Psychological effects of the offences, lecture 1
Bhakti Vijnana Goswami · Bombay · 2015
Chapters
Introduction to the lecture topic
Hare Krishna. Very happy to see everyone. But first I wanted to do some disclaimer. I was not planning to give anything this session and basically I was gently pushed into it yesterday by Gouranga Prabhu.
So uh the very fact that I'm here in front of you is the act of unwilling service from my side. The only reason why I agreed to this, I mean there are so many reasons why I didn't want to do this.
Uh I'm fasting and I just came yesterday and I'm totally unprepared. Uh but the only reason why I agreed to this first of all of course my greatest respect to him and his endeavor to fill up the space in the GBC college.
And the second reason is that the topic is uh uh offenses and because I have a lot of experience in this field I agreed to do this. I thought that it will be very authoritative presentation based on experience.
Anyway, uh Gauranga Prabhu asked me to speak something about the results of the offenses which we all uh can experience in one way or another. And the psychological distortion towards
bhakti which is a result of offenses this is described in great detail by Jīva Gosvāmī in Bhakti-sandarbha, but I will read first the verse from Sri Caitanya-caritāmṛta from Antya-līlā chapter 4, text 71, and then try to
elaborate on this. namaḥ oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-pṛṣṭhāya bhū-tale śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine नमस्ते सरस्वती देवि गौर-वाणी-प्रचारिणे निर्विशेष-शून्यवादी-पाश्चात्य-देश-तारिणे
हे कृष्ण करुणा-सिन्धु दीन-बन्धु जगत्-पते गोपेश गोपिका-कान्त राधा-कान्त नमो ऽस्तु ते तप्त-काञ्चन-गौराङ्ग राधे वृन्दावनेश्वरी वृषभानु-सुते देवी प्रणमामि हरि-प्रिये वाञ्छा-कल्पतरुभ्यश्च कृपा-सिन्धुभ्य एव च
पतितानां पावनेभ्यो वैष्णवेभ्यो नमो नमः Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare
Scriptural glorification of the holy name
Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare the verse from Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta is reads as follows: nāma-cintāmaṇiḥ kṛṣṇaś caitanya-rasa-vigrahaḥ pūrṇaḥ śuddho nitya-mukto 'bhinnatvān nāma-nāminoḥ
Of the nine processes of devotional service, the most important is always to chant the holy name of the Lord. If one
does so, avoiding the ten kinds of offenses, one very easily obtains the most valuable love of Godhead. Purport by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Maiti, Sruti Puranadi Vishrutihi Ata Eva Kalu Swabhata Evatinesu Lokesu
Avirphuya Tana Anya asanaiva tatatiuga gata maha sadhana nam sarvameva palam dadana sakritarthayati yata Eva, Tayva Kalo Bhagavat, Visheshatos Bhavati. Sorry, translation.
Chanting the holy name is the chief means of attaining love of God. This chanting or devotional service does not depend on any paraphernalia nor on one's having taken birth in a good family.
By humility and meekness, one attracts the attention of Krishna. That is the verdict of all the Vedas. Therefore, if one becomes very humble and meek, he can easily attain the lotus feet of Krishna in this age of Kali.
That is the fulfillment of great sacrifices, penances and austerities because when one achieves ecstatic love of God he attains the complete perfection of life.
Therefore, whatever one does in executing devotional service must be accompanied by the chanting of the holy name of the Lord.
The chanting of the Holy Name of Krishna. Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma, Rāma, Hare Hare, Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma, Rāma, Hari, Hari has been praised by Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī in his Namashtaka verse number one.
The quote was over before. Nikila Syuti Mauli Ratnamala Diutini Rajatapada Pankajanta Ay Mukta Kularu Pasyamanam Paritaswam Harinama Sam Shrayani.
O Harinam, the tips of the toes of your Lotus feet are constantly being worshipped by the glowing radiance emanating from the string of gems known as the Upanishads, the crown jewels of all the Vedas. You are eternally adorned by liberated souls such as Narada and Shukadev, Bogarinam. I take complete shelter of you.
