Bhagavad-gita 4.11
Bhakti Vijnana Goswami · Moscow · 2000
Chapters
Reading Bhagavad-gita verse eleven
Hare, Krishna. I'm very happy to see all of you today in our humble temple. Some of you I see for the first time. Some of you I know.
We'll read one verse from the Bhagavad-gītā As It Is by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, the founder-acārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, with his purport, and then we'll try to speak some on the topic of this verse. We'll read today the eleventh verse of the fourth chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā. Fourth chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā is called Jñāna-yoga or transcendental knowledge in this edition of the Bhagavad-gītā. As all surrender unto me, I reward them accordingly.
Everyone follows my path in all respects. O son of Prithā. Purport. Everyone is searching for Krishna in the different aspects of his manifestations.
Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is partially realized in his impersonal Brahman effulgence. And the all-pervading Supersoul dwelling within everything, including the particles of atoms. But Krishna is fully realized only by his pure devotees.
Consequently, Krishna is the object of everyone's realization, and thus anyone and everyone is satisfied according to one's desire to have him. I read it fast more.
Consequently, Krishna is the object of everyone's realization, and thus anyone and everyone is satisfied according to one's desire to have him.
In a transcendental world also, Krishna reciprocates with his pure devotees in the transcendental attitude just as the devotee wants him.
One devotee may want Krishna as supreme master, another as his personal friend, another as his son, and still another as his lover.
Krishna rewards all the devotees equally according to the difference intensities of love for him.
In the material world, the same reciprocations of feeling are there, and they are equally exchanged, and they are equally exchanged by the Lord with the different types of worshippers. The pure devotees both here and in the transcendental abode associate with him in person and are able to render personal service to the Lord and thus derive transcendental bliss in his loving service.
As for those who are impersonalists, who want to commit spiritual suicide by annihilating the individual existence of the living entity, Krishna helps also by absorbing them into his effulgence.
These impersonalists do not agree to accept the eternal blissful personality of Godhead. Consequently, they cannot relish the bliss of transcendental personal service to the Lord, having extinguished their individuality.
Some of them are not firmly situated.
Even the impersonalists, they return to this material field to exhibit their dormant desires for activities. They are not admitted into the spiritual planets, but they are again given a chance to act on the material planets.
For those who are fruitive workers, Lord awards them the desired results of their prescribed duties as Yajñeśvara. And those who are yogis seeking mystic powers, he awards such powers, are awarded such powers. In other words, everyone is dependent for success upon his mercy alone.
And all kinds of spiritual processes have a different degrees of success in the same path. Unless, therefore, one comes to the highest perfection of Krishna consciousness, all attempts remain imperfect.
Krishna's impartiality and universal reciprocation
As I stated in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, whether one is without desire, the condition of devotees, or is desirous of all fruitive results, or is after liberation, one should, with all efforts, try to worship the Supreme Personality of Godhead for complete perfection, culminating in Krishna consciousness. So this is a very nice verse.
Well, Lord Krishna formulates a very important principle, which is actually unknown to practically everyone in this world. There are so many different religions.
And if you take worshipers of different religions, everyone, without any exception, will say that only we will be saved and everyone else is doomed.
If you go to Muslims, they will say Muslims are saved, everyone, only they are saved. Everyone else is eternally doomed. For the rest of eternity, they will go to hell and suffer there. But here Krishna reveals the truth.
He says that it's not the formal belonging or formal affiliation to a certain organization which saves somebody.
But actually, what counts in the realm of transcendental relationship with the Lord is the position of our heart. And Krishna says, how you relate to me, I will relate to you that way. Because Krishna is impartial.
This is one of the main features of the Lord. Lord cannot be partial like the father. If father has so many sons, if a father has 10 sons, it's not that he loves maybe he loves somebody more than another one.
But why he loves somebody more than another one? Why he loves one son more than another one? It's just because one son is more obedient and another son is more rebellious. If somebody is rebellious, he punishes him.
And if somebody is more obedient, he rewards him accordingly. But the principle remains the same. Lord is completely impartial. He is all good, all powerful, almighty, and he's not envious.
Some religions, they say, like, Christianity, especially Judaism. They say that the Lord is very ferocious. He's very, very kind of jealous fellow who is sitting there and looking at everyone and trying to get revenge.
But it's not so.
Free will and nature of divine love
The Lord is impartial and he basically wants to reciprocate with everyone, but he doesn't force himself upon anyone because everyone constitutionally has free will. This is the law of God's creation.
He created this world and he created everyone free because he wants love. The only thing which Lord wants, he doesn't have any desires. But he wants reciprocation with all grades of living beings who is his creation.
