Шримад-Бхагаватам 11.23.50. Менталитет жертвы
Bhakti Vijnana Goswami · 2020
Chapters
The prevalence of victim mentality
Hare Krishna. I'm very happy to meet with you in this virtual space on Zoom during this time of coronavirus.
And I think it's a very appropriate topic which was given to me by the organizers of this program, Victim Mentality. First of all because it's very prominent in general in human society.
Second of all because it's very prominent specifically in this day and age. Because everyone is trying to blame somebody else for his problems or failures and there's always somebody to be blamed.
It could be the government, it could be other people, it could be spiritual organization like ISKON. There is one more advantage for all the ISKON members. They can blame their spiritual masters.
That's also a great opportunity which is unique for us. It's very much common to blame others.
And in this little talk I want to examine this propensity and the roots of this propensity and moreover the consequences, very ferocious consequences of this very natural human propensity to blame others for his faults, for his failures, for his problems, for his pains and sufferings.
And to introduce this talk or to actually give the life to this talk I will read the verse number 50 from the twenty third chapter of the eleventh canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam which is entitled The Song of Dhyavanti Brahmana.
Reciting Srimad-Bhagavatam eleventh canto verse
भागवत्यू tamaslo ke, putreti tanmayatayo taravo bine dus tam sarva bhuta hridayam munimana to smim So we will read this verse from the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
Ja nas tuhetuh sukka duk kayos chet, kim atmanash chattra he bomayosh tatt jihvamkvacit sandhasati svadadbhis tatt vedanayam katamaya kupyet Translation.
If you say that these people who are the cause, that these people are the cause of my happiness and distress, then where is the place of the soul in such conception?
This happiness and distress pertain not to the soul but to the interactions of material bodies. If someone bites his tongue with his own teeth, at whom he can become angry in this suffering?
Although bodily pleasure and pain are felt by the soul, one must tolerate such duality, understanding it to be a creation of one's own material mind.
If one accidentally bites his own tongue or lip he cannot become angry and pull out his own thieves. Similarly, all living beings are individual parts and parcels of God and thus non different from each other.
All of them are meant to serve the supreme lord in spiritual equality. If the living beings give up their master's service and instead quarrel among themselves, they will be forced to suffer by the laws of nature.
If the conditioned souls establish artificial relationship of affection based on the material body and having nothing to do with God, then time itself will destroy their relationship and they will be subjected to further sufferings.
But if the individual living entity understand each other to be of the same family and having connection with the supreme lord, their mutual friendship will develop.
Thus one should not exhibit anger that will be harmful to oneself and others.
Although the Brahmana was receiving kind offerings of charity from some people and being harassed and beaten by others, he denied that these people were the ultimate cause of his happiness and stress, for he was fixed on the platform of self realization beyond the material body and mind.
Shila praupadhiki jana stuhhetu sukha dukkha yosh ched kim atmanash chatra hibomayosh tatt Jijvam kvacit sanda sati svadadbhis, tat vedanayam katamaya kupyet.
If you say that these people are the cause of my happiness and distress, then where is the place of the soul in such conception?
This happiness and distress pertain not to the soul, but to the interactions of material bodies. If someone bites his tongue with his own teeth, at whom he can become angry in his sufferings?
Illustrating the soul's illusory bondage
So this very beautiful and instructive chapter of the eleventh canto of Shimabhagavatam starts from a very important question asked by Oudhava or rather from a very radical statement made by Lord Krishna himself.
In the previous chapter, the chapter number 22 of the eleventh canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Lord Krishna is explaining the illusory nature of soul's bondage. This is a very difficult point to understand.
Asanga hi I am Purushaha. Upanishads say that Purusha, living entity, spirit soul is Asanga. It's not really connected with matter. It's not has really anything to do.
It doesn't have anything to do with matter, with material body.
And nevertheless we see how strong is our attachment to matter, how strong is our attachment to body, how strong is our attachment to our material relationship. And how difficult it is to get free.
And therefore it's very difficult point to understand because the point is being here that we're already free. We're not really connected.
And all the connections which we feel and which we experience practically on every minute basis is illusion. So how to understand this illusion which is so much real and so much prominent in our consciousness?
And therefore Lord Krishna in explaining this philosophy to Uddhava goes into the great land by trying giving different examples to facilitate our understanding how the soul is not really connected with the body but still nevertheless is somewhat connected with the body and what is the nature of this connection.
Lord Krishna gives a very important and beautiful example. He says that the emotions which the soul experience and the soul does experience emotions.
It is said by Krishna in Bhagavad Gita that Bhoktritva, the experiencing capacity is within the soul. The Kartritva, the agency, the ability to act is within the material nature.
But the Boktritva, the experiential capacity, the capacity to experience different emotions is within the soul.
So how is it if the activity is being done by something and how we experience something which we are not really doing.
How emotions affect the witnessing soul
So Lord Krishna gives a very beautiful example.
He says that in a similar way as on the stage when we see some performance of the stage and somebody is singing very beautifully or dancing very beautifully, then the audience becoming more and more involved into this performance starts experiencing the same emotions.
