Why wisdom sometimes enlightens and sometimes doesn’t
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Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.
Summary
Spiritual wisdom can remove ignorance, but only when we are genuinely open to change. The Bhagavad Gita’s teachings show how our preconceptions, desires, and willingness to transform determine whether wisdom becomes lasting illumination or merely a temporary insight.
- Knowledge can either remove or reinforce ignorance: When we approach new knowledge through rigid preconceptions, we may interpret everything to confirm what we already believe. This creates a difference between being unguided and being misguided.
- Wisdom needs openness to change: The story of Duryodhana illustrates how even profound spiritual wisdom can have only a temporary effect when a person remains deeply attached to envy and existing beliefs.
- Desire is essential for transformation: Simply eliminating desire is not spiritual advancement. The important question is whether our desires are directed toward healthy, constructive, and spiritually meaningful purposes.
- We can begin transformation with two questions: Ask, “What can I do to make things better?” and “What can I stop doing that is making things worse?” These questions help us move from helplessness toward constructive action.
- Bhakti helps redirect the mind: We cannot simply force unwanted thoughts out of the mind. By filling the mind with Krishna through chanting, hearing, service, and remembrance, unwanted thoughts gradually become crowded out.
- Real spiritual progress changes our values: An authentic spiritual path does not mean that problems disappear. Rather, we become better equipped to face life’s ups and downs with greater composure, clarity, and inner strength.
Key Takeaways
- Be willing to unlearn deeply held assumptions when genuine wisdom challenges them.
- Develop the desire to change, rather than merely collecting spiritual knowledge.
- Ask what you can start or stop doing to improve your situation.
- Use bhakti to redirect the mind instead of trying to suppress unwanted thoughts.
- Evaluate spiritual progress through intelligence and experience—does the path make sense, and is it transforming your values and how you handle life?
- Cultivate positive spiritual relationships, because wisdom is easier to internalize when it comes through an affectionate and constructive relationship.
Full Transcription
Thank you very much for coming today and I’ll speak on the Bhagavad Gita 18.22 the topic will be when knowledge works and when it doesn’t when wisdom some people receive wisdom and they benefit from it and some people receive wisdom and they reject it so why does wisdom work sometimes and why does it not work sometimes so that will be the topic we’ll discuss this is 18.22 in the Gita it is Krishna is talking about knowledge in the three modes how knowledge itself can be used differently by different people so that one those people who think that one thing is everything is everything ekas means one thing those who take one thing to be everything and then they become focused on just one kind of activity they don’t consider the big picture they consider the small window to be the complete reality that is knowledge in the mode of ignorance so normally we think knowledge and ignorance to be opposite things if we gain knowledge we come out of ignorance but is it possible that some people gain knowledge and that doesn’t remove their ignorance that reinforces their ignorance so once there was a anti-alcoholic anti-alcohol campaigner and he was addressing a group of people who were trying to recover from alcohol and he said now I will demonstrate to you how dangerous alcohol is so he had a glass of alcohol and he had a small bottle in which he had trapped an insect so he opened the bottle and threw that insect into the bottle of alcohol the insect fluttered for a few moments and then it sank to the ground dead so he looked at all the hearing alcoholics and he said so what do you learn from it? all of them began looking down wondering the implications one of them became very perky and cheerful he says so what do you learn from this? he said when we drink alcohol all the germs in our stomach will die laughing laughing laughing laughing laughing this is knowledge that doesn’t remove ignorance it reinforces ignorance that means we all have certain preconceptions and if we hold on to those preconceptions then everything that we learn everything new that we learn it is passing through that and then we try to fit everything into that so there are two things there is being unguided and there is being misguided unguided means we don’t know what is right say if we are on a road and it’s unfamiliar road maybe the internet is not there so Google Maps is not working or which is the app you use over here some other app used for navigation here map quest or Google okay so GPS and GPS app we use so so it’s not working then we don’t know where to go now we may wait and you may ask someone we’ll try to confirm that is the state of being unguided but there is a state of being misguided that means that we are either told by someone going this direction or like some people they have a big ego so they don’t know where they’re going but they don’t like to admit that they don’t know they’ll just keep going no it is not you know it is the way and they’re going further and further away from the destination without admitting it so that’s misguided so there is unguided and misguided so unguided people are having ignorance and if they get knowledge their ignorance is removed but misguided people when they they don’t have knowledge rather they have wrong knowledge but when they get knowledge what happens is they think I already know the right so they reject the knowledge and they take from it whatever will reinforce their own preconceptions and that is why such people find it very difficult for such people to learn is very difficult there was a European philosopher he said that the problem with the world is that the foolish are cocksure and the wise are full of doubts so that is the misfortune it’s completely sure this is what I need to do unfortunately those who have knowledge maybe this is right it’s not right a lot of hesitation and that’s what creates problems so in the Bhagavatam in that Bhagavatam 10th canto it is said that when we get spiritual knowledge the wisdom from the scriptures from the wisdom texts which talk about spirituality that knowledge is meant to be like light and light removes darkness there is even a small amount of light is extremely powerful that a little lightening sorry a little