And he wants love. And love is based on freedom. You cannot force anyone to love. You can't tell somebody, you have to love me. But he will just, you know, if he's dependent on you, he says yes yes yes I will love you.
But behind your back he will do whatever he likes. You cannot force anyone to love you. So, the same way, the same principle is there in the transcendental world and the Lord wants our love.
But to have this love he has to give freedom. And he gave this freedom. He says everyone is free to do whatever you like. You are all free and but now you have to pay for your freedom.
Because freedom is not something which is which you can get for free. You have to pay for freedom. And basically Krishna says here that there is a reciprocation between him and his creation.
And this is the first the first thing which one has to establish to understand the Lord.
The main question of any philosophy or any religion or any whatever any line of thought is to establish what is the relationship between the creator and creation and which relationship how they relate to each other.
And basically Krishna says that you cannot escape to relate with me because you are my creation. I am creator. And even if you want to escape to relate with me, you can do this.
This is the only thing which we cannot do this. In one way or another, we will have to relate to the Lord. But according to how we choose to relate to Him, He will relate to us accordingly.
If we choose to love Him, He will love us.
If we choose to hate us, He will not hate us, but He will make some kind of impersonal arrangement to reciprocate with our hatred. And we will get our hatred back in one way or another. If we hate the Lord or if we want to forget the Lord, he will give us freedom to forget him. In fact, this whole creation, this whole material creation, material world is just a genius means to make everyone forget about the Lord.
But only because we want to forget about Him. Only because we want to turn away from Him. That's our problem. That's not His problem. He's trying His best. But what we're doing, that's our problem.
So Krishna says in Bhagavad-gītā.
Law of karma as personal reciprocation
In Bhagavad-gītā, in the tenth chapter, says, He repeats this verse several times in Bhagavad-gītā. He says, I am the beginning, I am the middle, and I am the end. I am everywhere.
And this whole material creation is the creation to relate to everyone. And the law of karma, we all know the law of karma. Everyone knows the law of karma.
Somebody says this is the law of karma and other they just say like in Bible it says whatever you sow you will reap. It's basically the same, the same, the same law.
But the law of karma is the means to reciprocate with those who don't want to see God as a person. Those who don't want to know that the Lord is a person with his personal feeling, personal desires.
For them, Lord created this wonderful, you know, the wonderful law of cause and effect. And everyone reaps whatever he sows. Everyone gets whatever he does in his life.
You know, when somebody gets a liver disease, cirrhosis of the liver, and he may say, why did I get it? What what did I do to get it? I I never wanted to have it.
But actually he wanted to have it because he drank vodka for 40 years. And then after that he gets the cirrhosis of the liver. And this is, and you also get this terrible disease in your liver.
But basically this is the main point which we have to understand. We are related to the Lord. And according to our attitude, he relates to us accordingly.
This is all the question of attitude and Krishna says here, whatever you, whatever way you want to see me, you will see me. If you don't want to see me, you will not see me.
Those who don't see the Lord, like there are so many people who say, there is no God. There is no God. Somebody should show me God. You know?
But the problem is that, first of all, you put on black glasses and then you put your hands over your glasses and then you close your glasses and then you say, you show me the Lord.
First of all, you are the first who didn't want to see him because you are completely 100% sure that he doesn't exist. And then he says, show me. Who is he? Who is you to, you know, Lord is not so cheap.
He will not reveal himself to somebody who doesn't believe him, who hates him, who doesn't want to see him. And our Lord doesn't want to force himself upon anyone.
That's the point. But our attitude, that is what matters. And this International Society for Krishna consciousness and in fact any religion, the real meaning of religion, real meaning, so many misconceptions are there about the meaning of religion. People think we go to church, we put some candle there and then we will get some, you know, some exam passed or whatever. Some kind of material reward.
We will get, but the real meaning of religion, the real essence of religion is to try to help the living being, the living entity, the human being to change his attitude towards the Lord, to make it more favorable.
Because the more favorable you are, the more favorable the God will be to you. And ultimately, as Śrīla Prabhupāda says here, that the perfection of all our endeavors is to get loving reciprocation with the Lord.
Like Kṛṣṇa says here, that always in the creation are created by me. People they have an illusion that I'm free to choose any way. You know, I can do this and I can do that. I can go this and I can go that.
And Krishna says that's fine. You're certainly free to choose this way, but you should know one thing. All these ways are created by me. And you cannot create your own way.
You're free to choose between the ways, but these ways are already created by me. And ultimately, if you want to really achieve perfection, you have to reach me. Because this is the goal. Krishna is the goal.
He says in the Bhagavad-gītā that I'm param gatim.