Similarly, Śrī Sanātana Gosvāmī has praised the chanting of the holy name as follows in his Brihad Bhagavandavlita.
All glories of glories to the all blissful holy name of Shri Krishna, which causes the devotee to give up all the conventional religious duties, meditation and worship.
When somehow or other uttered, even once by a living entity, the Holy Name awards him liberation, the Holy Name of Krishna is the highest highest nectar. This is my very life and my only treasure.
And Srimad Bhagavatam Sukadeva Gaswami says that Tan Nirvidya Mananaanam Namvi Chatama Kutobayam Yogi Nam Nripan Nirviam Nirvi Nirnitam Harernamanukirtanam.
Noking constant chanting of the holy name of the Lord after the ways of great authorities and is the doubtless and fearless way of success for all including those who are free from all material desires, those who are desirous of all material enjoyment And those who are self-satisfied by dint of transcendental knowledge.
In Srimad Bhagavatam Yamaraja says that avan evaluam dharma parasmi Devotional service beginning with the chanting of the holy name of the Lord as the ultimate religious principle for the living entity in human society.
Similarly, Sri Chaitanya Mahabrabhu has said in his Shikshastakam. Trinada Pisunichina Tarori Vasa Hishnuna Amani na manadina kirtaniya sadhari.
One should chant the holy name of the Lord in a humble state of mind, thinking oneself lower than a stroll in a street.
One should be more tolerant than a tree, devoid of false sense of false prestige and ready to offer all respects to others.
In such a state of mind one can chant the holy name of the Lord constantly, regarding the ten offences, chanting of the holy name in the chanting of the holy name, one may refer to Adilila chapter 8, text 24.
Again the verse Taramadi Sarva Sreshtanamasam kirtan miraparadinamalloi. Pai pra madan. Of the nine processes of devotional service, the most important is to always chant the holy name of the Lord.
If one does so avoiding the ten kinds of offenses, one very easily obtains the most valuable love of God.
Distinguishing sins from aparadha
Again, I have to say in the very beginning that I feel very awkward that I am speaking in front of such a illustrious assembly of devotees and I need you at least good wishes and blessings to say something worthwhile.
Um We all have heard the glorification of the holy name of the Lord. The amazing powers of the glory name of the holy name of the Lord. Again and again it is being repeated.
The question here in front of us, and we all know the answer to this question, which makes it even more difficult to speak about. Why we do not have the taste for the holy name? And we all know the answer.
The answer is simple apparat. And the first point which I want to make is that everyone to different extents is guilty of apparats.
It's not that in this world anyone is completely free from apparatus and the in the first uh part of my little presentation which is totally unprepared I will try to uh draw the distinction between apparat and the sin.
We all know that everyone is guilty in sins. We are all sinful by nature. We are bringing our sinful nature into this life from our previous
lives but we also together with the sins we're bringing the offensive nature which is there. And it's very important to understand the difference between the sin and the offenses, aparādhas.
Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, analyzing the anatomy of anarthas, he basically points out that fences are stemming out from the ignorance and everyone is ignorant.
He says that there are four kinds of aparādhas, sorry, four kinds of anarthas which are there in everyone's heart, starting with tattva-vibhrama. Brahma. And tattva-vibhrama means the ignorance of tattva or the truth.
And he classifies into four: saying that there are four tattva- vibhramas, four bewilderments or mistakes which we naturally do being born in this body.
Everyone who has a material body has some ignorance and some tattva-vibhrama, so which naturally brings about desires.
The next sort of uh category of anarthas is the material desires, which Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura again classifies into four. But uh what I want to say uh I'm sure you know this, but I want to draw
a connection between these categories of anarthas. Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura first starts with tattva-vibhrama, which is the basis of everything.
else. Then from tattva-vibhrama, from the bewilderment about the truth, from the ignorance about the truth, from the natural identification with matter, we again very in the very natural way develop some material desires.
