Bhagavad-gita 6.30
Bhakti Vijnana Goswami · Udupi · 2013
Chapters
Introduction to spiritual initiation and divine vision
Hare Krishna. I'm very happy to be again with all of you. With you Hare Pad Prabhu. I'll speak something from the Bhagavad Gita as it is. I'm working now on uh some sort of understanding of Prabhupada's mission.
He had a beautiful document written before he registered this con in New York. And there is a very interesting point in this document. He speaks about diksha of spiritual initiation.
And he says in In this document, that the purpose of spiritual initiation is ultimately to see God in everything. So I wanted to speak about this particular point by taking a
very important verse from Bhagavad Gita which Śrīla Prabhupāda quite often quoted in his lectures and works. It's a very interesting verse and I would like to elaborate a little bit on this verse in connection with our
present situation. So with your permission I will read the verse numbers 30 from the sixth chapter of Bhagavad Gita as it is entitled Dhyana
Yoga Yamam Pashyati Sarvatra Sarvam Chamai Pashyati Yaha whoever Mam me Pashyati Cs Sarvatra Sarvatra everywhere everywhere Sarvam Sarvam everything Cha and Mai in me in me Pashyati Pashyati for him for him.
Aham I na not Not Pranasyami Pranasami Lost Saha He alsoso also me meh meh to me to me na na nor prana is lost is lost For one who sees me everywhere and sees everything in me, I am never lost nor is he ever lost to me.
Purport by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Śrīla Prabhupāda: person in Krishna consciousness certainly sees Lord Krishna everywhere, and he sees everything in Krishna.
Such a person may appear to see all separate manifestations of the material nature, but in each and every instance he is conscious of Krishna, knowing that everything is a manifestation of Krishna's energy.
Nothing can exist without Krishna, and Krishna is the Lord of everything. This is the basic principle of Krishna consciousness.
Krishna consciousness is the development of love of Krishna. A position transcendental even to material liberation.
At this stage of Krishna consciousness beyond self-realization, the devotee becomes one with Krishna in the sense that Krishna becomes everything for the devotee, and the devotee becomes full in loving Krishna.
An intimate relationship between the Lord and the devotee then exists. In that stage, the living entity can never be annihilated, nor is the personality of Godhead ever out of the sight of the devotee.
To merge in Krishna is spiritual annihilation. A devotee takes no such risk.
It is stated in the Brahma Samhita, Primanjana Churita Bhakti Vilocha Nena Santah Sadaya Vahridayashu Vilokayanti Yam Syamasundaram Machintia Guna Swarup I worship the primeval Lord Govinda, who is always seen by the devotee, whose eyes are anointed with the pulp of love. He is seen in his eternal form of Syama Sundra situated within the heart of the devotee.
At this stage, Lord Krishna never disappears from the sight of the devotee. Nor does the devotee ever lose sight of the Lord. In the case of a yogi who sees the Lord as Paramatma within the heart, the same applies.
Sachi Yogi turns into a pure devotee and cannot bear to live for a moment without seeing the Lord within himself.
Yamam Pashyati Sarvatra Sarvam Chamai Pashyati Sarvam Chamai Pashyati Tasyaham Napranashy Napranashyati for one who sees me everywhere and sees everything in me I am never lost nor is he ever lost to me.
O Mayana Timirandasyam Jyanam Jana Shalakaya Chaksurum Miridanya kasmaisri gurave
na Sri Chaita Mano Bishta, Stabi Damie na Buddle, Swayam, Dadiswa Padatikam, Vandeham Sri Guru, Sriutapadakamalam, Srivung Vaisnavamcha, Sri Rubam Sagrajatam, Saganabunatam bitam sajibam, sadvaitam, sabadudam, parijana sahitam Krishna Chaitanya Devam, Sri Rada Krishna Pada Saganalita Srishakavidamscha
Krishna Karona Sindhu De Navandu Jagatpate, Gopisha Gopikakanta, Radakantana most, Tapta Kanchanurange Rade Vrida Vanishwari, Vishamanu Sudelevi, Pramamani Hari Pri Panchakopataruviascha, kripasindubivacha, patitana valebio,
vaisnavio naonama Sri Krishna Chaitanya Prabhunitananda, Sriavaitava, Sima Sadiguru Ramakta Brinda Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Rare Rama, Rama, Rama, Arem.
Ajanudam vita pucha ukana na kavadatu, 5, 1, 2, 1 shwambar, 2 Gadmapal, Vande Chaat Prika Ru, Karnavar, Vamtah Pissi,
Indian philosophy as experiential knowledge versus speculation
Mamavach, Mamamprapras Sutupamam sangiva yadakilla shakti dara swadama, anyam shahavstacharam sramamathā gati, pranandamo bhagavati purushavati. So in this verse, Bhagavan Sri Krishna explains the experience of a yogi.
Ultimately, whatever practice we do is culminated in our experience or perception of the world. The philosophy in Indian language in Sanskrit is called darshan.
And darshan means vision, the way of seeing the Lord, the creation, the world around us, everything. And ultimately darshan means experience. The difference between the Indian philosophy and
Western philosophy is that Western philosophy is speculation. The very word philosophy means love for wisdom or love for speculation.
They just like to speculate and you know they speculate and speculate and speculate. And share their love for speculation with other speculators. But Indian philosophy is different.