And Arjuna, in fact, when he understood who is in front of him, when he understood that somebody whom he knew as his friend, as his charioteer, as his as his advisor, as his messenger in fact. When he understood that this is the lord of all creation.
He says, you are Param Brahma, Param Dhāma, Pavitram, Param Bhavam. You are the supreme. You are the supreme. You are the supreme spirit. You are the supreme pure.
You are the supreme manifestation and you are the supreme abode.
Searching for Krishna through modern science
And you are the supreme goal of all our endeavors. Because, like Śrīla Prabhupāda very nicely starts the commentary to this verse, says that everyone is searching for Kṛṣṇa. We may not know what we're searching for.
We may think that we're searching for a wife, for a wealth, for a career. We may think that we're searching for some kind of, you know, to understand the truth about this creation.
But actually, everyone is searching something. But in fact, we're searching for Krishna and nothing else. Because everything is Krishna. Everything is creation. Everything is created by Krishna.
And Krishna says, I'm the beginning, the middle, and the end. Like I was a research scientist, and I was trying to search the fine structure of nucleosomes.
If you take chromosomes in every living cell, there are chromosomes, which is DNA, and this DNA contains all the information about everything that's there. You know?
And scientists, they think that everything, the whole human being is there in this DNA. So they think if we really understand how it works, then we can create human beings. We can create whatever we like.
We can create, you know, whatever. Anyway, we want to know what is the intricacies or minute details of this structure in order to manipulate and to have some power. Ultimately, they want to have some power.
But in reality, they're searching for Krishna because Krishna is the source of all power. And Krishna is the source of all these chromosomes and DNA and everything.
And ultimately, at one point, I realized that this is so because I never could understand how the scientists could believe that a living cell could be created completely spontaneously automatically without any reason.
Every living cell, there are at least, you know, at least few million scientists in this in this world.
And I would say that at least several 100,000 of them, they're searching, they're investigating the smallest living cell. Very, very small, tiny. It's called Escherichia coli.
It's living in our intestine and it's it's a small tiny tiny micro. It's the simplest thing. It's kind of little like little stick there and it's it's the most simple object you have.
And for years and years and years they spent billions of dollars to understand what is happening in this small cell. And then they say somehow or rather this small cell was created by its own, by chance.
Somehow or rather this whole cell by chance. And then this this small cell, after that, by chance, monkey was created. And then by chance from monkey, somebody else was created.
And then somebody else finally understood that everything was created by chance. Doesn't make any sense.
Yes, it really doesn't make any sense because the complexity of of life is so huge They they still have some hope that at one point they will understand how by chance it was created.
Like, there was one scientist who was putting together all kinds of stuff and was hoping to create life.
Instead of life, he some some kind of completely some mess was there. And he said, look, this mess reminds me very much life. He was awarded by some big prize.
This mess has nothing to do with life because life is in order. And our order is coming from the intelligence. And this supreme intelligence is the supreme intelligence of the Lord. The supreme intelligence of the Creator.
And Krishna says this. I'm this Creator. I'm this Creator. And everything is my creation. But if you don't want to see me this way, you will not see me. You will not understand.
Understanding time as the universal form
And for those who don't want to see the Lord as He is. For those who don't want to see, to understand that He is the person. And that He has personal feeling. And that He is personally taking care of each and every one of us.
For those, Lord appears in His Ghora-rupa. In Bhagavad-gītā Krishna says, Time I am. He says, I am the only wiring force in this world. I am Time. And He shows Arjuna, this wonderful creation of time.
Shows his Virāṭ-rūpa, his universal form with millions and thousands of heads and helmets and with weapons, with mouths, with, you know, flames all over the place. And this is the time.
He says, Time I am. And I came to devour everything. I came to destroy everything. And this is the form of the Lord to which everyone of us will have to reciprocate with.
At one point we will also be devoured by this time of the Lord, kāla-rūpa. If we want to reciprocate with him in this particular form. So the point is that, like scientists, they don't know what is time.
Nobody has any slightest, faintest idea what is time. They they cannot they don't even know how to approach time because time is the lord. Because time is completely it's completely mysterious force in this world.
Everyone has an experience what is time. Everyone knows that everything takes place in the in time and time actually is the death of everyone. Time forces everyone to to grow old. Time forces everyone to die.
This force is real. This force is pushing everyone. Like according to the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam time is not just something passive. It's not just some something unreal. It's a real force.
And Kṛṣṇa shows his form, virāṭ-rūpa or kāla-rūpa to Arjuna. And that's the point. You know, if a scientist will ultimately understand what is what is time, they will have to understand this virāṭ-rūpa.
You know, if at one point we can imagine that some physicist will investigate what time is. Ultimately, he will have to understand this, you know, wonderful form which Arjuna saw.