Śrīla Prabhupāda used to say that, you know, when somebody asked him until what time I will have lust. And he gave very clear answer, you know, until until you have this material body.
So the very fact that we have material body means that we have material desires and uh of course material desires can be classified in many different categories,
Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura says just gross material desires for enjoyment, material desires of uh heavenly enjoyment in the next life, the desires to have mystic powers and ultimately the desire to have liberation,
which is also classified by Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura as the material desire.
But the next point or the next category of anartha or the problems which we have to deal with is offenses, aparādhas, which in turn creates certain nature in us.
And ultimately, Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, while describing this progression of Anartas, he takes the the lead, he takes some some sort of lead or whatever from Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī from his description in Bhakti-sandarbha.
So Bhaktivinoda basically says that then there are offensive nature of conditioned living entities manifest and this offensive nature is the manifest as the offenses against God, offenses against the devotees, offenses against the holy name of the Lord and offenses against the ordinary living entities, cit-kaṇa, the sparks of consciousness.
And then And then basically he says that there are four weaknesses of the heart, which is the result of offenses. The weaknesses of the heart, or crooked nature which we have started from this kutilata.
From the crookedness is the result of the offenses which culminates in svāprakāśatā the our or mātsarya actually the envy which is there.
How offenses block spiritual progress
But anyway what I wanted to stress at the very outset is that nobody is free from offense in this material world. Either in this life or in previous life we committed some offenses and
while analyzing this blocking power of offenses and
this is the blocking power of offenses which actually uh the impediment for us to experience the power of the holy name uh Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī specifically says that this is the previous offenses this offenses which uh we we performed even in the previous lives.
So we are coming to this life with some luggage, with some baggage of offenses. And because of this offensive nature, naturally we cannot
perform the devotional service properly and in this way experience the promised results of devotional service.
And therefore, it is a normal practice for normal people, which is ninety-nine point nine period in period people to repeat or to do sadhana.
There is a beautiful I mean there is a sutra in Vedānta-sūtra, Āvṛtir asakṛt upadeśāt. That That why the scriptures prescribe to repeat certain activities and the
scriptures Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa explains why this prescription is there. Whereas it is also said in the scriptures that it's enough to repeat the holy name once.
But at the same time, we see this prescription that we have to repeat asakṛt. Āvṛtir asakṛt upadeśāt.
You know to uncover certain things we have to because of the teachings of the Vedas we have to repeat it again and again and again. We have to repeat it.
And the example which is given from Vedas itself, from Upanishads which is given by Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa is that Śvetaketu in Chāndogya Upaniṣad, he repeated nine times Tat tvam asi. You are not this body.
And we heard this many more times from Srila Prabhupada. And the question is: why do we have to repeat this? And sometimes even devotees they wonder, you know, we already heard this.
But this is, you know, this is coming from Vedas itself, meaning that certain things we have to repeat because we cannot really realize these things immediately. It's it's the injunction of the Vedas.
It has to be repeated again and again and again.
And as Srila Jiva Goswami explains in Bhakti Sandharba, the reason is this, and not only in Bhakti Sandharba, in many other places, and there is also a verse in Padma Purāṇa
which explains this the same thing, is that offenses itself have the blocking power. There is the power to block the power of spiritual practices. That's basically the definition of offences.
Offense is something, it's the functional definition of offense. If we want to know functionally, what offense does, Offense does exactly this thing. It blocks the spiritual power.
It may sound paradoxical because spiritual power is and and that is by the way the distinction between the sin and offense.
The sin doesn't block the spiritual power of spiritual practices, of various kinds of spiritual practices.
The sin is very easily susceptible to spiritual practices, very easily removed by simple spiritual practices, powerful and less powerful. But offense is not.
