Yoga of writing for children

[Yoga of writing for children – Yoga Day Festival GSY GEV]

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Hare Krishna Om Gyanatmi Randhasya Gyananjani Shalakaya Chukshurunmala Tamena Tasmai Sri Gurve Namaha Nama Om Vishnupadaya Krishnaprasthaya Bhautale Shrimate Bhaktivedanta Swami Itinamine Namaste Saraswati Devi Gauravani Pracharini Nirvisheshwari Shunyavadi Pashchatya Desha Tarane Vancha Kalpataru Vyascha Krupas Itanam Bhavnebhyo Vaishnavibhyo Namo Namaha Jai Sri Krishna Chaitanya Prabhu Nityananda Sri Advaita Gadadhara Sri Vasadhi Gauravakta Vrinda Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare Hare Krishna Hare Krishna If you don’t mind I will just introduce you for two minutes Yes Just for the pleasure Thank you Yes Thank you So children Hare Krishna to all of you I am so so so happy to introduce to all of you to His Grace Shaitan Sharan Prabhu So you might have heard and listened to so many stories be it story story book or any other books like whether it is mystery or magical book or any inspirational book but very rare that you get a chance to interact with the author. So today we have His Grace Shaitan Sharan Prabhu who is an author who is a prolific writer and he has written almost 1700 plus Gita articles and he has a record that every day he writes 300 minimum words on Gita Bhagavad Gita verses He has given courses and talks various in different universities like Stanford and in Harvard and in companies like Google Amazon, Microsoft He is an author of 25 plus books and today Prabhuji is going to help us how we can write right Thank you so much Prabhuji for taking out your valuable time for all the children Thank you once again Over to you Prabhuji. Hare Krishna Thank you.
Happy to be with all of you So I was planning to talk today about journaling Before I start would any of you like to tell me what do you think when you hear the word journaling What does journaling mean to you? Have any of you heard about the word journaling before? Ok yes Yes Amina what does it mean to you? It means writing our own diary Oh good. Thank you. Writing our own diary.
Yes that’s very nice Thank you Yes Krishna Chaitanya It means writing a sketch of your day Ok A sketch of your day It’s interesting. Sketch means painting it or what do you mean by sketch? Like outline? Ok A sketch of your day. Yes Yes Shanvi Yeah Wanted to say something? Collecting news Collecting? News News News about what? Topic Topic Oh ok Topics about which topics? Different topics Yes Ok so that is I think a journalist We are talking about journaling So journalist is one who writes in newspapers So that is like a newspaper reporter So you are talking about journaling and journaling is Yes we can collect news about our own life What happened during this day? How did it happen? We can learn about that Thank you Yes Gaurav I think you have to unmute yourself You are unmuted but I am not able to hear you No I am sorry I can’t hear you Just one minute we will come back to you So Shonima can you speak? Let us see Babuji can you hear me? Yes yes I can hear you Journaling is about writing all the incidents that you had in your day Ok All the incidents that you had in your day That’s nice It will take a lot of time to write all the incidents You can say important incidents Ok so Krishna Chaitanya Outlook of the day Ok writing about the day in the end.
Thank you Krishna Chaitanya Now you want to try Gaurav? I can hear you now No I think something is there with your mic Can you type? I will read it out from here Ok We will have one or two more. Yes Ishan So Gauravji Journaling means in a lecture or a class to write down or list down the main points for your later use Ok To take notes So journaling is like taking notes. So you are talking about journaling with lecturing In a lecture we hear that’s like note taking Yes that can also be a form of journaling Journaling can be in various ways So basically it’s using writing to aid in our thinking, in our analysing We will come back to that Thank you Yes Karthik It is writing down all our ideas about the day about the past Ok all our ideas about the day and about the past That’s one more thing.
It’s not just the events of the day but our ideas about the day That’s a very good point Thank you Ishan. So we will have any more girls who would like to speak Ok we will take one or two more Ok we have here Niyant Noting about people Observing and noting them down Ok observing and noting about people. Yes There are many people who we interact with.
Some people are interesting Some people want to understand more Yes thank you Yes ok. Last we will have Arshia Any important incident of your day and you are writing down so you could remember it forever Yes Write down so that you can remember it It’s like a It’s a memory put down in paper for us So journaling you could say it’s like a It’s like a verbal photograph Just like you have a picture photograph where we take a picture and a happy memory So picture photographs can serve in one way to help us remember But word photographs can also serve in a different way Ok we have quite a few hands Yes ok Abhishek did you speak We will take Abhishek and then Kirtida Kirtida and then we will stop Yes Journaling is keeping a diary or in order to express one’s thoughts Ok Keeping a diary to express our thoughts Wonderful thank you So Radhe has also made a comment over here Writing about the feelings you experience in a day so that you can reflect on them and observe and understand your own self Beautiful very well said Thank you Yes Kirtida Sorry I can’t hear you No no I can’t hear you I am sorry Maybe you have to check Hare Krishna Now I can yes Hare Krishna according to me journaling is like jotting down our own emotions which we go through the day Ok so what emotions we experience during the day we jot down about that Yes thank you This is an important part not just ideas but also emotions There are a few other comments also I will quickly read them Checking your mistakes and correcting them and then we have prioritize our problems, fears and provide an opportunity for self talk and identifying negative thoughts That’s writing our negative thoughts prominent thoughts of the day happy, sad, neutral, writing sentences that we want to achieve There is also writing down our secrets and our feelings we can’t express to others Beautiful All of you have a very good idea about what journaling is So now I will be talking about mainly three points today with respect to journaling since we can’t have everybody speaking I would love to have from all of you but this time won’t allow us So let me start with one or two figures to illustrate what journaling does Once we understand that we will come back to journaling and try to understand what is happening Sometimes when we go through life so many things happen in the day that it is very difficult to keep track of them and sometimes like one of you mentioned this point of self talk or there is a talk that is going on inside us, oh this person spoke like this, that person did like that this happened, that happened and there are so many thoughts going inside that we can’t think properly because of that so as long as thoughts are going inside the head then it prevents clear thinking but when we get those thoughts out of our head that itself makes thinking relatively easier so there is crowding inside our head so all of you talked about journaling in one way and that is important but there are other ways in which you can talk about journaling also so let me share this slide over here so the act of let’s see the act of expressing your deepest thoughts and feelings by putting words to your inner life and by putting these words on paper like you said we have thoughts and feelings which sometimes we can’t express to others or sometimes we ourselves are not clear sometimes we may feel that I am in a bad mood but I am myself not sure why I am in a bad mood but this happened, that happened, that happened so when we write what happens is we put words to our inner life okay what am I feeling I am sad, I am feeling lonely I am feeling unhappy, I am feeling angry so that’s one aspect of the feelings so when we put those words on paper what happens is they come out from inside and then it’s also building muscles it’s also just like we do body building if somebody attacks us externally we want to have a strong body but like that sometimes our emotions may attack us sometimes from inside we may get angry, we may get dejected so it’s an exercise so it builds our emotional muscles if we journal regularly then if somebody annoys us somebody upsets us we won’t get that much upset so journal can become a place where we express our emotions and then we process those emotions so talking about what all of you discussed just now I’ll talk about one way of journaling and then we’ll come back to other things again. There are many different there is no one way that everybody can journal but there are some ways which can be very helpful so this is one sample way of journaling which can help us on a daily basis everyday now there are so many events that happen we can’t possibly note all of them it will take a long time now what do we want to do by journaling? Not just record the events by recording the events we want to understand ourselves better.