But what Krishna wants to what Krishna wants to say to Arjuna here in this verse is that it all depends on you. If you change your attitude, now your attitude is dead. Now our attitude is dead.
We don't want to see the Lord. We don't want to understand what Lord wants for us. But if we change our attitude and if we say, okay, I surrender unto you. This is the ultimate teaching of the Bhagavad-gītā.
At the end of the Bhagavad-gītā Krishna will say, You take shelter of me. And I will take care of you. That's what Krishna wants from us.
The only thing which Krishna really wants from us, He wants that we would say, Krishna, please take care of us. You know, with his small children. And people of this world, they are very much afraid of time.
Because time is death. Everyone knows. And everyone has this fear of death. The psychologist, they say that this fear of death go to movie. They're forced or moved by this fear of death. This fear is there.
That we are fearful. But if I understand that this time or this force which forces everyone to die is Krishna, is our father, then we will not be afraid.
Like, for example, if you are, if you have a father and the father and you have a fun, like, and a father puts some kind of costume on him, and he appears as kind of monster for the fun. He has so many children.
And, Hare Krishna, you please come. Get seated. Hare Krishna, thank you for coming. We are talking talking about one verse. You please sit on the chair. No. I will sit. Thank you for coming.
We're talking about the verse from the Bhagavad-gītā where Krishna says, as one surrenders unto me, I reciprocate with them accordingly.
So, and and and I told that people of this world, they don't want to see Lord. They don't want to know the Lord. And because they don't want to know the Lord, the Lord appears in front of them as the power of time.
In his ghora-rūpa, he devours everyone. But those who are surrendered unto the Lord, those who are obedient to the Lord, they're not afraid of time.
Like, for example, when a father puts some costume to get some fun, and if a son knows that this is father, he may not recognize him, but he knows this is father and father is making fun.
You know, he will just prunk to him and say, hey, come on father. You know, take all this strange costume and reciprocate with me in a normal way, loving way. So the Lord is the person, this is the point.
And in his real form, he wants to love us. And he he is expecting our reciprocation, our loving reciprocation. And if we are like this to the Lord, he will show to us his real form, his form of Krishna, all loving father.
And in his form of Krishna, we will reciprocate with him eternally and we will get pleasure.
But for those children who don't know that behind this fearful, terrible form, horrible form of time, there is loving father, they're afraid. Only because they don't know that this is the Lord.
As soon as they know that this is the Lord and this is the his real form, they will be very happy.
So the cause of all miseries in this world, cause of all suffering in this world is this rebellious attitude towards the Lord. Because we don't know the Lord and we don't want to know because we hate the Lord.
We have to reciprocate with this strange way with the Lord. We ultimately, in any case, in reciprocation with him. But this reciprocation is not favorable only because our attitude is not favorable.
As soon as we change our attitude and our attitude becomes favorable, as soon as we surrender unto the Lord, as he says, as soon as we surrender unto him, forgetting everything else, as soon as our attitude becomes favorable, he also becomes favorable.
And we will see that behind this creation is the Lord. And we will see that the source of all creation is the Lord himself and we will be able to reciprocate with him in this creation.
And this is the first lesson we will have to understand how to reciprocate with the time force. Because the time force brings us some miseries. And when we get some misery, our real attitude towards the Lord is proven.
If we're favorable Just to remind me that there is some force, that you're not alone.
And if we're hateful, then when something is happening, something bad is happening, we will start hating the Lord and we will say, you're not you're bad. You forgot about me and everything.
Cultivating gratitude to clear karma
So the first the first proof of our surrender unto the Lord is how we reciprocate with this life. If we're always grateful, if our heart is grateful. And this is the teaching of Kṛṣṇa in Bhagavad-gītā.
He says, You have to live your life with grateful heart. You have to reciprocate without other living beings with grateful heart. You have to be grateful because the Lord gave us so much. He gave us sun.
He gave us this life. He gave us this nice food. Some prasāda is there. He gave us everything. We don't need much. It's because we're greedy. We always want something more and more and more.
And greed, lust, illusion, madness, this is all manifestation of our original envy towards the Lord. And whenever we are envious, whenever we're hateful, this is the reciprocation of our original sin.
And this original sin is the cause of all suffering. The root cause of all suffering. So the only thing which we have to change in our life and in our existence is to become grateful. This of karma?
Everyone created his karma. Everyone did so many bad things. We can't even count how many bad things we did. In fact, every time we inhale just a simple process step on some ant, will create some pain.
And this creates karma. This creates ultimately it will create some suffering towards us.
And the only way to get rid of all these sufferings and the only way to make our life auspicious in a true sense of this word is to change our attitude towards the Lord.