candle that can dissipate darkness in fact on its own all the darkness in the world can’t extinguish even a single candle the darkness can’t extinguish the candle but if the candle starts thinking that oh I’m so small the darkness is so big what is the use of my world then the candle may get exchanged the point is light is very powerful and light can remove darkness just as knowledge can remove ignorance but the problem is that for some people this light light of spiritual wisdom it doesn’t act like a light it acts like a lightening now what is the difference between the light and lightning it’s fast and it is fast means in what says it comes very quickly that’s true but something more dangerous it’s strikes destructive loud okay all are true okay in terms of if you want to read a book which is better light or light why yes exactly both you light all the answers you give a correct is the relevant answer here is that the feature that matters some some people understand this is right but after some time they just completely forget it that’s like me it strikes but is there only for a short while and it’s gone so the Bhagavad Gita the book which are talking about it is a part of a larger book one of the biggest books in the world which is that book yeah the Mahabharata thank you so in the Mahabharata the follow-up of the events that happen after the Bhagavad Gita spoken are described in the Mahabharata world there is Krishna who is God descended on the earth and he is he is fighting on the side of virtue which is led by who are the leaders on one side of the you know they was sorry oh good you this trend is thank you so they are collectively called as the Pandavas and the cover was yeah so now Duryodhana is is is at one level an embodiment of envy he just can’t be satisfied you know well all the various impurities that are not hard and we has a peculiar characteristic and we targets the envy but torments the envious so I if I feel envious of someone else yet I’m targeting the other person but the other person may not even know that we are in this we target someone else but who is tormented by we are so the torment so we could say envy a envy is distorted respect normally respect is offered voluntarily and usually happy but envy is also respect but offered unwillingly and even resentfully so I do are better than me that’s why I’m envious of you know but I I don’t want to admit that you’re better than me why are you better than me you don’t deserve that I deserve that so that is any so Duryodhana was very envious of the Pandavas and he believed that he was a good person and that’s why he couldn’t believe I’m a good person why would God be against me and therefore because Krishna was with the Pandavas he concluded based on his assumption of his own virtue that Krishna could not be God see his reasoning he’s not thinking oh the sages and the wise people have told me that Krishna is God and if God is fighting against me I must have I done something wrong maybe I need to change my ways but instead you’re so convinced that I am a good person and God can’t be against a good person therefore whoever is against me can’t be God that was his twisted reason now with that reasoning he embarked on this war and when he was fighting this war so the Kurukshetra war that happened it had in its length it has a similarity with the Bhagavad Gita you know what a similarity the war was for how many days 18 days and the Bhagavad Gita has how many chapters 18 chapters so what happened is on the fourth day Duryodhana faced a severe reversal his troops were severely battered by the Pandavas and especially by the most powerful among physically powerful among the Pandavas was Bhima and Bhima and Duryodhana had a very strong rivalry so on that day Bhima just started this went on a rampage that he started destroying the Kaurava forces and then seeing his forces being destroyed Duryodhana charged forward and till that day then the Bhima and Duryodhana had not had a direct face-off they were arch rivals and they were waiting for it and on this day Bhima seemed to be operating at a completely different level Duryodhana just couldn’t match him he was Bhima was surrounded by opposing forces Bhima was extremely powerful as a baby once he had his his mother and father were sitting on the top of a mountain looking at looking at the scenery from the cliff and his mother dozed off and then suddenly in the distance a tiger roared and the tiger roared his mother just started out started and she sort of rose up what happened and the baby on her lap just Bhima he fell off he just flew off and he fell off the cliff his mother screamed in horror and father just tried to leap down the cliff clamber down as fast as he could and then they found at the bottom of the mountain there was a shattered rock and Bhima was just playing with his hands and lips so he had that powerful a body and what happened was this Bhima went on a rampage and Duryodhana thought that I will be easily able to defeat Bhima from this day he couldn’t even match him he was surrounded by a whole battalion of elephant warriors Bhima just charged off charged into that elephant battalion and with his fists started punching all those elephants and just they got knocked off just by his punches Duryodhana came in Bhima just used his mace and knocked him off Duryodhana was humiliated he came back again and again but each time he is not only he was defeated but he became increasingly wounded and then finally he was withdrawn his charioteer realized that he will die if he stays here so he retreated and he felt even more angry because now he is he’s seen as a coward who fled from the battlefield and he came back after he had recovered little at that time Bhima had been engaged by some other warriors and Bhima’s son was Ghatotkach he came forward and he said you are like you are like your Bhima’s son so you’re like my son go away as long as my anger is not increased so Ghatotkach was also very powerful he said that the work which my father has not yet completed I will complete for him so I will destroy you Duryodhana couldn’t tolerate his insolence you kid you think you can destroy me he’s already angry with his father he said like your father is arrogant you are also arrogant that is the nature of the conditioned mind if we are arrogant we believe that others are arrogant that’s how it works thank you so that day Ghatotkach and Bhima started fighting sorry Ghatotkach and Duryodhana started fighting and Ghatotkach was very skilled and it could be that Duryodhana had an off day or whatever in a short while Ghatotkach started getting the upper hand of Duryodhana Duryodhana