Somebody is doing up to some mischief here let’s stop this ok now disable so what we do in journaling is if we have a day sometimes some good things happen to us sometimes some bad things happen to us so you see this y-axis x-axis and y-axis positive x-axis is good things that have happened good thing that happened to us and then the y-axis is negative x-axis is bad thing that happened so in a day many things may happen but what was the best thing that happened today what was the best thing that happened today and note it down and not just note down what was the best thing why did I feel that was the best thing sometimes we think in a day we are excited oh I am going to go to this place, I am going to meet this person I am going to do this activity we are excited about that and then maybe you are coming here to go to the eco village and you say ok we are going on a trek we will go on top of the hill and that will be so nice and then you come back after the day and you say actually we went and saw the cows and I spent some time that was what I liked the most so what happens is we thought this is what I would like, this would be the best part of the day but sometimes something else turns out to be the best part of the day so what happens by that we understand ourselves better so when we look at a day there are two things, some things happen to us and we do some things so among the things that have happened to us what was the best thing that happened and why did I feel it was the best when we do it this way then from that day we learn something see we all need to learn we have our subjects to study, we have to get marks, but the most important thing we can learn is about ourselves what are our strengths, what are our weaknesses, how can we function nicely so everyday we can learn something about ourselves by looking back at what happened in our life so the topic of this seminar was write it to write it so write things down to make things right there are many things which are off in our life so one way is we write down the best thing that happened second is that ok some bad things happen everyday and then what was the worst thing that happened today now isn’t that negative why should I write it down writing that down what will happen is we will be able to understand why did I feel this is so bad and I start analyzing this is not as bad as I thought that time I felt so worked up about it but I went and greeted my friend and my friend just neglected me, snubbed me I felt very bad about it maybe she didn’t notice me he didn’t notice me so let me find out what happened sometimes what happens is we make small things very big our mind does that and then I note it down this is why I felt so bad about it so then can we understand so I said that one easy way to journal is to when we look back at the end of the day look at what are the good things that happened and bad things that happened now another way we can do it is that as I said we interact in two ways some things happen to us and we do some things so we do some good things we do some bad things so what was the best thing that I did today if I look at it that way what are the best thing I did that will help us understand you know everyday time is passing I was trying to study for one hour I managed to study for one hour with no distraction it was good quality studies I am happy about it so note it down we will feel encouraged by that so what are the best thing I did and why did I feel why do I think it is the best by that we again understand ourselves and it encourages us to do it better again in future then there is another part is bad things sometimes we do some bad things now what was the worst thing that I did during the day what are the worst thing that I did ok now why write this down because we can learn from our mistakes that was one of the points you made so now why did why was this the worst thing what was so bad about this thing so then we understand these things I really don’t like so much so I don’t want to do those things so in this way when we journal we learn more about ourselves so we will come back I will just make two more points and then we will come back and we will do one exercise in journaling but here before we go back to the exercise I have one point to make is sometimes what we find is that it is almost as if there are two people inside us the two people inside us means we feel as if there is someone inside me who seems to be different from me so as I said sometimes we feel somebody speaking to us do this do this do this we feel some voices there inside and it is just going on and on and on so it’s good to separate that voice so split yourself to speak with yourself that means if I am very angry about something so is it I am angry or there is a part of me which is angry so inside us there are different parts so one of the parts we call as the monkey mind I will talk about it the monkey mind so what happens is split yourself okay there is a part of me which is saying you know that person snubbed me next time I am going to meet I am going to yell at that person next time I am going to snub that person next time I am going to show them this another part of me okay I should find out what happened maybe they didn’t intend to snub me maybe they had some bad thing happened to them and that’s why they were disturbed so split yourself means that our heart is there but there are different voices inside that heart different voices inside us so we make the journal as a dialogue sometimes our mind says you are such a fool you did such a terrible mistake sometimes something within us blames others and sometimes something within us blames ourselves also you are such a fool you made a terrible mistake you keep making this mistake you are useless there are voices that speak inside us so what happens is when we get that voice outside see imagine if somebody from outside some person came to us and told you are useless you are hopeless you are worthless you would feel insulted how dare you speak like this about me but but the same thing is spoken by this voice inside us and we don’t do anything just keep letting it go on we hear it and sometimes we believe it also so what you do is that you give a name to this voice inside you this is the monkey mind inside so you could call it simply the monkey mind the monkey mind is saying or we can give whatever name we like to it whatever character we like to it it’s not a bad character but it’s not a very good character also it’s not a villain but it’s not a hero also it is somebody who is more like a irritant somebody who keeps irritating us somebody who keeps disturbing us so give a name to that character so whenever we do something good when we are doing something good this monkey mind says come on this is so boring why do you want to keep doing this I remember the first time oh sorry let me come back to this the first time I gave a public talk now I give talks almost 500 talks every year but the first time I gave I think I was in the 6th and I was very nervous and so I went on the dais it was a public it was a location competition so I went on the dais and I started speaking and as I was climbing on the dais I heard a voice you are going to make a fool of yourself and look around who is saying that there was no one around I wondered what happened but that just unnerved me and whenever I become nervous I start speaking faster than normal some people stutter and stop I don’t stutter and stop I just start speaking faster than normal so I was supposed to speak for 7 minutes and I got on to the dais and I just began speaking like a super fast plane zoom it started racing and generally when we are if we are speaking in a way that people can’t connect with then two things happen people start looking at their watch now a days they will start looking at their phone if they have one they are looking at their watch or they start looking at their door where can I leave from here so I could see nobody was paying attention and then when nobody was paying attention I got more nervous and I started speaking faster so eventually that 7 minute talk I had prepared it rehearsed it more than a dozen times but that 7 minute talk I finished in 3 minutes and next 4 minutes I had nothing to do stare at the audience so it was so embarrassing but then afterwards many years later slowly I managed to deal with that fear and managed to speak but then many years later when I read the Bhagavad Gita then it struck me that voice that spoke inside me was my mind you are going to make a fool of yourself you are going to make a fool of yourself so when now I don’t usually become nervous when I am speaking but still sometimes when that voice starts speaking I identify it that is the monkey mind speaking now as soon as you identify that is the monkey mind speaking then what happens is it loses its power as soon as we think that that voice is my voice it gains power that is the monkey mind speaking what happens by that is like I said earlier if somebody came and insulted you somebody spoke negatively about you you will feel angry but if that somebody is inside and from inside it speaks then we become very upset we take it too seriously so when the voice is speaking from inside this is the monkey mind speaking so the monkey mind is speaking so what happens by this is that we we identify it then we can evaluate it the monkey mind is not a bad person the monkey mind is the part of us which gets very excited quickly, which gets very dejected quickly we are all children but you could say there is a there is another child inside us who is more emotional than you, more temperamental than you, goes up too quickly comes down too quickly so what we do is we want to identify that so this is the monkey mind I will show you one image for this monkey mind and then we will talk about the exercise that we are going to do so what this monkey mind is doing is it is constantly going round and round and round thinking about this and thinking about that so the mind is a monkey that makes us act like a donkey the mind is a monkey but when we listen to it it makes us act like a donkey so don’t let it make you a donkey when we listen to the monkey mind we do things, why