And therefore, Kṛṣṇa says, and this is the ultimate instruction of the Bhagavad-gītā, I will give you freedom from all your sinful reactions. I will make you immune from the sinful reactions.
And when you get this, you know, like, when you go to India, when I go to India, I will have to make some kind of, you know, shots to make me immune from Indian microbes, like, from some cholera or whatever is there.
The meaning of my life. My life becomes meaningful when I understand this. Everything else is natural.
The knowledge is to understand that there is Lord behind everything and that we're reciprocating with Him in different ways. Every minute of our time, we're reciprocating with Him.
And we should understand that whatever reciprocation, whatever exchange we have in this world is actually and ultimately, in the true sense of this world, is reciprocation with the Lord.
And if I understand this, this is the knowledge. If we don't understand this, this is nescience. And in the universities and the colleges, they basically teach people how to be completely ignorant.
How to forget that there is the Lord of all creation. But the real knowledge is to understand there is Lord and I am reciprocating with him. And now I'm also trying to reciprocate with you.
And I see that you're reciprocating with me in a different way. Somebody is more favorable, somebody is less favorable. But in ultimate sense of the word, this is all reciprocation with the supreme father.
And we're all members of our family. And what He waits from us, what He expects from us is to be favorable. Favorable to each other, favorable to environment, favorable to this world, and favorable to him.
We have to get rid of this original sin, the root cause of all our sufferings. And this is the hatred towards the Lord. This is the envy.
He said, he says that all the living entities have come to this world in illusion. All living entities are in illusion. And what is the reason of this illusion? What is the cause of this illusion?
And the reason of this illusion, the cause of illusion is iccha, desire. Desire or karma. Lust. I want something for myself. And hatred. And ultimately, hatred towards the Lord. I I hate.
I hate whatever whatever obstacle is there towards my own enjoyment, and, ultimately, I hate the Lord. So he says, get rid of this, please. He says, get rid of this.
Just be nice to everyone and be grateful to whatever is there, to whatever you get in your life. Because the life is difficult sometimes.
But whatever difficulties are there, if we're grateful, if we receive these difficulties with grateful heart and we say, oh, Lord, this is my karma. I definitely deserve much more. I'm a rascal. I deserve much more.
But you're nice and you're you know better what I need. You're giving me exactly what I need. And if we reciprocate with the Lord this way, then our life will become auspicious.
If we don't reciprocate in this way, our life will become very inauspicious. Will bring inauspiciousness.
Free will and choosing spiritual perfection
So this is what Krishna says here in this verse. He says, it's up to you. Whatever you want to get, you will get. If you want to get death, you will get death. If you want to get eternal life, you will get eternal life.
If you want to get sufferings, you will get sufferings. If you want to get freedom and bliss, you will get freedom and bliss. It all depends on you. Krishna doesn't force anything.
He's almighty, but he doesn't force anyone to do anything against his will. As as much as we can force anyone. Like, I can I can say so many lectures or whatever?
But it's ultimately up to you whether you will follow or not. You know, I can I can cut so many jokes or I can, I don't know, I can repeat so many verses? But ultimately, everyone is free to do whatever he likes.
But Krishna says, please think about it.
And at the end, when he spoke Bhagavad-gītā, the very end, when he finished Bhagavad-gītā, he told Arjuna, I told you everything. I told you whatever you like to know. Now it's up to you. Whether you will follow it or not, it's up to you.
And Krishna and Arjuna said to him, I will do whatever you said. This is my conscious decision. I will do and I will follow you. And this is what Krishna expects from us.
But as I think I told once that there was one Indian who said, I like Bhagavad-gītā very much. This is a very fine teaching. Very, very nice. Very high philosophy.
And but I of all the verses of the Bhagavad-gītā, I like the most this one. I told you everything. Now you can do whatever you want. But that's not the point. Of course, this is the point.
This is an important point of our philosophy. But ultimately Krishna didn't speak it to tell us do whatever you like. He spoke this for us to follow. He spoke this for our benefit. And it depends on us.
If we want our benefit, we will follow what Krishna says. And the intelligent person will say, I will follow you. I will say how you tell.
Less intelligent person will say, well, okay, thank you very much. It was very interesting. I will go. There are so many other things to do. But ultimately, we'll understand.
Ultimately, everyone, like Śrīla Prabhupāda says here in the purport, that everyone is searching for Kṛṣṇa. And in all our pursuits in life, we feel that something is lacking.
Like, for example, somebody may get $1,000,000. And as soon as he gets it, it's his goal of life. I have one friend of this. He says, I I will surrender to the lord, but first, I have to get $1,000,000.
And then after that, he can surrender. But the problem is that as soon as he gets $1,000,000, he will definitely think I need 1 more million or 10 more million because he will not be satisfied.