Just because of this capacity, inbuilt capacity in the offense to block the spiritual power and the example which is given uh often given is that uh you know the fire has the capacity to burn but uh in reality, we can see that this capacity to burn from the fire also very much depends on the material which it is applied for.
If it is a green grass, you can you know, you can use many matchboxes to try you know, trying to burn it. But if it's oil, you know, you don't need all if it's uh if it's dry grass.
You need just one match and phew, it's inflamed.
So this is the situation which we are dealing with if the grass is wet and wetness of the grass in our particular case is the presence of the offense, which is, as I said, present practically in everyone.
Then we will have to repeat it. In other words, we will have to repeat, you know, trying to burn it to dry it up first. Why is this repetition prescribed? Because first we have to dry up and make it flammable, so to speak.
And when it is flammable, then very easily all the spiritual practice will have an effect.
Characteristics of effective sadhana practice
So that's the you know the foundation which is there in Vedanta Sutra, even why the spiritual practice has to be repeated. And Patanjali Muni in his Yoga Sutra he also stresses this point.
He says that certain practice becomes spiritual practice, becomes sadhana only if it's repeated again and again and again for a long time, every day, with certain mood.
He basically says that sadhana or abyas, he gives the definition of abyas. He says that certain practice becomes abyas or sadhana or helps one to reach the goal only if it has the three characteristics.
First characteristic is that it's Narantaria, it's it's first first characteristic is that Dirga Kao. It's being done for a long time. And it basically refers to our own case, you know, why does it take so long?
Dirga Kal, Patanjali Muni says if you want to practice yoga, count to practice it for a long time. Don't be naive. Don't be too optimistic about your own abilities to do it.
Then do it nairantarian means you do it without any cessation, without a break.
And every one of us knows uh as soon as we break the spiritual practice you know we are back to square one more or less and we have to climb again to the level which we achieved.
And the next uh very important point and very interesting point too. He says satkari means that you have to do it with certain mood of reverence.
You have to do it not just mechanically, with śraddhā, with faith. Because if you do it mechanically without real faith into the practice that it will bring you to the final goal, then it will not really work. It will not become the spiritual practice as such.
So having said this, I wanted to to come to the main topic uh at hands.
What happens when we commit offenses knowingly or unknowingly, because even unknowing offenses are not freeing us from the reactions for unknowing offenses, and that's why the conscious practice is so important because the only remedy against the unknowing offences is bringing the consciousness into what we're doing and trying to do it properly.
So before I start this, I again wanted to go a little back to the difference between the sin and offences. What is the sin and what is the offense? We all know that in Sanskrit there are two words which denote this.
I mean, many words. Especially for sin there is a lot of you know words which is which is used Pap, we know agha, it's also seen you know impurity, amal and so many other things.
But first I wanted to bring your attention to this notion of Agha. It's a very interesting concept behind this scene.
Because again, not many people, even religious people in other religions, they can define what is sin and why certain activities are labeled as sinful.
And this notion which is depicted by this word Agha for sin is that agha basically means something which is very difficult to destroy.
Yes to Karamprahu I have some questions, but I could hold them, but they're related to the last section. I can hold them till the end or I can ask them.
Probably better if it's if it's being if you keep it because again I'm not very structured and not very prepared, so I'm doing whatever I uh it's probably better if I would be more more ready and especially I know your questions so I don't I don't want my presentation to be spoiled prematurely.
And they're simple. They won't be difficult. I don't believe you but anyway. I know your questions very well. I know you long enough. You can be very tricky.
So so better you know, I just blur out whatever I I can and then and then then hopefully the time will be over.
Anyway, so the uh what is the difference? And the differences uh is actually very important for us to understand.
First of all, the definition of sin uh which is uh inbuilt into this uh word uh means basically difficult to destroy. Because the Sanskrit root hanta means to destroy. Agha means something which you cannot really destroy.
So this particular definition is important to understand how the sin works. It basically creates a very powerful saṁskāra within our mind, which is difficult to destroy. And this samskara becomes our nature.