couldn’t believe it he had thought he was going to defeat the father and now the father had defeated and the son was also defeated so it was humiliating and the more fiercely he was fighting the more he seemed to be missing the he was not able to target Ghatotkach and Ghatotkach seemed to become stronger and stronger and finally he started getting more and more battered he said he now couldn’t flee he couldn’t flee from his opponent rival’s son somehow he was mustering his strength and fighting but he just couldn’t fortunately for him at that time sunset sunset means at dusk time the battles were fought like sports matches like suppose there’s a cricket match or a football cricket match goes on for a long time several days sometimes but in the morning it starts evening it ends so it ended and that evening all the customers all the warriors would assemble like a sports team if one half of the sports match is over then the in the coach calls all the team members and they have a debriefing kind of thing what happened what should we do next so in the evening all the warriors of the Kauravas side were having a debriefing session and at that time Duryodhana asked Bhishma Bhishma was the eldest among all of them he said you know oh Grandsire I have you I have Dronacharya on my side who is a teacher of most of the warriors on the battlefield and I have I have far more military strength than my opponents and now my number is better and the warriors on my side are more experienced and yet how is it that I am being defeated again and again and again just today the kind of reversals I and my army have faced I’m unable to process them why is this happening and at that time Bhishma became grave and Bhishma said oh son Duryodhana was his grandson he speaks of some affection as a son so he said that I have told this to you again and again in fact I cried myself hoarse trying to tell this to you but since you have asked I will repeat it again there has not been there is not and there will not be any army in the entire universe that can defeat the Pandavas because they have Krishna on their side Duryodhana had been chastened and he said can you tell me who is Krishna and Bhishma is startled at last at last he’s asking this question who is Krishna and then it is one of the few incidents in the Mahabharata where Krishna’s childhood pastimes are described now in the Bhagavatam Krishna’s childhood pastimes are described in the 10th canto in quite detail but the Mahabharata focuses on the Pandavas childhood there is just a reference when the Pandavas meet Krishna for the first time in after Draupadi’s wedding that that you know he was also a great hero but here for the first time describes this Krishna is not no ordinary warrior nor is he an extraordinary warrior because he is the supreme being he’s a supreme warrior even when he was a small infant the fearsome demoness who brutally killed babies and Krishna effortlessly neutralized her he lifted up a giant mountain when you’re just seven years old demons were terrorized even the gods those demons were effortlessly playfully like a child playing with a toy they were toyed with by Krishna and they were eliminated and he kept describing the glories of Krishna this was Bhishma’s heart Bhishma was a great devotee somehow circumstantially he had to fight against the Pandavas but his heart was always devoted to Krishna and he had that hope somewhere in the back of his mind that maybe the Duryodhana’s heart might also change and then Duryodhana might also become devoted to Krishna and now he saw that his words were being heard generally when a speaker is speaking the speaker is also a conversation even if it’s mostly one person speaking still the speaker is observing the other person is hearing how well they are hearing and what is the response so sometimes if the audience is not interested and what happens is looking at the watch looking at the door looking everywhere except the speaker not interested but sometimes there’s a like a big blank look on the audience it’s like suppose somebody is watching a foreign language movie without subtitles there is not much to understand is trying to be entertained a little bit I see all the action so it’s like that so Bhishma was observing and Bhishma was seeing that Duryodhana was listening and that’s why he was he’s feeling happy he continued describing Krishna’s glories and Duryodhana became very sober and he said we will plan our strategy tomorrow and they left and that night when Duryodhana went to his tent for sleeping he was still pondering Bhishma’s words and then he knew on the opposite side where the Pandavas were tents were and he turned in the direction of Krishna’s tent he said if Krishna is God there’s no loss you know in bowing down to him so he bowed down in the direction of Krishna that’s the only time Duryodhana bowed down to Krishna and then went and actually when he bowed down to Krishna he felt like a strange kind of peace coming on him and then he fell asleep and he fell asleep and he had a he initially thought he had a most nights of the Kurukshetra war he had a very fitful sleep because it’s a war so we have stake and he knew that he wanted he it was he who had primarily caused the war because he wanted the Pandavas killed but this night he had a very peaceful sleep and the next morning he woke up and he was refreshed but unfortunately he forgot why he was refreshed and he remembered why he was fighting the war so again what happened was he said okay yesterday was just one bad day things like this a bad days happen but today I will win and again he started fighting next day when Bhishma saw Duryodhana marching towards the head of the military formation just seeing Duryodhana’s face Bhishma’s heart sank he realized that the word that he had spoken last night had an impact but only for a short while so that impact was like what was it like light or like lightning like lightning lightning so why is this that why is something why do sometimes words have an impact like light and sometimes like lightning yeah why do sometimes words of wisdom words of wisdom illuminate like like light and change a person’s understanding and concept purpose of life and sometimes they are like lightning yes on what they have done in the past true see both the answers are valid I just like to take a different perspective here that we also have stories in the bhakti tradition or in the general spiritual tradition of people who are in deep tamoguna even they are transformed okay if you think of some stories somebody was become a Jamila yeah he was in deep ignorance and the story of a somebody very brutal getting transformed by