And we all know, you know, people are sitting there in their armchairs, but at the same time their legs are dancing and they start, you know, moving fro and to by in the rhythm of the music and basically they're dancing inside.
So they're being sucked in this performance and they experience the same thing which is being experienced or even sometimes stronger according to the Rasa's theory.
According to the Rasa's theory, the Rasa can only be experienced by the spectator, not by the performer.
At least some theorists of Rasa are of disoppinion that performance of the play, they cannot experience emotion to the fullest extent. It's only available to the spectators, to the witnesses of these emotions.
So, Lord Krishna gives this example and this example is supposed to understand us the nature of our experience. We, the soul, are witnessing all the emotions produced in the mind.
All the different waves of emotions, very powerful energy of emotions. And emotions are nothing but energy in motion.
The English word emotion is coming from the Latin word emovere, from the Latin root emovere which means to move. So emotion is the very strong dynamic force within our mind.
And we all know, you know, if we are moved by some emotion, if it's a strong emotion, be it the emotion of anger or emotion of fear or emotion of lust or emotion of, I don't know what else, grief.
We become completely subdued by this emotion, overwhelmed by this emotion. We cannot actually do anything, help anything to overcome this emotion. It's such a strong force which carries away our consciousness.
Our whole consciousness is completely sucked in, sucked in this emotion. So, Lord Krishna gives this example to give us some understanding that the soul being the witness within the mind.
The soul is witnessing what is going on in the mind, on the stage of the mind and identifies with this very beautiful performance. As much as the spectator of the performance is identifying easily.
It's called in the Rasa series Sādhāraṇī-karaṇa when we become identical with what is going on on the stage.
And we all know, we all have experience if we see the cinema some shadows and colors are produced on the white screen and they're moving in the white screen.
But somehow rather we are sitting there and we are experiencing very strong forces inside. Reflected emotions from the screen. Fear or anger or love or something else.
So this is exactly the situation of the soul and but Lord Krishna does not stop there.
He gives actually a series of other similes to explain what is going on exactly when we identify with this body and with these emotions and with this mind and why it is a vicious circle.
Why it is so difficult to break free from these shackles of the identification with the body.
We all know that you know I may be sitting there in the cinema but when it becomes too much I just, you know, get up and walk out or I just eat my popcorn and become relaxed.
It's somewhat easy to distance oneself from what is going on on the screen or on the stage. But when it comes to the stage of the mind it's much more difficult. Sometimes we would like to walk out but it's not possible.
We're just sitting there completely, you know, chained to this armchair of our identification. And we cannot help but to see the whole horror movie till the end, which is not always a happy end.
On the contrary, it's always unhappy and we die and we witness our own death and we become horrified how it is possible that I'm dying.
You know, it's not possible and you know the whole drama evolves or interrupts at this moment. So therefore Lord Krishna gives us some other very interesting hints what's going on.
Four similes of false identity
And it's very important to understand immediately after this verse number 53 where he explains, gives this simile, he gives three similes in the next two verses fifty four and fifty five of twenty second chapter.
And he says, I will not read Sanskrit because I believe there is not many people who understand it anyway.
So he says, the soul's material life, his experience of sense gratification is actually false or descended of Dasarha. Just like trees appearance of quivering when the trees are reflected in agitated water. Or like the earth's appearance of spinning due to once spinning his eyes around. Or like the world of fantasy or dream.
When Krishna gives four examples in a row there must be some very important message behind these examples. This example cannot explain the same thing.
Of course sometimes to drive the point home he may give the same example again and again and again and again to stress the point. But it's not the case in this particular story which we're reading with you.
This first example which I gave and explained already of identification with the play of the mind is a general example.
But the three other examples in the next two verses are explaining different aspects of our false identity. Our false identity or identification with the body, mind and our emotions which are there in the mind.
They're basically it's called false ego, but false ego has three very important aspects.
These three important aspects of false ego are explained in the Third Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam by Lord Kapila deva in his explanation of Sāṅkhya philosophy. Kartritva is one aspect of false ego, false identity: I'm the doer. I'm either basically — there are two aspects of this — either I'm a sufferer or I'm an enjoyer. I'm the doer of my actions or I'm a failure?
So it's very much connected with this victim sort of mentality. I'm the failure and I have to blame others. But we will explain in more details a little later. Let's first understand how our false identity works.
This false ego is very strong fellow and it has these three aspects. First aspect is identification with the doership.
And for that, to explain the falsity of this conception that I'm the doer, Lord Krishna gives the first example.
The first example is basically when the boat is moving on the river and we are on the boat, we see the trees and it seems to us, it appears to us that the trees are moving.
Or the trees are standing still and we look in the reflection of the trees in the water and the water is flowing and it appears to us that the reflection, that trees are moving.
In any case, whatever explanation we will take from the Sanskrit, either way, the first explanation with the boat is better because it's more clear. What is going on here?
