While having so much intelligence how do you avoid pride?

This is an AI-generated transcript and it might not be fully accurate:

If we have intelligence, how do we avoid pride? Well, I think there are, first of all, it’s not that I don’t have pride, all of us have struggling with that. We have the struggle, but see, I talk about the three different levels. First, I’ll talk at a philosophical level.

See, we often think that there is ego and the opposite of that is humility. We should not be proud, we should be humble. Well, there is truth to that, but actually there are three factors involved, not two.

One side is ego, the other side is insecurity, and in between is humility. So ego is I know everything, I can do everything. Basically, I am God, that is Mayavada.

Insecurity is I know nothing, I can do nothing, I am nothing, that is Shunyavada. So in between is Mamai Vamsho Jeevaloki, I am something and I can do some things. So many times when we tell people don’t be proud, what happens is, it’s an important thing don’t be proud, but if we don’t differentiate between humility and insecurity, we end up creating insecurity in others, creating a sense of worthlessness.

Nobody is worthless, everyone is precious for us. So humility is I am something and I can do some things. So we want humility, we don’t want ego, but we don’t want insecurity also.

And many people who seem to have a lot of ego, in my observation actually their ego is a mask to conceal their insecurity. That if I don’t put on this facade, if I don’t put on these airs, nobody will notice, nobody will respect me. And so it’s not a very pleasant situation to be oscillating between these two ego and insecurity.

So humility is not insecurity. Now having said this, in general Krishna has his ways to keep us humble if we become proud. So for me, my challenge is that I am too intellectual for most people.

What I mean by that is that see nothing in this world is a pure blessing. Every blessing comes with a burden and every curse comes with a chance. So being intellectual is good to some extent.

But many devotees tell me that when I hear your class, my head starts smoking. It is so much work for them. So I asked my spiritual master, Anahat Maharaj, people tell me my classes are very intellectual.

But I told him, Maharaj, I am not intentionally intellectual. It’s just the way I think. It’s not that I am deliberately looking for more difficult words to use.

Those are just the right words and I think of those words. I told Maharaj, it’s very difficult for me to change. So Maharaj said, you don’t have to change yourself.

Maharaj said that if Gaur Gopal Prabhu tries to be intellectual like you, it won’t work. If you try to be humorous like Gaur Gopal Prabhu, it won’t work. And Maharaj is so humble, so disarming.

He said that as far as I am concerned, I am neither intellectual like you nor humorous like Gaur Gopal. So I said, Maharaj, whatever abilities we have, it is by your mercy. Maharaj was grave and he said, Krishna has gifted me with a deep concern for others.

And with that concern in my heart, whatever I speak, it seems to inspire others. So Maharaj told me, you don’t have to change yourself, but increase your concern for others. And I wondered what that meant.

How do I increase my concern for others? So I started actually traveling outside India and doing international outreach in 2014. So I re-heard some of what I consider my best classes. This was about 2019-2020, just before the pandemic.

I’m in this meeting with Maharaj. So I heard some of my classes to see, to try to understand, how can I show more concern for others? And those were my classes, but I had to pay full attention to understand what I was saying. Some of the points I remembered, some of the points I had forgotten.

But why am I saying this point after this point? What is this example for? How is this linked? And then I realized that it’s so difficult for me to understand, how much more difficult it will be for my audience to understand. That’s when I started exploring, how can I make things more easier to understand? So then I started making PowerPoints for all my classes. I made almost like 2000 PowerPoints or something like that in that time, pandemic.

But then I found it very restrictive. Because PowerPoint means you have to speak only what is in the slide. And it does not leave room for spontaneity or creativity in the moment.

So then over a period of time, I discovered this method of writing and drawing. So here I can be creative and I can, whatever I’m speaking, I can illustrate that. So this has worked quite well for many devotees tell me now that we feel we understand your classes a little bit more now.

So then I told Maharaj about this has been a big help. This tool has been a very big help for me. Maharaj told me, it’s good, but don’t let the tool blind you to the principle.

Principle is that have concern for others. So I think that fact that my classes were intellectual was not really helping me fulfill my purpose. My purpose was to help people understand.

So in that sense, some devotees may be brilliant Kirtan ears. But sometimes their Kirtan, they sing the Hare Krishna Mantra in such a complicated tune that that Kirtan is not a participation. It’s just a performance.

They sing and we can just hear. It’s nice in some worlds to see their musical ability. But then Kirtan is meant to be participatory.

Isn’t it? So I think what has helped me to some extent is to keep the purpose in mind. That our purpose is not just to show off our intelligence. Purpose is to ourselves go closer to Krishna and help others go closer to Krishna.

So if we keep that in mind, it becomes easier. And one thing is that Krishna gives us abilities, but Krishna gives all of us limitations also. And remembering our limitations alone.

See, if we remember only our abilities, it’s easy to become an area of ego. But if we remember only our inadequacies, it’s very easy to start feeling insecure. That we all have areas in which we are not good at.

So for me, it’s music. I tried to learn Kirtan and there’s a devotee who was teaching me. He taught me for a few weeks and he said, you can have this as a next lifetime project.

So now what we need to do is we have to ourselves manage that balance. That how much should I remember my abilities and how much should I remember my inadequacies so that I can maintain my humility. Too much in either direction is not healthy.

Thank you very much.