the name of God Jagai Madai is a hunter Bhrigari Bhrigari Bhrigari was a hunter who loved to yeah okay Raghuguna was not really he was in ignorance but not really deep ignorance Rajas Rajas Rajas in fact he’s also described that when I was actually going to a going to a assembly of sages to hear from them but he was going there in the royal conception not a subsidiary conception so it is more like a social function than a learning occasion for him when he was going there yeah so Bhrigari was the example of a hunter who loved to half kill animals so there are examples of people who are in deep tamas and they were also transformed so tamas is a part definitely a part of the reason but it is not the whole reason it is not just see there are two things what we have it could be in terms of conditionings so we have a conditioning of tamas of ignorance but it is what we want to we may have particular conditionings but how strongly are we holding on to those conditionings that is the key thing so it’s basically ultimately all transformation begins with the fundamental power that we always have it us and that is the power to desire the desire is the fundamental power which is never taken away from us now where the desire will be directed that it can be shaped by many things and sometimes in spiritual circles desire sometimes is demonized or desires bind us they can put this tradition together asahi paramam dukkham nirashyam paramam sukham the desire is the cause of all distress if I just become free from desire we will become happy well it’s not that simple because if you consider rajas the characteristic of filled with desires loba prarottirarambha karmanam shamahastra since 1412 in the Gita that lots of desires being present and desires crowding and clouding the consciousness that is a characteristic of rajas but now so that is true but one of now desires can be removed in two ways one is that we realize all these desires are not worth fulfilling therefore I don’t want to pursue them or another way is I am not worth having these desires and that will take one down and if you consider depression now is a world is a very worldwide increasing mental health problem and one of the characteristics of depression is absence of desire there’s not even a desire to get up from bed just don’t want to do anything so just getting rid of desire is not going to enlighten us if is the what is that what happened why somebody depressed it’s not that they don’t have desires they try to hold a job maybe they got fired they try to get into a relationship and maybe the other person left them maybe they tried to improve their health and they just couldn’t lose weight or they couldn’t become fit and whatever they tried they just didn’t work and then what is happening over here is they’re thinking I am not worth having any of my desires fulfilled and then they give up desires not because those desires have lost the charm but because they have lost their sense of self and that is a very dangerous place to be because so in one sense if somebody has to come out of depression sometimes depression can be a clinical situation where somebody needs a medication but it cannot be a one-pronged approach just give medicines and depression will go along with that some some not something most of the times that person has to be infused with the will to live the will to do something and it may be a small thing it may start with there’s some small act of maybe service mix something that means the person feel I can make a difference in someone’s life so quite often when people get the desire to do something that’s when they come from Thomas Rogers at least so the point was I was making is that why we were discussing this slightly different topic but the point we were discussing is that why is some why do some people receive knowledge and become enlightened and why do some people don’t that’s not just because ignorance or Thomas is present in them it is how much they are attached to their ignorance how much are they attached to their own way of thinking so like one of my friends is a chaplain in a hospital he was telling me that he often goes he goes to hospitals he offers to office patients I’m a chaplain and I can I can talk with you and I can pray for you so there was one patient in the hospital he was there for a long time and he this patient said I don’t want to talk with any chaplain at all and then finally somehow decided to approach he says you know I’ve been seeing you for a long time and I’ve been praying for you and as soon as he said this almost like all alarm beeps on all the devices are going up and nurses and everything came what happened they pacified him but I didn’t do anything he said that this patient was frantically pointing towards him but he did something what did you do I just said that I have been praying for him and he was pointing he says when he said so this patient finally when he came back to his little coherence he said when he said that he’s been praying for me am I so seriously sick that somebody needs to pray for me and that caused a panic attack so that praying could be an act of caring he didn’t have a conception that prays are something to offer if somebody’s about to die or something like that that was the idea so what happens is we have certain conception and we process the world through those conceptions so if you are holding on to those conceptions like earlier I started by I’m now completing the stock in a cycle we’re going down a cycle I started with the unguided and misguided so a misguided person is controlled by some conceptions and they see everything through those big conceptions so what happens is that even if somebody does something for them they filter it through their own preconception and they don’t learn much because they are only holding on to their worldviews so that’s why as we can help the unable but we can’t help the unwilling unable means a we invite somebody for a program and they say you know actually I stay very far away and I can’t convince him I can I can arrange a ride for me oh you know actually I don’t like to ride with strangers and then say okay I can personally come and pick you up this is no actually you know that time I’m not available so now sometimes what happens is that that person is making an excuse we know that they’re making an excuse and they know that we know that they but at least here they’re trying to be courteous they’re not coming on a flat out and say I won’t go but imagine somebody said we invite somebody for a program they say even if I die my dead body will never come to your program like like a vehement antipathy it’s a strong aversion