Worldly intoxication and devotional intoxication differ in consciousness, content and consequence

[Bhagavatam class on Srimad-Bhagavatam 11.13.36 at Alachua, USA]

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you very much.
It states that actually just as an intoxicated person is no longer aware of one’s surroundings, even one’s own clothing. Similarly, a spiritually advanced person is not aware of one’s surroundings, even one’s body, which is the Bhagavad Gita compared to one’s clothing. So in the last Bhagavatam class, I talked about how everybody wants to escape from reality.
I talked about escape from reality, which is sought through fiction. People want to watch cartoons and movies, read novels and escape into a fictional world. So there is the real and there is the fictional and there is the spiritual.
So material world is itself boring. So we all want to escape from it. So most people escape from the boring material level of reality to the fictional level.
But that is illusory. That doesn’t offer any lasting result. So instead of escaping from reality, from physical reality to fictional world, what the scriptures tell us is escape from physical reality to spiritual reality.
So the physical reality is itself not very enjoyable. So now intoxication is another way in which people escape from the physical reality to some other mentally imagined reality. And when they escape in this way, the whole idea is they want to feel better.
When people take intoxication, they go high. They feel as if they are rulers of the world. A person who is intoxicated thinks that I can do anything.
They can’t even walk a few steps without stumbling. They think I’m going to conquer the whole world. So the nature of intoxication is disconnection from physical reality.
Whatever normally if somebody is driving a car, you cannot be intoxicated. Otherwise you’ll be severely punished because people when they’re intoxicated are disconnected from physical reality. And this disconnection is sought because we all find physical reality boring.
Most people live at the sensual level for sensory pleasure. And if you consider sensory pleasure, how long can one enjoy it? If somebody thinks that I will eat and enjoy. Okay, you can eat and enjoy.
But how long can one eat? We eat for some time. After that the stomach becomes full and we can’t eat anymore. So how many of you have heard of the Egyptian pharaohs? Yeah.
So some of you may know that their bodies were preserved as mummies. So now these Egyptian pharaohs try to find a way around the body’s limitation. You can’t eat much.
So they had their own physicians. So they would have golden bowls, golden plates in which they would eat feasts. And then after that they had their physicians make for them painless vomiting pills.
And then whatever they would eat, they would take up and vomit it all out. And the stomach would become empty and they would eat again. And this way they tried to enjoy.
They tried to extend the body’s capacity to eat and enjoy by filling the stomach and emptying the stomach. But our capacity to eat is determined not just by whether our stomach is empty or full. Every time the food goes inside through the alimentary canal, the body has to process it.
And it gets exhausted. So if you just keep taking food in and out, in and out, then the body gets overworked. So those pharaohs who tried it, they all died young.
And after that, on one of the Egyptian pyramids, a saying has been put over there. It is said that you live on one fourth of what you eat. On the remaining three fourth lives your physician.
You live on one fourth of what you eat and the remaining three fourth. So people eat a lot and that causes problems. So the point which I am making is that at the physical level, when we try to enjoy with the senses, the pleasure we can have is always limited.
So if I think enjoyment in life is eating, then when I have good food to eat, I enjoy. When the food to eat is not good, I feel distressed. And in between, I am bored.
What to do? I am simply looking forward to the next time when I can eat some good food. So life at the physical level is boring. So I talked about entertainment where we try to take in something which is primarily for the mental titillation, which transports us to another reality.
But another way of doing it is through intoxication. So take in some substances which transport the thoughts to another world. So actually the soul is spiritual, but the soul’s consciousness is rooted through the mind to the body.
And the way the soul functions depends on how well the body is functioning. So for example, if I want to lift up something, but I have got pain in my hand, then I will not be able to lift it up. Although I am here, I have the desire to lift it, I will not be able to lift it up.
So if somebody comes and injures my hand, then I will not be able to lift up things. Similarly, when we take intoxication, that intoxication interferes with the functioning of the brain. Chemicals affect the way our brain processes reality.
And when that happens, the consciousness comes from the soul to the mind to the brain. And instead of the brain acting as a channel for the consciousness to go outwards, so that it can process reality, the consciousness gets distorted. It goes somewhere else.
So these kind of substances, they are called as psychedelic substances. They try to change the state of the mind. And the whole idea is because life is boring, intoxication is a way to escape from that boredom.
