Why do we put faith in the spiritual world?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Yes Krishna. So now Lord Krishna talks about this as the spiritual world, so generally speaking, many people have a very crude idea of religion, most people’s idea of religion is that yes God is some entity who exists somewhere up there, and the main purpose of his existence is to set things right in my life when they go wrong, so people see God as a problem solver, when I cannot be my problem solver, so yes that is one understanding of God, which is not incorrect, but it is very incomplete, yes God, the purpose of his existence is not just to solve our problems, yes he wants to solve our problems, but not at this level, but at his eternal level, and he wants us to come back to his eternal level, so all the scriptures do talk about this spiritual world as the ultimate destination of the soul, now we may wonder, is it just a sentimental belief that there is something called spiritual world, or is there some logical reason, is there some basis for believing in a spiritual world like this? So let us first see what the spiritual world is, so this session will be in two parts, in the evening Radhesh will speak on a detailed description of what the spiritual world actually is, and how it is a world of love and joy, which goes on ever increasing eternally, but today in this class, we will just give an introduction of what the spiritual world is, and mainly the logical, the scriptural basis for understanding the existence of the spiritual world, so now the Vedic scriptures describe that the abode of God has multiple levels, just like in this world, there are multiple levels, just like there are gradations in this world, some people are poor, some people are wealthy, some people are very beautiful, so the spiritual world is the eternal world, so in the spiritual world everyone there is eternal, and the spiritual world is Vaikuntha, and there is Vrindavan, so Vaikuntha, the very word Vaikuntha means, Vaikuntha is anxiety, Vaikuntha refers to Vai means without, without anxiety, that abode which is free from anxiety, that is the spiritual world, and in that spiritual world, there is Lord Vishnu who exists with Lakshmi Devi, his consort, so both of them, they are like a supreme mother and father, and all living beings are like their children, and there is an eternal family of God, of which all of us are members, and although, so in the spiritual world also there are many planets, so what we are talking about is described in the Srimad Bhagavatam, in the Bhagavad Gita it is hinted at, in the Srimad Bhagavatam it is described more, and in the Brahma Samhita it is described even more in detail, like that there are many scriptures which talk about it, so the Vaikuntha is eternal, and in the spiritual world, there is an abode called Goloka Vrindavan, that is the abode of Krishna, and Krishna is in one sense, God at his most unassuming best, God at home, so Krishna, when Krishna deals especially in Vrindavan, Rajwasi’s, he completely sort of hides his God, he hides his God, and he just plays with the Gopas, just like a very wealthy and powerful person, he may be signing million dollar contracts, or making deeds, which cause him employment, or cause his retrenchment to thousands of people, and he goes around so many people respect him, but when he comes home he just wants to play, he just wants to relax with his family members, so like that, Krishna in Vrindavan is just relaxing, no administrative function, Lord Vishnu does some administrative function, but Krishna just relaxes and reciprocates love with his devotees, that abode is Goloka Vrindavan, and there, God hides his Godhood, so that he can reciprocate love with his devotees, the devotees know that Krishna is God, but that is not in their awareness constantly, they just think Krishna is such a lovely sweet person, and we just love him because he is so sweet, so that is the spiritual world, so like that, there is a continued revelation of the spiritual world, this is just a brief introduction, now, is there something called spiritual world at all, so in the spiritual world, there are many devotees, there is Krishna’s Sakhas, his Sakhis, and Krishna, this is the Rasa Tila, which Krishna is performing with the Gopis, so there are many different pastimes Krishna performs, and these pastimes are basically the word Leela, Leela means play or pastime, this is Krishna, what Krishna does, when he wants to purely reciprocate love with his devotees, so just like a wealthy person, when he is with his millionaires, billionaire or trillionaires, all the members, intimate get together with them, so let us play a drama, and I will become a beggar, and he says, in the last three days, I have not eaten anything, please give me some food, and that day only he has eaten three times, but he forgets that, so that he can enjoy the drama, and everyone else enjoys it, so like that Krishna, in the spiritual world, he doesn’t say, Krishna simply wants to reciprocate love with his devotees, so in the spiritual world, like a drama, the word has a negative connotation, in the sense that it seems unreal, it is not unreal, it is the highest reality, that is how God is in his most intimate aspect, he covers his Godhood, he simply wants to reciprocate love with his devotees, so there is, in the Maharaja Yanishwara Ramayana, Krishna exists, as a small child what does he do? He is carrying the sandals of his father, and he brings the sandals, and he simply reciprocates love with his devotees, so as we know Krishna, one of Krishna’s favourite pastimes is to steal butter, it is described that, Mother Vishwada gives some butter in a pot, and she goes away, and Krishna, he just looks around and says, there is so much butter, he goes and steals, he eats the butter, gobbles it up, and then he goes back, Britishers have gone to sleep, and Mother Vishwada comes and, where has the butter gone? Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, have you stolen the butter? And Krishna returns, I am hungry, and, so kaputti, so even the, in the other religious traditions, because there is no description of God, so they have their own idea of God, like I showed you, old person, stone old person sits in the clouds, and throws thunderbolts to the cell phone, and sends it rolling down to him, so when the Europeans came to India, they came to Mathura, and they saw, this sweet looking baby with a butter in his mouth, they said, who is this? This is God, what is he doing? He is stealing butter, they got completely intellectually short circuited, first of all, why does God have to steal? And if he has to steal, why butter and all these things? So, you know, Krishna, there is love beyond logic, Krishna, actually, at his ultimate aspect, is a very simple God, he lives in a cowherd, and they produce butter, and Krishna loves, the butter is the means by which Krishna reciprocates love with his devotees, so actually there is a very sweet, in fact the sweetest revelation of God, that is there in the Indian religious tradition, that is of Krishna, so, God is actually sustaining all the planets, but Krishna struggles to carry his parents’ sandals, and he brings them to Indranath Maharaj, and he offers it to them, so there are many sweet pastimes of this spiritual world, which we discussed in the evening class, as you know, Krishna steals butter, and then he hides, and not only he steals butter, he gives butter to the monkeys also, and then when the monkeys are fed, sufficiently, and monkeys are there, butter is, we don’t want any more, and when the gopis come to catch Krishna, Krishna, are you stealing our butter? Krishna says, why should I steal your butter? Your butter is so third class, even monkeys don’t want to eat it. So, this is Krishna, so he is, he goes out for lunch, and when he goes out for lunch, they all sit together, and what they do is, they all share the food, so Krishna offers some food, from his box, and others offer from their box, and they all share, and then, because he is God, every gopa feels as if Krishna is just looking at me, although Krishna is sitting in the centre, and they are all looking at Krishna, everybody feels as if Krishna is looking just right there, and this is what gopa, so he is Krishna’s, Krishna’s joker, so he makes a lot of fun with Krishna, so one time he had got some chhaaj, and he liked chhaaj very much, so he thought, no, if I bring it in public, then what will happen is, actually, what happened was, he liked chhaaj very much, but chhaaj was very simple, so he thought, I cannot offer this chhaaj to Krishna, this is such a simple item, so he thought, but if I bring it in front of Krishna, then what will happen, Krishna will open it, therefore I will go and take it secretly, so he went behind a tree, and started drinking, there was a pot, he was drinking, and he was drinking, and that time what happened, Krishna looked around, where is Madananda, he is not here, he must be doing something secretly, so he looked around, and he came running, and at that time, actually Brahmaji had heard, so Brahmaji, he saw, he had heard that Krishna, God has come as this cowherd boy, and he was a little surprised, so, Gopadesha, Supreme Lord has come in the form of Gopal, so he came to see, is this really God, small innocent sweet boy, how can it be God, so he came along, and at that time Krishna was running, and Madananda saw that Krishna, Krishna was searching for Madananda, Madananda was there under that tree, and when Madananda saw Krishna, he became a little panicky, so what did he do, he took the buttermilk that was there, he started drinking it very fast, to finish it off, now when somebody drinks a lot, like we drink a lot of water or some liquid water, it gets swollen up, because throat cannot take it so fast, so he finished, he thought now I have finished it, but Krishna came running and, and it all came out, and when it came out, it fell on Krishna’s body, Krishna started drinking it, and Brahmaji got a culture shock, he said, how can God take somebody’s buttermilk, in that direction, from the mouth, so Brahmaji offers, Bhoga to the deity, and to the deity, you cannot offer him buttermilk, actually it is very very clean, and tidy and pure, so Krishna as the supreme lord, is a God of love, is a God of love, yes we follow the rules and regulations, to ultimately develop that love, yesterday we discussed about how Krishna, is interested in love, so even he is about to speak of, eating Jhuta Chai, buttermilk, he is ready to eat even banana peel, if they are offered with love, so Madhumangal, because of his love for Krishna, Krishna wanted to enhance that pastime, so he did that, so there are many sweet pastimes, about the spiritual world, but now, when we discuss these pastimes, have any of you seen this serial, now in India, many people know about Krishna, know about Ram, unfortunately, when we know about God, there are two aspects to know, there is the Tattva, and there is the Leela, there is the philosophical truth, there is the philosophy, and there is the pastime, so without the Tattva, if we understand only the Leela, the Leela may attract our hearts, but for many people, many people think, Krishna is a mythological personality, or some people think, he is a historical personality, but actually Krishna is neither mythological personality, nor just a historical personality, he is a supreme personality, so in India, many