aversion feeling like that so even so if somebody is in that state and then all that we can do is pray from a distance and hope that maybe some change in their life will change their mind eventually and they become more open but even God God can’t even hearing God’s glories even Krishna himself came to Duryodhana and offered peace on very accommodating terms but that was not accepted by Duryodhana so what happens is for each one of us it’s important when we are dealing with people are they unable or are they unwilling and in our case also we need to be honest when we say I can’t do this it may be we may a situation we really can’t do something but we will check I’m unable or am I unwilling so if somebody’s unable they can be helped it’s not now they can become able little later with our but somebody’s unwilling then even God can’t help as they say God helps those who help themselves now we can put in that way that is true but sometimes this saying is used by atheists to say that there is no need to pray to God there’s no need to go to temple you just do your work that’s how you are helping yourself and then God will help and that’s not the exact meaning of that God helps those who help themselves what it means is that God is always there to help us we help ourselves by being open to change by by being ready to think okay what in this situation can I do to make things better or what can I stop doing that that is making things worse except what is favorable except and avoid what is unfavorable this can have meanings at multiple levels but at a very basic level any situation we are in is ask these two questions what can I do to make things better and what can I stop doing to make things worse there’s nothing I can do in really I’m in a very bad relationship you know I have a partner I have a child I have a sibling I have I have a parent who just doesn’t understand just it’s very oh I have a boss who’s making my life miserable we can say that there’s nothing I can do about it okay maybe there’s nothing we can do about changing that person but does that mean that we can’t do anything about our life at all does that person have that much control over our life sometimes what happens is some people know they are in a part of our life but we bring them into the whole of our life that means yes nobody has to occupy our mind 24 hours except from except for Krishna of course then we become fully devoted to but the point is we let them somebody may be troubling us but they can only trouble us by their interacting with them and maybe a little bit afterwards we get scarred by their interactions but it is we who let them stay in our minds so like it’s like a somebody who’s a predator you know somebody say we have made many properties imagine concluded points now we have many properties and one of the properties has been taken over by some tenant we just not reducing and they’re creating a big legal mess and we just not able to get them off imagine a person who is staying in one part of our house is unwanted over there and we tell them okay you can come and take up all over my prop all of my property what nonsense it’s already occupying one property against our will why would we let that person come and take all our property you try to drive that person out from there so physically we would never do that but psychologically that is what we do in one area of our life there is some person is disagreeable and that person is troubling us but we let that person occupy our entire mind and because that person is not treating us well we start speaking rudely with others we start becoming curt with others and so the person who is troubling us that person we let them live rent-free not just in one corner of our head but our full head and does it is we who are making things worse and at such times that is where okay what can I do okay I can stop thinking about this person I can stop thinking about how miserable this person my life it may be to that person like making my life miserable but it is I who am making my life more miserable by thinking about how that person is making my life is so that I can stop and this is where our bhakti yoga practice can be very helpful the bhakti yoga practice is not just a ritual chant the holy names or hear some classes it is training our mind to focus on Krishna so we can’t we can’t literally drive drive people drive anybody out or anything out of our head if I think during the pandemic the government had made a rule that no tenants will be evicted even if they don’t pay and lot of landlords had some problems because of that then they could say it was out of compassion but it created problems we can’t they said you cannot legally get anybody out of the world out of their homes but just like that no we can’t get anything out of our head because either what happens is the if we think I’m not going to think about something what are we doing we are thinking about that I think psychologists do this experiment quite often so for the next one minute please don’t think of a pink monkey except for a pink monkey you can think of whatever you want just don’t think of a pink monkey what happens you may never have thought of a pink monkey in our life but when somebody tells you don’t think about a pink monkey we can’t think about anything it’s just pink monkey how did the monkey become pink it fall in a pink paint box paint box was it genetically mutated it became pink so we can’t not think of something but what we can do is so we can’t drive any thought out of our mind but we can crowd certain thoughts out of our mind so bhakti is about filling our mind with Krishna and we fill our mind with Krishna then unwanted thoughts get crowded out so for us that desire even a small desire what is it that I am doing which is that I can stop doing which is making which will which is what is it that I’m I can stop doing which is making things worse and what is it that I can start doing which will make things better so okay thinking about somebody who is troubling me I can stop thinking about or at least decrease thinking about them and how can I decrease by increasing my thinking about Krishna so when you chant the holy names you say my mind is wandering here and there I can’t focus okay that’s fine but still you are practicing and through that practice focus will increase and that is how we will all become parts of the solution so that for spiritual wisdom to stick what we need primarily is the desire to change and how do you get the desire to change by just thinking what can I do to make things better and what can I stop doing to that is making things worse so from that since these two simple