When we are in tears, we need self-confidence to deal with it practically – what is the use of chanting?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
so the question is essentially it’s a valid question actually I wish she was here to answer it’s a valid question in this world we face problems that often praying to God may not seem to offer relief to the problem and as he said that there is something practical which also needs to be done to deal with that problem so we need confidence in our relatives to deal with that problem so what is it that prayer does for us that is if you look at the start of the Bhagavad Gita Arjuna is a formidable warrior who has fought dozens and dozens of wars he was such a warrior before the war to come to the level of this of just putting aside his whole helplessness this indicates that the outer situation is not the most important thing from the outer situation Arjuna was armed Arjuna was trained well positioned to fight but he lost heart in battle and we never lose till we lose heart and if we lose heart we can never win till we win our heart till we get back our heart so in life when we face problems the problems can come from various sources and practical problems do require practical solutions that is no one is saying even in the Vedic culture itself there is a whole branch of Ayurveda and Ayurveda involves but if you have this disease take this medicine so no one is saying that praying to God is a substitute for doing practical activity Arjuna himself did not expect from Krishna that Krishna I surrender to you now you shoot all the weapons and you make all the animals suffer Arjuna throughout his life although he was a devotee he trained diligently as an archer to become a champion archer and fight the war so the devotional side is never envisioned as a substitute for the practical side this is a misunderstanding about devotion so the practical is required as I gave you the example of Arjuna and Ayurveda they are examples of the practical side being taken care of but I started by talking about how a person’s inner morale is vitally important and in this world there are so many different situations so many complications that come up because of which we lose our morale and sometimes you may decide I am successful I do this think positive yes thinking positive is good but there is perception and there is perspective this perception means change the way of seeing if somebody has a very negative way of thinking all the time oh this will go wrong, that will go wrong yes pessimism is bad like there is a glass of water that is half full you should always see positively in the Ramayana when Lord Ram is exiled this is a devastating reversal a person who is about to become a king next day he has to go to the forest with nothing and Lord Ram offers a model of positive thinking he says when he is about to depart everybody is grief struck, he is consoling them although he himself should be grief struck also and he says you know I have an opportunity to honor my father’s word I have an opportunity to please my mother Kali who is bent on having a particular desire I have an opportunity that my younger brother Bharat is like my son a father desires that his son be coronated I have an opportunity in my youth to see my younger brother coronated and I have an opportunity to go to the forest and enrich myself with spiritual wisdom by associating with the saints normally I would have to wait till the Pandavas do that I have to do that in youth only so what is wrong, its a wonderful thing so here we see if you look at this literature the Mahabharata, the Ramayana there are so many places where devastating adversities come upon people and we all have to respond with dignity with positivity, with confidence so the positive attitude is fine that is talked about in scripture also but when we talk about positive perception there is a difference between perception and perspective perception means what I feel half glass full or half glass empty but perspective means from where I see so if I am in a house that is burning and I have a positive attitude the fire is not going to reach me yes you can have that hope but also do something to get out of the fire this positive attitude is not enough if I am thirsty and this glass is empty if I imagine the glass is full that is not optimism that is stupidism so as long as I keep imagining that the empty glass is full I will never do anything to fill the glass and I will not be able to quench my thirst so there is a role, an important role for a positive attitude, for self confidence God never puts us in situations that we cannot deal with like a student in 3rd standard he has to study to pass 3rd standard exam but the student doesn’t have to worry if he is in 3rd standard exam that won’t come we will not feel I have the capacity to deal with it but we will get that capacity so positive attitude is good but the important thing is our own attitude doesn’t determine doesn’t tap our full capacity to deal with the situation so the perception is what I see, but perspective is from where I see so if a person is in a fire hit area and then a helicopter comes now that same fire which was a threat earlier now that fire is also a threat and that is not because of our intelligence that is because the person has lifted oneself out or has been lifted out and is seen from a different perspective so similarly when we understand scripture at that time when we connect with Krishna then we understand that we are spiritual we are souls and we are indestructible so when we understand that we are indestructible then we rise above our situations when we rise above our