Why is it so difficult to become attracted to God and so easy to get attracted to sense objects?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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Thank you So why is it so difficult to become attracted to God While it is so easy to become attracted to Say objects in this world Say attractive Member, attractive sexual Partner or whatever So there are Basically Two things involved over here There is our own Desire And there is also Our own past Actions See just like From this particular Example Addiction we were discussing For a person who is addicted For them They are addicted to alcohol Then to just take alcohol is so easy And for them to give up alcohol Is very difficult Now for somebody else who is not in that Addictive condition For them Alcohol taking it is not That inclination is not there At least it is not there as forcefully As it is there for alcoholic So what is the difference Now the way A person has acted in the past So basically As I said we are not programmed machines But we do have programmed machines Our bodies are programmed machines And this programming has Happened by the way We ourselves act We act now And we have acted in the past We exist Currently at the material Level of reality And we exist at the material level Because we have a desire To enjoy material things And that’s why Because of the desire to enjoy material Things Material things are what are more visible To us The world serves two basic purposes One is experimentation And the other is redirection So I was Giving a talk in Melbourne Last year And a similar question was asked at that time If You know if god wants us To do the right thing Then why are the right options So few and the wrong options so many So I explained that That’s how it always is In any multiple choice exam There are Four wrong options One right option Now if the choice Were dependent Simply on probability Then the student could sue the teacher That probability You have rigged the exams against me And I’ll fail But The choice that the student has to make Is not based on probability It is based on the education The teacher has provided The study that the student is expected to have done And if the student has studied Then every right choice helps the student get marks And get promoted So similarly When we talk about Life at this level of reality Which we presently exist At So here we all have to make choices And we human beings Although at one level It appears as if To make Choices of Material objects It’s much easier Yes it is true At the same time We also have been given A higher intelligence I mentioned earlier about Newton seeing the fruit falling So last year I had been invited to Cambridge To give a lecture on science and spirituality So while coming back I passed by that tree So that time I was thinking If instead of Newton A monkey had been sitting at that time The monkey Who had just seen the fruit falling Picked up the fruit, ate it and gone on its way Gone on its way And no one would have blamed it for that Or to speak of a monkey A human being Had been sitting over there A human being could have also done the same thing So that means That actually If I see some Objects to eat, I eat it There is a natural impulse But Newton did not Act impulsively He acted intelligently What made this fruit fall? Now his Answer is brilliant, how he came up with The theory of gravity But the very fact that he asked that question Indicates That he did not act impulsively He acted with his Intelligence, intelligently So Progress in any Field of knowledge Be it scientific or spiritual Requires us To curb our impulses And to use Our intelligence And among all Species in existence We humans have been Given this capacity To curb Our impulses To be able to act intelligently If a cat Sees a mouse The cat can’t think, I am dieting today Laughter It doesn’t have The capacity to do that So if it sees a mouse If it’s hungry, it will pounce on it Just impulse So We humans Are also driven by impulse But along With that We have intelligence And the drive that we get from our impulse It can be resisted It can be checked So Growth in any field Even scientific growth If a student Impulsively in a science college Indulging in whatever pleasure is available Immediately How much learning can the student do? So we have An impulsive side and we have an intelligent side And To the extent we act impulsively We degenerate Down to the animal nature We function basically like other animals To the extent we act intelligently We rise upwards In our understanding of things In our consciousness So The summit of this Rising of consciousness Is spiritual realization Is understanding God Is realizing Higher spiritual happiness In connection with God By the arrangement Of That’s just the way things are in nature That that which is Fulfilling Often lies Buried Beneath the demanding That which is fulfilling Lies buried Beneath the demanding That means Many of the most worthwhile things that we do In life We have to struggle to get to them If you consider Edison He found the electric bulb He tried thousands of times Only after that he succeeded So Any kind of insight Any kind of special achievement It requires effort That effort is essentially what Subordinating Impulse to intelligence Subordinating impulse to intelligence The impulse This doesn’t work, give it up The intelligence is let me keep trying Let me keep trying So basically To the extent we are acting Impulsively To that extent We miss out On the enrichment that comes through our Intelligence So it is not that God has made himself inaccessible To us but rather God has given us the intelligence By which we can Regulate our impulsive side And to the extent We act according to our intelligence To that extent Understanding spiritual reality becomes more And more easy Yes Attracting, becoming attracted to the objects of this world Is much easier But in our own Experience we see that the easiest thing Is not the most fulfilling Now the easiest thing in life Could be just you know get some food keep eating it But You know we will become obese and Eating is not the purpose of life I want to do something more in my life So impulsive actions They don’t lead to lasting satisfaction Now when I say that we have to Regulate our impulses that doesn’t mean That we have to reject the objects of the world Rather We have to understand that the objects of this world They give pleasure This pleasure but it is finite pleasure That pleasure Is not going to last forever So how Can I find pleasure that lasts forever For that We need to redirect The difficulty The difficulty is not something which is Created by God intentionally Rather the difficulty Is because We are habituated to impulsive action Let’s start again with the example of Addiction For the addictive person Because of habitually having Indulgent addiction The addiction becomes the natural almost Irresistible course of action But for somebody who is not addicted That is not the natural irresistible course of action So similarly You know we may not be addicted To substances Any particular harmful substance But we are all Habituated even addicted to Impulsive actions And because of that Intelligent action Action that requires curbing our Impulses Seems extremely difficult But actually if we consider Our core spiritual nature Then it is Impulsive action that is Actually unnatural, that is constricting That actually Closes our potential It minimizes what we can achieve If a student Comes to a Foreign country for studying And student Has studied very hard Worked a lot and now Taken loans, got scholarship Has paid a lot of money And is in a Very prestigious college And in that college The student just starts Searching where can I get food to eat Good food to eat And all day spends time Just searching for good food Well good food you could have got at home also Good food is available all over the world If I come to college Yes if I can get good food that is fine It is not that I have to Eat bad food But the point of coming to a college Is not just to get good food The point of coming to a college Is to get good education Similarly when We humans have Our elevated intelligence We have the intelligence to Perceive higher realities And to get enrichment through that So there are Impulsive, there are Bodily pleasures, there are material Joys which are available, it is not that we have to give them up But when they are made Into the goal of life Then that is like a student Coming to a prestigious university And just chasing for, looking for food Our human intelligence is Meant for something higher At the present it will definitely Seem challenging because we are Habituated to impulsive actions But the more We choose to act intelligently Then That intelligent action will become Habitual And when that becomes habitual we start Intelligently focusing on higher realities And then by that Habitual focus on higher reality Then the highest reality God, he will be Revealed as supremely Attractive That is a process of redirection that will Happen where we move From impulsive action towards Intelligent action. Does it answer your question? Thank you for The thoughtful question