What is the problem with the sins is that it becomes our nature, and we all know how difficult it is to change the nature.
We bring our sinful nature from previous lives and uh bringing this sinful nature here we tend to repeat the same things again and again and
эgain because this samskaras of vassanas the was the the samskaras which are being repeated, which are very strong, they form vasanas, and vasana basically means the dress. This is the dress of the soul.
Vasana means the nature which is dressing the spiritual nature of the soul, which is covering up the spiritual nature of the soul and does not allow it to manifest uh it in a very powerful way.
So the sin uh why sin is bad is exactly because of this and uh ultimately the sin is bad because it forces us to forget about Krishna. Whatever sinful activities we do, uh why
it is sinful, why the Vedas, why the scriptures, Dharma-shastras, uh label it as sinful because of this reason, because it ultimately takes us from the goal of practicing Vedas.
The goal of practicing Vedas we know Śrīla Prabhupāda often quoted this verse smartavyaḥ satataṃ viṣṇur vismartavyo na jātucit sarve vidhi-niṣedhāḥ syur etayor eva kiṅkarāḥ. That the goal of all the rules is to remember about Vishnu and all the goal
of all the prohibitions of niṣedhas is to not forget. In other words, if niṣedha is there, if the prohibition is there in the Vedas, it means that this particular activity forces us to forget about Viṣṇu.
While you know sometimes people ask why eating chocolate is bad.
You know, and there is no clear answer, you know, but because because Śrīla Prabhupāda said or whatever, or somebody said, but he ate himself, you know, once he was offered this. But uh but the simple reason is this.
Uh it basically facilitates our forgetfulness of Krishna and reinforces and strengthens our forgetful nature of Krishna. More or less kind of reinforces our beginningless forgetfulness of Krishna.
Which brings about the whole chain of chain reaction of unfortunate events. So but again, having said this, we know that certain spiritual practices are very powerful and they destroy the sinful nature very easily.
Therefore, it's important to understand the difference between the sin and aparādha. An aparādha again by the very Sanskrit word which is there in Aparādha is means aparādha. Upper means like in English word apart, which is taking us apart, taking us away. Something which you know takes us far away from Rādhā, from this mood of Aradhan.
Śrīla Prabhupāda he explained this: that this Ārādhan, the mood of uh worshipping something the mood of reverence the mood of love basically and love is the m the culmination of uh uh you know, and we know that that's why Rādhārāṇī is called Rādhārāṇī because she is the best worshiper. Because she is she has this mood of worshiping uh completely pure and in the highest possible level.
So apparatus something which is contrary to the mood. Contrary to the mood of worshiping, obeying, you know, serving. And that's exactly why in this particular purpose,
Śrīla Prabhupāda quotes Bhakti-sandarbha from Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī and says that if we want to experience these results of the changing of the Holy Name, the only remedy is Trinada Pisanichina Tarora Pisa Hishna Naamani na manadha nakirthata, tarore vasa hishna naamani na manadha nakirtaniya sadahari.
So he stresses this humility or dynatva as Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī mentions in his Bhakti- Sandarbha that that's something which is the remedy against the offenses and something which can restore this reverential mood, the mood of service within ourselves.
So, again, by the very definition, the apparatus is something different.
So the basic difference is that sin uh affects uh affects the mind and the body It leaves a very strong impression in the body, and we all know this, and leaves a very strong impression in the mind.
But apparat goes deeper. Aparat touches the soul so to speak, the heart of the living entity.
And basically creates the nature of being Of being condescending, proud, prone to commit offenses against others, and so many other things.
Effects of offenses on spiritual perception
So again, uh the difference uh is more or less in um that conscious um Mood of doing something against other living entities, against God, against the holy name, you know, which is there deeply ingrained in our nature.
And Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī starts describing starts this section from a very important point. He says that if we have an offensive nature, how it manifests in our perception of reality. He says that the perception of somebody who has the offensive nature is that he sees some things which are spiritual by nature, but he doesn't recognize the spiritual nature of the things.