did you do such a thing why did you do such a thing sometimes we are wise and sometimes we are otherwise otherwise we act in a foolish way so now how to avoid this just like a monkey it is restless it won’t stay at one place, it is jumping going here, going there now the monkey is restless like this, so what do we need to do for dealing with this monkey so this is the monkey mind and now you have seen this image of a monkey, so imagine that something like a monkey is there always jumping, always going here, always going there so now based on this till now I talked about one way of journaling what are the good things that happen what are the bad things that happen so now we can think about another way of journaling and this will be an exercise, you will have 5 minutes to do it 3 minutes, not 5 minutes so I would like you to write down 3 things 3 negative things that the monkey mind says to you, so it could be that you are studying this is too difficult for you to study just give it up now you are trying some new activity you are not good for it so our mind keeps speaking to us and may time it speaks negative things so what we are going to do is we first write down and then after writing it down we will talk about what we can do about it so if you can’t write 3 just write 1 1 is also good enough but 3 we will have some variety to choose from afterwards so you will have about 3 to 5 minutes now to write down some ways in which the voice inside you discourages you speaks negative things about you it could be you are too short, you are too tall you are too this, you are too that you are too fair, you are too dark there are so many things which the monkey mind says so write down 3 things like that which the monkey mind says inside you, the voice inside you keeps saying to discourage you so you are finished good just give 2 minutes more, we will wait for some time ok 1 more minute ok are you ready? good thank you so who all have not spoken till now yes Shivika would you like to speak oh you are right here Hare Krishna Prabhuji when I participate anything before participating my monkey mind always says me that you will always lose you will always lose Shivika oh ok so the monkey mind says you will always lose when you participate in a competition is it? ok yes ok thank you for sharing that it requires honesty to share that we will talk about how to deal with the monkey mind in a few minutes let a few of you let them share yes who else is there Naman is here Haribol Prabhuji so I have written down 3 things so many times when I get very angry my monkey mind says me that don’t eat don’t eat yes yes and then when and then many times it says to me you are the most foolish person and don’t attend classes oh ok so don’t attend classes because you will not understand because you are foolish one thing is related to the second thing and that way it reinforces and also whenever I like to participate in something many a times it discourages me by saying you will not be able to win your opponent is too good for you oh ok so it discourages you even before you start the fight you will not be able to win thank you for sharing yes Devaki Prabhuji my mind says if I do any hard work it says that you can’t do this you can’t do that you will not succeed my mind says you can’t do anything so it discourages me that you can’t do anything ok you can’t participate in any activities that is true so it is just constantly making you discouraged it just makes you feel negative that is true we will take two more Radhe would you like to share are you there I think we can’t hear you actually I am unmuting you you are getting muted again I don’t know we will come back to you yes Radhika yes Prabhuji whenever I get hurt I get mad I get my mind says that I get very angry like that and whenever I need something that time I get whenever I need something I ignore it oh ok so when you get hurt the mind says that oh you are terribly hurt like that so it increases the pain yes Prabhuji oh yes that is so true this makes things worse thank you thank you Prabhuji so Aditya yes Prabhuji I am not able to do my work on time because my monkey mind will not be able to do anything oh ok you are not able to do anything it is too difficult we will discuss how to deal with the monkey mind Radhe can you speak now I have unmuted you ok you are typing mic is not working it is too far fetched stop thinking that you can achieve it there are people who can do this better than you ok there is another thing we are comparing with others it is too far fetched so now thank you for sharing what the monkey mind says so now what happens is for all of us when the monkey mind speaks something like this what do we do so if we just listen to it it will discourage us and we will not be able to do anything in fact when I was asked to give this talk on journaling my monkey mind told me that journaling is too difficult and if you are speaking to children you will never be able to help them understand this but now I am so happy to see that all of you are so sharp you understood so many aspects of journaling so at that time I somehow neglected my mind the devotee told me please do this I said I will try it so what happens is when the monkey mind says something if we just believe it we just do it or we just go along with it then we lose many opportunities in life so how do we deal with this monkey mind it is if it is speaking we need to speak back to it not talk back in an argumentative way but just talk with it once again that’s what I will talk about and then we will do one more exercise in journaling and then we will that will be the last part of our talk here so I gave this image earlier this split yourself that means to speak with yourself there is this part inside me which is the monkey mind which is speaking so now this monkey mind is speaking now I have to speak it it has spoken something so this inner talk that is happening we can’t let it be just a one way talk the mind is speaking and we are listening we want it to be a dialogue, a discussion you are saying this but maybe it is not true so our relationship with our mind how do we do it model it on the relationship that has best helped you that may be a relationship with your friend with your best friend that may be a relationship with your teacher that may be a relationship with your parent so what happens is let me explain this in a diagram so when suppose this monkey mind said this to you you will never be able to do this others are able to do this much better than you suppose you told this to your mother or you told this to a teacher whom you like very much who likes you also very much what would that teacher speak to you so sometimes if you are not able to do something you will not be able to do this only you will not be able to play this game you will not be able to do this exercise so then imagine that there was a teacher who who you like, who likes you so what would she tell you how would the teacher speak to you so there is our, the monkey mind is like the student and our intelligence we all have some intelligence within us so that intelligence is with whom we speak so you could put it this way that here when the monkey mind speaks something negative it speaks something negative that intelligence can be like our teacher, it speaks something positive ok you will never be able to do this that’s what the mind is saying then what do you say ok let’s look back last time when we thought of this you had said that I won’t be able to do that also but I was able to do it yes this may be difficult but if I take, I can take one step and one more step I can take I can do it so look at your life and look at the person who has encouraged you the most in your life whenever you feel very insecure, you feel lack of confidence you feel fear so who encourages you and try to think of yourself or your intelligence as that person so if I was feeling like this what would that person say to me and then speak that back and then what we do is if there are some things which the mind keeps speaking constantly then you write down your answers you will never be able to do this then if that is what the mind is saying then write down some answers but last time I did this now every time you say it and because of that I miss out on opportunities or unless I try how will I know if I can do it or not do it or I like it, even if I don’t succeed in it, I will learn something just by trying there are many different answers we can give so write down those answers and keep those answers with you so what happens in this way when we have the answers ready for us next time the monkey mind starts speaking maybe you keep those answers in a small pocket diary with you and when the monkey mind starts speaking we may not remember it at that time but you write it down you have written it down, read it sometimes you can just read it, not just in your mind inside it, but read it softly read each word that you have written carefully, you may say that actually God has made everyone special God has also made me special so God Krishna has given me some abilities and he will help me do these things so we can whatever knowledge we have, whatever intelligence we have, when the monkey mind starts speaking we write to deal with it what you are saying, I understand you are afraid but what you are feeling is what you are afraid of is not true so you could have your teacher or you could even have your mother sometimes so the monkey mind is a child who is speaking negatively and then at that time we have our mind so whenever we feel afraid we go to our parent, we go to our mother and we ask her, we maybe go to our father and we ask him and then he encourages us she encourages us so what would she speak, we write that down so now that brings us to the last exercise we will do in journaling today and then we will ask you for the feedback this is, just now you wrote something down about what is the negative thing that the mind speaks to you so take, if you had written three, just take one of those and write down three ways in which you can counter that if you spoke that to some teacher, some encouraging teacher your parents what would they tell you how would they encourage you