Now here the example is given that the spiritually advanced state is like the state of an intoxicated person. Means what? Again the spiritually advanced person is actually disconnected from reality, is not aware of reality. But there is a big difference between the disconnection from physical reality of a materially intoxicated person and a spiritually intoxicated person.
So I’ll talk about this difference in three concepts, three C’s. Consciousness, content and consequence. Consciousness.
Now what is the consciousness with which a person takes intoxication? And what is the consciousness of a spiritually advanced person? One of the great spiritual teachers in the Indian tradition was Shankaracharya. And Shankaracharya once was going with his disciples. And he, as he was going along, they came to a liquor bar.
And he took up a, at that time there were no bottles, there were pots. So he took a pot and he drank the liquor. And his disciples, oh, Racharya is drinking.
They also drank. And as he was drinking, he said, sarvam khalmam idam brahma. Everything is Brahman.
And after that, soon after that they came to a blacksmith’s shop. And there was molten iron over there. And he picked that up and he drank that also.
And he looked at his disciples. Nobody was ready to drink. Why? Because he was at a different state entirely.
So, a spiritually advanced person sees things entirely differently. And a materially conscious person simply thinks, oh, this is enjoyable, so let me drink it. Oh, this is painful, let me not do it.
So basically, the consciousness of a person who is drunk is that, that person is unable to face reality, is unable to face the problems of life. And because of being unable to face life’s problems, or because of not getting what they want in their life, they just escape to somewhere else. So, the consciousness is basically escapism.
We can’t face problems. They are running away from the emptiness and the distressfulness of life. Whereas, in spiritual growth, we are not running away, we are rising above.
Running away means we stay at the same material level, but just run away from the problem. And the problem comes back again. After the person is intoxicated, when they come back, the problems are still there.
And sometimes due to the intoxication, they have done certain things which make the problems worse. But in spiritual growth, we don’t run away, we rise above. And rise above means, if you understand, there is a higher reality.
And we aim for that higher reality. And this difference, running away and rising above. Now, if you compare, relatively speaking, running away is easy.
How can we rise up? Unless somebody is pulling us up or there is some staircase or some way to rise up, it’s not so easy. So, that’s why the nature of material intoxication is very easy. You can just take a drink and go ahead.
This brings us to the next point, that is content. So, content means, how does one get intoxicated? So, Anshula Prabhupada came to America at that time. Many people were taking drugs.
And they thought that taking drugs will give them spiritual understanding. So, in fact, there was this drug called LSD. LSD is a chemical name.
But those people who started taking LSD, they started calling it a spiritual drug. And those who take LSD, they renamed themselves as, we all take LSD and we belong to LSD. LSD is the League of Spiritual Discovery.
So, by taking LSD, we will make spiritual discoveries. That was their idea. So, Anshula Prabhupada, when he was presented this, Prabhupada said that, actually, you cannot gain spiritual realisation by taking something material.
The material can only produce the material. The material cannot produce the spiritual. He said, if the ultimate spiritual reality, the ultimate spiritual reality is God.
And if we say that God can be realised by something material, then that means God is producible or God is controllable by that material thing. So, it’s not like that. So, material things cannot give us spiritual realisation.
Now, what about when we take prasad, when we hear kirtans, when we come to the temple and take darshan. Now, these are material manifestations or these are manifestations of the divine in matter. They are themselves not material.
So, when you take prasadam, it is spiritual food. It is food that is spiritualised by offering. When you come and see the deities, they are not material.
Although Krishna manifested in matter, it is Krishna who is manifesting. So, in terms of content, we intoxicate, we take something material to try to get somewhere higher. But in terms of content, in spiritual growth, we try to connect with Krishna.
We try to absorb ourselves in Krishna. So, it is Krishna who lifts us up, Krishna who raises our consciousness up. And thus, the content involves some effort.
Krishna broadly compares material and spiritual pleasures. And he says in 18.37-38 that what is the nature of material pleasures? He says, we are now talking about the consequence. That when, Krishna says, when we enjoy worldly objects, they taste like nectar in the beginning.
But they taste like poison in the end. They taste like poison in the end means that eventually people just get bound. They drink and drink and they don’t know what happened to me.
How did I get bound like this? There is a British author, Oscar Wilde. He said, giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I have done it over a hundred times.