He may see God Himself in front of Him, but He will not be able to recognize His spiritual nature.
Basically, Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura says that if somebody is offensive, he cannot see or recognize the spiritual nature in Bhagavān, bhakti and bhakta. He just doesn't see the spiritual nature.
He only sees material component of it. Like we see, we see bhakta and we say, oh yeah, who he thinks he is, you know, he's just a pretender, this and that. We we cannot really recognize this spiritual side of the person.
And we tend to say that he's sahajiyā or this or that, you know, we will apply or project our spiritual conception while
seeing people, or if we see the direct manifestation of God in front in the form of deity or in the form of this holy name, again then we will perceive it as something material. It's just a material sound.
We will not be able immediately, on the spot, only by inconceivable mercy of Krishna, we will be able to sometimes rarely recognize or distinguish the spiritual nature of the holy name or the spiritual nature of the deity of the Lord.
So, and of course the spiritual nature of bhakti itself will be very difficult to perceive in the beginning because we will tend to see it as an ordinary activity or something which is not so impressive, not so spiritual.
You know, very often people you know they say no no no no this yoga is something. You know, you meditate, you have to concentrate your mind, you have to stand upside down and what is this, you know, just sentimental sort of things.
So that's again this is all the defect in the perception which is the symptom of our offensive nature. Our inability to really recognize the spiritual nature in the manifestations of spirit in the direct manifestations of spirit here in this material world.
In bhakta's, Bhagavān and His manifestation, we will not be able to recognize the spiritual manifestation in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and scriptures and so many other things are there.
So exactly like sins, aparādha tends to repeat itself.
The problem of this sin is that, you know, while committing it once, or especially if it leaves a very strong impression within you, then uh you know you you will be able uh you you develop a certain nature which covers uh your knowledge uh and you tend to repeat the same thing because it becomes your nature.
The same thing is with aparādhas. Aparādhas also tend to repeat itself. Jīva Gosvāmī will give an example of Dakṣa. He says supposedly Daksha was cleared from his offense in his previous life, his offense to Lord Shiva.
But in the next life, what did he do? He committed the same offense. So this this clearance of offense was not complete and therefore the tendency remained for the same offense.
Moreover, he committed more severe offense this time against Nārada Muni in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam it is described. In Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam it is described.
So in this way, aparādha and sin have similar nature, but again the difference is that in case of sin you just comm you know you just commit it because in your mind or in your body there is certain uh habits which you develop.
For as an aparādha, you have certain conscious attitude. Ah, okay. Thank you. Thank you. Khandai Prabhu suggests that we have a have a break. You know please let me know when you're switched off.
And when we can we can have it in maybe in ten minutes. Okay.
So um so in the in this way offence and sin have similar nature because uh we tend to reinforce our our sinful uh our offensive nature while committing further offences again and again and again.
And uh that's why it's so difficult. It's first of all it's very deep.
Second of all sometimes um we are not really understanding it because of this kutilata, because of the crookedness which we develop because of the uh cheating propensity. We cannot see it clearly within ourselves.
We cannot really introspect clearly enough to see the offensive nature because of our rationalizations and everything we will, you know, we will blame others.
Manifestation of crookedness from offenses
And because, you know, it's it's it's very deep in us.
So basically Jīva Gosvāmī first as I said he uh he explains this is the Anuchav one fifty four and uh one fifty three, one fifty four, one fifty five. Uh I think it goes until 158, if I'm not mistaken. But he basically says that the
first manifestation immediate manifestation of the first distortion which is coming as a result of the offense is this uh Cutilata Cautilium of Crookedness Um cautelium or crookedness.
I mean and we all know that we have some you know crooked features in ourselves.
It basically means that we want to present ourselves different differently than we are, and we always keep in mind some certain certain not very you know pure motive while we are entering into relationship.