people know the stories about Krishna, but that is just the Leela, so without the Leela, so the Leela alone, if you understand, but not the Tattva, not the philosophy, but, Krishna’s Leela is not just for entertainment, it is for actually, to enter into the spiritual world, to return back to the spiritual world, therefore, it is very important to understand philosophy, so now, some poet might spin some character by his imagination, like we have, JK Rowling made Harry Potter, and Harry Potter has adventures, and people go so mad, with those adventures, now, is there any sensible character like that Krishna, so, is there some really in the world, where there is Krishna, and there is a spiritual world, and you are meant to go over there, so, let us see about this, so, we will discuss it at three levels, what is at the level of science, second is the level of logic, and third is at the level of scripture, so let us see at the level of science first, now most of you have probably heard about the, we are trying to conquer outer space, but here, in this space, which we have, there is only profound history, that we do not know, there is this area, in the ocean, near America, near Barbuda, which is basically a mystery, if any plane or any ship goes into that area, what happens nobody knows, whatever reports have come out from there, it just appears that the time accelerates over there, and people who are young, they become aged, and then they pass away, so basically, a lot of researchers have understood, that the laws of nature, as we know it, do not apply over there, there are some different laws around it, there is another mysterious phenomena called crop circles, crop circles means what, that many times, in gardens, in parks, in farms, the crops grow in particular shapes, the crops grow in very specific and particular shapes, they may grow as a specific circle, or a triangle, or a trapezoid, even more complicated shapes, the farmers have not grown in that way, the farmers have not grown in that way, farmers just normally sow the seed, and grow the land, but the crops grow up in a very specific and particular way, how does that happen? There are various theories, and they say, maybe people are doing it at night, but if the farmer grows the land, and it is not so easy to cut grains, and shape the grains in a particular way, and it is not just happening in one place, it is happening in thousands of places, so who are these selfless workers, thousands of people who are working to make the crops grow in a particular shape, they are saying, oh maybe there are some people who have aeroplanes, and they have some technology, by which what they do is, they send some high energy rays, by which all the other crops get burnt away, and only the crops grow in a particular shape, but before we developed such technology, this technology came only 5-10 years ago, there was sophisticated technology, where through planes, you can regulate the growth of crops, but this phenomenon has been there for a long time, so certainly, science doesn’t tell us everything about reality, and there is a lot of mystery, even within creation, even Einstein also said, that actually, the sense of wonder and mystery, about nature, is the cradle of all science, cradle means, from where something grows, like a baby grows on a cradle, so what is the cradle of all true science, the sense of wonder and mystery, so in the world which we observe, there is much that we don’t know, so there is an area on the earth, not just in the Barmuda triangle somewhere, but even on the earth, where people are residing, where certain mysterious forces seem to be acting, so science has a particular view of nature, and that is valid to a certain extent, but that is not the complete view of nature, that is a partial view of nature, so there are many higher dimensions, higher realms, I am talking about the incidence of Fatima, it happened in 1917, so there is this whole field, of life on other planets, of UFOs and aliens, and the whole field has been sensationalised, but people imagine some little green man, with many mons or something like that, but apart from the science fiction, there have been very well documented incidents, so Dr. Richard Thompson, Dr. Thompson is a Cornell researcher, Cornell University, Mathematics PhD, and subsequently he even became, he was inspired by Shatrughapad, he became a disciple of Shatrughapad, Shatrughapad gave him the Sadaputdas, so he has written this book called Alien Identities, it is an excellent compilation, of the numerous paranormal observations, and experiences that people have had, so this Fatima, was a place in Portugal, where in 1917, what happened, it is a long story, but basically, they saw a huge flywheel coming over there, it was like a flying Shams or something, and it came, it was announced that at this day, at this time this will come, and actually thousands of people saw it, and not once, not twice, thrice it happened, and every time it was there, not just for a few moments, but for 10 or 12 minutes, and this sort of incident, that was one of the most dramatic incidents, a huge ball of light descending down, saucer of light, and staying for some time, and then leaving, but there are many many incidents like this, which have been reasonably well documented, and for an open minded person, this indicates that there is a lot more to the universe, than what we know about, so, in this Brokerian identity case, Dr.Thompson explains, that it’s like, if you have a huge mainframe computer, in that mainframe computer, different users, are given different levels of access, like say, user 1, user 2, user 3, and someone will be administrator, so user 1, all the data is there on the same computer, but