Whatever goal is there, because this is not the ultimate goal, you will not get the ultimate satisfaction. And ultimately, to get the ultimate satisfaction, you have to reach the ultimate goal.
And Krishna says here that I am this ultimate goal. I'm param gatiṁ. I'm this ultimate goal of everyone's pursuit. And this this is the only thing which we have to understand. We are all searching for Krishna.
And if we want ultimate satisfaction, if we want ultimately to reach the goal of all our search in this life, we have to reach him.
And like Śrīla Prabhupāda quotes from here in this purport, whatever you desire, you may have all desires in life or you may not have any desires or you desire liberation. It doesn't matter.
Whatever your goal in life is, you know, ultimately, you should surrender to the Lord. And he's because he's the ultimate fulfiller of all our desires. He's the one who fulfills all the desires of all living entities.
So and you can't escape it. This is the thing. You can't escape it. You can't escape reciprocating with him. So better you do it in a nice way.
Otherwise, you will still reciprocate with the Lord, but in not so nice way, in a less favorable way. So it's up to us. If we want to make our life favorable, we have to pray to the Lord. We have to come to the temple.
Temple. We have to chant His holy names. And this is the main means of liberation. The main means of surrender. What Krishna wants from us is to remember about Him.
Transforming the heart through holy names
And the best way to remember about Him is just to chant His name. I was once before that. But then somebody told me, you should chant this this mantra. It's very good. It's very good for you.
And somehow rather by some good luck, I believed him. I don't know why. And I started chanting it. And at one point, I thought, maybe I'm going crazy.
I'm chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa. Don't know who Kṛṣṇa is, who Rāma is. Why do I chant this strange thing? But still, I couldn't stop chanting. Because I felt something. I really felt some relief.
And everyone could feel it. If one starts chanting this this very easy and sublime practice of chanting the holy name of the Lord. And this is the ultimate teachings of all religion.
We started this lecture from saying that the goal of all religion is to change change the attitude of people to be more favorable towards the Lord. But the best way to change the deep attitude within our heart, if we want to change it deeply, not superficially, not in our mind, not in our but in our deep, deep consciousness.
The best way to change this attitude is to chant His is to chant His holy name. And the holy name will work on your heart. The holy name will make your heart favorable. You can't do it artificially.
You can't just sit and say, okay, from now on I'm very, very favorable. I love the world. Everything is fine. And then the next minute something better will come. And you don't know how you will react.
Because this is just mine. The mind can do it.
You can change your attitude very easily, but the the proof will be how you react to towards real life. And to make this happen, to make this deep change within your heart, you have to change the to the holy name of the Lord. This is the only way actually to change your heart.
There is a one very nice chapter in the second canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, which is called the change of the heart.
And in this chapter, after describing this Virat Rupa, the magnificent universal form, Krishna says, to understand me and to relate to me in all forms—because Lord comes in different forms, in different incarnations, and ultimately in his svayam rupa as Krishna. But to understand me and to reciprocate with all these forms favorably, you have to change. You have to you have to change your heart, and for that, have you to chant the holy name.
So, let's take this lesson from the Bhagavad-gītā and all the holy scriptures, all the Vedas. This is the essence. The essence of all holy scriptures.
The great Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the greatest scripture of all creation. Wonderful, amazing scripture, which we are studying every day.
The last verse of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the very last verse, the very last teaching, the very last message of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is that we have always to chant the holy name of the Lord.
It says that I'm bowing down in front of the Lord.
I'm paying my obeisances toward the Lord, whose holy name, whose simple holy name brings all auspiciousness in the people's life and releases one from all the sufferings and gives freedom from all the sins.
This is the essence of all the teaching. The, ultimately, we have to understand the simple essence. One has to chant the Holy Name. And this is the teachings of all religions.
If we take Christianity, if we take Judaism, even if we take Buddhism, Buddhists don't don't believe in God. They say there's no God, there is no soul, there is nothing, but we have to chant the name of Buddha.
Anyway, somehow or other, to get liberation, to get rid of suffering. So this is the ultimate teaching, and this teaching means bhakti.
Bhakti means to chant the holy name of the Lord, to pray to the Lord, to come to the temple. So let's do it. Let's chant the holy name of the Lord, and we can have a little training in this regard.
If you have some questions, a little later, we can chant a little kīrtana if you want. But if you have some questions, I will be happy to answer.
Transcending material dualities of happiness
Unfortunately, some of you came a little late, but, anyway, very happy to see you here. Mara, what is the proper treatment of this happiness and sadness? Proper treatment. Treatment.
Just because I think that these are the biggest diseases by which we are suffering. Krishna also thinks so, this is the biggest problem.