Indian philosophy stresses the point of experience. There is no point of philosophy without ultimately experiencing what this philosophy is all about. Therefore, every darshan has a specific practice attached to it.
In India, uh in the West, you know, whatever great philosopher you take, practically there is no practice there. They don't attach any practice, they don't say this is the sadhana you should follow to realize this truth.
This is purely on a mental platform, on a mental level. Everything is happening there.
But it's not like this in India, India, Indian philosophy is practical, it has to be brought into the realm of our practice of our real life. And ultimately it culminates in a specific experience.
And Krishna, after explaining the yoga system, dhyāna-yoga is specifically about yoga, which is very famous, about the eight-fold yoga system, Patanjali Yoga, or whatever yoga you call it, Raja Yoga or Ashtanga Yoga.
After explaining this yoga, Krishna says, what is the experience one gets out of it. Nowadays when there is a very cheap version of yoga is very popular,
people think that the experience, the ultimate experience of yoga is that you feel good. You feel good and you are, you know, you're your yogi.
You can sit in Padmasana and you can squeeze yourself this way and that way and you feel light. This is the ultimate experience of something like this.
But Kṛṣṇa, he makes a very important and very deep point which we all have to understand that the culmination of yoga of real yoga not just this cheap yoga system which is being marketed everywhere.
The culmination of this is a specific form of vision when you see everything in God, as Krishna says, and you see God in everything.
And ultimately, what Krishna wants to say here, which is little hidden and little indirect, but Krishna is often approaches parokṣād, indirect way of explaining things.
Ultimately he says that the culmination of yoga is love. And Śrīla Prabhupāda very clearly explained this of course. His purpose is to elucidate what Krishna wants to say, but by some reason doesn't say.
Prabhupāda is very clear about this.
He says that this is the ultimate message of Krishna, and this is the ultimate message and ultimate goal of yoga and this is the ultimate goal of every path which you take no matter what it is.
Whether it's karma-yoga or jñāna-yoga or aṣṭāṅga-yoga or you know say bābā-yoga or whatever yoga it is, kriyā-yoga, this yoga or that. The purpose of yoga, the very word yoga means love. Yoga, the word yoga means upaya.
One of the meaning, the general meaning of yoga means the method, the process.
Yoga is the process which has to bring you to some goal, and the goal of yoga, as Krishna very clearly says here, very clearly, extremely clear, is to see God everywhere. And this is love.
Love is a specific sort of vision of the world when you see the object of your love everywhere. Where you're constantly absorbed in the object of your love with somebody whom you love.
Like you know, Prabhupada gives a very beautiful example. He gives the example of a mother. He says, if a mother loves the child, then whatever mother sees, it reminds her about the child.
Especially if she is in some emotional state of despair,
the child is lost or something like this, then whatever she will see, it will remind her about the child, and she will basically see the child there. And this is the experience of a real yogi.
Indirect expressions of divine love in scriptures
The real yogi is the one who develops this ability to understand that God is everywhere, that God is present in every heart.
And amazingly enough, this sort of a vision which is given here by Krishna while he's explaining Aṣṭāṅga-yoga, and which seems to be a little far away from our path, from the path of love.
Exactly the same description is given in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. When the description of uttama-adhikārī, the highest possible achievement of bhakti-yoga, is there, it says there the same thing.
Sarva-bhūteṣu yaḥ paśyet bhagavad-bhāvam ātmanaḥ that Sarva-bhūteṣu yaḥ paśyet, the one who sees in every living being, bhagavad-bhāva, presence of God, existence of God.
If you see bhagavad-bhāva in every living being, then you uttama-adhikārī, then you are beyond this world. Śrīla Prabhupāda gives the same explanation to this verse. He says that the real goal of yoga is love.
The real goal of yoga is not to feel good. The real goal of yoga is not to get rid of your digestive problems or constipation or whatever it is which they say there. No. The real goal of yoga is one.
And the real goal of all Vedic literature is one. It may be hidden. It may not be stated directly. Like here, Krishna doesn't say directly that the goal of yoga, of aṣṭāṅga-yoga, is to love.
But ultimately he says this because you know he gives many indirect ways. This is what people often don't understand. It's actually the whole mode of writing Vedic literature is Parokṣa-vāda. Vada.
It's hardly anywhere it's written in a very direct manner. And actually Krishna says, I like when somebody speaks about me indirectly. He says, you know, especially when it comes to love, you cannot cannot speak directly.
You know, it's only in the bad movies somebody says I love you and then somebody says yeah, I love you. In love you don't speak like this. In love, he says I... You know, in love, what
Rūpa Gosvāmī he speaks about love for God and he says if you want to keep your material love, don't go to Keśīghāṭ. Don't go to Keśīghāṭ. Because there you will see Govinda who is bent in three places and he's playing flute. So what Rūpa Gosvāmī wants to say, run to Keśīghāṭ. But he says don't go to Keshigad, don't go to Keshigad. Because it's indirect. It's Paroksavad.
And whatever you tell, whatever you say, whatever you you take, you know, whether it is Upanishads or Vedas, it's all parokshavada, it's all indirectly speaking.
But the ultimate goal of anything which is there in the Vedic literature is love. Krishna is not speaking about anything else.