So, we have given it over a hundred times. Why do we have to give it up again? Once is enough. We give up smoking, but the smoking doesn’t give us up.
It keeps catching us again and again and again. So, the consequence is, there is a little initial pleasure, but after that we get the poison. The poison is the bondage.
The person gets addicted. Addicted and they just can’t give it up. So, they get completely bound.
Whereas, the nature of spiritual happiness is that, Krishna said, He said, that which tastes like poison in the beginning, but it will taste like nectar in the end. Now, that means initially there is some difficulty. So, why is this difficulty there when we try to become spiritually intoxicated? That difficulty is there because our mind does not focus.
Our mind does not connect with Krishna. So, when our mind does not connect with Krishna, Remembering Krishna, connecting with Krishna, absorbing ourselves in Krishna is like a flow of nectar. But our mind is caught.
Say, sometimes when children are very small, they don’t want to eat food. So, the mothers, they have to feed with a spoon. And the mother is trying to give some liquid to the child.
The liquid is delicious. But somehow the child is not ready to drink. And as soon as the mother puts the spoon, the child moves the face away.
Mother tries to pour it, child moves the face away. And again moves it. Every time the mother is trying to feed, the child is moving the face away.
And then, the child doesn’t drink at all. So, like that, we try to practise bhakti, but our mind is like the child. It keeps moving away.
Hare Krishna. What is there for prasad today? Hare Krishna. I have to do so much work after this.
Krishna, Krishna. I am tired. Hare, Hare.
Oh, come on, when will this end? So, our tongue is saying Hare Krishna, but our mind is chanting many other things. So, because of this, our mind just goes here, goes there, and we don’t connect with Krishna. But somehow, if the child just takes a little drop.
Hey, this is nice. I was thinking something else will be nice. This is nice.
And as the child keeps tasting it more and more. Hey, this is nice. And the child wants more and more.
So, like that, for the child, initially, it is going to go here and there. And the mother gets the face back. Hey, what are you doing? I don’t want it.
Again, the child puts the face away. And again, the mother gets the face back. Child doesn’t like this force.
So, similarly, when we have to practise bhakti, initially, some force is required. But this force in bhakti is voluntary force. It is sadhana bhakti is actually voluntary force.
We have to force ourselves. We have to recognise with our intelligence that this actually is going to give me happiness. And when we have that understanding, then when we practise bhakti, then we slowly start raising our consciousness to the spiritual level.
And as our consciousness goes to the spiritual level, we start experiencing reality at an entirely different dimension. Once we start experiencing spiritual reality, the material reality doesn’t affect us so much. This example here of self-realised person not worrying about one’s clothes.
This is illustrated in the 10th canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam. When Krishna played his flute, many of the gopis, they were in their homes dressing themselves. And they were so captivated that they just keep.
Some of them, they put their upper cloth below and lower cloth above. And they did not dress themselves properly, just rushed out to Krishna. And normally, we all like to look good.
Especially if a young woman is going to meet her lover, she will want to look very good. But here the gopis are going to meet Krishna and they are so attracted by Krishna that they are not even concerned about their appearance. How did this happen? This happens because Krishna is so attractive.
Now, of course, by the arrangement of yoga maya, when they reach Krishna, their clothes are all wonderfully arranged. But at that time, when they go, they don’t care. They just don’t care for anything.
They care only for Krishna. And that same exalted mood of spiritual intoxication was demonstrated by Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, who is Krishna coming in the mood of Srimati Radharani. And in Chaitanya Charita Amrit, there are many times words similar, referring to madness.
It’s Premonmad or Divyonmad. Premonmad means the madness of love. Divyonmad is the divine madness.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, he would be talking with someone. And once he was just walking in Jagannath Puri with his associates and they were talking. And one moment, the associates, he was talking with the associates.
They were talking with the next moment, he disappeared. Wondering where he has gone. And then they saw that he was just running away in a particular direction.
And the devotees ran after him. And they found he had fainted. And they chanted Hare Krishna and brought him back to consciousness.
So what happened at that time? He said, I saw Krishna behind that tree. He was playing his flute and calling me. And he just ran over there.
So basically, here there is a disconnection from material reality. But there is connection with spiritual reality. And that connection with spiritual reality is what actually is divinely uplifting.
So Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, he had different kinds of mystical trances. One would be that he would just see something which no one else was able to see. So that was vision.
Where he would have divine visions. The second would be, he would have divine visions which would just make him unconscious. And where he would just be in another world.
And the devotees would, they chanted loudly and they brought him back to physical reality. Why did you get me back? I was absorbed in Krishna’s pastimes. So the first is just, physically he is conscious but he is seeing something different.
Second is, he starts seeing something different and he becomes unconscious. And third is, that he not only becomes unconscious, but whatever he experiences causes extraordinary transformations in his body. Sometimes his body would become so long, his limbs would get extended as if there is nothing in between.
It’s like his limbs would be so long, the skin would be there and he was already very tall. But his arms would get elongated, his legs would get elongated. So those were the times when Radharani would feel that Krishna is going away from me and limbs would get extended to try to catch Krishna.
Hands would get extended, the legs would get extended. And he was trying to catch Krishna in some way. So there were physical transformations that would result.
From his spiritual transportation of consciousness, his transportation of consciousness to spiritual reality. So all these are very exalted and very extraordinary. And for us, what do we do? We are in a world where so many people take material intoxications.
And of course, in the world today, the results of material intoxication are also well known. In terms of how much harm it does. But how do we move towards spiritual intoxication? Actually Prabhupada demonstrated that to us through that intoxication was not in terms of some kind of otherworldly trance.
Prabhupada’s focus was on the intoxication came through dedication. Prabhupada manifested devotion as dedication, dedication to service. There were special occasions when Prabhupada would sometimes chant Jaya Radha Madhava, just get transported to some other reality.
Or he would ask some questions about the Goswamis, once by Yadurani Mataji. And he just withdrew himself. The devotees with him felt as if he’s no longer there with us.
Harishavari Prabhu, when he would massage Prabhupada in Mayapur, if nobody else was in the room and when somebody else was there in the room, he said Prabhupada’s response was very different. He says if nobody else was in the room, then it would have, he said I felt as if Prabhupada would almost like leave his body and go to Mayapur. He said I felt as if when I was massaging his body, I felt as if like I was a car mechanic whom the car owner has brought the car into the mechanic and he is doing the over oiling and the owner has gone for a stroll.
So like that Prabhupada has gone to relish Mayapur. But if somebody, a third person would be present, then Prabhupada would be more conscious. So there were extraordinary occasions when Prabhupada became disconnected from physical reality and went to spiritual reality.
But more importantly, Prabhupada’s focus was not on himself going to spiritual reality. It was on creating pathways for everyone to go to spiritual reality. And that was his dedication.
His dedication was that wherever we may be, that we try to serve Krishna and absorb ourselves in that service to Krishna. So, Gurudas Prabhu tells one thing when we asked for the offering about how first time when he was in Vrindavan, he came to Vrindavan first and he had read the Krishna book, he had heard about Vrindavan from Prabhupada and he thought Vrindavan is the place where Radha and Krishna’s pastimes will be performed. And he said, this is such a wonderful place.
And then Prabhupada came there. He said, this was a perfect moment for me. He said, now I will be in the spiritual world with my spiritual master.
And then he came, Prabhupada came to the aeroplane and then they caught him into the car and Prabhupada was very grave, just chanting. He thought, Prabhupada is meditating on Radha and Krishna’s pastimes in the spiritual world. He was waiting, some drop of nectar will drop from Prabhupada.
And Prabhupada did not speak, just chanted. And he was silent sometimes, chanting sometimes. And Prabhupada did not speak anything.
And then the first words, finally came all the way from Delhi to Vrindavan. The first word that Prabhupada spoke, he said, cement. How are you going to get cement? So, at that time the devotees wanted to construct a temple and they were just not able to get cement.
So, what is your plan to get cement? So, he said, at that time, Prabhupada exemplified to me that the way to the spiritual world is not just by imagining, oh, things are so wonderful, it is through service. Prabhupada was in Vrindavan, but Prabhupada’s meditation was how to build a temple for Krishna in Vrindavan by which people will be attracted to come to Vrindavan and experience Vrindavan. So, eventually, after a lot of arrangement, the devotees got some cement.