so the mind is speaking something negative to discourage so what would you speak so that you can encourage yourself so write three things down to counter the discouraging thing the mind is saying so you have three minutes for this and then we will have all of you speak also hope it is clear that when the mind is discouraging you you wrote down one or three things so take one of those things and how if, how would somebody who loves you, how would they respond to it, how would they encourage you so write down those three things ok, so yes who would like to speak ok, so what you wrote to counter whatever the negative thing the mind is speaking ok so yes, you have Atharva Prabhuji I have written for my first one that my monkey man told like you are not good like your other friends so I have written the solution everyone has their own ability and specialties given by Krishna so it is not necessary to be degraded so what ability you have beautiful so three things everybody is everybody has ability so don’t compare with others but look at what you have, yes if Krishna had wanted you to be someone else he would have made someone else Krishna has made you, you and Krishna has made the other person, the other person so you be the best you and let that other person be the best other person very nice, thank you thank you so who else who has not spoken till now Rajapriya yes Prabhuji my mind my mind was telling that let’s do this afterwards it’s boring so I said no, everything has a time and we should do our work, we should do that at in the time and we should not waste the time oh good so everything has its time, do it now we shouldn’t waste time you can also, if you do this now and you are free afterward you will feel so happy otherwise you may feel guilty afterward I didn’t do it, I don’t do it so quite happens you know when we listen to the monkey mind we feel bad afterward so that way let’s do it now, complete it, very nice point, thank you yes who else who has not spoken till now yes Ashim Hi Krishna Prabhuji like Prabhuji when I am cooking sometimes my mind will be saying add this more, add that more ok this is too less add more of this spice add that more so sometimes I add like that then the dish comes out to be very bad and then sometimes I say no, I did this last time I listened to you and this happened, my mother shouted and my parents got angry, so I will not follow the mind oh ok so you are remembering the consequences of listening to the monkey mind in the past and that’s why you are saying that no I won’t do this again that’s a good way, then you remember from the past also, otherwise what happens at that time when the monkey mind says something it makes us forget that ok this had happened, so writing down the consequence is very helpful thank you yes Aditi would you have you spoken till now or no would you like to speak something ok yes Krishna Priya Aditi if you want to speak let me know, you can raise your hand I will come back to you sir monkey mind Krishna Prabhuji just one minute who is one person Aditi you would like to speak Krishna Priya will come to you in a minute monkey mind changed his mind because he did not change his attitude never gets proud of anyone never gets proud no ok so how do you respond to that monkey mind changed his mind and he never gets proud of anyone oh ok so the monkey mind you feel is, it has become favorable, it has become so sometimes the monkey mind stops misbehaving and that is very good for us ok good, we have lot of lot who want to participate, yes Krishna Priya will come to, those who have raised their hand will come to them, yes Krishna Priya Hare Krishna Prabhuji yes Prabhuji when I try to wake up early my mind says that please sleep for 10 minutes, for 5 minutes so I say no I have to wake up for lord’s service ok I have to wake up for the lord’s service that’s nice, so generally you could also, I have a friend who has put that in their alarm clock sound itself, you have to wake up and serve Krishna, you have to wake up and chant Krishna’s name you have to wake up and dance for Krishna so the alarm is not just a sound, the alarm is this sound, in fact what he puts is, wake up and shine for Krishna wake up and shine for Krishna so I was staying in the we were in Mayapur, we were staying in the same room and he had put the alarm before me and suddenly I heard this, wake up and shine for Krishna it is a nice way to wake up thank you yes yes, Dimple would you like to speak yes hello Krishna, I am Rapaji, thank you for the wonderful class, Rapaji so what is, what my mind says is that the work which I am handling now is easy, the study which is a little hard for me is a very very hard so the answer I gave is, the study is actually easy because whatever we are studying we are already taught in the class and our parents are also helping us to learn it in the home also and actually this is for our benefit and but the easy thing which we do ultimately then it is of no use oh so you got solid reasons 2-3 different reasons, I have already studied and my parents are there to help and things which are easy are not that great also, yes, so these are sound reasons writing them down and keeping them with you will help when you don’t feel like studying yes yes, Srirang, would you like to speak I think it’s Srirang Srirang hello Krishna hello Krishna, yes sometimes like I while doing japa the TV is on and somebody is playing somebody is playing video games so my mind says that you should go there because there is nothing in doing japa, nothing will happen to you you just have to say this word, nothing will happen to you and then then then my intelligence says that no means like Krishna himself said that chanting Hare Krishna will get you back to Godhead so like that yes, so if you don’t feel like chanting you can write this down you can also write something from your experience there are times when chanting doesn’t feel that good you may have had some times when chanting really calms you down it makes you feel good so write write something from our experience write something from what our intelligence has heard in the past so combine it all together very powerful, thank you thank you Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, yes so we will have two more many of you would like to speak so who has not spoken now yes Priyansh would you like to speak 13 participants have raised hands, that’s amazing yes Subhraoji Hare Krishna Subhraoji, can you hear me yes, yes clearly so I wrote three things that we should chant so our mind should not be distracted and our mind always be calm then we we will be detached from the material things and second one I wrote is listen to intelligence and and and you and you will and if you and if you do bhakti, you will go to Krishna and your mind will always serve Krishna okay so you got several points down and sometimes one point we write 3-4 points and what happens is the mind doesn’t listen to one point but then it will listen to second point if it doesn’t listen to second point, it will listen to third point so if you have multiple points, then one of the points always works out it will work out, so we have more chances of persuading our mind okay, so it is wonderful so many of you participated now we have just a few minutes to finish I know many of you would like to share but we don’t have time, thank you for your enthusiasm does any of you have any questions any of you have any questions so I talked about 3 things, broadly 4 points in journaling we first discussed about what is journaling there are various ways to journal but journaling is like taking a picture of our day and when you go to special place, we don’t take pictures of everything we take pictures of important things so we can look back at the day what was the best thing that happened and why was it the best what was the worst thing that happened, why was it the worst what was the best thing I did and why and what was the worst thing I did and why so by that we can get like a picture the best, the most important parts of the day and the point here is not just to record the things but to learn about ourselves to those things okay, this is what is actually important for me this is how I tend to make mistakes how can I improve them that is one part I talked about it then that was about how we can journal then I talked about how there is this part inside us which keeps distracting us that is our monkey mind so then we look at what the monkey mind is speaking and if it keeps speaking inside us it may discourage us and we may not even notice it so journaling what we do is, we get it out that means we treat the mind like somebody else, like I gave a name monkey mind, so if somebody from outside spoke something like that to you then we would not just passively hear it, we would hear that person, we would talk with them, we would explain things to them, we would have a discussion so whenever this negative voice speaks inside it, treat it as a person, give it a name like a monkey mind and then speak with it so hear what it is speaking and then speak with it and not only speak with it now that you have written things down, this is the exercise, next time you catch your monkey mind speaking something, write down ways in which you can refute that and if you have, generally the monkey mind can speak many different things but there are about 5-10 things which it keeps speaking constantly to discourage us it has many many ways in which it can distract us but there are some common tracks common things it keeps speaking, so if you have a small pocket diary, in which there are 10 things the mind speaks to discourage you you have written those 10 things and you have written points to counter it so the next time when the monkey mind starts troubling you will have that ready, so Krishna says use your intelligence to control your mind, to calm your mind and that’s what you can do and that’s why journaling is not just about recording the events of your life but journaling is also preparing you for the future in your life in the future when the monkey mind starts troubling you, you are prepared to face it, you are prepared to counter it so that is a quick summary, is there any one question