The great sages which created or revealed Vedic literature are not speaking about anything else, they are speaking about love. And this is what we have to understand. Sometimes people say there are so many ways.
You know, you go this way and I go this way, yadamat tatapata, you know whatever you have in your mind, this is your way. It's bogus. It's not true. There is only one way. Because goal is only one, God is only one.
The nature of living being is only one. We all have similar nature.
Finding true happiness only through divine love
And the goal of every living entity is one. This is love. We want love, we want happiness. And happiness is not coming by any other means but love.
You know, you try to buy happiness, go to supermarket and ask at the counter, you know, how much happiness costs. Oh, they will tell you, so what kind of happiness you want? Cheap happiness or expensive happiness?
But this is not happiness. Happiness is only coming from a certain state which is there within your heart, which is called love. When you love God, you're happy everywhere.
You may be put in prison, you will still love everyone, and everyone will love you. You may be in a very horrible situation, you will still be happy.
And vice versa, you may have everything in this world, but if you don't have love, you will feel totally empty.
You know, like once I was speaking with a group of rich people and I told them let's imagine let's make a mental experiment you know you have everything everything whatever you like everything possible No more desires to be fulfilled.
But nobody likes you and you don't like anyone. Would you be happy?
They said no. And then I asked them, okay, now, you know, let's say you don't have much. You have little bit, but you have love and you love everyone and everyone loves you. Would you be happy? They said yes.
And I asked them what do you want? You want to have everything and don't have love or you want to have love and not have much? They said we have we want both. So why? Because they don't understand in reality.
They don't have this experience. The point again of uh of any Vedic pass is that you will have to get the experience.
If you have the experience of love, when you really feel, when you're completely filled with love, you don't need anything. You don't need anything because you're already you're already happy.
All these rules which are there in yoga or in any other, you know, path of in any other Vedic literature, whatever path is there, all these regulations, They're there only to explain to us what is the state of mind of somebody who has love.
Because in this state of mind, all these rules are followed automatically.
Like yoga is start from yama niyama asana pranayama, yama-niyama, yama-niyama, yama starts from ahimsa, you know, asteya, aparigraha, satya, whatever is there. You know, you don't steal, you don't inflict harm to anyone.
But all these things, you know, if you have love, you will not steal. Why do you steal? Why do people steal? Because they feel empty, they are unfulfilled. Something is lacking.
They think that if I have something which somebody else has, I I will be happy. But if you have love, you don't steal. You know, if somebody has love, you don't tell him don't steal from the one whom you love.
Can you imagine somebody loves somebody and then and then in the meantime steals something from you? It's not possible.
Somebody who has love doesn't inflict Somebody who has love, you don't have to tell him you follow Ahimsa. No, he will follow Ahimsa naturally because he has love. Love is everything. All these rules culminate in love.
Everyone who has love follows this. And this is the goal of every endeavor. Every endeavor, whatever endeavor we have, is to obtain love. And the only point is to understand how to obtain love.
Krishna's appearance and journey driven by love
Krishna himself wanted to show this very beautifully. What Krishna, when Krishna comes. When he comes here, his main purpose is to teach.
And of course he teaches in Bhagavad-gītā. In Bhagavad-gītā he teaches in a direct way in his life he teaches in a very direct way. Krishna comes and he really shows what he wants. What Krishna wants?
Krishna wants one thing, love. He is God. He has everything. He is ṣaḍ-aiśvarya-pūrṇa. All the six opulence in full are in him. He doesn't need anything. He still is totally, completely hungry for what? For love.
His little child and, he's crying and crying and crying and crying and crying. Why he wants his mother's milk? And somebody looks at this and says, what kind of God is?
What kind of God it is, but this is the highest conception of God. This is God who shows to us what we really need. If God needs it, what to speak about us? If God needs love, you know, we being his parts and parcels
also only need love. And there is a beautiful I mean, description of how Krishna behaves.
Krishna was born from Vāsudeva and Devakī. And he could have been born from Nanda and Yaśodā. Of course, we know according to our philosophy, according to Jīva Gosvāmī, Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura, Krishna was also born in Vṛndāvana.
But for external people, all the external people think Krishna was born where? In Mathurā, from Vāsudeva and Devakī. And what he does, he is born from Vāsudeva and Devakī. By this act he is teaching us.
What is his teaching? What is his lesson? He is born from Vāsudeva and Devakī, but he wants to go where? He wants to go to Vṛndāvana.
He wants to go to Vṛndāvana, therefore he arranges all this big drama about Kaṁsa, Kaṁsa will come and Devaki is totally paranoid. Kamsa will come tomorrow morning and he will kill you. And Vāsudeva is very afraid.
And Vāsudeva takes this child, and this child himself says, you take me to Vṛndāvana because but what he wants to teach us, he wants to teach us what is important, not the blood relationship.
He didn't want to stay with Vāsudeva and Devakī, their own mother, his own mother, his own father. Why? Because he wants love of Yasoda and Nanda, and this love is greater than love of Vāsudeva and Devakī.
You know, this whole thing, you know, there was absolutely no need for Vāsudeva to bring Kamsa to Vṛndāvana. Oh sorry, Kṛṣṇa to Vṛndāvana. If Kṛṣṇa wanted, he could have killed Kamsa. It would be a nice līlā.