We transfer the quality of action into something which is actually not acting. The trees are not moving. There is no action in the trees. They are standing still on the bank of the river.
But we look at them and because of the illusion, because we are moving ourselves, there is some disconnection. There. Okay.
Because of this illusion, because we are looking, we're moving, but we're looking at something which is not moving. It seems like that this is what is being moved or what is moving.
So in the similar way we are not acting. In the material world the soul is not acting, the body is acting, the soul is inactive. But this inactive soul assumes the qualities of action of the body.
This kartritva which is being performed by the body, the agency, the body, the material nature is moving. But we think I'm the doer. I'm doing activity.
So that's the significance of the first example of non moving trees which seem to us that they're moving. The next example is even more beautiful and they were more important for us to understand.
The next example is that when you start moving, when you start rotating around or you just rotate your own head, you know, and then you stop and your eyes are still moving and it looks to you as if the whole earth is moving.
Whereas the earth is not moving, it's your eyes are moving.
Three aspects of the false ego
So it seems to be the same example.
But it's not the same example and therefore Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura gives another example which makes it more clear what is meant by Krishna while he is explaining or giving this simile or this metaphor for us to understand. He gives another example, perhaps a little more easy for us to relate. If somebody becomes crazy or possessed by this ghost, he starts manifesting different qualities and we look at him and we think that this is the quality of the person whereas this is not the quality of the person, this is the quality of the ghost who possessed himself. So, the second example is the example of the second aspect of false ego which is Karanatva when we identify with our qualities.
The first is general identification. I identify myself or I think myself, I'm the doer, I'm the doing. The second identification is that how we think about ourselves. I'm a very kind person. I'm a very generous person.
Oh, I'm a very cruel person, and I'm a very determined person, and I'm a very strong person. I'm this and that. You know, we always attribute different qualities which we have. The qualities of the mind to ourselves.
And this becomes the strengthening another chain which keeps us bound to this body and to these experiences. It's basically, you know, oh, I'm very sad, I'm a very sad person.
And you know if you repeat it enough number of times you become sad. And you will not be able to break free from this quality. You will always be sad.
You will always see the world through this lens, through this lens of the qualities. You know? Or sometimes people are very, you know, I'm very naive. You repeat it enough number of times and you become naive.
It's basically a game which we're playing with ourselves and therefore Krishna gives the second example about the eyes rolling. The rolling is the quality of the eyes.
And it's not by chance that Krishna gives this example with the eyes. Basically, we see the whole world through the eyes of our qualities which are not our qualities. We are pure spirit soul.
Everyone is kind but everyone is beautiful, everyone is absolutely amazing.
But because we have this strong identification with the mental qualities which we acquired during our sojourn into this material world, we become dead.
I become greedy or angry person or whatever, whatever person, sad person, joyful person, enthusiastic, I'm very enthusiastic and I'm always playing this role of being enthusiast. I'm bubbling with enthusiasm.
But this is illusion!
But this is illusion! Too much identification with this doesn't help because it just becomes really the eyes through which we see the world and we see the whole world through these eyes, and as much as the person who is rotating around himself see that the whole world is moving, in the same way we see the same qualities in other people and we relate to these other qualities and we basically reinforce by seeing or interacting with the world through these qualities or through this mind, we're reinforcing our false ego. As much as interacting with the world through this quality of I'm the doer, I'm the achiever! I'm this! And I will achieve success!
Oh, I'm a victim! I'm very nice! You know, look at me! Everyone is just so bad and mistreating me! And look at me! Just look at me, just love me.
So there are two ways of how we want to attract attention of other people. Either being the hero and achiever or being the victim. You know, the second one is easier, therefore it's more common.
You know, to achieve something you really have to work hard, to be a victim. You don't have to do anything.
You just have to always point out, see how beautifully I am suffering, see how unjustly I was treated, see how bad other people are, see how I'm suffering. Just see at me, see at me!
So this is another aspect of false ego and what I want to say and this is actually what Krishna is implying by saying this.
When we interacting through these qualities we are more or less reproducing this false ego, reinforcing false ego. We become like this. We do become like this.
Yes, we do become stingy or angry or sad person and we cannot break free. Really cannot break free.
So and the third example which Krishna gives in these two verses 54 and 55 is about bhoktṛtva, is about experiencing capacity where he says that sometimes when say a dream he's in a dream and he sees in a dream that he's suffering. In reality he's not suffering.
He's laying on a cozy bed in an AC room, in a five star hotel. But in his mind there is some turmoil is going on and he really identifies himself with all these emotions and it really seems to him that he is suffering.
So again by giving the general example of identifying what is going on in the mind Krishna elaborates on this by giving these three examples.
That our false ego is fooling us, is actually cheating us by developing these three sorts of identity: identifying with the body, the activities of the body, with this action, agency; identifying with the body, with the qualities of the body and with the qualities of the mind; and kartṛtva, identifying with the experiences of this body. Whatever the body is experiencing, suffering or enjoying or the mind is experiencing.
We identify with this and we say: Yeah, this is me. This is what I am.