He also says that the biggest problem of a human conditioned human being is that he's completely absorbed by the dualities of this world. In this world everything is relative.
This world is... And sometimes we're happy, and sometimes we're miserable. Sometimes somebody is a woman and somebody is a man. Somebody there are so many dualities in this world.
So, as long as we continue being absorbed in these dualities, we will not be happy. So what Krishna consciousness means is to look in this world from Krishna's point of view. How God sees this creation.
And for God there is no hot, there is no heat, there is no cold. For God there is no good and there is no bad. For God, there is no happiness and there is no distress.
And for those who are connected with Him and who are trying to understand how He views this creation, He also adopts the same view. And He says, this is funny. Why they're so miserable? And why they're so happy?
You know, like Krishna said, that self realized sage, he looks, you know, he he can't really understand what's going on in this world because he doesn't see any real cause for the happiness and the stress.
And this this cause is is little bit illusory. And we are bewildered by these dualities. We are bewildered by these relative truths. We are completely bewildered. We are getting absorbed, and this is called māyā.
Why we're bewildered? Because we don't know the connection with the source of this Maya. As soon as we know the connection with the source of this Maya, we will get rid of all the bewilderment.
We understand the real nature of everything which is going on here. And for those who who know this, they they're not really, you know, into happiness and distress. They're always happy.
But this happiness is different nature. They're always joyful. And even if there is something if if something is tough, they still say that it's okay.
Like, in the second canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Queen Kuntī, she prays, Oh my lord, please send distress after distress after distress in my life because when the distress come, when the misery comes, I can remember about you. And I remember about you so intensely that the relief which I get from this remembrance is much greater than the distress. Because I remember about you, I feel your presence. And because I feel your presence in my life, because I know you are there, you're near me. And this is the main happiness. This is the main source of happiness.
So for those who know that the Lord, if something bad comes, they remember it about the Lord and they become happy. And if something good comes, they also remember about the Lord and they also become happy.
And this is this is what it means to look at this life from the point of view of Krishna, from the absolute perspective.
As long as we are into this relative duality, into relative reality where everything is relative, we are doomed to death because because the death is the nature of this relative world.
This relative world, one of the dualities of this world is the birth and death. Youth and old age. This is all dualities.
But if we're little over this plane, this plane of relativity, and that's what Krishna teaches in Bhagavad-gītā, don't be so foolish. It's not so important. Everything is important, important what is going on.
You have to relate to this in a normal way, but still, you have to have a higher perspective. Little higher. Not be, you know, like, you know, there are so many worms.
And these worms, they're, you know, they're living somewhere in stool. And they're completely convinced that this stool is the definitely the center of all creation. And they can't they can't have broader perspective.
This whole their whole worldview is completely centered around this little pit of stool. So, what Krishna says here, don't be so foolish.
Don't don't be so absorbed in whatever little, you know, sphere of creation you are reciprocating with. Just try to have a broader perspective of life, and you will become happier just by this.
And this is and he says, you're true. This is you're you're right. He says, this is big problem. Then what do you new point have to do?
We abide and we abide in the in and in the middle whoever, anyone has chant. This is the way how to look.
You know, when we chant the holy name of the lord, ultimately, we will understand this is somebody's name and and how who is he, how he looks, what I am in relation to him.
Basically, we have to understand our relationship with with god. It's called sambanda gyan. It's knowledge about our eternal relationship with the lord.
And, of course, when we are in a very neophyte condition, we will always tend to see relativity because we're used to. We're programmed to. This is our life. We were trained to see and to reciprocate with this.
But then we have to under under to undertake some other training. And this Krishna consciousness practice, the spiritual practice is actually training.
That training to look on our life and everything is happening on the world in a different way.
So that's how and the only way to get this training is to chant the holy name and to relate with devotees, to speak about Krishna, to talk about Krishna, to come here. You please come. We are very happy to see you.
Welcome to you here. You please come as often as possible. And this is actually very nice. Some some some of you already want to live here. They already live here. They don't want to to go out.
Importance of satsang and eternal association
Anyway, it's it's program. And what means Like, you're associating with but also comes from means real. Asad means something unreal. So sad sang means association with something real.
You know, you have so much association with something which is quite unreal. Today it is here. Tomorrow it's somewhere else. Today somebody's here. The world is not. He's gone. There are so many strange things in this world.
But this temple and this sangha, this association is to get us in contact with with something which is real, which is eternal, which is always there.
To give us this eternal basis or eternal, eternal foundation of our life. And this is very important to always be in contact. And when we chant the holy name of the Lord, it's also satsang.
It's also association with something which is real, with with something which is sat chit ananda, something which is eternal, blissful, and full of knowledge. And this is our real nature.