And several trucks came there. At that time, the trucks came at night and Prabhupada asked them, so, have the trucks come? How many packets have come? And Prabhupada said that you should stand near the trucks and make sure that every single pack is taken. He said, have you locked it properly? What lock have you used? Prabhupada asked so much carefully, so carefully about everything.
And the devotee was there with him. He said, Prabhupada was treating the cement as if it was gold. As valuable as it was gold.
Now, in the Bhagavad Gita, there is a verse, that the spiritually advanced soul, they see, samaloshtashmakanchana. They see stone, pebbles and gold equally. At one level, it may mean that, you know, they see everything is material, none of this can give me happiness.
Just as mud and stone can’t give me happiness, even gold can’t give me happiness. But a devotee’s concern is not whether something can give me happiness or not. A devotee’s concern is whether something can be used in Krishna’s service.
So, Prabhupada’s vision was, if cement can be used in Krishna’s service, then cement is as valuable as gold. So, the way to spiritual absorption is through absorption in service. The more we try to serve Krishna, the more we become absorbed in Him.
And as we become more and more absorbed, then that service takes us to a different level of consciousness. That service takes us to where we are experiencing opportunity to serve Krishna and we don’t get so affected by our outer realities. As Krishna Prabhupada, when he came to America, he was old, he was alone, he was without any money and he was coming to a foreign land where he had never been before.
But Prabhupada’s vision was, how can I benefit the people? So, the spiritual intoxication that Prabhupada exhibited was that he, even in America, he was not lost in thinking about Krishna in Vrindavan. He was thinking of Krishna in relationship with the people here. He says, Krishna, you are present in their hearts also.
All of these people were completely materialistic. Krishna, you are present in their hearts also. Please, you make my words understandable to them.
And, O my dear Lord, make me dance. Make me dance. As you want.
Please make me dance. In the spirit, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu danced in Divyon Math where when he would dance in front of Rath Yatra, he was completely transported to another reality. Prabhupada was also praying to Krishna, make me dance.
But Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s dance, especially in his Antilila, he was demonstrating the state of complete absorption in the spiritual world with no connection with the material world practically. But Prabhupada’s dance was complete absorption in how to elevate people from the material world to the spiritual world. How to rise in this way.
I’ll conclude with an example that by such absorption, by trying to serve others and help them get elevated to the spiritual world, we ourselves also get elevated to the spiritual world. Normally, if we want to fly, say, if we want to fly from here to New York, now we have to take a ticket. We have to pay the money.
And after paying the money, we get purified, we get elevated. So Krishna talks about, Krishna uses the word Parabhakti, pure devotion. And Bhagavatam also uses this word.
He says, how do you come to Parabhakti? He says in 18.54 and 55, that when one practises yoga and then comes to the Brahman platform, Brahma bhuta prasannatma na shochati na kankshati samah sarveshu bhuteshu madhbhaktim labhate param Krishna says, after coming to the Brahman platform, when one becomes equipoised towards everything, then one will get Parabhakti. One will get pure devotion, transcendental devotion. It is said that even by hearing about Krishna’s esoteric pastimes, the Bhagavatam says, we will also get Parabhakti.
I’ll show you. If we faithfully hear Krishna’s pastimes in the Gopis, with proper understanding, then we will get Parabhakti, the supreme devotion. So that supreme devotion, which can be got by many, many lifetimes of practise of yoga, that supreme devotion which can be got by absorbing ourselves in Krishna’s intimate pastimes, that same Parabhakti Krishna says, I will bestow to those who share my message with others.
Again Parabhakti Krishna says, that that pure devotion will come for those who dedicate themselves to sharing my message with others. So going back to the airline metaphor, normally if you want to go from one place to another, we have to pay for it. But suppose somebody is employed by an airline agency, then they don’t have to pay anything for it.
They go anyway there and they are paid for going there. So like that, when we try to facilitate others going towards Krishna, if we worry too much, oh how will I give up this, how will I give up that, how will I overcome this, then it is we who want to elevate ourselves. That’s like we want to go, then we have to pay for the flight.
But if we strive to help others go there, then we become like a part of the flight agency and then with far lesser effort, without any payment, we are taken by the flight agency. So like that, if we strive to assist Prabhupada in helping each other, in helping others come closer and closer to Krishna, then by Prabhupada’s mercy, we will also be taken to Krishna. So I’ll quickly, thank you very much.