user 1, maybe he just has to enter some data records, so he is given access only to those files, and even if you open the computer, he cannot see those files, they are invisible to him, user 2 has access to some more files, user 3 has access to some more, and the administrator has access to complete files, so, he is explaining that the universe, Krishna also explained in the Bhagavad Gita, that universe, is like a multi-level existence, multi-level reality, and according to our level of consciousness, we have given certain rights to the universe, so we can access only that level of the reality, beyond that, we cannot access the universe, just like the remaining data is there in the computer, but we don’t have the rights to access, and we cannot find the data only, so, there are higher realities in the universe, but we humans, have not been given access to them, according to our karma, we have certain access, so through our science and through certain instruments, we can observe certain things, so when the Vedic scriptures talk about this world, the loka, spiritual world, it is not that it is unscientific, or it is mythological, it is just that, it is trans-scientific, it is beyond the reach of science, so, what do we mean by beyond the reach of science, actually, the more scientists have studied the universe, the more they have been amazed by its gigantic size, its hugeness, the first time the scientists went into outer space, and they looked at the earth from the outside space, their report is, on the earth, the earth appears to be a gargantuan, gargantuan means huge, huge structure of land and water, but if you go into outer space, the earth seems to be just like a tiny pebble, in a huge cosmos, where there are dangerous missiles shooting around all the time, so what appears to be, so for the uninformed, our space probes seem to prove man’s greatness, yes, we have conquered space, for the well-informed, those who actually went into space, the space probes revealed our smallness, how small we are as compared to the vastness of space, so actually, this universe itself is so big, and where is the end of the universe, scientists have no idea, and that’s why it’s very, very, it’s very illogical to claim that we can understand, that we know all about the universe, or we can know all about the universe, science certainly knows certain things, but we have to understand, what is the nature of that knowledge, so imagine, if some alien is sent over the earth, on earth to do reconnaissance, to find out, what is the nature of the population of the earth, and if that person comes to Radharaj Bihar temple, and if he comes to, this particular hall, and he is floating in the space, in the background, in the ethereal form, and he observes, from 11.30 to 1.30, he observes, and after observing, he goes back and reports, the population of the earth, is mostly, is, the population of the earth, is male engineers, between the age of 18 to 25.
Is it correct? The observation is correct, the generalisation is wrong. Ok, he has observed, but he has observed, a small part of the earth, and for such a small period of time, tomorrow there might be some programme, for senior citizens, day after tomorrow there might be a programme, for some Matajis, day after day there might be a programme, for Brahmacharis. So, actually, when we observe a small space, for a small time, and give generalisation, that is unscientific.
So, that’s what science is doing, with respect to the universe. With our sophisticated instruments, for how long have we observed the universe? It’s only for a few years, maybe few centuries. The modern age, we start from Galileo’s time, 500 years at the most.
And, how much of the universe have we observed? Not really much. As you know, the light from the sun to come to the earth, takes how much time? 8 minutes. That means, when we see the sun, we are not seeing the sun as it is now, we are seeing it as it was 8 minutes ago.
And sometimes, in our telescope, 20,000 light years away, we can see a star, that is 20,000 light years away. But, do we know what that means? That means, we are seeing the star as it was 20,000 years ago. Since then, the star may have exploded and completely dissipated into just an ova, or a dust cloud.
So, actually, not only the universe is so vast, but we can know very little about it. We can know very little about it. Even with our huge scientific knowledge, the amount of knowledge that we still have is limited.
So, it’s not wrong to say that there can be something which is beyond the realm of science. It’s not unscientific, it’s trans-scientific. And, this is a science news magazine, what does it say? That when we look at the universe, with all its special conditions of order and law, what does it say? Would somebody like to read this? Yes? Contemplation.
Contemplation of these things disturbs cosmologists because it seems that such particular and precise conditions could hardly have arisen at random. One way to deal with the question is to say the whole thing was contrived and laid on divine providence. Many scientists have begun to acknowledge what the evidence gives in statistics and intelligence.
Hmm. So, the evidence keeps insisting that there is intelligence. And, this is a whole subject in itself.
But, I’ll just give two quick examples. In the solar system that we have, you know, there are asteroids which are dangerous, sub-planetary sort of objects which keep hurtling around in space. So, you know, the earth is remarkably free from the influence of asteroids.
And, that is because of the influence of Jupiter. Jupiter, it is several times larger than the earth. And, because of that, scientists say that Jupiter acts like a gravitational vacuum cleaner.