And therefore these three very important examples is necessary for us to understand these three aspects of false identity and how this false identity binds us.
How the false identity keeps us bound to this material body, material mind and actually material life in general. The repetition of birth and death when we cannot break through.
And therefore Krishna more or less concludes in the verses 58 and 59, he concludes that one has to understand very much this game of the mind or this game of the false ego rather. The false ego which identifies with the mind.
Breaking free from false identity
And one has to instead of reinforcing false ego, interact with this material world in such a way that would ultimately weaken and destroy false ego, destroy false identity.
So the program, the karmic program, we call karma or what astrologers will tell us, is more or less this program of the false ego, which is the sum total of saṁskāras accumulated during our traveling in this material world.
And we are enacting this program in different way, displaying all these qualities. But the problem with the karma is that it's a vicious circle. I have the false identity and I strengthen this false identity.
I basically reconfirm this false identity every day, every minute of my life. I am like this.
So Krishna says there is only one way to break free from this vicious circle is to start behaving or interacting with the material world, with the people in the material world and foremost, first and foremost, with the events of our life, with the happenings of our life in a certain way which will instead of reinforcing our false ego, will ultimately destroy false identity.
And that's what Krishna explains in these verses 58 and 59.
Even though neglected, insulted, ridiculed or envied by bad men or even though repeatedly agitated by being beaten, tied up or deprived, one's occupation spat upon or polluted with urine by ignorant people, one who desires the highest goal of life should, in spite of all these difficulties, use his intelligence to keep himself safe on the spiritual platform.
So Krishna gives a very radical and drastic statement.
He says instead of trying to, you know, identify with all these bad occurrences which are there in everyone's life, fortunately for us, instead of rejecting them instead of revolting against them instead of basically revolting against God we should embrace them, we should welcome them and we should use them as an opportunity to keep ourselves on a spiritual platform.
I'm saying this and at the same time I'm very afraid in my mind, You know, what if this happens with me? You know, Krishna goes to such an extent, he says if somebody urinates on you, you should tolerate it.
You know, it's very difficult for us to tolerate if somebody spits at us. It's very difficult to tolerate for us if somebody says something bad about us.
It's so difficult for us to tolerate if we hear that somebody dared to say something bad about us three years back. I want to speak about doing this at the moment.
But Krishna says, no, no, if somebody comes to you and urinates on you, you say yes, thank you very much. I'm very grateful to you.
And commentators of this verse, they say throughout the history, many of the above-mentioned inconveniences have been experienced by devotees of the Lord.
One who is advanced in God consciousness does not allow himself to become obsessed with the material body even in such conditions, but rather keeps his mind fixed on the spiritual platform through proper intelligence.
Sometimes we even wonder, wonder why spiritual people experience so many bad things. Jesus Christ was crucified, Haridāsa Ṭhākura was beaten on 22 marketplaces, you know, and so many examples of this, so many examples!
Rāmānujācārya had to flee from Śrīraṅgam and Kūreśa, his disciple, experienced the pain of being deprived of his eyes. His eyes were plugged out by the by the infidel king Krimikantha. And so many other things, you know.
Sometimes we have a very false understanding of spiritual life, that the spiritual life has to be very nice and very beautiful, and the cakes should be every day, the mahaprasadam plates should be there, and this is the summoned substance of spiritual life.
To eat sweet prasadam or something like this. Many of us have these unrealistic ideas and understanding. Krishna says, no, no. Welcome to spiritual life.
If you want to experience the real taste, spiritual taste, be prepared. Be prepared to the tests, to sufferings, to difficult situations.
Be prepared that people will betray you, that people will blame you for something which you have not been doing.
Be prepared that people will blast you, will berate you. And then, you know, this is we can very much experience this nowadays. The Internet is there and all the sites are there and all our detractors are there and they blast him everyone. And, you know, the beautiful magazine is there, Back to Śrīla Prabhupāda, and you just read it and you will know everything about everyone and everyone will be, you know, revealed his faults.
So he says this, and when Uddhava hears this, he becomes stunned. Even Uddhava didn't like to hear this. What to speak about us? Nobody likes to hear this.
Nobody really likes to experience what to speak of, you know, having the first-hand experience of this. Even by witnessing this, what is going on with other devotees, we become really morose and afraid.
You know, sometimes we see the sufferings of other devotees undergoing and it's almost impossible for us to understand why it's going on like this. Why?
But Krishna says that this is actually necessary for us to slacken the grip of our false identity. As I said, the false identity has a very strong grip and it doesn't really let us out.
And therefore, therefore, Lord Krishna says ātmānām uddhārayet, one has to free oneself from the mind by the mind. One has to free oneself from this false identity by the mind, by the force of the mind, by trying to really understand that the cause of this suffering is not other people but our attachment to the mind itself.
Ultimately all these bad experiences which everyone has, inevitably everyone in this material world will have to go through sufferings to one extent or another.
It doesn't have to be drastic but sometimes, but ultimately we do experience a lot of pain, a lot of suffering, mental suffering, agonies, relationship problems, all this kind of stuff, this pandemic things and everything else.