questions we can open our heart to the divine and then the wisdom that comes in that will land in our heart and that will transform our heart that will enable us to get access to divine power to make change positive changes that we might have earlier thought impossible for ourselves that is the ultimate magic in our life magic of Krishna is not just sometimes we go to temple and we see the deities or dance and kirtan and we feel very good because that is the magic of bhakti no doubt but a far more enduring magic of bhakti is that we find ourselves becoming empowered to change ourselves for the better in ways that we thought was in beyond us because that is a magic that will stay with us that is what will enable us to steadily improve till we become all that Krishna wants us to become till we realize our full human potential and our spiritual potential so I’ll summarize I spoke three main points today I started by talking about how the topic was when knowledge works to remove ignorance and when it doesn’t and that connection started with 1822 in the Gita that if we are creating one thing with everything then are we our knowledge reinforces our ignorance so we discussed several examples of that the alcoholic thinking about how they interpreted the germs in the alcohol water and then we talked about how Duryodhana so we have to our mind can be unguided and misguided so I’m misguided mind has to unlearn what it thinks it knows like a person who’s going on the wrong track and things they’re going on the right track so in that connection the second part we’ll have to discuss the story of Duryodhana and how for a brief while he was he was illumined but that illumination was that like that coming from lightning and not from a light source why because his envy was so deep-rooted that it came back to him it came back and overwhelmed him so he held on not to the light of the wisdom that came from Bhishma but he held on to the darkness that came from the envy in his own heart and then we discussed so what what can be last part was what can we what it makes one person changeable and another not and what can we do but what can we do to make the make the change so it is not just the presence of ignorance that’s true but it is more of the desire to hold on to the ignorance so desire itself is not a bad thing because absence of desire can be transcendence but absence of desire can also be deep ignorance where person goes into depression so for us at our level it’s more important to have the desire to change and that we can begin simply by asking what can I do to make things better and what can I stop doing that is making things worse and from there we will be able to go on that transformative journey and access Krishna’s power which can bring about enduring magical transformation in our lives thank you very much Hare Krishna any questions comments reflections yes my challenge I face is when I’m chanting so many thoughts are coming even though I’m trying to change you know when I have desire to chant so nicely and vocously but it’s so many things are coming in my mind and sometimes I’m thinking that morning that day so many services are too so and I try to set a goal but after a couple of days again it starts and starts so it was just coming is maybe you need to do more reading or okay so you’re chanting our mind wanders a lot well my understanding is that sometimes by over emphasizing chanting we make chanting more difficult than it needs to be what do I mean by that see it’s not just chanting is not just chanting in one sense we want to develop a relationship with Krishna and our relationship with Krishna is developed through many activities when we serve the deities we are we are acting in relationship with Krishna when we are cooking we are acting in relationship with Krishna when they’re doing various services that’s also developing a relationship with Krishna so the point is our the gopis in the spiritual world if we consider them as our models they are not just like sitting and struggling to chant they’re spontaneously chanting and they are also doing various services they’re churning butter for Krishna and they’re chanting they are going out to do various activities like say they finish the churning butter they want to sell the butter they say that then they’re chanting Krishna so for them they have a richly developed relationship with Krishna so at our level it’s at least this is my understanding and I would say this is my current understanding it may change also mind so I said that if we over endeavor to try to improve our chanting then what happens is we become distracted dissatisfied discouraged and then in other areas of our bhakti where we could be serving enthusiastically and thereby developing our relationship with Krishna we stop doing even that our chanting is of no use so what is the use of distributing books what is the use of cooking for deities what is the use of doing other services and then what happens then the relationship is not there and chanting no matter just by willpower how much can we improve we can but not much so let’s try to focus on developing our relationship with Krishna and if there’s one place if somebody loves deity worship then be grateful that we have that one attraction to Krishna and then try to see as you said hearing more about chanting is good but more important is like try to connect the chanting with the activity that connects us most with most with Krishna so instead of thinking that I’m just chanting these holy names okay I love these deities and those same deities are manifesting as the whole so for me I find my greatest connection with Krishna is through the Bhagavad Gita so during my chanting when my mind wanders and wanders constantly I try to think of my favorite Gita verses maybe I just pause a little bit chant a few Gita verses or chant one verse several times it really comes the same Krishna who spoke to Gita that same Krishna is his name I am calling out so I feel that once we get that sense of there’s a relationship within which I am calling out these names then the connect then the connection through the holy names also becomes a little more personal and that will organically lead to the improvement of chanting otherwise just using willpower and not succeeding and getting disheartened it it can be counterproductive thank you any other questions is that a half-raised hand is that a half-raised hand um basically this is something that includes both either misdirection or either misguidance or unguidance and on the example of the yajna we can see that he was he didn’t have the right knowledge in regards to the regards to God Krishna and