WITH acronym – We may have to live with pain, but we don’t have to live in pain

[Congregation program at Adelaide, Australia]

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Transcript

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Jai.
I spoke on the topic of we may have to live with pain but we don’t have to live in pain and I started by talking about how we may have a disagreeable encounter at the start of a day that is just few moments but if our mind keeps replaying it, why did that person cut me? Why did that person insult me? Then the whole day may go in pain. We may have back pain which comes intermittently but if you keep thinking about the back pain, why do I have this back pain? Why was it so bad? When will it be in future? How bad will it be? Then we will live in pain. So pain we can’t avoid in life but how much that pain affects us, that we can change.
How to do that? I discussed an acronym. What was the acronym? With. W was? Wisdom.
Wisdom means that our life has more tracks than one. We are not just bodies. Body, mind and soul.
So just like a sports player gets a career ending injury or a sports player has to retire. The sports players, their life has only one track. I am a sports player.
Then that pain of having that track blocked will be unbearable unless they redefine themselves. I am a sports player but I am also bigger than just being a sports player. They find a new direction for their life.
Otherwise they just sink into themselves in depression. So resentment of reality often hurts more than reality. If we are planning to go for a picnic and we get flu, if our mind is simply going on that track, why couldn’t I go for that picnic? We will be in misery.
Okay, what can I do now? There are other things I can do. I can read, I can hear, I can sing, I can connect with people while I am on the bed. And our life can move on.
So Arjuna’s consciousness was caught on that track. How can I fight against my relatives? It was in the bodily track. And his pain was so great that normally we don’t show pain in public.
And especially Kshatriyas, warriors, don’t show pain in front of their opponents. But here Arjuna in the middle of both armies was crying profusely. How much must have been his pain? But when he understood that he is not the body, he is the soul, that enabled him to go beyond that pain.
So no matter what problems we have at the physical level, at the mental level, we are bigger than our body and mind. That wisdom helps us to see pain as a part of our life, not the whole of our life. And I was intention.
Intention means what is our purpose? Normally we will just resent having to lift big weights which cause pain to our muscles. But if we go for a workout and lift weights, although it causes pain, we do it because we have intention of becoming healthier, becoming fitter. If a thorn pricks us, we will be annoyed.
If an injection pricks us, we accept it because there is a purpose to it. So we need a purpose for our life that is bigger than the problems of life. And there I talked about how purpose is like a broad direction.
Their goals are like specific destinations. And results are what come after we do our work. So results are expectation centered.
And if we are result driven, the results don’t come, we will become disheartened. But if we are contribution driven, not that I want to get number one in my class. I want to learn the subject.
I want to contribute by learning the subject. And that is in our control. Bhagavad Gita doesn’t tell us don’t set goals or don’t have a purpose.
It says don’t be attached to results because that is not in our control. So when we have a purpose big enough, then whatever problem comes, we will be able to deal with it. People who have mental health problems often they just get a purpose that gets them out of themselves.
People who are depressed, just go and do something for someone else. Then they find that I can do something, I can make a contribution. Depression comes because we had so many expectations, all the expectations are foiled.
Just doing something for someone shifts our vision from expectation to contribution. And that helps us to come out of depression. So Bhagavad Gita gives us the supreme purpose that we are souls, we are eternal, Krishna is eternal.
And we have an eternal relationship with Krishna. And serving him is our eternal purpose. With that purpose in mind, whatever problems you might get at that physical level, they are temporary.
There is a big enough purpose which will help me face all these problems. Then T was tolerance. Tolerance is not passivity, it is priority.
We keep small things small so that we can focus on big things. We don’t push against a person who is pushing us in a train because big thing is to get to the destination. And tolerance helps us to make sure that small problems don’t become big.
A leech is biting me, pull it out, the skin will come out, it will become much worse. Sometimes our karma, some problems come in our life. If we just tolerate them, they will go away.
If we overreact, we will make it worse. Like this girl whose partner didn’t respond to her phone call, she tried to commit suicide. And though she didn’t die, she got psychological damage because of that.
So just tolerate. How do we tolerate? By recognizing that nothing in this world is permanent. No matter how terrible the problem looks to be, it is temporary.
So, let me just tolerate it. And last was hope. Hope means that we normally in a materialistic vision, things are in my control or things are out of my control.
But if I understand that Krishna is in supreme control, then things that are out of my control are still in His control. And even if bad things are happening, Krishna can bring some good out of the bad. So if normally we look at the present and plan the future, Krishna looks at the future, He plans the present.
And just like a child, a doctor may do surgery on the stomach pain, but that is to save the child from bigger pain afterwards. So when we have this hope that whatever is happening in my life, if I just perceive it, when life suddenly, in the journey of our life, the street lights go dark, all our plans seem to be disrupted, then we turn on the flashlight of our service attitude. And one step forward, one step forward, and eventually we’ll find that the light will come back and a bigger and better plan will be revealed.
And I talked about Prabhupada’s example of how everything in his life seemed to be falling apart. The institution got closed down, books were not being taken, his business didn’t work, his own body collapsed, his own disciples, people whose personal thoughts had become his disciples turned to attack him. But Prabhupada maintained hope.
And eventually Krishna arranged for him dramatically to meet people who were sincere and through them, Krishna empowered him to spread Krishna Bhakti all over the world. So even if we are disheartened by the pains in our life, even if we put our bow aside in discouragement, but by hearing Krishna’s message in the Gita, we can again pick up the bow and march ahead. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. So are there any questions or comments?