Ultimately, this everything is necessary for us to disidentify with the mind. To understand that the suffering is taking place with the mind. And the suffering caused or inflicted by other people is not within our control.
Other people will act as much as they, you know, the way they will act. But our reaction to all these sufferings is within our control.
So let for that Lord Krishna, by answering the Uddhava's question, how is that possible? How is that possible? Please tell me how is that possible to go through this?
You know, Uddhava says, best of all speakers, please explain to me how I may properly understand this.
O soul of the universe, the conditioning of one's personality in material life is very strong and therefore it's very difficult even for a learned man to tolerate the offenses committed against them by ignorant people.
Only your devotees who are fixed in your loving service and who have achieved peace by residing at your lotus feet are able to tolerate such offenses.
Krishna, listening to what Uddhava says, he says, No, no, you're wrong, Uddhava. Even my devotees, they also suffer, when somebody insults them. He says, no one is no exception to this rule.
If somebody insults, Krishna gives in the next chapter by beginning before telling the story of Avanti brāhmaṇa. Krishna says that you know the sharp words are more difficult to tolerate than the sharp arrows.
Because sharp arrows, when they pierce your heart, they inflict pain, but this pain is short-lived. It may be there for one, two days, one, two months.
But the pain inflicted by the sharp words, insulting words of other people will be there for years.
The story of the Avanti Brahmana
The agony, the mental agony can be there for years. The pain of it. Krishna says everyone, everyone without exception is when he's insulted it's very difficult for him. But what to do? What to do for that?
Krishna, he starts explaining this story of Avanti brāhmaṇa. And this story of Avanti brāhmaṇa is a very, how shall I say it, is a very sobering sort of experience.
While reading this story, as much as any other story of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, we try to experience this story. If we read it from the very distance perspective, you know, it will not really help us.
We have to relive the same story. Reenact the same story within our life. So we all probably know the story that there was a brāhmaṇa who was very stingy, greedy and not a very good character. Not at all.
Everyone hated him. He was so stingy that he couldn't even—he was wealthy, but he couldn't enjoy himself. He wouldn't spend money for himself.
He was just, you know, miserly and he was suffering, and ultimately he lost all his wealth, and everyone just rejected him, and he accepted—you know, this is—this is how you accept sannyāsī.
And then he started wandering in the world, and you know exactly the same thing happened with him which Krishna said to Uddhava.
He was driven away from his home by the relatives because relatives hated him, and he was beaten by people, he was begging, and sometimes people would give him something, and but oftentimes people would just mock at him and would say, you know, "You're pretender, you put all this red clothes, and ultimately you're a sense enjoyer," and they would spit at him and would, you know, urinate at him, and sometimes would chain him with the chains and do all kinds of things.
And during all these experiences, what he was saying, he was saying what he said there in the verse which we read: everything is happening within the mind. I shouldn't blame others. I shouldn't blame.
He basically said whom we should not blame. He said we should not blame other people. In the verse 42 he gave the list of who we should not consider ourselves to be a victim of.
We should not, these people are not the cause of my happiness and distress. So other people are not the cause of my happiness and distress. I am not the victim of these people.
Neither the demigods, no, not the demigods which are sending rain or sending heat like now in India. They are not the cause of my suffering. Nor my own body. I should not blame my body.
Nor the planets, not even my karma, nor the providence. My past work, no? My past work has nothing to do with it. No time. Amazing, isn't it? Because we usually say that this is if it's not other people then it's karma work.
He says no no no, don't blame your karma either. Don't blame time, don't blame planets, don't blame your body. Rather it is the mind alone that causes happiness and distress and perpetuates the rotation of material life.
So as soon as we're trying to put the blame of something which is not really the cause, the cause is this identification with the mind. Because I identify with the mind, whatever is happening with the mind becomes mine.
Becomes mine experience and if I want to get free from this I should find the real cause. The real cause is this connection with the mind and I should weaken this connection with the mind.
I should use these opportunities, all these events in my life, all these happenings, everything which is basically happening within my life. I should use as an opportunity to slacken the connection with the mind.
I am not this mind and therefore I should try to tolerate and because it's very difficult to start tolerating with the pain, try to tolerate your happiness first.
Try not to identify with the comfortable situation which is there, with the happiness of the mind.
Because by doing this whatever emotion is there in the mind, if you identify with this, it only, as I said, and I will repeat it again and again and again, will reinforce your false identity.
Sometimes I deal with the very concrete case stories. It may sound like a theory, but it's not a theory. It's a very relevant and practical philosophy.
Sometimes we can, you know, I have to deal with my own problems of course, with the events which are taking place within my mind and difficult to tolerate.
But luckily I have the advantage of watching from outside of what is happening in the minds of other people.
And I can say with sole assurance that what is happening in my mind is nothing in comparison with what is happening in the minds of other people. It's difficult to tolerate what is going on here.
What people are going through, if you really get into it, into their mental conditioning and how tightly they identify with all these emotions which are going on.