That is the word that they use. So, all the asteroids that are going there are suckled in by the gravitational pull of Jupiter and they go and crash in Jupiter. If Jupiter had not been where it was, then, if Jupiter had been in the position of Saturn, then we would have had asteroids coming every alternate weeks and this is just accepting that modern cosmology is true.
I mean, according to modern cosmology understanding, things are very precise. On the other hand, if Jupiter had been where Mars is, what would have happened? We would have been sucked in. So, the positioning is very, very precise.
The earth is a very unique planet with one moon. If there is one large moon close to the earth, that’s why the earth’s axis makes our life possible. So, how did this all come about? The evidence insists that there is intelligence.
So, the next point was, we started by saying, there is much in this universe which is factual but beyond the reach of science. We discussed this from the point of view of experiences in the ocean, experiences in the land, experiences in space. And then, we feel that there is some intelligence behind it.
So, now we come to the scriptural part. We have to say that there is something called, there is a feature of existence that is achintya. Achintya means inconceivable.
So, achintya khalo yad bhava na tam starke na yojayet and that is achintya. We cannot understand it by tarka, but we can understand it. So, just like, there is an ant moving along this road, along this path and if I just bring a huge board, I take that board off and place it over here.
Now the ant, in order to understand what has come, where I am just walking along, what has just suddenly come, where did it come from? Where did it go? Where did I go in this whole process? We do not understand anything because the universe itself is, the dimensions are so big, the ant cannot comprehend them. So, like that, we are also so small as compared to the vastness of the universe and there is much that we cannot comprehend with our own experimental apparatus. Now, if there is no way to know by experimenting, is there some way to know? So, the scriptures talk about the spiritual world in many places.
So, these are the verses we discussed 15.6, 9.25 where Lord Krishna says that those who worship me, they will come back to me. 8.15 where Krishna says that there is material world, 8.15-16, Krishna tells about the spiritual world. नाप्रिवन्ति महत्मानं संसिद्धिन्परमांगतः Those who worship me, they will not come to this material world but they will return back to the spiritual world.
Then this section that we discussed here, 15.6, 2 verses before that, 15.4, Krishna talks about the spiritual world, how one attains that? By surrender to Him. नापदन्परिमान्गितव्यं यस्मिन्गतालनिवर्थदिभूया यस्मिन्गतालनिवर्थदिभूया तःप्रवति प्रिष्णतापुराणि He describes that that abode is the place from which everything is expanded and the Supreme Lord stays over there. And the same description is given in 120-122.
Krishna basically says, the main point Krishna says is that the spiritual world is eternal, it is self-luminous, it is my abode. And he gives further details. So now, the scriptures talk about the eternal abode.
Now let’s look forward about the scriptures. The scriptures talk about it, but how do we know that the scriptures are true? Yes, we have to put faith. But faith is not just blind.
You see that now, ultimately, we cannot live without faith. Einstein said that, tell a person, Einstein talked about how people have blind faith in scientists. He was a scientist, but he was a spiritually minded scientist.
He said, how people have blind faith in scientists? He said, if you tell a person that there are 20 million stars in the sky, he will believe it. But if you tell him that the garden seat in front of him has wet paint on it, I will check to find out. Is it really wet? This paint, freshly painted, don’t sit on it.
I want to check it. That means what? If it’s possible for me to check it, I will surely check it. But whether there are 20 million stars in the sky or I don’t know, I will accept it.
Actually, if you see, scientists keep revising their numbers of the dimensions of the universe, the number of entities in the universe, the number of the types of entities in the universe. But people acquire knowledge basically based on faith. It’s not just that in religion you need faith.
Science is entirely based on faith. A typical researcher starts with scepticism. When a student goes to science, college or science, school or science, what has been taught earlier? We study it, understand it.
And then, of course, there are experiments to verify it. So, like that, faith in the scriptures is also not blind. So, now, when we go to a college and say, at this place, here, there is a pulsar or a quasar or whatever, there are so many things over there.
How do we know? Initially, we have to start with faith. Later on, as we ourselves become trained in operation of scientific instruments, not only that, we come to know the instruments, we come to know how to operate them. After we come to know how to operate them, then we know how to use them to observe something.
Because, you know, it’s not that you can see a black hole. Actually, if you see, more sophisticated scientific observations are not direct observations. They are interpretations of observations.
You know, when I was in a physics lab, there was a scientist, he says, here we see an electron. Nobody sees an electron. What we see is just a deposit on maybe a CRT screen, a particular pattern, which indicates there was an electron.
So, even a black hole, how do we know? You see this ray of light which is coming, its path is deflected. And therefore, it indicates there is a black hole over it. So, the point is, with respect to cosmology, where we are talking about vast dimensions, how do we understand the entities? First is faith, second is training, and then third is verification.