The nature of the soul is eternity, knowledge, and bliss. And we have to to be how to say it? We have to act accordingly to our nature.
Because in this world, we are programmed to act as somebody who is Assad, Achit, and You know, this is the this is the program of everyone's life. Then everyone is programmed from the school time that we are something something unreal, something something temporary, something which is destined to die. Then they're programmed to be a cheat, something very ignorant, something without knowledge.
And then, we're landing up completely miserable. So, but we have to come to our real nature, to understand our real nature, which is sat, cit, and ānanda.
And you can achieve this, and we we all can achieve this by this satsang, by coming together, by speaking about Kṛṣṇa, about sat, and by chanting His holy name. Is there any other questions? Yes.
Even even if you're drinking the nectar of Bhagavad-gītā, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the devotees are always thirsty. Is there thirst to the prince after some time or peace? Thirsty, about what? About the nectar of Kṛṣṇa?
Or if you're, that's fine. This is the worst, the best thirst you can ever have. I can only wish that your thirst will never quench. You shouldn't want to quench this thirst. This thirst has to become stronger and stronger.
No. Because Krishna is unlimited. Krishna is unlimited.
And you cannot really quench the thirst because as soon as you quench the thirst about some particular manifestation of Krishna, you realized that Krishna, he already became bigger and more beautiful and more blissful and more knowledgeable.
And your thirst also will grow. Everything spiritual has no limits. The spirit by nature has no limits. And it's ever growing and it's ever, like, once said that Kṛṣṇa is static.
Everything in this world is stagnant all the time. Everything here is static.
So we're programmed to reciprocate and relate to this static world, therefore we think maybe, you know, our spiritual source has some limits of, oh, we can quench it. No. We can't quench it. Let it always grow unlimitedly.
And Bhagavad-gītā is amazing book because one can read it again and again and again. I read it. I read it so many times. I read it again and again and again.
I always read different verses of Bhagavad-gītā and every time I read I find some new meaning and some new understanding of it and new insight is there. It's an amazing book. You can't read any other book like this.
You know, there are so many books. There is Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace. Can, you know, you're lucky if you read it once. Not not everyone can do this. Oh, that's great. It's a it's a very good book.
But, of of course, some people, they read it many times, but it's rare people.
But if you read something spiritual, you always find it fresh because this is the nature of spirit. Spirit is also always fresh. Matter, sooner or later, becomes pale and stagnant and not really interesting. You know?
Matter, it's very strange thing. But spirit is very interesting. And the holy name of the Lord is the embodiment of the whole spirit. And therefore, it's amazing. Now, it's almost twenty years. Oh, yeah.
In a few months, I've been chanting the holy name of the Lord 16 rounds, 1,728 times at least every day for twenty years. Every day is not the beginning, sad, well, will end. Because it has different nature.
It has completely different nature. And it brings nava nava, newer and newer tastes, newer and newer relishes, newer and newer experiences. And everyone can understand it if he tries. Okay.
Let's have little kirtan if you don't mind.
Glories of hearing Krishna-katha
Little bhajana. So we will sing I will sing one verse from the tenth canto of Bhagavad-gītā, from Gopī-gītā. The famous chapter, Gopīs, songs of Gopīs about Kṛṣṇa in his separation.
So since we don't know the verse, I'll speak it first, and then we will chant Hare Kṛṣṇa on the same tune. It's a very nice verse and the verse says, The gopīs say, The nectar of your topics, of Kṛṣṇa-kathā...
tavāmṛta-kathāṁ tapta-jīvanam kavi-bhir īḍitaṁ kalmaṣāpaham. It brings relief to all the jīvas, to all the living entities who are suffering in this material world.
By these great poets and great sages, great kavīs, they gave us these topics to get this relief.
Great poets and great kavīs, great sages, they wrote all this transcendental literature, and everything, just to give us some relief. It brings fortune when you hear this.
As soon as you hear about Krishna, it brings you fortune. Just by by hearing this, by by listening about Krishna, it brings some auspiciousness in your life. And it has very great spiritual power, force in it.
Every topic, every verse in Bhagavad-gītā has very great spiritual power.
And whoever speaks about Kṛṣṇa and tells others about Kṛṣṇa, whoever distributes these topics about Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa-kathā to others, he is the greatest charitable person. There are so many kinds of charity.
People give this charity and that in charity and everything is charity. But the greatest charity is to share this knowledge about the Lord. That's to tell somebody, just read Bhagavad-gītā.
Just take this book and read this great book, wonderful book and do something about this. So this is the greatest charity is to speak about the Lord, is to talk about Him.
So this is the verse and then we chant Hare Kṛṣṇa on this.