Great Krishna. So I’ll quickly summarise and then if you have some questions. So I spoke today about how the difference between material intoxication and spiritual intoxication, that talked about three things, the consciousness, content and consequence.
People, everybody wants to escape from physical reality. But the way we escape is in materialistic consciousness, we can’t face reality, so we run away from it. But in spiritual consciousness, we rise above it.
And running away is relatively easy. Rising up requires effort. So material pleasures taste like nectar in the beginning, but like poison in the end.
So spiritual happiness may taste like poison in the beginning. Why? Because the child doesn’t want to drink. So the mother has to force to drink.
And then the child starts tasting. Then the child says, oh, this is good. Then it starts tasting like nectar.
And the consequence is that one becomes more and more entangled to material intoxication, then become addicted and degraded. Whereas the spiritual consciousness will become elevated and liberated. So spiritual absorption can come in various ways.
One is that the devotee becomes completely otherworldly absorbed, as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu demonstrated through his alternate visions, through his unconsciousness because it got transported to alternate realities, and through the physical transformation that happened in him. Prabhupada demonstrated that spiritual absorption. He sometimes went into alternate higher realities, but most of the time his focus was on how to take people to higher realities.
And that was his meditation. Krishna, make me dance so that I can help others come closer to Krishna. And the same parabhakti, the pure devotion that can be got by impersonal liberation with great, great effort, by absorbing Krishna’s intimate pastimes, that can be got also by sharing Krishna’s message with others.
Just like we may pay for going by airlines, but if we work for the airlines, then airlines takes us. So similarly, by trying to help others come to Krishna, we ourselves will also come to Krishna. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. It’s been a while. And he was very, sort of sarcastic in a way.
Another thing he said was, I can resist anything except… Except temptation. Yeah. So let me go right to the question.
You mentioned that when Lord Caitanya had that situation where he… I never heard why his limbs get so extended. You said that it’s because he was trying to catch Krishna, so he was trying to stretch so much that physically he came like that. It’s really from a physical point of view, and the body is sort of gassed.
I see it. Actually, it was wonderful. Could you also explain what the esoteric understanding is when he became like a tortoise, when he became condensed? Okay.
Yeah. So when Caitanya Mahaprabhu withdrew himself, he became like a tortoise. What is the explanation for that? That is similar to the way Jagannath, Baldev Subhadra, their limbs withdrew into their body.
When they were hearing about Krishna, they didn’t want any other distraction. So their limbs withdrew in. So when he was feeling separation from Krishna, Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s limbs would expand.
But when he would feel the proximity of Krishna, he wanted to experience Krishna entirely without any distraction. So his limbs would withdraw into himself. Does that have any connection at all to Bhagavad Gita 2.58? Yeah, I also thought of the same thing.
What was that stretching into? Well, yeah, in 2.58 when Krishna says that just as a tortoise withdraws its limbs, there the focus of course is more on withdrawal from material reality. Because it distracts us or deludes us. Here there is withdrawal from external reality because we want to focus on Krishna.
So we could say there is similarity in the sense that both are ways to avoid distraction. But the difference is that at least in 2.58 Krishna is not talking about bhakti directly. He mentions in 2.61, but he really gets into bhakti from the 7th chapter onwards.
So there the focus may not be, so there 2.58 is more of a defensive measure to avoid material temptations. But here it is a measure to increase absorption in Krishna. Bhagavad Gita 2.58 is more negative and more resulting.
Now I am remembering my little comment. There is something I seem to have in common. The person in the verse you probably know.
I think in the 11th canto it says that there are two types of people who are unburdened in ecstasy and bliss in this world. One is the retarded, immature, dull jagat, dull fool. And the other is those who have taken shelter of the lord who is the animal.
In other words it is opulence. So they have something in common. One is in a paradise of fools.
So he thinks it is a paradise. And the other is really a paradise, so to speak, because he is actually a transcendent. So they do have that in common.
Of course it is a fact that the intoxicated person felt quite sore when going back to 26th century India and you hear how he saw the drunkards. They would go out in freezing cold winter day without any shirt and they would think they were policemen and they would be directing traffic. It is not an uncommon sight.
I have observed that. So they were bliss and they were, you know, they were completely indifferent. But I would imagine the next day they may have got a very, very bad cold and who knows who will take care of them.
So it is not exactly the same. Thank you. So the class is over.