So, first we put faith, there are something called black holes. And there is training. Training means I have to learn.
Now, how does it, how does this instrument work? What is the picture that it gives? And what does that picture mean? You know, if some doctor says, okay, you have got a TB in your lungs. So, how do you know? Okay, you show me the X-ray. But even if I see the X-ray, unless I am not educated, how do you see the X-ray? I will just see it and see nothing.
So, I have to put faith. How do you understand it? So, faith is not something which is required only by scriptures. All knowledge is acquired based on faith.
So, now, this is a very subtle point. The material world is like a movie. The real life must be somewhere else.
So, you see, in the world, people are so intoxicated that even if I don’t have anything to eat, I just watch television and enjoy. So, why? Because there is the desire for a better reality. The desire for a better world is there.
And I cannot make this world better. I am miserable here. Just let me go into a better world through television.
And let me be happy over there. So, the point is that all of us desire a better world, a better life. And those who say that okay, we don’t believe in scriptures and the spiritual world, they try to create their own technological paradise.
Create their own technological paradise where all sorts of miraculous things happen. See, people say, I am very scientific. I don’t believe in all these religious things.
You say that there is a Narasimha Deva? Half man, half lion? So unscientific. The same person is very sceptical when he comes to temple and sees Narasimha Deva. When he goes to his home, he turns on his television and starts watching the antics of a half man, half spider.
Spider man. What happened to his scientific nature over there? Isn’t it? So, a half man, half lion is unscientific. Is a half man, half spider more scientific? No.
Half man, half spider or half man, half bat. Whatever it is. Ultimately, what the person is watching is a half man, half monkey.
So, the point is that ultimately we may say I am scientific but even the scientific people want, long for a fantasy world, for a world where there are miraculous things possible, where there are wonderful things happening. So, attraction to the paranormal is normal. Paranormal, that is very strange, that is unusual.
Actually, that is normal to everyone. So, people don’t say that they want to create their own fantasy world. Even scientific minded people, they watch so many cartoon shows and comics and this and fictions and novels where they create their own fantasies.
So, the point is all of us long for a better world. And if we don’t create and if we don’t know about the spiritual world or if we don’t have faith in the spiritual world then we create it somewhere else. We create our, we spin our own yarns, we create our own stories or we watch some other people who have created their own stories.
So, ultimately everybody wants to escape the reality of this world. Everybody wants to escape the reality. Like some people say, Oh, I went for that movie.
It was such fun. I enjoyed it. Why did I enjoy it? I forgot everything.
All my problems, all my difficulties I forgot. So, what are they trying to do? Escape from reality. See, this is the reality.
The reality of this world is miserable. So, now the scriptures tell us you rise from this reality to this eternal reality of the spiritual world. That will be blissful.
But those who don’t know about that what they do is they create another illusion and which is joyful and they go into that illusion. So, basically whatever people imagine they are trying to project what is originally in the spiritual world over there. So, now there are two points in this.
One is that everybody longs for a better world and they create it in different ways. But the second point here is that everybody longs for a better world but is this world a real world? Most of you know the story of the king. One night a king came in the morning and what happened? He says, just last night I had a dream and in the dream I was a butterfly and I was going from flower to flower to flower and taking the honey and it was such a vivid dream that now I have a grave doubt and you have to answer this doubt.
He said, what is the doubt? The doubt is whether I am a king dreaming that I was a butterfly or whether I am a butterfly dreaming that I was a king. The minister started thinking are we dreaming? What a crazy question. What is going on? You woke up at 2 o’clock at night and called and it’s a strange question to be asked.
But there was a sage among the ministers he said, you are neither the butterfly nor the king. You are a soul who is dreaming that you are a king and in that dream you had another dream in which you dreamt you were a butterfly. So it’s a dream in a dream.
So they said, why is this world called a dream? Why is it like a movie? Because it is temporary. All the realities that we are connected just like a movie gets over all the realities of that movie end with it. So like that all the realities of the experiences of this life will end with death.
But consciousness continues. Consciousness continues beyond. There are so many people who have had past life memories and that indicates that actually life goes on beyond death also.
So where is our real life? That real life is in the spiritual world. And as you know Krishna has 6 opulences you discussed about this earlier in that spiritual world why is it so attractive? Why is it so sweet? Because all of us ultimately want to experience love and we want to love somebody who is really truly worthy of our love. If there is an 83 year old woman nobody will go and give her a valentine’s day red rose.
