, this is talking about the state of spiritual growth. What I talk about here, God becomes big.

Says at that stage, what happens? We become free from all external dependency. See external dependency when we are when the world is very big for us then what happens? Two things. You know, we are always craving for something more.

Whatever I have, I crave for something more than somebody does not have. And then we are also lamenting for what we have lost or what we may lose. So it says that in this stage, when Krishna becomes the biggest reality for us, when we become absorbed in Krishna at that time, there will be no more craving. Things will go there will always be things which we don’t have in life, but there will be no more craving for those things. And even then things will go wrong in our life.

But that won’t disturb us so much. Why? Because our consciousness will be directed somewhere higher. That’s when I felt this is what I want to achieve in my life. And that’s what I’ve been trying to do for the last thirty years.

I’m still on the journey, but essentially what happens when we come to this stage of where Krishna becomes the world becomes smaller and Krishna becomes bigger for us as compared to when the world is big and Krishna is small. So what happens? Two things. So this topic I’m discussing is, why do we seek spiritual advancement? So when the world is big, then what happens?

The world always has ups and downs, and those ups and downs also affect us. We’ll always be unsteady. In fact, for some people, the world’s ups and downs affect them even more. Like, when good things happen, they go way up. When bad things happen, they go way down.

Like, when they when good things happen, they almost become manic in their energy. They feel like they’re gonna shake the whole world. And when something bad happens, they go so down that it seems the whole world can’t shake them out of their bed also. So, it is psychologically this is often called as the manic depressive personality. At one time they have huge energy, positive, completely no energy at other time.

So when the world is very big for us, the world’s ups and downs, they become very turbulent for us. And then we we can’t be steady. We can’t be counted on because we become very temperamental and moody. So, when the world becomes small for us, the world becomes small and the world’s ups and downs also become small for us. So basically, when the world becomes small, then what happens?

If the world is small for us, we become materially or externally peaceful. So we become steady, we become calm. This is what what is very much lacking in today’s world is the peace of mind. We may achieve a lot of things in life, but the peace of mind is lacking because many reasons, but one of them is the world has become very big for us and anything going wrong in the world feels like the end of the world for us. Especially now with the political upheaval that are happening.

You know, if we are too obsessed with the world, too fixated with the news, we’ll be in a constant stage of not just restlessness, but turbulence. So now the world is important, no doubt, but it is not the most important thing. Why? Because ups and downs keep happening. If you look at our own life, we look at say five years ago, ten years ago, if we really remember, there is some problem troubling us at that time and we thought, if this doesn’t work, it’s going to be the end of my life.

And we survived that. So, yes, life is tough, life has its ups and downs, but the world doesn’t have to be so big. Now the problem is why people want the world to be big is because many people think the world is the only source of happiness. If the world becomes small, then they think that the source of happiness also becomes small. Isn’t it?

But the thing is, the world is not the only source of happiness. When God becomes big for us, then we access happiness in our remembrance of God, in our relationship with God. Which is composed by Kulushikar Maharaj, he says that he has been a king, a very powerful and prosperous king. He probably had luxuries and comforts and pleasures that most of us can only dream about. And yet he is saying that among all the pleasures that I have enjoyed in my life, there is no pleasure that comes anywhere as close as the pleasure of remembering my Lord.

So what happens is, we become materially peaceful, but we become spiritually or internally joyful. So this is the state of spiritual growth. Materially peaceful, spiritually joyful. Externally, yeah, life will have ups and downs, but they will come and go. External things, they don’t matter that much.

That is not that we neglect the world. Here the world also matters to us, but here for us, the world is the means and Krishna is the ends for us. That means that, yes, if I can get a bigger house, I could have a bigger altar in my home, I could have spiritual programs. If I have a bigger position, I can do more service. So it’s the world is important, but it’s not the most important thing.

If it works, well then good. If it doesn’t work, it’s not the end of the world. So why grow spiritually? For these two reasons. I talk about that because it can that is what will actually make us peaceful externally amid life’s ups and downs.

And that’s what will give us a joy, give us access to a joy that does not depend on external things. That is through our remembrance of the Lord, through our love for the Lord. Then I talk about the last part then we can conclude with a few questions, is how. So how do we grow spiritually? So I talk about spiritual growth means that the world starts becoming smaller and God starts becoming bigger.

And how do we do that? That’s basically by two things. Krishna talks about this in 6.35 in the Bhagavad Gita. The way to spiritual growth is through abhyasa and vairagya. Now these two words can be understood in many different ways.