You know, Kṛṣṇa, after all, he killed Pūtanā when he was six days old. And Pūtanā was a huge demoness and didn't take long for Kṛṣṇa to kill her. Kṛṣṇa just sucked little milk from her and said, it doesn't taste so nice.
And together with the milk he sucked her life and everything else and she was she was yelling and crying and she was she was flying everywhere.
You know, just imagine how nice līlā it would be if Kṛṣṇa would stay in Mathurā in the prison. The next day Kamsa comes and he takes this child
as he used to do with other children of Vāsudeva and Devakī. And he just, you know, tries to do something with this child. And this child is just, you know, does something really funny with this Kamsa.
Kṛṣṇa could have done it. It would be a nice līlā, you know, would be recorded in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam very beautifully how Kṛṣṇa would kill his mama, his maternal uncle on the first day. Would be nice, isn't it?
No, but Kṛṣṇa didn't want it. Kṛṣṇa created this whole thing for one purpose. He, of course, he didn't want to leave Vāsudeva. He didn't want to be rude with Vāsudeva and Devakī.
He wouldn't, you know, Kṛṣṇa would have told to Vāsudeva and Devakī thank you for giving birth to me. I'll go to Vṛndāvana, you stay here in prison.
No, he created this whole līlā, you know, that Vāsudeva, he's just so afraid and he wants to bring him somewhere. But in reality, Kṛṣṇa, what he wants to show, he wants to show to us one thing. I need love.
I need the real love of, sorry, not Vāsudeva and Devakī, but Nanda and Yaśodā.
Love as the foundation of universal creation
And he creates this whole beautiful thing, just to teach us this simple thing. You know, everything in this world is based on love. Everything is based on love. Whatever valuable we have is only love.
The amount of love we have makes us worth living. And if we don't have any love, there is no point of living. You know when when mother, you know, even the first sutra
of Vedānta-sūtra, the first sutra, second sutra of Vedānta-sūtra, Janmada Sayayataha. It's also about love. How is it about love? In Vedānta-sūtra it is said, who is this God? Who is this Brahman? Who is this?
He is the source of everything. He is the source of creation, he is the source of maintenance, he is the source of destruction.
And ultimately, what this sutra wants to teach us, that whatever is happening here, the source of everything, is doing everything because of one reason, because of love. Why do you create anything?
Why do you maintain anything? And ultimately why do you destroy everything? Because of love only. You know why why women give birth to children? Why? Is it pleasant? Most of you don't know because most of you are not women.
It's so painful. And it really logically doesn't make any sense.
Just from rational point of view, you know, first of all you have to bear this baby for nine months and it's so difficult and it's you know it's painful and it's so and then painful you're giving birth painfully and then for many many years you just stuck with this baby.
What is the point? For what you do? Why people do this? Why people still do this? Is there any sense of it? From the rational point of view, from the intelligent point of view there is absolutely no sense.
There's only a few intelligent people here they wearing saffron. But the rest of people do this. Why? Because they want love. Because this is love. You know, what I want to say is that the the whole world is based on love.
The world is created by love, the world is maintained by love. Why Krishna? Give me one reason why Krishna created this world. It's so much headache for him.
You know, it's so much headache for a little girl to give birth to a baby. Can you imagine how much headache for God to deal with this crazy world. Why did he do this? Is he in his right mind? No. He's totally self-satisfied.
He could be completely there. He's ātmārāma, he's āptakāma, he doesn't need anything. He still creates this world with so much headache. Why? Because of the relationship. Eko bahu syām.
Upaniṣad says this, the one God wanted to become many. Why? Because he wanted love. The love is the basis of creation. Love is everything here. And there is only one yoga.
There is only one yoga, yoga of love, bhakti-yoga, there is no other yoga, everything else is just, is just, uh, commercial enterprise, nothing else. And the only point in life is to understand how to obtain love.
We have to understand very clearly that I need love. And then after understanding this, first of all we have to understand who we are. We are part of God. We are not on our own. We are part.
And the purpose of the part is to serve the whole and this service is called love.
So we have to understand that when we fulfill our purpose, when we fulfill our mission, when we fulfill our real nature, then only we can become happy.
So we have to understand who we are, then we have to understand what is our goal, and then we have to understand the process.
Humility as the qualification for bhakti yoga
And this is the most important thing. And the process is actually very difficult. They usually say it's very simple. Just chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare. Yes, it's simple in one sense.
It's difficult because it requires certain qualification.
The most important thing when we speak about the process, and I wanted to speak definitely about yoga, this is the final destination. This is the experience of a great yogi, of a great devotee, of anyone who rightly follows the spiritual path.
But we have to understand how to achieve this path, how to really tread this path, what we have to do. And in any Vedic system there is a very important part
of the description, the description of the adhikāra. What is the qualification for one to follow this path? Basically, if I understand, this is I am, this is my goal.
Now, the next important point is that what is my qualification? You know you all most of you are students. Why do you study? Why do you take so much headache to study? Why do you spend years and years and years?
What is the purpose? Ultimately, what is the purpose? To get diploma, right? Diploma is what? Diploma is the certificate of your qualification. You know, to do anything, you have to have certain qualifications.
And qualification is, you know, you all know it's not easy. You have to pass so many exams, you have to do this, you have to spend sleepless nights, you have to do this very horrible thing.