Why? Because even if he cares I mean I respect her, I deserve her she is my relative I don’t want to offer my heart to her to somebody who is truly worthy of that love. Somebody who is beautiful somebody who is caring somebody who is intelligent So all the qualities that we aspire for in anyone whom we would like to love all those qualities are there in Krishna. And that’s why he is called as Bhagavan.
So Krishna is Bhagavan and when he knows Krishna becomes Bhagyavan. Bhagyavan is fortunate. So one who knows Bhagavan becomes Bhagyavan.
And actually to become Bhagyavan we have to connect with Bhagavan and to become Bhagyavan we have to add that Y Bhagyavan is Y that Y is the Y of Yoga we practise Yoga, Bhakti Yoga we should connect with it So now can there be a reflection of an object without the object? So what does this mean? This means that we see that there is beauty in this world we see that there is intelligence in this world there is wealth in this world there is strength there is renunciation there is fame Now these qualities are there but they are there temporarily here they are there temporarily here they must be there somewhere eternally otherwise they would not be here temporarily It’s like if there is a beautiful mango tree and sometimes you see the reflection in the river and sometimes when the waves are too stormy or agitated you don’t see the reflection but that reflection would not be there if there were no original mango So there are two kinds of people one kind of people are they just jump into the river where is the mango? I want to search it catch, catch, catch we are going to catch it I don’t know how it is I can see it right now we will form a fire plant and we will divide this river into squares and let us dive and catch the mango and no matter how much you do you can’t find the mango on the other hand there is another kind of people this whole mango is a hoax it’s an illusion don’t look at the mango close your eyes just be calm the wise person says see the mango you tried to find it over there it was not there but still the mango seems to be there so therefore there must be a real mango somewhere of which the reflection is here that is look up on that tree, can you see? there is the real mango now you climb up this tree you can reach that mango so like that now we see the beauty in this world and we are attracted and some people just go mad and try to enjoy the beauty enjoy the beauty but then it’s all fleeting and temporary there is no happiness all this is false I don’t get attracted but where does that beauty come from? so the devotees you know by Krishna and this middle master they raise their head there is Krishna there is the reality he is eternally beautiful and his beauty is reflected in this world so turn aside to Krishna so whatever is there in this world it’s a reflection of Krishna’s beauty so earlier I was talking about the computer with different levels of access so now how do we access the spiritual world? so actually we need to become purified so you know in modern science we can do experiments but in spirituality the experiment is in the laboratory of our own consciousness so the experiment is actually our experience so when we chant Hare Krishna it is our consciousness that becomes purified and in which we experience higher happiness so so now very important point about the spiritual world is that you may say that okay some scientists talk about so many parallel universes they talk about black holes and quasars we are putting faith there and the spiritualists they are talking about some spiritual world but just as scientists change their concepts okay they say this particular object existed sometimes they say ether existed sometimes they say ether doesn’t exist so you know okay we are putting faith here putting faith there but that is changeable this may also be changeable now we look at the lives of the people who are in the Jesus and throughout the history of the world all the great saintly personalities whether it be Guru Nanak or whether it be Jesus or whether it be Buddha or whether it be Mohammed or whether it be any of the great saints and spiritual teachers they all talk about the spiritual world and if you look at their character they are so selfless so compassionate so caring we know Jesus what was his when he was crucified what did he say forgive them for they know not what they do Vishnu Prabhupada one time he was he was he was giving a class and in San Francisco when he was giving a class and that time the hippies they were sometimes very drunk so one time he was drunk he was high not drunk he was high on drugs so he came and suddenly he said Swamiji I want to speak now Prabhupada was giving a class he said I want to speak he said question answers after the class he said no I want to speak Prabhupada said after the class so he became calm and then suddenly Prabhupada suddenly he got up and he got up and there was a small like a wooden wooden platform on which Prabhupada would sit so he came and said write a text to Prabhupada and he said I want to speak so Prabhupada just looked at him and continued his class now the whole audience is watching what is going to happen Prabhupada continued his class and this person was glaring at Prabhupada all the time and then finally he again said Prabhupada he didn’t say Prabhupada Swami I want to speak Prabhupada looked at him he has become very noisy and distance Prabhupada said that he is not going to listen he will not allow me to speak so Prabhupada quickly finished his class he took up kartal suddenly he heard whole hall became completely silent and everybody was looking at that knife and that hand and that person and Prabhupada was completely calm what he missed he pointed the knife and apple slice and he said we look at the knife we look at the apple we look at Prabhupada we look at the knife we look at the apple we look at Prabhupada and Prabhupada was just looking calmly at him with compassion and this person is so intoxicated and finally he stretched out his hand and just Prabhupada saintly had such an effort on him here the knife is there just seeing a knife people get frightened but Swami is