It's just impossible and sometimes, you know, sometimes I cry, I have to confess to you.
Sometimes I have to cry because I see that people are suffering and at the same time I see that all these sufferings are self inflicted. Completely, absolutely from beginning to end self inflicted.
Inflicted by the mind and they are just playing along with the mind. They're just really what exactly what Avantī-brāhmaṇa is saying here in these words exactly is going on in everyone's life.
Practical example of relational victim mentality
But because we see everything through this lens of the mind we don't see. We don't, it's very difficult for us to witness it from the neutral point of view.
Just recently I experienced some examples to make it more vivid or more concrete. There was one person, one devotee, he has some difficulties in relationship, in a very important relationship in his life.
The most important relationship, let us say.
And he's experiencing, you know, immense difficulties because and he always says that, you know, that this person, you know, I want to love him and I do something and but you know, he's so cruel to me and you know, it just doesn't work and it's always, you know, I get so much.
And he always puts the blame on another person. Even indirectly. He sometimes says: No, of course it's me, I'm wrong, I'm wrongdoer. But it's basically the same song.
Unfortunately not the song of Avantī-brāhmaṇa, a completely different song. The song of a conditioned soul is being sung. You know, this is so bad, this is so bad and he's so conditioned.
But what really happened in this particular case, he had a very deep trauma in his childhood, very traumatic childhood with very emotional parents who were quite unpredictable in his life.
And you know they more or less programmed him for the better relationship. More or less instilled in him very strong program for this wrong expectation.
He always when he enters into some relationship especially if this is the relationship with some authority figures, somebody who is very important.
He immediately starts transferring all this experience of the past and this and he expects already this.
He already expects that this person will behave in a certain way with him and whatever this person tells him or does with him, he interprets in a certain way through the lens of these expectations.
And this person, I know both of them very well, the person with whom he has difficulties, he's a very kind person, he's a very loving person, very caring person.
But every little word set by this person to the devotee whom I'm describing is being reinterpreted by him in terms of his false identity, in terms of the program of his false ego. And he already knows I'm the victim!
I'm the sufferer! I will suffer! And how I will suffer? I will suffer from all these people.
And you know he enters into this relationship, he needs it and he programs this relationship completely whimsically in such a way that whatever is coming from this person to him being filtered through the lens of his false ego or through the lens of his mind only reinforces this, only confirms these expectations. You know, this is how karma works and he just cannot break through this.
He cannot look objectively into this. So what's happening with this him? Again, to make it more vivid and more understandable and perhaps more practical, more applicable to our own mind.
I was trying to explain to him how the emotions are self-perpetuating. He has a particular emotional lens within the mind. As I said, this is the part of our false identity, the experiences which we have in the mind.
We're attached to this experience. We're attached to a particular type of experience. We're attached to particular qualities which we have and we're attached to being the doer. So this is three aspects of the mind.
So we have these emotions which we are experiencing all the time and if nothing from the outside world confirms with this emotion we will reinterpret reality. That's what people are doing on a daily basis.
They take the reality, filter it through the lens of false ego, completely reinterpret the reality in terms of the false ego and you know voila! Here you are. Reality confirms your false ego. Yeah, I'm right. Yes I'm right.
The world is like this, the world is bad, the world is this, what is that.
You know, only everything which we experience in the world becomes the wood, the firewood to make stronger the fire of our sufferings, mental sufferings.
It just we take it and put it there in this fire which is already there. Amazing!
We turn everything which is there into this fire because we are on fire and everything becomes the firewood for this fire of our mental agony and sufferings.
So what's happening, coming back to the story, you know, for some time I was trying to kind of mediate and try to understand.
There were very nice and productive meeting and few very productive meetings or steps towards this authority figure in his life. Actually it's his spiritual master, as I said.
But in any case, so there was a very good meetings and it was very good progress. And I was so happy that it's going on that something, you know, maybe he will break free from this vicious circle which is inflicted.
But as soon as this was finished, as soon as this was finished and again they distanced, the mind started working. The mind again started his song. Oh yeah, no, that cannot be, that cannot be. No.
And the mind started picking up different words in these meetings, which he didn't even notice. Oh, he said this, oh, he said this, oh, that means this and this and this.
And within just a few days, very short period of time, the whole result of this seemingly successful reestablishing relationship, binding, you know, rebinding meeting, I was completely smashed by the mind.
Everything was eradicated and one again becomes the sufferer.
The same emotions came back and with the new force started raging there and you know it's and basically in one sense this person, again he's a very nice person, he doesn't blame others. He says: Oh I'm so bad. I'm so bad.
I'm, yeah, I'm bad. I'm useless. I'm hopeless. I'm absolutely hopeless. No hope in this life. Maybe next life or maybe two lives or in three lives. Maybe if my parents will be better, maybe this, maybe that.
Nothing will happen. Even if your parents are the best parents in the world.
Even if you're born to Nanda and Jñāna, of course it will not happen. But still you will have this victim mentality within yourself. You will find some problems in this relationship as well.