I still sometimes in my horror dreams in my nightmares I see how I pass some exams in the university. It's it's a horrible experience. But still people do this. Why? Because they want qualification.
So we have to know what is the qualification for love. Qualification for love is difficult. That's why I said that this path is not easy. The qualification for love is what? It's humility.
Qualification for love is humility and humility is very difficult for proud people and we are all proud people. Otherwise we would not be here. The proof that we are proud is that we exist in this material world.
And this material world means ahaṅkāra. I'm doing this. I'm so you know, look at me. I'm so big, I'm so great, I'm sitting here, you're sitting there. Everyone is proud. Everyone and everyone is cherishing pride.
Everyone is feeling his own pride. This whole culture. You know, this actually, vediculture, why it is so great? Because Vedic culture teaches people how to become humble. And that's why nobody likes Vedic culture.
That's why in the West they say this Vedic culture is backwards. Because what is Western culture? Western culture is how to become proud. And more you go to the West, the more proud you become.
You know, shh, I am—who are you to tell me what I have to do? Get out of here, you know, I'm on my own. You know, this, this pride is, is horrible. It destroys human civilization. It destroys the whole universe.
It destroys the earth. You know, people are going crazy. Why people are so mentally disturbed? Because of pride, because of this.
At least very in very culture—at least in Indian culture—some basic understanding is there that you have to be a little humble, you know, you have to touch feet of your parents.
In the West, in America, you, you know, if somebody will tell to children that they have to touch feet of their parents children will file court case. You can't do this to children in the West. You can't discipline them.
No problem, no possible. No way. You know, because the modern civilization is how to develop pride, and this is what they teach. And this is what they teach nowadays also in India unfortunately.
It's, it's India is following the same crazy system. And this is destroys everything.
This destroys personal life, this totally destroys the mental health, this destroys everything. And you know this is the destructive path.
So the qualification for love, and this is, and this is the secret which I wanted to tell you.
Discipline and rules as tools for humility
The secret, every other path, why there are so many different paths, spiritual paths in India or anywhere else. Ultimately, every other path is to teach you little humility.
So that ultimately you qualify yourself for the path of love. If you take yoga, what is yoga? Yoga is teaching you what? Discipline. Every path gives you some rules and regulations.
And ultimately, you know, you studying in a university. Why it is good, we know why it is bad. But it has one good thing. It teaches you some discipline. And discipline makes you little humble.
In any you know, enterprise you need to be little disciplined. And discipline means humility. Discipline means you do not what you want to do. Right? Discipline means you do what you are told to do.
And it is already a big blow for your false ego. You know, I I I want to do this. No, you have to do this. You have to do this to achieve anything.
You know, ultimately humility is the key for everything, for any success in life. But the humility is needed for us to experience love. Because you cannot experience love without humility.
You know, you have to develop deep genuine humility to experience love.
Therefore Lord Caitanya says that the spiritual life starts from trād api su-nīcena taror api sahiṣṇunā amāninā mānadena kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ. Pisva Nichinatarov Vivasahnu naamani na manadana kirtaniasadahari. The spiritual life starts from this.
Before that, it's not bhakti. We only start practicing bhakti when we become more humble than the blade of grass and more tolerant than a tree. When we are ready to respect others and but don't expect respect to ourselves.
Before that, it's not bhakti. Sometimes there are many people who are very proud and they practice bhakti.
They chant Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. A beautifully singing Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama. They know shastras.
They quote shastras left and right. Now they know so many Sanskrit slogans. You see them, they're very proud. You know, you go to you know basically anywhere. You go to Vrindavan. I was this year I was attending some Katha.
I wanted I'm learning Hindi therefore I wanted to listen some Katha and I wanted some very beautiful Katha card there in Vrindavan. My goodness. He was speaking so beautifully. He knew so many slokas.
Oh my goodness, you know, he was so learned. And he spoke, you know, sometimes he would speak. One sentence would take him five minutes to finish. You know, he was speaking, it was probably huge sentence.
He was such a narrator. My goodness. But I felt totally completely empty in the heart after his lectures. Why? Because he was so proud. He was sitting there, he was so proud. It was just a good show. Beautiful show.
Amazing soul, very professional soul, extremely professional, but soul, empty, empty, no love, because no humility. And you know when when humility is not there, the heart is always lacking something.
The heart always wants some honor, some money, some prestige, some whatever. You know. Why? Because it's empty. Empty heart. Vacuum in the heart. Not happy heart.
And the pride is there and pride is actually pride, is the manifestation of empty heart. When the heart is full, like Śrīla Prabhupāda used to give this example, when the tree is full of fruits, what it makes?
The branches go down. When your heart is full, when it has fruits, it goes down. And when it's barren, when there is nothing there. Look at me. Look at me. Nothing is there. When your heart is full, it goes down.
It's so It's so important to have this and to understand what is real bhakti. Before that, if if you don't have humility, if you don't practice humility,
it's just a shadow of bhakti, it's not bhakti, it's bhakti at best, it's a bus, it's a bus, at best it may be chāyā or ābhāsa, bhakti-chāyā or bhakti-ābhāsa, it's just dim reflection of bhakti.
That's why I said that bhakti is so difficult. You changing the name. Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare Hare. But if there is no humility, it's not the name, it's the shadow of name. It's nāma-bhāsa.