spiritual knowledge he had so much Asmita of the of the false ego with the all those detailed aspects like envy and all the rest he had so many uh the Raga Vyasa Vyasa Vyasa he had the attachments to the material opulence uh the Vyasa towards the Andavas and like envy and um in the ninth chapter in the ninth mantra of Sri Yukteswar we can learn that the false knowledge is more dangerous than ignorance because this is basically an example of why someone who uh who is deep-rooted in the the false knowledge why it’s more dangerous because it’s he has so many I mean he has too many arguments that we probably won’t be able to defeat the right knowledge and that’s why for him it’s more about receiving the lightning instead of the right knowledge and in regards to what you were saying of the the the desires and like our attachments to the certain like sense objects I recall in the second chapter on the Bhagavad Gita the verses um 58 and 59 Krishna is talking about um in the same way as the turtle and it swims from the sense objects uh it’s pretty much the same way we can detach ourselves from something that is that is wrong something they can uh they could produce like fats and scars or produce affect karma and everything this is something that is in psychology is called the way of control and then in the very next in the very next verse we can see the positive way of control where um where Krishna is saying we can replace the lower taste by experiencing higher taste and this is this is our verse yeah thank you a lot of apt references that is a key point that you said that we can’t really simply live without taste at the very least even if there is no taste but then at the very least so the taste which Krishna talks about over there is not necessarily pleasure itself it can also be purpose just having a clear purpose in our mind that itself gives a certain level of pleasure it may be a very preliminary level of pleasure we’re just having a purpose so okay somebody’s sick and they have not been exercising they’re not been using anything in their diet not taking medicine regularly just have a purpose i’m going to get healthy but that itself may not make them healthy but that can set them up to on the path so sometimes we may say that okay i need a higher taste will help me to get give up lower taste but i have no higher taste so how can i give up the lower test well we can have the higher purpose to pursue the higher taste that itself also is sufficient and that’s how many people work in one sense that say if somebody is somebody is quite unfit and they go to a gym it’s not that going to the gym gives them pleasure it could be it could be exhausting it could be sometimes the limbs pain at that time but there’s a higher purpose so the taste which param drishtvani varkati which krishna uses in 261 let us say it’s significant drishtva actually means vision that prabhupada translates that taste the different acharyas have translated it differently but drishtva is associated drishti and drishti means vision so param drishtvani varkati once one gets the higher understanding the higher vision oh there is a there is a better way to live there is a higher purpose to pursue i may not be there right now just there is a better way to live that is the big thing so so you could say we’re drawing the limbs and like saying this is not the way to live this is not what i want to be doing in my life okay that’s good that we know what we don’t want to believe but it’s more important to know what we want to believe so param drishtva that is the higher vision so higher taste can simply begin with a higher purpose or that which the purpose to gain a higher taste and there’s a taste even in that itself thank you so how do you know that you’re on the right path like what you are doing right now how do we know we are on the right path you could say broadly two things one is intelligence and the other is experience so it’s like if we are sick and we are going to a particular doctor now how do we know that the doctor is good you may say okay there is certification we have to check whether the doctor is certified by the medical board or whatever but then there could be people who are certified with medical board who are not competent isn’t it so we use our intelligence intelligence means when we go to is it the doctor gives some explanation of why we are suffering why we are in pain does it make sense to us if i have if i have a digestive problem the doctor says you have to amputate your leg what that makes no sense at all so so you have to use our intelligence intelligence basically is about the rational aspect does this make sense it is god who has given us our intelligence and he wants us to use it even in the bhagavad gita krishna is god himself but you’ll see in the gita krishna never uses his godhood to impose on arjuna do this and don’t do this if that was what krishna had wanted krishna would have finished the gita in five words or his six words i am god obey me fight gita over krishna didn’t do that krishna actually reasons with arjuna and equips him with a process of reasoning by which one can arrive at a wise judicious conclusion and that’s why in the end of the grace of the militia deeply and then do as you desire that’s 1863 in the gita so the point is we are all meant to use our intelligence and then the second part is experience so when we go to a doctor okay the doctor’s diagnosis makes sense but is that prescription transforming me is it making my health better and then we have certain parameters okay at least the pain because of the acidity in my belly is decreasing maybe i’m going to take food i’m feeling more energized we have to look at our own experience so similarly when we are on a particular path we need to use our intelligence to evaluate over is the worldview associated with this path does it make sense does it answer the basic questions of life and then whatever i’m told by this on this part is it making a positive difference in my life so if you hear what positive difference can we expect so that that also we need to use our intelligence to understand i met a met a person where was it almost like in last one month i’ve been at seven eight places okay i think i was in phoenix so then i met a person he said that you know in the last six months i’ve oscillated between theism and atheism 18 times i said really how do you do that so he said 18 times i have prayed to god eight times my prayer was fulfilled so i oscillated toward theism 10 times my prayer was not fulfilled so i also gravitated towards atheism now he made the criteria for so i said that’s that’s okay there’s some kind of logic in