It basically means that we are not straightforward. Kuṭilatā basically means that we are really crooked like a like a hook, you know.
And hook is used in fishing and sometimes we successfully use our crookedness in fishing others, you know, getting some benefits from others.
In Hitopadeśa there is this famous story about the which is describing this nature which is I mean which is specifically actually pertinent to those who are engaged in spiritual practices, unfortunately.
You know, if we have this offensive nature and we perform uh the spiritual practices offensively then we develop this offensive attitude towards this this crooked attitude towards spiritual practice, and we want to gain something from the spiritual practice.
The story from Hitopadeśa is about the tiger who retired and he was sitting there, and you know, he was old enough not to be able to catch anyone, and he had the golden bracelet. And he saw some traveler in the jungles and he started saying to this traveler, come to me, because I gave a vow every day to give some charity. And I have this nice golden bracelet. I mean, I I'm a pure vegetarian. I'm practically vegan now. I'm not into you. Please believe me.
I just want to give you spiritual the golden bracelet. And of course the stupid traveler believes it.
But anyway, so we can catch ourselves sometimes while preaching that we keep our you know non-vegetarian nature while preaching trying to gain something from the people in exchange for you know whatever it is, whatever we give, whatever you call it.
So that's the crookedness, the the crooked attitude towards um towards the spiritual activities, trying to sell our spiritual practice or spiritual philosophy in exchange of some donations of some sponsorship or whatever it is.
You know, unfortunately, you have seen Radhakrisna Prabhu who was who spent hundred plus hours in trying to figure out how to get people to for fundraising.
So and every one of us has this, you know headaches more or less unless we are anyway.
Uh so the this crookedness uh is the first result and of our imperfect, improper practice of spiritual sadhana, of chanting of the holy name. First and foremost, the chanting of the holy name with offenses.
And we can see actually this is the very clear indicator. What is being developed on us, whether we're becoming more straightforward or we're becoming even more crooked.
Whether our ability to introspect, you know, do some self-analysis, how we're doing, what we are doing, whether it's become more sharp or it becomes more blurry.
Because sometimes we can see it: I'm fine, I'm okay, you know, people are, you know, this self-deception mechanism sometimes they're really strengthened in the course of spiritual practice.
Somebody practiced spiritual practice for 30 years and he still cannot, is not able or even less able to see some problems in in spiritual practice. And that's definitely a problem of all the leaders.
Because first of all, we have plenty of opportunities to uh you know to relate to devotees as somebody material, as a material people with material, you know, not to see the material side of devotees.
And we have plenty of opportunities to you know to kind of use all sort of manipulative techniques by trying to trying to you know people to get what we want them to do.
And therefore we can also have to be very you know alert in seeing whether we're becoming more straightforward or our crooked nature becomes stronger. Whether our more or less self-defense line becomes fortified.
You know because every one of us has certain, you know self-defensive nature, self-defense, trying to explain or rationalize in front of ourselves that we are okay, we are fine.
You know, instead of developing this humble mood, we are trying to defend ourselves.
I'm okay, I'm fine, I'm good, I'm doing great, everything is great, you know, I'm chanting for 30 years, nothing happens, but still I'm okay, I'm I am a GBC, you know, or guru or whatever it is, I am a leader.
This is not the sign of spiritual advancement.
It may, you know, in the sense that you're taking more responsibility, but we also have to be very clear about it that the sign of spiritual advancement is only the taste for holy name.
And if it doesn't grow something must be wrong. And we have to see really whether our you know nature to rationalize and to explain everything very in a very elaborate way, becoming stronger in the course of our activity.
So our nature for self-introspection and real humility understanding that I'm good for nothing becomes stronger and stronger due to this.
Okay, we can, uh, do Jīva Gosvāmī goes on explaining four more things, uh, in the progression how it goes, and I will, uh, you know continue after break. How many? Fifteen minutes? Ten minutes. Ten minutes break.
Thank you very much.