It's not the real name. Krishna is not there, it's just a shadow. You know, if you look you come to the deity, you don't see the deity, you don't see God. Why? Because there's no humility, because you are looking at me.
I came. You know. I'm looking at you. Hare Krishna. As Prabhupāda said, we come not to see the deity, we come to be seen by the deity. That's humility. We come to be seen.
We have to come, when we come to the temple, we come to be seen by the deity. When we chant, it's not that we chant. I am chanting, I'm chanting 64 rounds a day. 64 rounds of nāma-parādha, very nice. No, I'm not chanting.
Krishna is descending. Krishna is mercifully giving me chance to change. This is this is why it is difficult. Why yoga is so simple. Because it doesn't touch your ego.
You know, you sit in some āsana, oh my goodness, just look at me. Did you appreciate? Yoga. Yoga is feeding ahaṅkāra. And therefore it's so simple. Therefore everyone goes for this path. Therefore, real bhakti is so rare.
Seeing the divine presence in all beings
Krishna himself says this. Bahūnāṁ janmanām ante, jñānavān māṁ prapadyate. That's after many, many, many, many lives times somebody really surrender something because surrender means humility.
Therefore he says that, uh, what is this, uh, manuṣyāṇāṁ sahasreṣu kaścid yatati siddhaye, how out of so many living entities, human beings, hardly anyone strives for perfection. entities, human beings, hardly anyone strives for perfection.
Out of so many who achieved perfection, hardly anyone knows me. It's so rare. So rare. Out of millions and millions and millions. That's why it's so difficult.
And that's why and that's why you know that's why we have problems in our paths. So the real point is that we have to understand that Krishna is everywhere, and this is only possible because of the humility.
When the humility is there, you don't see others as somebody who is foreign to you. You see them as parts of God. And you see them as your masters. They are parts of God and you're a servant of God.
It means you have to serve everyone. That's very difficult. That's a very difficult vision. You know, there is the great devotee of the Lord, he sees that the Lord is in the heart of every living entity.
What we do, you know, if somebody, so many living entities are there, and if some living entity is doing some Just kill him. You know, little mosquito. Who you think you are?
No, you know the real real devotee, he sees that this is God. God is in him. God is in him. There is this story about Madhvacharya Vāsudeva mm leper who had leprosy and he had worms all over his body.
So whenever the worm would would fall from his body. He would pick him up and bring him back. Because he saw that he's connected with God. It's not easy. It's not an easy thing. Bhakti is not an easy path.
Because you have to really develop genuine humility of the heart. There is a nice story which I read today about Prabhupada. Aṅghripaṅkaja-devī dāsī is telling this story. They went with Prabhupada.
They stayed at some place in San Francisco and there was a bed box in the bed. And she would, she said, Prabhupada, bedbugs are biting me. And Prabhupada smiled and then she said, Prabhupada, why don't you have this?
Bedbugs don't bite you? Prabhupāda says no, I I know the trick, says Prabhupāda. Listen.
Says I know that the bugs are there, so when I lay down I pretend that I fell asleep and I have this very sound and nice breathing because when somebody is asleep his breathing is different.
It's... and Prabhupāda says, you know, these bugs are very intelligent, they will not bite you unless you're asleep.
So Prabhupāda told her, you know, I pretend that I'm asleep, then bugs come and I collect these bugs in my hand, then I chant Hare Kṛṣṇa to them and I throw them out of the window.
And Govindadāsī was very inspired by this example and she said, you know, next next night she tried to do this, but it didn't work. Somehow or other she fell asleep and the bugs were still biting her.
And you know, next night and next night, and then she came to Prabhupāda and said, Prabhupāda, I tried to do this, but it didn't work. Prabhupāda said, you have to be a little intelligent to do this.
What do you really explain? What's that's his vision? He takes this little bug, he sees they are connected with Kṛṣṇa. And he, you know, he approaches differently, he deals
with them differently because he knows that they are connected with Kṛṣṇa. And we we forget that even our closest friends and relatives are connected with Kṛṣṇa. What to speak about bhaktas?
We forget that our wife is connected with Kṛṣṇa. We think she is connected with māyā. Maybe she is, but this is not a very high-class vision.
The high-class vision is to understand that everyone, you know, he may be an enemy. He may have some duṣṭa-svabhāva. It doesn't matter. He may have some bad character.
understand this, you will be able to change him. understand this, you will be able to change him. Why Prabhupāda was able to change so many human beings?
Because of only one thing, because he saw that everyone is connected with God. He didn't see the Americans, he didn't see the hippies, dirty hippies. You know, Prabhupāda was ready to preach anywhere.
Once he was taken to the—how do you call these people who go naked?—nudists, nudists, to a nudist community.
Prabhupāda, sannyāsī from Vṛndāvana, you know, men and women, you know, he would give a lecture and kīrtana. You know, just imagine everyone is naked.
And sannyāsī from Vṛndāvana is sitting there and giving a lecture. I mean, for anyone it would be quite disgusting to see to be there. And he came. Why? Because he didn't see that they're just some crazy people.
He saw them. They're connected with God, they're children of God, they're beautiful inside. They're just bewildered, bewildered by this illusory energy.