If any of you want to carry on, you can carry on. We will have some questions or discussions. I heard your class last week about how people are trying to escape from this world.
And you were saying about how the movie industry and sports and so forth is trying to, you know. So I just, it reminded me of, actually my neighbour and her mother have written a very nice series of books about Ram. And I actually read two of the books that are out.
And it is very, it is a very different experience from reading some of the other books like that. It is so nice that this family is taking the service of it. And you had mentioned that as devotees we need to bring real joy to our people.
So I wanted to tell everybody if you get a chance to read these books, they are really absorbing, you know, spiritually intoxicating, actually. Yeah. Thank you.
Yes. I just have a simple question. So escapism, they are trying to escape.
Escape because they don’t feel their constitutional position is met. So it is not really bad in that one sense. But they are trying to search for where they can fit and feel complete.
Yeah. So not necessarily you want to make it bad. Okay, yes.
So if, when people are escape, trying to escape, so because they are not satisfied, they are not experiencing real happiness, at least they are searching, so that is good. Yes. There is actually two things when we consider the search for happiness.
There is the intention and there is the direction. Now what am I searching for and how am I searching for it? So there is a lecture of Prabhupada where he was talking to mostly hippies who had come for Vathyatra festival. And he says, you know, hippies are not much appreciated by Americans because they consider you are frustrated.
But he says, I appreciate you. This human life is meant to be frustrated. He says, when you become frustrated, then, अथातो ब्रह्मजिक्यास, then you will enquire about spirituality.
So that means there are, basically material life is not satisfying. But what does one do when that satisfaction doesn’t come? One is that one explores, looks for something other than material. Or something else apart from what everyone is looking for.
Or someone keeps looking for the same thing again and again. So I watch this movie, it is boring. So I will watch another movie, maybe that will be better.
And especially in the internet, there are so many options. People start looking at one image, second image, third image. Click through thousands of images trying to look for something enjoyable.
So they just get more and more entangled by that. So when we look for the same pleasure more and more, that is illusion. But at least the people who are frustrated are looking for something else.
But if they look for something again in the material world itself, see there are certain material pleasures which are considered acceptable. And certain material pleasures are considered materially unacceptable also. Like in material circles they say, drink but don’t become drunk.
So that is not so easily possible. Drink but over a period of time you will become drunk. But the point is there are certain pleasures which are materially unacceptable and certain pleasures which are materially acceptable.
But from the spiritual perspective, those who seek the materially unacceptable pleasures, like say going into intoxication, going into drugs, some people may go into it because they are just hooked to it. But some people, the hippies at least in the early years, they went into it because they believed that this will take them to a higher reality. So ultimately all search for happiness is a search for Krishna.
But to the extent one can connect that with Krishna, to that extent the redirection is easily possible. So if one is caught in the material world then it is difficult to connect. So that is how it works.
So I would say their intention is good but the direction, if they get the association of devotees and by that they can direct that search towards Krishna or towards spiritual reality, then that is their fortune. So generally when there is frustration in the search for material happiness, if at that time somehow they can connect with Krishna or Krishna’s devotees, then they will move towards Krishna. Since the body needs eating, sleeping, mating, giving, it is normal and we support it.
It is not to be condemned. We have to have good but obsession is bad. Yes, so there is biological necessity but when that becomes a psychological obsession, then it becomes a spiritual distraction.
Thank you very much. It always stimulates the psychological view of things. So I was thinking that the most basic psychology is you want to please.
That is the nature of souls, the nature of Krishna, they want to please. But they don’t know who to please. So they try to please their senses.
That doesn’t work. They try to please their parents, they try to please their children, they try to please their wife, they try to please their children. Nothing works but some city, then that works.
So in all your activities you are trying to find who can I please, what can I please because you can’t stop trying to please all the time. So first we have the pleasing focussing. So we are perpetually pleasing, focussing, We cannot really be self-absorbed.
We have to focus on something else. And in that sense we will be controlled by the external thing. We can’t avoid being controlled but we can choose our controller.
So if you are controlled by worldly objects, worldly people, then they manipulate us for our degradation. But if we direct that towards Krishna, then he uplifts and liberates us through that. Thank you very much.
Gantrāśrī bhāgavatam kī śrī prabhupāda kī jāyatā Gauru prema ananteyam