But I’ll explain this in a in a simple psychological way over here. That abhyas means persistence. We keep doing something. Vairagya means abstinence. So, what does persistence and abstinence means?

That if we expose our mind to God, then just that repeated exposure will make God bigger in our mind. If we keep coming to the temple regularly, if we keep hearing about Krishna regularly. So, by hearing that, we’ll understand Krishna’s glory, we’ll understand throughout history, throughout the history of humanity how God has protected people, how God has enriched people’s lives, becoming the association of spiritually minded people. We’ll see that that’s not just a historical truth, it’s a truth that is happening even today. So persistence in exposure to God.

So just coming in holy association, coming to temple, chanting the names of Krishna, by this exposure, God will start becoming for us, bigger for us. And abstinence means, abstinence again, persistence in exposure and abstinence in exposure to the world. Now we cannot function in the world with closed eyes, but there are many things which just keep agitating us. If somebody is constantly scrolling on social media, oh, you know, this happened over here, that happened over here, that happened over there. It just keeps us restless.

So abstinence doesn’t mean no exposure. It just means we minimize the exposure. The more we expose ourselves to the world, the more the world starts becoming bigger and bigger. Nowadays, with social media and breaking news, anything that happens anywhere in the world, it just becomes so constantly there in our mind. And sometimes, we are more concerned about, say, what is happening in Serbia than what is happening in our spouse’s life.

We become completely disconnected. I saw one cartoon where one man was telling his friend, yesterday, my broadband Wi Fi went down. So I spent some time with my family. They seem to be nice people. So abstinence.

No need to expose ourselves unnecessarily. Doesn’t mean we’re ignorant or oblivious, but there’s no need to expose ourselves constantly. And how do we bring about persistence? Persistence is best brought about by bonds. Bonds means make a commitment.

I’ll come every week to the temple, or every day, I’ll put some time aside for my sadhana, for my puja, for my chanting. And abstinence is established through boundaries. So bonds and boundaries. Boundaries means, you know, I’m not going to spend, say, more than fifteen minutes on social media. Or if I have to watch TV, I’m not going to spend hours watching TV.

Okay? For some time. Whatever it is that agitates our mind, infatuates our mind with the world, set some boundaries for it. Bonds and boundaries are very simple and powerful ways by which we can actually grow spiritually. When Srila Prabhupada started the Krishna consciousness movement, he gave us bonds and boundaries.

The bonds at the time of initiation are chant Hare Krishna, and we chant a prescribed number of rounds. And the boundaries are the things which agitate and addict the mind to the world. Gambling, intoxication, unrestricted sexuality, those kind of things, we minimize our exposure to that. So I’ll conclude with a diagram which can be a checklist for us. If we feel that we are not growing spiritually, we can see for us, there are bonds and there are boundaries.

So now if there are no bonds and no boundaries, then spiritual growth will be impossible. If I’m never going coming to the temple, I’m never exposing myself to Krishna at all, I’m unrestrictly exposing myself to the world, then there is no chance for spiritual advancement. We are not giving ourselves the chance at all. Now, if there are bonds but no boundaries, that means, yes, I am practicing spirituality. I do my sadhana, I do my japa.

I do my puja. But after that is done, it’s like the you turn into a completely different person only. And then people, after their ritual is over, like, they’re as materialistic or more materialistic than newness. Then what happens is, it’s like the bonds are lighting the spiritual fire and then the no boundaries is extinguishing the fire. So what will happen is, we will not grow much.

On the other hand, if there are only boundaries but no bonds that means, don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this. Then what will happen is if there is no it’s like okay don’t expose yourself to the world. But we all need happiness. We all need some higher sense of purpose and progress. When that is not there, then there will just be suffocation.

The bonds are there. We are exposing ourselves to Krishna. But But what is happening? Because sorry. The bonds are not there.

The bond are there. Don’t do this. Don’t do this. Don’t do this. Many people who grow up in a traditional culture, if they they just get the rules on the traditional culture.

But the purpose of the rules is not told to them. And then it becomes, you know, this is so suffocating. There is an atheist, gag against Christianity and that can apply to any religion. In the in the bible, it says in the beginning was the word and the word was God. So what this atheist gag is that in the beginning was the word and the word was no.

The word was no means what? No. You can’t do this. You can’t do this. You should not do this.

You should not do this. So Srila Prabhupada once told some of the devotees who were doing youth outreach. He said, if you present Krishna consciousness, to young people as just a set of rules and regulations, he says, you are doing a great disservice to them. That it’s not it’s not about rules. It’s about a relationship.