extending the knife to him he doesn’t care for anything else in the world finally he took that knife he took that slice of apple he took the pistol Prabhupada went fearlessly all the way to America he knew nobody over there all people were high on drugs and everything and Prabhupada went and lived about there what was he going to deal with Prabhupada was in India at that time in 1962 63-64 in 3 years he did the translation of the first canto of Srimad Bhagavatam in 3 volumes and then he gave a copy of that Bhagavatam to Lal Bahadur Shastri he gave it to Zakir Hussain who was the president of India at that time and they all gave very good reviews and Prabhupada became quite a celebrated author by that so and if he just wanted to write books he could have done it in India he was living in Vrindavan where he was respected as an Ayasi in the intellectual circles he was respected as an author and he could have lived happily he left it all and went to America where he knew nobody and he went there for hot points what was he going to gain? Nothing for him to gain only thing was he wanted to share the wisdom that he had so if you look at the lives of the people who are teaching this message they have nothing to gain they have nothing to gain only thing they are sharing is love and compassion so when we look at the quality of the people who are teaching this message then we understand ya somebody might tell you doctor might tell you you can do this urgently why? I’ll get money by that isn’t it? what are the savings you’re getting by that? Vishnu Gopal even when he had big big temples he did not choose to live there he was constantly travelling and he said my heart is always in Vrindavan eventually he came back to Vrindavan and he left his body in Vrindavan last days he was asked are there any desires? he said nothing because he came as an instrument of Krishna fulfilled whatever mission Krishna wanted him to do and he went back so if you look at the lives of saintly people you can see they don’t want anything some scientists may propose some theories because when they propose theories they will get funding but you know the saintly people they’re not wanting anything from us we’re not saying that all scientists are bad we’re not saying all doctors are bad but the point is that when you look at the saintly people look at their character they give up all worldly pleasures and they are themselves dedicated to something higher not only are they dedicated to something higher they are ready to sacrifice everything of this world for the sake of their life so therefore their life itself is a great testimony to the reality of the spiritual world so what are the truthfulness character integrity purity serenity selflessness tolerance humility gravity magnanimity compassion many other qualities are exhibited by these great saintly persons and then Chaitanya Mahaprabhu came 500 years ago he also talked about the spiritual world and now there are quotes in all the scriptures of the world there is Christianity that says same thing what I said 15.6 there shall be no night there no need of candle neither light or the sun for the Lord God giveth them light and they shall reign forever and ever this is from the revelations revelation is one section of the old testament Guru Granth Sahib Raag Gaud what does he say by one pointed love and devotion to God one attains to that place which is eternal changeless where there is pure happiness there one enjoys the qualities and past times of the Lord there exists an eternal kingdom of the Lord in that place there is no fear no illusion no bewilderment no miseries and there there is no birth and death there is only pure eternal spiritual bliss in that abode the devotees of the Lord in that abode subsist on the glories of the supreme soul it’s a very beautiful verse of the Brahma Samhita it’s one of the concluding verse of the fifth chapter of the Brahma Samhita where it is described that Shriya Kanta Kanta described that supreme Lord is surrounded by his many many consorts described Chintamani Prakarasad I worship that Supreme Lord Govinda what are the characteristics there are so many Lakshmi’s serving him and there that soil is actually a purpose soil is Chintamani in this world people have Chintamani Chintamani but there there the soil is Chintamani the trees are Kalparuksha trees and everybody is so happy over there nobody just walks as if there is a big world just dance and when they talk they don’t talk they sing and then Krishna’s flute the sweet sound of Krishna’s flute in the background everybody that creates a sweet intoxicating radiance and everybody is enjoying and Krishna’s cow’s milk and there is no past present no passage of time eternal life and eternal happiness over there so we will discuss more about the spiritual world in our next class I started by talking about how from the point of view of science there is much in this world that is not understandable there is much that happens occasionally so in terms of space there is much in the space of this world we don’t understand in terms of time there are mysterious events that have happened over here we don’t understand like the Fatima sightings then we discussed how with respect to vastness of the universe there is much that we don’t understand because the universe is so vast and there is but it’s vast but it’s not random it’s very well organised and it indicates that there is intelligence so just as we come to know about cosmological aspects from the scientists by putting faith in them so we come to know about spiritual truths by putting faith in the spiritual scientists the great saintly persons and the scriptures that they have given us and we discussed about how all the different religious traditions talk about one similar scripture is there and the great saintly teachers who are nothing to pursue in this world and were risking everything in this world to give that message they are talking about that spiritual world and that spiritual world is where we belong and where we can return if we make the right choices in our life in this world thank you very much thank you very much thank you very much thank you very much