anyone has? yes, Arshia when you were starting the lecture you said that this monkey mind is sometimes good and also sometimes bad so you told about negativity but it can be positive also, so how to get that it is positive or negative ok, so when I say the monkey mind is positive also generally the mind, when you call it the monkey mind, what it means is that it doesn’t think it immediately wants to act so that is the characteristics of the mind, it doesn’t think much, it just acts now is that bad? yes, many times it can be bad, but there are some areas in which we are naturally good so some of us might be good in language, some of us might be good in music some of us might be good in decoration and then sometimes when you have to do something suddenly an idea comes up so there are some things which you are naturally good at and the first ideas that come up, they may not be the best, but they can be a very good starting point so all of us have some talent now what do we mean when we say talent, somebody has talent talent means they can do something fast and they can do something well they do it quickly and they do it with good quality so when some idea comes up like one of my services is writing so whenever I get a writing idea now right now I have been giving this talk, I got 3-4 ideas popped up in my head, I didn’t stop the talk to write down the idea, but I know they are good ideas so after this talk gets over I’ll note them down, maybe I’ll write about them in the future so generally when we say the monkey mind that it distracts us and most often it distracts us with negative things, but some things which we are good at, the mind uses good ideas also about it but what happens is, those good ideas may not always come at a good time say if I am sitting in a class and I am hearing suddenly the mind gives an idea about something it’s a good idea, but maybe that is not the time to do it so ok, it’s a good idea, I appreciate it we’ll think about it later, keep it there so that way especially in areas which we are good at some ideas pop up and that is when the mind acts like a friend but even as a friend who is giving us good suggestions, sometimes it distracts, so we can’t always keep saying no and rejecting the mind we say ok, I don’t know, this might be a good idea but let’s wait and talk later that way, ok thank you, good question yes anyone else has questions Shrirang, you have a question yes Prabhuji, I wanted to ask that sometimes like mind keeps saying and intelligence only acts when we get scolding or we get nervous so before that, sometimes I am not able to conquer the mind so how to overcome that ok so our intelligence starts working only when we get some scolding or we get into some trouble or something like that yes, that’s natural, gradually it works out, just like if there is a firefighter one of my friends has now become one of the top firefighters in Mumbai won several awards so he told me that the first time he went for firefighting he saw a big fire, he was trained, he saw a big fire and he had the fire hose which he used to put water he just became so panicky, he dropped the fire hose and then one of his older colleagues he said, pick it up, don’t panic like this and he picked it up, go there and do this so what had happened, at that time he saw the fire was so big and so fierce, he became fierce but he says now, over the years as I become more and more trained what happens is, when a fire comes immediately, yes the fire is dangerous but even I thought, ok the fire is going here it goes there, it will become a problem so let’s attack the fire from here so what happens is, as we keep doing the thing, we start becoming more and more trained at it not just keep doing, but we keep doing and try to learn from it we become better and better at it and when we become better and better then we will do it faster and faster so yes, sometimes the intelligence becomes active only after we face some trouble or get some scolding but right now what we did was like a proactive exercise we anticipate, what is the mind likely to speak and how can I counter it so now if you keep doing that at the end of the day you can say, when did my monkey mind distract me ok, this is what speaks and distracts, let’s prepare for it so, as we start hearing what the mind is speaking and then we prepare our intelligence for that that way we can become more trained in it and so, sometimes we learn after we get the consequences but sometimes we prepare and then we avoid the consequences and that’s how we can improve better ok? Thank you very much so yes, there is one question about, are there any videos or books on it yes, I have a course on journaling we will ask, we will send a link to that course to all of you some information about that course so there is a lot more, there are a couple of on my YouTube channel there are a couple of podcasts about this those video links, I am just sending below right now ok, yes, any other questions anyone else? Satya, you have a question? yes, please I was wondering you talked about journaling in a general way so I was wondering if there is specific time to journal, for example should we journal everyday or once in two days or once a week or whenever something happens with the mind, is there any specific time? ok, is there specific time to journal? my understanding, the important thing is not so much the time it is the utility, how we can best use it so, whichever time works best for us, that’s fine so, sometimes we at the end of the day, we look back and analyse that’s good but sometimes at the end of the day, you might feel too tired then maybe in the morning when we wake up after we have done our basic things just take five minutes out and just journal about what you are thankful for what you are looking forward to it depends, some people find journaling at the start of the day helpful some people find it at the end of the day helpful I know one friend who journals in the lunch break because he says, ok, I had about half an hour, 45 minutes for lunch break in 30 minutes I will take my lunch and then in the middle of the day, running around doing things just calm down a little bit, journal so, that helps a lot so, it depends, whatever works for you ok thank you yes, now I see several hands raised are these for questions or these were hands from before raised for the feedback points or the responses Devaki, you have a question? yes, Swapuji I have a question that sometimes when I hear to my mind then my mind becomes stronger and then my intelligence becomes weak so then in that situation I can’t listen to my intelligence or I can’t follow what my intelligence says, so how can I conquer in that situation or what I should do in that situation ok, sometimes the mind is so strong that you just can’t hear it that our intelligence doesn’t function in front of it that’s why at that time start with something small that means that if the mind says this subject is so difficult you will not be able to study it it’s impossible for you ok, if you can’t study it then let’s start with something simple, can I study one chapter in this? ok yeah, one chapter I can do it ok, one chapter, even this is 10 pages in this, maybe you can complete 5 pages in 1 hour, next 5 pages in 1 hour ok, in 2 hours can you do this? so generally what happens, when the mind is making this problem seem very big so cut the problem down, make it into small pieces if you want to eat a watermelon, just take the full watermelon open your mouth the watermelon can’t go into the mouth what do we do? cut it, cut it, cut it so what happens is the mind just shows us the whole big problem and even the smallest any problem, when you see the whole big problem, it can seem very big but cut it down into small parts and then we will be able to deal with it much better so the intelligence sometimes the problems are big but we don’t have to deal with all the problems at the same time just let’s break it down into small problems and deal with it so intelligence, that way you can activate your intelligence ok, thank you so there was one question here that if there is some bad thing has happened and you want to forget it, so how to do that? that’s a good point unfortunately if you have a phone on which some bad thing is there or you have a laptop, you can have a delete button press the delete, it gets deleted but our memory or our brain doesn’t have a delete button but what we can do is there is no delete but there is something called closure closure means that if something bad has happened, we try to make it, make ourselves understand it, ok this is what happened, this is why I made this mistake or this is why this person did like this, so sometimes you talk with somebody, talk with our parents or some friends, so why would they have done, why did this happen to like this or even try to analyze, why did I speak like this, ok, in that situation this had happened, this had happened and that’s why I did this or that’s why this person might have done like this and then try to gain some understanding of it and then once you have understood ok, this is in the past it is over, so sometimes the memory may remain but it’s like sometimes say, we fall down we get some injury and that injury might cause some small scar on the body but the injury is gone in the sense that there is no more pain over there but the scar is still there the scar may take some time to go but if you keep thinking, oh I got the scar over here, I got the scar over there then I’ll suffer so much but ok, the scar is there it will take its own time, it will heal I will not think so much about it so what you could do is that if the memory pops up ok, something has happened you try to make sense of it ok, why did this happen, what did I do wrong how could I have done it right what can I learn from it and once you learn from it treat it like a closed box it’s a closed box so generally what it can do is you analyze the event and then once you analyze the event it’s like you put it in a closed box and put the box aside you can’t throw the box out of the house but you don’t have to let whatever is in the box if there is dirt in the house it’s not that every day we will go out and throw