Now every relationship has some rules naturally, but the rules don’t feel suffocating if the relationship is important for us. So when we focus on that point of having a relationship with Krishna, then when we have bonds and we have boundaries. Krishna is important for me. So it’s not that I won’t do this and I I won’t do I I don’t wanna spend too much time on TV, I don’t want to spend too much time on this, I don’t want to spend too much time on. It’s not that.

There is something else I want to spend time on. This is what is much more important for me. So this, if we have bonds and boundaries, actually, we will be flourishing and we will be relishing. We’ll be flourishing spiritually and we’ll be relishing spiritual growth. This is the stage which is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu called us It said we get entrance into an ocean of happiness and every moment becomes increasingly joyful.

Life will still have ups and downs. And yes, life is tough, but we will have an inner shelter, an inner source of satisfaction. And that happens when we embrace both the bonds and the boundaries. That’s how spiritual growth becomes dramatically transformational for us. So I’ll summarize.

I’ll discuss about the topic of spiritual growth today and broadly three points. The first question was, what is spiritual growth? So we had this diagram that initially for us, the God is small and the world is big. But as we grow spiritually, the world becomes small and God becomes big for us. So essentially, God, in this case, we could say God is the enricher of our thoughts.

So our inner world becomes bigger for us. And the world is basically associated with things. So what kind of things we have, they become not that important. The second part was, why? Why would anyone seek spiritual growth?

So I talked about why in terms of two aspects, the causes and the effects. So what is why would somebody seek spiritual growth? The causes are twofold. One is as a shock absorber that I am not good enough for the world. So if I am here, the world is here, and God is above.

So when would somebody turn towards God? That I am not good enough for the world. That, oh, I have this problem. I have that problem. I can’t deal with it.

So maybe God will help me to deal with it. And the second is as a goal transformer. That here, the world is not good enough for me. That I have achieved many of my desires. But here, I understand that fulfillment of desires does not lead to fulfillment of heart, and therefore, we turn towards something higher.

We turn towards God. And, when this happens, what is the result of spiritual growth? Broadly, when we grow spiritually, as God becomes bigger and the world becomes smaller, then what happens? The world’s ups and downs also become small for us. So we become materially peaceful.

So this is in terms of the this is what the causes. Now the effects of spiritual growth is that we become materially peaceful and our connection with God increases, then we become spiritually or internally joyful. And then how do we go about doing this? It is by the two principles of so this was 7.16 to 19. This is the journey that Krishna talks about in the Bhagavad Gita.

Then, I talked about this in terms of 6.22 in the Gita. And the last was 6.35. So how do we grow spiritually? How? There are two parts over there.

One is the persistence. We keep ourselves ex exposing ourselves to God. We keep singing Krishna’s kirtan, keep coming for darshan, keep doing puja, and there is abstinence. So we abstain from exposing ourselves excessively to the world. So persistence is what we can do through establishing bonds, making commitments, and we can have abstinence by establishing boundaries for ourselves.

And if we do this for every one of us, the world will become smaller and God will become bigger. That doesn’t mean we reject the world here. The world, at this stage initially for us, God is the means and the world is the ends. But here the world becomes the means and God becomes the end. We still care for the world, but not more than God.

And each one of us can check. If we don’t seem to be growing, then what is the reason for that? We discussed this this four quadrants that if there are no bonds and no boundaries, then spiritual growth is impossible. There are bonds but no boundaries, then spiritual growth becomes difficult unnecessary difficult because we are lighting the fire and dousing the fire. If there are only boundaries and no bonds, it feels suffocating.

Why can’t I do all these things? But then here, if there are bonds and boundaries, our spiritual in our spirituality, we start flourishing and then we start relishing our spirituality. This is where the Bhagavad Gita can take each one of us in our spiritual journey where all of us can experience inner happiness. We can become peaceful with respect to the ups and downs of the world and we can become joyful in our relationship with Krishna. So let us pray to Krishna.

My dear lord, please help me to grow on the path of spirituality and come closer to you and find joy in you and be more peaceful with ups and downs of life. Thank you very much. Do we have few minutes for questions or questions we have? Okay. Does anyone have any questions?

Okay. Do we have a mic for that? Okay. Before mic comes to you. So much of what I spoke today is from this latest book of mine, Gita for the CEO.