situations we can deal with those situations much more calmly and confidently so when Prabhupada went to America at one level he was completely dependent on Krishna at another level he was doing all he could do he was translating books, he was speaking to people so it’s not that bhakti means we don’t depend on our own abilities we have to depend on our user abilities also but we recognize that our ability our ability to tap our ability our ability to tap our ability yes I may have the capacity to speak nicely but then if I am demoralized if I am terrified, if I am tense I am not able to speak so our ability to tap our ability depends on our faith in something or something we have a connection with Krishna we have a faith that Krishna is there and Krishna can boost our confidence so we are not talking about the spiritual replacing the material we are talking about the spiritual boosting our capacity to choose the right material thing and to do the right material thing and as far as wiping the tears of people are concerned there are two different things here first is, why have the tears there in the first place as souls we are connected with Krishna and we are going to be always happy with him if we get connected with Krishna Bhagavan says that if you count the amount of tears that the soul has shed in its existence it will make up an ocean but all those tears, an ocean of tears all those tears can be dried away if the person is attracted to the Lord and just knows the smile of the Lord it’s not just a poetic expression actually if we connect with Krishna we experience an ocean of happiness which just makes the ocean of misery that we have suffered go away so the first is that we are in a situation where we are shedding tears because we are disconnected from Krishna and if we connect with Krishna the tears will go away ultimately but more importantly bhakti is not just one activity as chanting bhakti is a whole culture and in that culture there is a culture of caring and sharing and it is not that when somebody is in tears everybody will understand that actually the devotee community, the spiritual community is also there to help practically to wipe those tears so this reduction of devotion to just one action which seems unconnected with the rest of life this is a misimplementation of devotion where devotion actually enables us to strengthen our connection with the rest of our life in a way that we can more effectively live with it so let me say that that that in this world there is so much shortage of food for example but you see the number of people who are undernourished in the world are around 8 million and the number of people who are obese are 10 million so the problem is not so much shortage as a misdirection so God has given us resources and connection with God gives us the intelligence and the self-mastery to use what God has given properly to us, so God helps us not just by giving us strength internally to deal with the situations, God helps us also by helping us create a culture of helping each other and in that way chanting is the not an embellishment but it is a complement of whatever we are doing now without having a spiritual connection whatever we do, this was my experience that many times, because we give some food to beggars, now we don’t have money to beg the beggars don’t even pay for smoking before I was introduced to Krishna consciousness I was involved in social service I used to go to some slums and I had a lot of faith in the power of education so I used to go to slums and teach those students history, mathematics, English, those are my favorite subjects so I went there and I used to teach and several months I did that and most of these families the father was an alcoholic and at that time the father would just drink and come home and he would just break everything I would go to teach, the father would be like I will be grateful that you are coming and teaching my sons but then the mother and the children would tell them once he drinks alcohol, he becomes in a different position like a ghost has possessed him what he does, it’s terrible one of my friends was even more into social service a large number of students he had inspired them he had called the parents also to give up alcohol and that was part of the social organization and that was considered one of the crowning successes of that organization the whole village, not the whole village but a large part of the village we were able to free from alcohol but then one day this friend came and was practically in tears he had gone to the village, it was the previous day of his election and the local political candidate he had brought truckloads of alcohol and gave them free and the sad thing was not only had the father drunk but the children also had drunk and at that time I said to him I am trying to help but is it actually helping that time I just went to a temple I did not go to the altar and I prayed to God please I want to do something with my life something constructive he just lied, I came back home came back to my hostel so bhakti actually enables us to create a culture where people can help otherwise material help rather than helping causes harm when you pour water in a bucket, the bucket has a hole no matter how much water you pour, it just goes up so like that without some kind of self-discipline some kind of self-mastery, people cannot really do anything so bhakti is a way of helping people in the most effective way and it is not a replacement for practical help it is a complementary that makes complete so we offer practical help and we offer inner spiritual help by which people can take the practical help and be helped