the trash every day we clean it, we put it in the trash can and one day we take the trash and throw it away so like that every day we journal, what happens is that day’s dirt, we put in the trash so it’s a trash, it’s a sealed box but things don’t spill out so one way to bring that closure is to hand it over Krishna, this is what I did in that day, you can bring good even out of the bad things even if I made some mistakes Krishna, you can bring good even out of the mistakes, so I’m sorry this happened, this is a bad thing that happened to me, but you will bring something good out of it, I hand this over to you, so writing it to understand it put it in a closed box in our imagination and then hand it over to Krishna Krishna, you bring whatever good you want out of this you’ll find that that way can get closure much more easily so thank you, so one last question now and then we’ll stop here who has not asked anything till now anyone would like to ask till now ok, Krishna Priya Hare Krishna Prabhu Hare Krishna Prabhuji, how to be self-confident, like in my school, when I go on the stage, if there is a program, I get nervous so how to be self-confident ok, how to be self-confident confidence generally comes by three things there is ability, there is faith and there is experience so let’s take something very physical see if I want to lift a weight now if my capacity is to lift 5 kg and then somebody gives me 50 kg weight and I say I am confident I lift 50 kg no, that is not confidence that is foolishness so, first there is ability so we have to be honest with ourselves can I do this can I say speak on the dais, well I speak with people constantly speaking on the dais is not something dramatically different, yes I have to speak louder I have to be more prepared, but ok I have the ability, so look at what is the level of ability we have, that’s the first thing, then what is the experience I have having ability is raw it is something, ok I have done this before, maybe I have spoken with 5 friends before I spoke and they heard now there are going to be 25 people but I have spoken, so ability experience and then the third is faith faith means what faith generally faith is, we want some result but we are not sure whether we will get it or not, if faith is usually connected with something that is out of our control, something that is in the future I have faith this will happen so we need faith in ourselves, but the best way to have faith in ourselves is by seeing that we are parts of Krishna so when Krishna has a plan for us, Krishna wants all of us to be the best that we can be and does that mean that every time we do something we will get success no, not necessary, sometimes we get success and instead of saying other times we get failure we can say we get feedback failure means oh I lost but feedback means I just got a result that I didn’t want I got a result different from what I wanted so what happened, when I went there I forgot this point now why did I forget this point maybe I hadn’t prepared enough or maybe I started looking too much at one person that person was looking very scary and I became alarmed, maybe I should have looked at someone else, looked at someone who is more friendly and then I would have felt confident so we learn from it so whether we succeed or we fail, we can grow through both, so faith doesn’t mean that we always succeed faith means that if I do my best, I will grow and Krishna will help me grow so generally if you feel lacking in confidence, you look at these three things, do I have the ability do I have some experience and do I have the faith so whatever is lacking, we try to work on that if I find the ability is less maybe train myself a little bit more experience is less, then maybe try to gain some experience some small thing which gives the experience and then try to have faith if you chant or read the Bhagavad Gita, read Krishna’s stories you will find that faith will also improve enormously thank you for that wonderful question yes, Hari Priya Hare Krishna Prabhuji when I was when I was at a stage program I was at a stage program I eventually I made a mistake that time at a stage and there was a singing program, I made a mistake so I was so scared that I stopped singing that time whenever I make a mistake I always stop I stop at that time I don’t I just get too nervous whenever I am at a so when you stop at that time what are the thoughts going on inside you oh I made a mistake so everything is ruined now or is it what does the monkey mind say at that time after you made a mistake what does it say my monkey mind says that I don’t have anything I will and fail that’s why that’s all it says so here it’s important to remember that see when we make a mistake the first mistake is not as troublesome is not as damaging as the second mistake what do I mean by the second mistake I made a first mistake I was dancing and suddenly something happened I didn’t do it properly so now it’s like say if I was walking and suddenly I didn’t notice so my head bump into the door now it’s hurting now my head is bumping into the door it’s hurting I might be annoyed why is my head hurting like this but would I go and hit my head again just because I hit it for the first time that’s stupid why would you do that first time we did it but we wouldn’t do it again but unfortunately what happens is that is what our mind makes us do you made a first mistake therefore you are useless now stop doing it it’s like you hit once now let’s hit again now we don’t have to do that so I made a mistake everybody makes mistakes but that doesn’t mean everything is over everything is lost maybe one way to see the we as souls are here the mind is here and the body is here so when we get too caught in the mind there are two ways to get out of the mind one is come down to the level of the body or go up to the level of the soul so come down to the level of the body means when the mind is speaking too much speaking too loudly speaking too fast completely consuming us so just take three deep breaths just focus on the breath get out the way to get out the mind is get into the body get into the body means focus on your breath as soon as you focus on your breath now you say I just stopped dancing over there and things are messed up how can I breathe no three breaths won’t take a lot of time just when you breathe that way what happens get out of your mind and then you will realize one mistake happened I don’t have to make another mistake over it let me continue so generally the first mistake doesn’t make things as bad as the second mistake and the second mistake usually is giving up because of the first mistake so we all make mistakes if I am giving a talk sometimes I forget a point sometimes I start one sentence and then I get another thought so I start the second thought so at that time I think maybe I should have started with the second thought first but ok I forgot to start with the first thought doesn’t matter so it’s like say if I wanted to go in this direction I went in this direction but just because I have got in this direction doesn’t mean I will stop flying ok from here I can turn back one of my friends is a pilot and he told me that so he often flies from Mumbai to New York so he told me that more than 90% of the time the plane is off course because it’s going so fast the wind pressure is there the clouds are there the atmosphere is there so the plane goes off course 90% of the time it is off course then how does it get to the destination it is it repeatedly gets it back on course so every time the plane goes off course it doesn’t have to come back to Mumbai and start again it goes off course, from where it has gone come back on course so don’t see a mistake as something which is so terrible that I have to quit, a mistake means gone off course slightly gone off course, no need to come back to starting point come back on course from where we are we can come back on course so that way let the mind, ok, we made a mistake but don’t listen to it so much that you may make things worse so writing that down also so for example, if you write down in a journal you can write down so much that, so you can write down ok, whenever I feel agitated let me take some deep breaths or you can just, let me chant Krishna’s name Krishna, Krishna, Krishna if you chant, I said you can go down to the body or you can go up to the soul you chant Krishna’s name, you will go up to the soul calm down and then you can deal with the mind ok thank you thank you Prabhuji Sneha you want to ask something Hi Krishna Prabhuji Hare Krishna Prabhuji I got burnt on Diwali with fire so I, on my back so now I am I am scared from fire so how do I get escaped from this thing oh sorry to hear this you are burnt with fire on Diwali is it yeah that’s bad actually when I was a child also I was burnt very badly by fire you can see this over here, permanent drill so I was also very scared in my childhood yes generally generally the danger see there is if there is danger somewhere fear is not always a bad thing because fear protects us from danger that is good but sometimes what happens is the fear comes even when there is no danger that is a problem that means if I am if I am going to put my hand in fire and if I don’t feel any fear that is foolishness because my hand will get burnt but if I am here and the fire is 10 feet away or 5 meters away and I start feeling fear so when so the problem is not fear because fear can protect us from danger but the problem is fear even when there is no danger so the way to deal with that fear is to slowly take steps forward so if I see a fire I start feeling fearful and the fire is say 10 feet away from me right now then I can’t go anywhere near that fire ok so 10 feet away can you go 1 feet closer so 10 feet can you go 9 feet ok I can go can you go 1 feet more no not today ok so what happens is next day you can try it few days later you can try it so the idea is that slowly increasing going into the situation that we feel afraid about not we put ourselves in danger not that we put our hand in fire but when there is fear in spite of the danger slowly increase our exposure to that situation by then what happens we start seeing that