As Harper Collins asked me to write this, because many people are interested in eastern wisdom and how that can help us to grow in spiritual life or in our professional life. So I presented the Gita as a conversation between two corporate leaders and a very simple diagrams like the kind which I drew to explain the concepts. But this is one book. Then there’s another book here called prayers inspired by Bhagavad Gita that I talk about making God bigger for us. So this book is a very easy way in which you can just have some simple meditations.

Each book has a picture of Krishna and a small prayer and a verse from the Gita and it’s poetically rendered and a small prayer reflection. So like that, there are one twenty two prayers from the Bhagavad Gita. And whatever our prayer needs might be, you can look at the table of contents and find. It’s very easy book if you want to do your daily chanting, you wanna calm your mind devotionally, that can be helpful. And this is a small book, Living with the Ramayana.

So if anyone want to know about how living the Ramayana, how the Ramayana system is applicable in today’s world, it’s also available. So any questions? You have the mic? Yes, please. Okay.

Sorry. How do we grow sadhana? How do we Grow sadhana. Grow Our sadhana. Grow our sadhana.

Yes. I think the way is two fold. First is that each one of us is to find out that what are the activities that give me an experience that that God is bigger than this world. So the point of sadhana is not just to meet a particular target or to reach a to follow a particular rule. It is to get an experience of God.

So, think of which activities actually give us that experience. Maybe it is when you confront our deities and pray. Maybe when we get a kirtan. Maybe when we go to a holy place. So, cherish those activities.

Try to do those activities more. Remember those activities. Write down those memories. So we all need that some experience that there is a reality beyond the reality that experience on daily basis. And then with that as our motivation.

That experience that glimpse of a higher reality that will be the spur for us. What I experience once I can experience more. I want to experience more. And the second thing is so personal experience second is association. Try to whichever limb of sadhana we want to strengthen, try to see who are the devotees who are taking that more seriously.

Try to spend more time with them. Try to associate with them. And with their association, we’ll also get the inspiration to become more serious about the hardhana. Okay? Yes, please.

Okay. So if yeah. Correct. So if you’re feeling guilty, I would say that two things that guilt can be a good thing if it inspires us to avoid doing things which are wrong. But sometimes, what happens is we may just not have the capacity to do something.

Say, a particular standard, maybe just we don’t have a schedule, we don’t have that particular level of spirituality. So if I consider I am here, and here is Krishna on one side, And here is some temptation, some wrong action. Now guilt should come here in between me and the wrong action. So this guilt is healthy. So when I’m doing something wrong inside me I feel bad.

I should not do this. But sometimes what happens is guilt ends up over here. So when this is actually pseudo guilt. If something is pseudo means false. If anything is discouraging us from connecting with Krishna, they said this is Maya.

I’m not going to feel bad about this. I’m going to do what I can in my capacity to connect with Krishna. And maybe that standard is not possible for us right now. That standard will come later. So what can I do right now?

Let me do that, and let me take a step forward upward from that. So we move that way. We’ll find that that that guilt will be something which we can deal with. In general, consulting with some devotees, some guides, some friends will also help us understand whether we are actually sliding down and we have to stop ourselves from that, or whether we are in our situation being too hard on ourselves. So whether our guilt is actual guilt or pseudo guilt through our own introspection of its effect on us and through association, talking with somebody who is trustworthy and taking the guidance, we can respond to it properly.

Yeah. So which boundaries we can apply at our particular level? The boundaries are not fixed. So some devotees can say can pass without water. But some devotees may not be able to.

They shouldn’t have to feel guilty for that. But that doesn’t mean, you know, we have to eat seven times a day. Isn’t it? So we all can have a boundary that works for us and gradually we can, we can extend those boundaries or strengthen those boundaries. Thank you.

One last question. Yeah. Krishna Krishna asserts that you should detach yourself from the fruits of your labor. Correct? Right?

Mhmm. But you corroborate that by saying when you are, at the best of your spiritual growth, your world happiness is like this, and your spiritual happiness is like this. But can you argue that you should have your positives be happy, kinda like a boost, but then the negatives you ignore so that instead of your happiness being like this, it’s kinda like this. So what’s wrong with that idea? Yeah.

What’s wrong with that idea is that it’s psychologically not possible. That if say, if I love cricket and when India wins, I’m extremely happy. India loses, I’m detached from cricket. It won’t happen like that. To the extent I take joy when India wins, to that extent I’ll be frustrated when India loses.

So if the world is all that we have in our eyes, then to the extent we get joy in the positives, to that extent the there’ll be pain in the negatives. That’s just the nature of duality. But your point is well taken. There is validity in that point. Thank you.