It may be difficult to imagine, but, you know, the mind is extremely capable of making the impossible possible. You can do it, no problem. The mind is like this.
If we take it seriously and this victim mentality is there... This victim mentality is there,
because when we are identifying with the mind, we basically, you know, as I said, victim, being the victim is the best way to attract sympathy. You know, when we're a little child... Today I experience this.
I will confess to you because, you know, to get rid of this, of some bad things you have to confess to everyone. Today a monkey attacked me.
The monkey, you know, from the back jumped on me and scratched my stomach. And I mean it was not so bad. There was some little blood was there, but not so bad.
But I really noticed how I thought, "Oh my goodness, I'm a victim, I have to show it to everyone else." They have to see how I suffered. They have to really, you know, say that, you know, express sympathy.
As much as the child, the child, you know, he uses all these so-called sufferings. Even if there is no suffering, he invents sufferings just to attract attention. And the same thing is going on with the mind.
The same game within the mind is going on, this victim mentality. And then we blame others and we, of course, we find enough reasons, serious enough reasons. What happens in this case?
When we have this very strong connection with the mind, when the mind is conditioned in such a way, then the intelligence becomes the slave of the mind. The intelligence starts working for the mind.
The mind has this perception.
Like I said, if somebody is a very fearful person and there is absolutely no reason in the environment to fear, the intelligence will find the reasons. Because the intelligence, being the slave of the mind, will invent something, you know.
I also deal with such cases on a regular basis. There is absolutely no reason to fear, but the fear is there. How to rationalize the fear? The intelligence starts working, starts rationalizing the fear.
Perhaps I am fearful because of this or because of that or because of this or because of that. In the same way we're suffering.
We feel, we experience suffering because of the strong connection or the strong identification with the mind. We feel this suffering and our intelligence immediately starts working. Who is to be blamed?
Somebody else to be blamed. And as Avanti brāhmaṇa said: No, please don't blame anyone. Nobody, nobody. You know.
It's only going on within your mind. It's only going on within your mind. And it's in the same way as you bite your tongue or you bite your lip. You know, who is to be blamed? You shouldn't blame anyone.
You just beat your tongue, okay fine.
Overcoming self-centered mental conditioning
You know, if you make a drama out of it and try to find who is this or that, it will not help. It will not help the sooner you forget about this.
So what happens, which is the most important thing which I want to say and I will bring this talk to a close soon.
What happens is that when we identify too much strongly, too much with the mind, with all these events, we ruminate. We become completely self centered. In this condition it's not possible to think about Krishna.
It's not possible to think about anyone else. It's actually the trick of the false ego to put us back in the center. This is how the mind works. The mind works always.
He wants to put us in the center and he does it through all these mental tricks and things like this, you know. It doesn't help because it keeps us bound. Bound to this world. Bound to this false identity.
Bound to this body. Bound to this mind. Bound, you know, as soon as we start blaming anyone, as soon as we start blaming anyone, we should know what we are doing. We are perpetuating our sufferings in this material world.
Nothing else. Willingly. Self inflicted sufferings.
As much as, you know, this whole thing which I explained, I didn't explain in details, but it was I was myself amazed how the person without any reason in reality is suffering. Why? Because of the mind.
Because of the identification of the mind. Because of this game of the mind. Perpetual game of the mind.
So this victimization, this mentality of the victim, the feeling that I'm the victim, then somebody is inflicted pain on us. Who is that? It's the identification of the mind.
And if you do it, if you prefer, you have to be very clear. You have to be extremely clear. I want to do it. Then do it. If you're ready to face the consequences do it, no problem. All blessings are there.
The Lord is giving you blessings. He created the whole world for you to suffer because you want to do it.
But if you don't want to do it then also make the same determination within your mind I don't want to do it. I don't want to blame anyone else.
I will tolerate whatever happens with me. I will tolerate, I will try to objectively look into what is happening in the mind from the objective point of view, not from subjective point of view. It's not me who is suffering, the mind is suffering. It's difficult, it's very difficult. Therefore we should really, as I said, start doing it in the conditions which are more or less nice and conducive.
At this point we should start looking objectively in what is going on in the mind. Try not to identify with the mind but to distance ourselves from the mind and from everything which is going on in the stage of the mind.
This is exactly the point which Krishna is making.
And in this way we ultimately will be able to transfer our consciousness from the miserable identification with this material world and material body into the blissful identification with the spiritual world and the spiritual body.
We will turn our consciousness 180 degrees. We will withdraw our consciousness from this world and we'll be able to place our consciousness into the spiritual world.
Whereas if we fall prey of this game of the mind, we will only concentrate on ourselves. As I said, there will be rumination. This false ego rumination. I, I, I, I, I.
IPhone, iPad, iTunes, you know, all this I mentality, I generation, all this I problems. Eye, eye, eye, eye and mind, eye and mind. Know, it's not by chance this iPhone is called iPhone. It's my identity.