Developing humility to awaken pure love
So basically, what I wanted to say, Prabhupada brought a beautiful purpose to this verse. And in this purport, he very clearly says that the goal of yoga is love. The goal of Bhagavad-gītā is love.
The goal of our, all our pursuits is love. We don't need anything else. And if we know how to get love, we will get love. And the only way to get love is to develop humility. You cannot practice love.
Love should happen with you. Love descends on you. Love is a state of your heart. But you can practice humility, you can practice tolerance, you can practice respect. That's what we have to do. This is our sadhana.
Then at one point, love will happen to us and we will be the most happy people on the earth. And that's the message of Bhagavad-gītā, ultimate message of Bhagavad-gītā.
And we would not be able to understand it if it was not for Prabhupāda, who had this real experience. So thank you very much. So that's my little message today. Maybe there are some questions. Yes. Uh yeah.
You said that humility can be active. Yes. But what comes first, is it tolerance or humility? What do we practice first, tolerance or humility?
Well, in my humble opinion, tolerance is even more important, because tolerance, you know, humility you can imitate, tolerance you cannot imitate. You can pretend to be humble, but you cannot pretend to be tolerant.
So tolerance comes first, and tolerance, if you practice tolerance, then it brings about humility. Is the basis of bhakti submission?
Is that the surrender, submission, whatever you call it, śraddhā, faith? Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura says that it's all synonymous. The qualification according to Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the qualification for bhakti is śraddhā, but
Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, all ācāryas, Jīva Gosvāmī also Śrīla Prabhupāda, they explain that, and that śraddhā means śaraṇāgati, surrender. Surrender means submission. Surrender starts with sanukulyasa sankal path, you accept whatever is favorable, you follow the rules, you accept whatever is favorable, you reject whatever is unfavorable, and then there are higher states of Sharanagati of your surrender.
Yes, it's surrender. Faith means surrender. There is no face without surrender, there is no surrender without faith. Is that why you said it's difficult this path?
Because we didn't come to the material world with the idea of surrendering? Of course.
We came, we came to practice pride. We came to practice ahaṅkāra. Bringing our ahaṅkāra from life to life. It's there. It's very prominent.
The whole karma, the whole karma pursuit, I I recently spoke with very deep astrologer, and he said that the whole karma is activated by pride. If you're humble, your karma is just there. It waits till you become proud.
And then if you're, if you're humble, there is no karma. You're not reacting. What is actually what is karma? Karma is your reaction of what is happening to you. What is humility?
Humility is your ability not to react according to your ahaṅkāra, you know, karma is, you know, what the the reaction is equal and or sometimes much stronger than than the action or whatever. Action and reaction is there.
So humility means there is action but there is no reaction. And it means there is no karma. And karma is very much aggravated and activated when there is a pride. And we come with karma.
We live in this world, this is the whole world is karma. The whole game of this world is karma. You know, I'm higher than you, I'm this, I'm this, you know, I've I have this much, that much.
There is a beautiful, I tell you this little story, it's a beautiful story. It's a story from Hitopadeśa. Beautiful story.
There is once one sādhu came to another sādhu and they were sitting and they were discussing something, and the the sādhu to whom he came, he kept a stick near to him and sometimes he would beat and ultimately it was kind of irritating, you know, they were discussing something, some spiritual matters, and this you know sādhu is beating with the stick and ultimately this other sādhu said, you know, what's going on?
You're not respecting me, why you're beating with this stick? And he said, no no no no, please don't mind, forgive me if I offended you in any way. But you know, in my uh in my uh
home there is mouse which is living and this mouse is very you know obnoxious and very proud and you know it just goes everywhere and you know if I don't keep this stick it it will just ruin everything and then
he he showed see you know I I have to keep all my things so high because this mouse is jumping so high, so high, so high.
And this other sādhu started thinking, you know, the normal mouse doesn't jump that high, you know, this mouse was really jumping, very high, you know, so it's really proud.
And then he said, you know, I know one solution for this. He said, this mouse must be a very proud mouse. So why one becomes proud? Because one is rich. So let's go, let's find where she lives. It lives.
They found the little hole of this mouse and they somehow rather dug it out and there was a lot of grain stored there. And they took everything and immediately the mouse became so humble.
The little purport of this story is that when you have a lot you jump very high. And if you have nothing you become really tṛṇād api nicena. You become very humble. So we come to this world for what?
To accumulate pride in different ways.
Therefore, Kuntī says, janmaiśvarya-śruta-śrīr ebhir edhamāna-madaḥ pumān. You know, one becomes mad, proud, because of janma, of birth, I am brāhmaṇa, I'm this, I'm that. aiśvarya because of one's opulence or power, śruta, learning, śrī, beauty. This is all pride, this is all game of this material world.
We came here not to practice humility, therefore bhakti is so rare and so difficult. And therefore so difficult. Even if even if they people don't have anything, they still have some pride. You know.
You speak with ṛkṣi-vālā. Ṛkṣi-vālā is also proud. Somehow. beautiful definition of humility. It says humility means one is not anxious to have the satisfaction of being honored by others.
One sense Yeah, because that's what we want. This is the food for our whole ego. Our false ego is very hungry and it says give me some food. Anyway, thank you very much.
Thank you for trying to practice this glorious path of bhakti-yoga.