actually there is no I thought there is a big trouble but I saw there is no trouble only and slowly that’s where the fear goes down so gradually increase the exposure to whatever causes us fear some people have fear of claustrophobia they have fear of lifts they can’t just get into elevators or lifts can you go 1 feet closer 1 feet closer can you get into the elevator we will not close the doors we will go into the elevator come out ok good you went into the elevator so slowly increasing the exposure so fear or you can put it another way now courage is not the absence of fear courage is actually the presence of purpose the presence of intention even when there is fear yes I am afraid but still I will do this and as you do this then there is real courage increases by that thank you yes yes do you want to ask something Hare Krishna Prabhuji Prabhuji how to control the mind when it is discouraging us ok how to control the mind I think we discussed one point was that write things down write specific points about how to ok this is the discouraging this is how using our intelligence 1 2 3 points this is not really true that is specifically countering the discouragement and also can you just add me to the group that you sent the link because my father registered for it so what is the group’s name can you just add me I have registered and also the slideshow that you presented today can you send that in the group ok I will do that sure we will send it to you thank you so apart from the discouragement so specific discouragement you can counter but Krishna says you can also do two things abhyasa and vairagya what that means is feeding and fencing feeding and fencing say if you have a small pet now if you want the pet to grow what do you do you feed it good food and then you protect it you have a fence so that it doesn’t run away nor does it some other dangerous creatures come and take it so what we need to do is if our mind is very negative then feed it positive things that means hear stories about Krishna chant some shlokas read some good things so feed it positive that is abhyasa and fencing fencing means why has the mind become negative maybe because there are some negative people in our life and they keep speaking negative things and we have heard that again and again and now the mind has started repeating so if you find that there are negative people around you then fence the mind we don’t have to be we don’t have to be impolite or rude with them we don’t have to spend too much time with them so that way also by feeding and fencing the mind’s negativity will start going down and then it won’t discourage us so much okay thank you yes Ishaan Hare Krishna Guruji so whenever I the monkey mind tells when I am doing something and it discourages me so I try to encourage myself but I am unable to do that so what to do in that situation okay so if we want to encourage the monkey mind discouraging what can we do generally start with something very small so the when the mind is discouraging the way to counter the discouragement is to do something that is doable so I write books and sometimes when I think about writing a book I feel like I have to write 50,000 words how will I write it I get discouraged so then what I decided is actually writing is nothing but just writing one word at a time so sometimes when I feel discouraged I just decide that okay right now for the next 6 minutes no phone no messages nothing I am just going to write for 6 minutes now why 6 minutes now 6 minutes is not so small that I can’t write anything and 6 minutes is not so big I have to sit for hours and think what I am going to write so if I am going to write something on the Ramayana in 6 minutes I can just write down if I write down for 6 minutes okay did that I can write for 6 minutes book so the way to avoid discouragement is to make I call it as SSS small simple steps small simple steps take small simple steps and when you do it then we can encourage ourselves good job and you can thank Krishna thank you Krishna for letting me do this and then like that small steps if you keep taking then the discouragement of the mind will go down gradually okay yes Radhika you had a question or you already asked yes certainly we will do that okay so how to avoid negativity in our surrounding life how to stay steady very good question so the first thing is we can’t control people some people are negative they are negative but what we can do is we don’t have to give them too much of our mental time mental time means that I don’t have to keep thinking about them yes some people just speak negatively all the time but when I keep thinking about them more and more it becomes worse I am giving them time I am letting them stay inside my house inside my mind actually inside my head so what do we do is if some people are just taking too much time inside our head think of some people whom we like who are positive think of them more and avoid thinking about them so minimize the time we spend with negative people and minimize the time we think about negative people and how do we do that by having positive people to spend time with having positive people to think about and as far as steadiness is concerned the steadiness comes by having something to hold on to say if I am in a if I am in a ocean and waves are coming when the waves are coming the waves will come and they will sweep me no matter how strong I am if a big wave comes I cannot just by my strength stop that wave I will be swept away so if I want to be steady it is not by fighting the wave it is by finding an anchor finding something to hold on to I was in Canada I was giving a class once and I talked about how the tsunami came and swept everything away and after that one boy came and met a young man so 20-22 he said that actually he was in Sri Lanka when the tsunami had come and he was actually on the beach and he saw the tsunami coming and he started running and then what happened was as he was running the wave came and hit him and the wave struck him but it went and hurled him against a tree it hurled him against the tree and he caught hold of the tree and then suddenly the whole land around him became water but he held on to the tree and because he held on to the tree he survived so that tree was quite a sturdy tree so the tree didn’t get swept away by the tsunami so the point is he couldn’t stop the tsunami he couldn’t fight against the tsunami but he was able to hold on to a tree so for us to be steady we have to find out something that we can hold on to by hold on to what do I mean? when I feel agitated what can I do? maybe if I hear some nice Krishna music I feel calm so I’ll keep the Krishna music ready with me whenever I feel depressed, whenever I feel negative whenever I feel angry that is my anchor, I hold on to that or if I like some shlokas if I like to hear some stories then maybe I keep a recording of the stories I keep the book with the stories, just read it then that is my anchor so find out an anchor that we can hold on to and once we have that anchor that is how we will become steady ok so there are lot of questions, I don’t know Avina Avina Vishnu Yes Prabhuji Hare Krishna Prabhuji Prabhuji I wanted to tell that whenever I am in stage or I am in audiences in school and I speak a speech or something I get very shy in front of the audience and I my mind gets seized so how to control that seizing and how to not to get shy when you are in front of the audience ok because that shyness comes from my mind yes so there are 2-3 ways you could do it to avoid shyness when we are in front of people it is one thing is that public speaking is not much different from private speaking if you are speaking with one person or two people you won’t feel so shy isn’t it? like right now you are speaking there are so many people who are hearing but you are not feeling shy why? because you are in a group so you are not the main speaker but still you have the courage to speak and express your mind express your heart so you are doing that so generally don’t see public speaking as something very different from private speaking it is just it is spoken little more loudly and also spoken a little more carefully you are more organized, more prepared when you are speaking so first thing is don’t see it as something very different second is that generally the problem comes you see there are so many people what will they think about so instead of thinking of so many people look at 2-3 people in the audience if you know them, if they are your friends just speak to them look at them maybe if you are going to speak for 5 minutes you decide for 1 minute I will look at this person, 1 minute I will look at that person just look a little bit around, don’t focus on them so if you are speaking with somebody who you know who also knows you, who likes you who encourages you spending most of your time looking at them will calm you down that unfamiliarity will not be there otherwise if you feel I don’t know anyone in the audience then one way to deal with it is to look between 2 people both will think you are looking at them but you are looking in between them so it is only when you feel there are so many people that is what fills us with worry but if you see ok there is this one person here one person here, one person there and I am all speaking to one person at a time so if you see it that way the fear goes down a lot and lastly as far as the shyness or the fear that is concerned we should always know that the audience is with us what do I mean the audience is with us that means not that the audience is going to agree with everything that we say but the audience wants us to speak properly they have come to hear and they don’t want a person who gets they want us to give the best speech we can so in that sense don’t think that they are they will be happy if we feel that they are against us no they are with us so public speaking we can become shy but small steps if you take small steps then it is possible to overcome that shyness and especially again writing down helps that if in the past you have spoken ok I may not have spoken to 50 people but I have spoken to 10 people how was that experience, write it down see I was able to