You know, the so the way the point is to be applied is by having a higher vision. So when I Krishna says be detached from the fruits of the work. Detached is not apathetic. Detached is not irresponsible. Now the same Krishna, if you see in February, that is the verse Here Krishna is saying be detached.

But just six verses earlier, two forty one he says, He says, be one pointed. Don’t have too many goals. Don’t get caught in too many things. So now how can we be both one pointed and detached? So the key is, it is be detached from results.

Be one pointed in goals. Now what is the difference between goals and results? Goals and results are not the same thing. Goals are what we set before we do an activity. Results are what we get after we do the activity.

So before we do an activity, we should have a clear goal. And that’s how wholeheartedly we’ll be able to work for it. But what we understand is that the results don’t come solely because of my efforts. There are many factors beyond my effort that shape the results. And sometimes those factors will work in my favor, sometimes they may not work in my favor.

So it’s detachment is not lack of commitment. Detachment is recognition that there is a bigger reality. So the way we can have the in the positives we are happy, in the negatives we don’t become unhappy is if we are not attached to the results, but we are attached to Krishna. Krishna, I want to offer you the best in the world. So I would like to get the best so that I can offer it to you.

But if it does not work you work still I will offer my heart to you. So that way with the positives you can be happy, with the negatives we won’t get that disrupted by it. Okay? Thank you very much. Thank you.

Many guilty thoughts which are coming in between the prema bhakti for Krishna. Would say that. Mhmm. Don’t let the rituals and your ability to follow rituals affect you so much. Okay.

Focus on the point that ultimately, Krishna is Bhavagraha. Okay. Focus on the point that ultimately Krishna is Bhavagraha. Bhavagraha. Bhavagraha means he looks at the heart.

Heart. Not Want to offer our heart. No. And now rituals also have their value, like, in this kind of Shuddhi. Mhmm.

But the important thing is to connect with Krishna. Mhmm. And sometimes some people can get so caught in the Mhmm. That because of that, they don’t connect with Krishna, and they become judgmental toward them. Mhmm.

So so mainly, like, focus on dos rather than don’ts. You would say that that’s true. But my what I would say is that even among don’ts, don’t take all don’ts to be the same. Mhmm. So for example, if you’re not able to wash our hands particularly in a particular way before doing a particular product, that’s one thing.

Mhmm. Somebody says, I’ll eat meat. Mhmm. I’ll eat meat. That’s That’s a completely different Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So there are some tones that are important Yeah. Yeah. But some tones are not that important.

Got it. So try to get a sense of perspective. Krishna. Hi, Krishna. Good to see you again.

Oh, so good to see you. Hey, buddy. A year ago, I ordered the two the Maya two books, two park book. Okay. And I was supposed to come.

I waited, like, one year. I never got it. Do you have the other part, the two two part in my your book? You ordered it last time? Yeah.

And Madhava was gonna give me the double set, and he gave it to someone else. Doesn’t matter. I still love him, the people who sponsored me. But I’m waiting now. It’s time for me.

I’m right ready to go. Two parts, not just one. You had this one already? No. I don’t have it.

Either one. This one, I’ll give you. This is this is the second part of the book. The first part that I’m gonna give to you, I’ll I would send to you. There should be some more books here.

Alright. Okay. That okay? Love you. Yeah.

I feel like he has given a lot of healing and relief for you. My family’s dead. This is Passover. They gave me COVID in the hospital. This is miss, blood clots all over, and I will die early.

Christian saving me all over. Micro blood clots. For her surgery in in in the ICU when I woke up. No mask. 02/2020.

The nurses’ aid Life is quite adventurous, sir. Okay. But how do I get the other Other am I? The other part? I’ll just take Prem Sindhu.

You know Prem Sindhu? Oh, Prem Sindhu? Prem Sindhu? I’ll tell him about you. He will give you the property.

He’s outside. I’ll tell him. Okay. And I wanna buy this one too. I don’t know the $10.

Yes. I think I should have that. Okay. It’s outside there. I’ll just give it to you if you want.

This thing is is, inside of top of the list. We we need we need you to keep accessing. I would love to come soon. Why won’t you come back again? Just tell me.

Krishna is gonna see. I’ll try to come earlier. I would love to come earlier. I would love to come earlier. You’re very important to this temple.

You have a long line, so I can’t tell you everything, but I’d love to tell you something else. I think you’d be a great help in getting more Americans here. Okay. Great, Krishna.

Thankyou!