Evaluating civilizational advancement beyond material technology
That's the real fulfillment of our aspirations. That many professionals have given up their profession and become a dedicated devotee.
So how do we like answer them and you know how do we explain to them that what is real advancement and how we can advance?
See, Prabhupada very clearly explains in Bhagavad-gītā in the 14th chapter that there are different criteria of advancement. The criteria of advancement which people apply is the criteria of the mode of passion.
I'll first explain the science behind this and then maybe give some answer to them. So Prabhupada says that modern civilization in advanced by the measurement of the mode of passion.
From the point of view of passion, modern civilization is indeed advanced. The Vedic civilization is from the passionate point of view, is not advanced. It's quite low.
But it's very advanced from the sāttvika, from the goodness point of view.
The criteria judging, you know, you have to you have to really have the measuring stick, the measuring sticks should be the same. You know why we sometimes don't understand each other, because we are using different measuring sticks.
So, first of all, we have to really understand what are the criteria of advancement. From the passionate point of view, modern civilization is more advanced. There is no doubt about it.
From the passionate point of view they're right.
But we also have to see Krishna very clearly explains that ultimately passion destroys, that passion gives you boost of happiness in the beginning and a lot of grief at the end.
And that's what we see in the modern civilization. Modern civilization gives you some sort of happiness in the beginning, but gives you so much suffering in the end, so much anxieties.
You know, from the passionate point of view, uh from the rajo-guṇa point of view, Indian civilization is less advanced than American, right? American is more advanced.
But if you take, for example, simple criteria: the mental health, 50 uh in India there is around 25-26% of people who are certified mental patients, which is pretty high. No, no, sorry. Only 12%.
In Europe it's twenty-six, in America it's fifty-two. So from this point of view, America is also more advanced, right? Fifty-two mental cases. 52% mental cases. You know, half of the nation is crazy.
And this is the result of advancement. You said this is more advanced. Yes. Technologically it's more advanced. Yes, from many other points of view, it's more advanced. What is the result of it? No peace. No happiness. Nothing.
So if we judge the civilization according to the other criteria, let's see, you know, what is what is the advancement? The advancement of the civilization if if uh you know if we try to uh judge the civilization according to the number of happy people.
America w would not be the number one country in the world. It would be somewhere by the end. Because people are not happy there. Really not happy, really in anxiety. So what is the advancement of the world?
Advancement of the world is that the whole world becomes madhouse. This is the advancement you want? Yeah, right, go this path. It's right there. It's in front of you. So what we want? What is the criteria of advancement?
Advancement is not what kind of car you are driving. You know, car will not make you happy. Advancement of civilization is the number of happy people.
And from these criteria, Bangladesh is probably the most advanced country in the world. Something like this. I don't know. Which one is.
So, uh, so Prabhupāda, how do we, uh, like all animals have the, uh, tendency to defend also, right? So how do we reconcile this tendency with Kṛṣṇa consciousness?
See, because once we have the this tendency of defending ourselves, we won't build weapons.
We'll always have different scientists, we'll have to build weapons because other countries are doing it, otherwise your civilization can't survive.
So then how you can uh reconcile this technological development which is due to uh the threat of defense with Krishna consistency because if you are a defense scientist you hardly can spare like two hours or three hours a day.
So Yeah, we have to do defense definitely, living in this crazy world. But you know, technological advancement we cannot,
you know, it's it's it's going on, but it's only going on because the whole shift of the civilization is the whole emphasis of the civilization is for this material sort of advancement.
And Prabhupada, he wanted revolution and the consciousness of people so that people would wake up to the fact that this is a wrong path. See this you know the whole civilization is wrong.
It basically destroys everything now because of this technological civilization. Yes, the technology created chemistry, but this chemistry, you know, it makes you know poisons. And you have to sell these poisons.
And this poisons are everywhere and the food, the whole food is poisonous, and everything is poisonous. So, uh, Prabhupada sees
the civilization we're living in, it's a dead end. You know, the m most advanced scientist, I don't remember his name now, he's an atheist, first class atheist, he's he already said some crazy guy from England.
Stephen Hawking. Stephen Hawking. Yeah.
Yeah, he already said that the earth is finished. We still have maybe twenty, thirty years to live on this earth, and in the meantime, through the technological advancement we have to find a suitable planet somewhere else to relocate there and to spoil to spoil the other place.
You know, this is this is what it is. So crazy, so crazy. The whole civilization is just crazy. Crazy.
You know, yeah, we'll just abandon this whole planet, let it rot, and we'll go somewhere else and spoil some other planet. It's greed. Greed within the heart. This guy, he is an invalid. He is not terribly... yeah. Yeah.
And he goes to prostitutes. That's what you know, it's just insane. The whole thing is insane. People lost it and uh exactly that's what Krishna says here.
He says here if somebody sees me everywhere and everything sees in me in connection with me, he's never lost. So because we don't see everything in him and we don't see him in everything, we are lost.
Nashta Nashta means destroyed. This destructive mentality is there because we don't see the connection with God. That's it.
And therefore it's destructive, it's destructive for the whole world, it's it's self-destructive in the first place. It's totally self-destructive.
So from this point of view uh you know this is this is the civilization we actually we are living on, and the only way is to somehow or other to wake up from this nightmare. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you very much.
Hare Kṛṣṇa. Okay, I guess I have to go. It's very late.