speak to 10 people and I can speak to 50 people also so writing down things helps a lot so when the shyness comes from the mind write it down before, prepare yourself and then you will be able to speak ok thank you thank you is it Jagannath you have a question Jagannath Hare Krishna Prabhuji Prabhuji am I audible yes clearly Hare Krishna Prabhuji I have a doubt when we are negative how to become positive when we are negative yes I think it is correct we discussed that isn’t it whenever negative thoughts are there write them down see how you can counter them for the exercise we did and I also talked about feeding and fencing the mind very broadly three things if you do it is relatively easy to counter those negative thoughts ok yes Chaitanya and then we will have Ashim then we will stop yes Prabhuji can you admin the group can you admin the group I have two questions how should I chant Krishna’s name attentively and how should I keep also determined if I see something very hard my mind says give it up you cannot do that Hare Krishna chanting is a big subject my understanding would be start with whatever level of attentiveness we can have and know that even if we can’t be attentive that doesn’t mean it is a failure just the attempt to be attentive is also improving our self control it is improving our concentration it is increasing our purification so sometimes we try and we can’t focus on chanting our mind is wandering too much now Krishna also knows our mind is wandering too much so what Krishna sees is how much are we trying how much are we desiring Krishna I want to concentrate but I am not able to so if we are trying even if we don’t succeed even through that also we become purified just try and if you keep trying that itself is success in chanting and as far as determination is concerned it is something which grows incrementally that means that determination is also like a muscle that determination like a muscle means if I have a certain capacity to do things I can lift this much weight if I have to lift more weight it will require some practice so instead of thinking of determination as 1 or 0 or I just don’t have determination or this is too difficult I won’t be able to do it look at our lives and see what are the areas where we are able to do things which others find difficult and there are areas where we are good at things and we can do things which others find difficult so it’s not that we lack determination we all have determination it is just directed in different directions and sometimes the determination may not be directed in the directions where we want it to be so what do we do is look at the areas in which we have determination and based on that appreciate this muscle some people may have some muscles in their body developed very well some people if they do some martial arts they can kick very easily but if they have to punch their punches don’t have much strength so like that different people all of us we are determined in different areas so what we do is we look at the areas in which we have determination and by that we gain confidence it’s not that I don’t have it it’s in this area I have it and how do I get it in this area in small simple steps I have done this much can I do this much so if I want to study if I want to exercise if I want to chant if I want to wake up early small simple steps and when you take small simple steps don’t devalue them it’s a small thing what difference is it going to make no it’s going to make a difference yes I did this it’s good so one of the ways to develop determination is to appreciate and thank when we act in a determined way appreciate ourselves not in an egoistic way but yes it was tough and you did it well and then thank Krishna thank you for Krishna for giving me the strength to do this and then gradually we will find that our determination will increase so Subala you can have that last question I think I really had to all of you have been waiting for a long time so we will end I talked about feeding and fencing so chanting is like food for the mind it is healthy food so the mind is different from the body when we don’t give the body food it just becomes weak and weak means it becomes inactive but for the mind if my mouth is closed food is not going into my body but the mind is not like that the mind is in one sense always something is going inside it and it is constantly being fed the thing is that often it is being fed with negative energy so when the body is not fed it becomes weak when the mind is not fed, if you are not consciously feeding the mind then unconsciously it is being fed things and then the mind doesn’t become weak, it becomes strong or obstinate in unwanted direction so the mind is always eating, the only question is what is it eating, is it consuming something good or is it consuming something bad so when we are chanting, we are consciously feeding the mind positive healthy stimuli and then the mind’s energy will be positive, it will be constructive constructive energy means that we will feel energetic to do good things but if we are not feeding the mind good things then it is getting fed negative things from so many different areas then it will have a lot of energy for doing negative things but it will have very little energy for doing positive things so basically we can say the holy name of Krishna chanting is like a spiritual super food it’s holy name of Krishna is like a spiritual super food for the mind and when we feed it then the mind gets filled with positive energy, then whatever good things we need to do in our life, we will find we will have much more energy to do those things ok ok ok so now Ashim I think you have been waiting for a long time this will be the absolute last question I don’t want to keep all of you waiting Ashim you want to ask something yes Prabhuji Hare Krishna thank you for the wonderful class Prabhuji Prabhuji my question was that you have such a busy schedule you have so many things to do but like how do you manage to do everything because I find it very difficult to finish all my tasks in a day but how can you manage all your things so well how do you manage your time ok that is a challenge for everyone in general the best way to manage time I won’t say that I am particularly good at it but the best way to manage time is to give time first to the most important things so if we do that nobody can expand time say if I am going for a journey say if I am flying from here to America and I have a suitcase and now if I want to put everything in my cupboard in my suitcase it feels impossible because it is impossible sometimes you may see in some cartoons some people they fill the suitcase and then they it’s so full that they can’t they can’t lock it then they sit on the suitcase and try to press it and lock it so you can’t put the whole house into a suitcase because a suitcase has a finite capacity so our day is like that it is a finite capacity it is like a suitcase so this is my suitcase for today so now but the problem is if I don’t fill a suitcase the suitcase will stay empty but our day is not like that if we don’t fill it consciously consciously it will fill up automatically if we don’t plan ok I am going to do this this this it’s not that we have to plan every single minute but unless we at least plan out time for important things what will happen is it will just fill with anything and everything so that’s why start with the most important things and in general we can’t have a very rigid schedule some of us may be very organized like that but we have to find out what level of planning works for us so start with ok in this day these three things say are very important for me I have to do them those three are the first things in my suitcase they have to go first ok I made time for these three things and then ok now there are three more things which can fit in over here ok these three things I will do in this time so once your mind is clear that ok these are the important things these are second more important things these are third more important things so even if I can’t do some things because life is unpredictable sometimes suddenly things come up sometimes our own mood changes so much that we just become dysfunctional because of that mood change so ok it doesn’t have to be I did nine things or I did zero things so nine doing all nine things is almost is very difficult life is not in control we are not so much in control of our life by nine I mean nine major things but it doesn’t have to be nine or zero if I have a clarity these are three most important things whatever happens I will make sure I do those things these are next three next important things I will try my best to do these things if I get time I will do these things also so generally planning is more for giving us a sense of direction than giving us a path if say now I am in Govardhaniko village I want to go to Mumbai so if I am moving in a car the car will have google map you can go by this path but suppose there is a traffic situation there is a traffic jam it’s not that I have to go by that path or no I can go by this way I can turn I can go this way I can turn and I can go this way also but I have a direction where I want to go so planning is more about giving us a sense of direction and plans may not work that means sometimes you make a plan and it just doesn’t work because that’s how things are but planning still works planning gives us a sense of direction this is the direction I want to go in so overall planning means that not that this time I have to do this it’s good if you do that but even if you can’t at least have a sense of priority these are the most important things I have to do in this day and then these things and then gradually we see how best things work for us so time management means actually it’s not time management it is priority management it is understanding what are the most important things for us and starting with them and gradually other things fall in place so thank you very much for your thoughtful questions and it’s wonderful being with you I like how all of you journaled so enthusiastically and spoke very intelligent points all the best for you in your journaling and in your future Hare Krishna