that but god’s existence is not contingent on the fulfillment of our prayers if he exists he exists if he doesn’t exist he doesn’t exist so he so that’s why when if somebody makes their experience this that i prayed to god and my prayer was answered therefore god exists or i prayed to god i pray not answer therefore god doesn’t exist that experience is not a valid criteria for deciding whether god exists or not so similarly we also need to know what are the valid criteria so the valid criteria of of being on a path on a spiritual path is not just the fulfillment of our various desires it is more we could say the transformation of our values the transformation of our values that means if we grow spiritually if we are on an authentic spiritual path what we value will change change of values so for people for a child what are the values of a child child just wants a food to eat and toys to play with for the child toys are the most valuable thing in life maybe as people grow up maybe in teenagers the most valuable thing for them maybe if they share their photos on instagram how many likes they get they don’t get enough likes at the end of the end of the world for them so values change so if we grow spiritually then what will happen is we’ll realize that there are many things in the world are temporary sometimes sometimes our plans will succeed sometimes our plans will fail sometimes people will respect me sometimes people will disrespect me all this is not that important you know my connection with the eternal my inner composure and clarity that comes by my connection with the eternal that is much more important so if we are on an authentic spiritual path we will find that not that problems will stop coming to us but when problems come to us we will be able to face them with greater composure so 10 years ago before i started the spiritual path if this kind of somebody had spoken like this to me you know i would have shut myself in a room for 10 days and not want to see anyone but now maybe for 15 20 minutes i was really hurt that indicates we have changed we have developed inner strength so i would say that is so experience means our experience of how we are able to process life’s ups and downs it is not the experience that only have ups and no more downs and that’s the that’s the proof that my i’m on the right path that is never going to happen but how we are able to process life’s ups and downs so intelligence and experience are the two ways we can assess whether the path makes sense and whether following the path brings about a change in my values does that answer your question any other questions answers questions thank you i do have a question yes please sometimes we feel in terms of receiving the knowledge we do know internally the knowledge knowledge is correct but for whatever reason false ego or envy we sort of are willing to receive the knowledge if it is given by the person who we like and if it’s given by a person who’s not on a platform or you know being liked despite the fact my mind knows the knowledge is correct my false ego comes in between and i’m not willing to accept the knowledge because it’s coming from somebody maybe who’s much junior than me either through age or spiritual level how do we how do we transcend that okay it’s a good question so even though something is right if it comes from the source that we like then it is much more acceptable for us otherwise there is a like a visceral negative reaction to it i just don’t want to accept it some from somebody who is a junior or in some way we have some negative dynamic with yeah i would say that the two aspects first is that we are not just spiritual beings we are sentient spiritual beings and our emotions are a part of who we are and that’s why the the bhagavatam also says that in the first canto that the we can learn spiritual knowledge from those who are snigdha who are affectionate so so the relationship between the teacher and the student needs to be affectionate without that the knowledge it’s very difficult to to internalize that and let it transform us so we we can’t set for ourselves unrealistic standards of submissiveness the the human or the emotional side of us is is very much a part of who we are at the same time the emotional side is a part of us it shouldn’t become the whole of us so what does that mean that means that if someone has said something to us which came in an unpalatable emotional context whether the relationship is not so healthy or whether that person’s way of saying it was not proper the setting in which they said it is not proper whatever so then okay we may need to temporarily distance ourselves from that okay i can’t accept this right now but that doesn’t mean i have to reject this doesn’t mean i have to condemn it it will like suspend it for time and then maybe talk with someone else we talk with someone whom we whom we have a better emotional dynamic with and maybe they will re-articulate in some other more palatable words they’ll present it in a way that is more acceptable for us so now apart from that also from the other other side that it is important that’s why those who are spiritual guides to try to have a positive emotional dynamic with those whom they guide sometimes guides have to be hard as they say there’s tough love um but in the tough love the the test is at the end of it not immediately but at the end of it does the other person remember the tough part or the love part so if it is mostly tough and hardly love then that is going to be counterproductive like many times parents sometimes ask you know how do we make our children devotees so my answer is we can never make anyone a devotee everyone has to choose to become a devotee but what parents can do is try to give their children as many joyful memories of krishna bhakti as possible and then when the children grow up when they come to a teenage or adult young adults they are going to make their decision so if their prominent memory from childhood oh i went to the temple and we danced with kirtans and we had nice prasadam and i played there played in this drama of krishna leela and it was so wonderful they will want to be a part of that but if you force the children you have to wake up early in the morning you have to sit and chant these many rounds then the the memories will be oh this krishna bhakti means i was forced to so many do so many things i didn’t like and those memories will shape their choices later so so from the other perspective when those who guide need to make sure that they have a positive emotional dynamic overall occasionally strong words have to be spoken and some disciplinary action has to be