There is a new phobia nowadays. It's already classified in the list of the disease. Nomophobia. Nomophobia means no mobile phone phobia. The fear to lose one's mobile phone because it's my identity.
And in the same way as we're attached to the mobile phone and all these happenings in Facebook and all these kind of stuff, in the same way we're attached to our mind. And the more we're attached, the more we suffer.
So that's the most important thing. We have to be really clear what I want. And if you want to go to Krishna it's very clear what you should do. You should tolerate what is going on in the mind.
As Krishna says in Bhagavad-gītā, mātrā-sparśās tu kaunteya śītoṣṇa-sukha-duḥkha-dāḥ. Āgamāpāyino nityās tāṁṁ titikṣasva bhārata, be tolerant, tolerate, just tolerate. Some things you cannot really avoid, you cannot avoid you know threefold miseries of this life.
They will be there very mercifully Krishna placed all these threefold miseries.
You will suffer from your body, you will suffer from the agonies of your mind, you will suffer from other people, you will suffer from natural calamities, from coronavirus and a lot of stuff.
It will take place, it will happen. But everything which we experience in our life is just a golden opportunity to train our tolerance, to train this quality. Tṛṇād api su-nīcena taror api sahiṣṇunā.
This word sahishnuna is coming from sahasa. Sahasa means ability to tolerate or the strength of the mind.
Actually the strength of the mind, the mind if the mind is really strong means healthy, it means you know we will be able to tolerate.
Of course we're not talking about the mind, we're talking about soul, the ability of the soul to distance itself from this.
So the last thing which I want to say because it's already late, I actually didn't ask the organizers for how long I'm supposed to talk.
Purifying consciousness through tolerance
But I don't want to go too much longer. So the last thing which I wanted to say is the benefit of this way of action.
If we really try to train ourselves, train to tolerate what is happening with the mind and train ourselves to distance from the abilities of the mind.
Then as I said the cloud of false ego will become sinner and sinner and sinner. It's actually explained by Lord Kapiladya. What is false ego? False ego or ahaṅkāra, it's the creation of tamas, it's a very tamasic creation.
It's dark, it's very non transparent and it's applied on the transparent and sattvic citta, which has beautiful qualities.
So Prabhupāda explains actually in the third canto and twenty-sixth chapter where Kṛṣṇa defines all these things. The false ego and these three aspects of false ego and citta, three aspects of citta.
Śrīla Prabhupāda explains especially when Lord Kapiladeva is talking about citta.
He says the more one identifies with the material world, with the material body, with the material mind, the thicker the cloud of ahaṅkāra becomes and the more implicated one becomes into this material world, into the sufferings of the material world.
So what will happen as a reward, as a reward of this course of activities when we act in such a way then to slacken our identification with the mind, as to slacken our false identity, our ahaṅkāra, the transparent nature of our consciousness will become more and more prominent.
We will experience the real nature of the consciousness, ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam. The citta, even though it's a material element and in this material world we will have to somehow rather be connected with this.
But if we are connected with transparent citta, the less thick cloud, ignorant cloud of ahaṅkāra is there, the more real qualities of citta we will experience and these qualities of citta are threefold.
And they are explained again by Lord Kapiladeva in this twenty-sixth chapter of the third canto. The quality is transparency. The real Citta is transparent. Svacchatvam.
Svacchatvam means, perhaps you've heard these slogans, Svaccha India, transparent, clean India. The first quality of citta is transparency, svacchatvam. And the next quality is avikāritvam.
It's not, there is no transformation in citta. The Citta is not transformed. And the third quality of citta is śāntatvam.
There's three aspects of citta which are reflected in the three aspects actually of false ego, false identity.
So the less cloud of false identity is there on the Citta, the more we will be able to experience these qualities.
And that basically means as being explained by Prabhupāda and by Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura in the commentary of this verse. The first quality of citta is bhagavad-bimba-grāhityam.
Then this transparent citta will be able to reflect the image of Bhagavan. Bhagavan bimba, bimba means reflection. We will be able to feel the presence of Bhagavan.
The less false ego is there, the more more acute presence or the more visible or vivid presence of Bhagavān we will experience in our life. Because citta will reflect.
Bhagawan is there. It's just because citta is covered by the dust of material desires, because it's not clean.
The more cleaner it is, more, how to say it, the more vivid or the more clear this experience, spiritual experience will be there. And then svacchatvam is the first quality. Avikāritvam.
Avikaritvam means that all these mental qualities which I described I'm sad, I'm greedy, I'm angry, they will dissipate. This is what Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura says, he says: is this?
Alasya vikṣepa-rahitvam. Vikṣepa-ālasya-rahitvam. So all these mental qualities which we identify with will also dissipate.
As much as it happens with Avanti Brāhmaṇa in this story, Avanti Brāhmaṇa after being greedy, after cultivating all these bad qualities, all of a sudden, practically miraculously became a completely transformed person.
So these qualities which we are victim of, which we cannot break free from, which we always experience, you know, I'm angry and I'm always full prey of this anger or I'm lusty person, I'm greedy person. We very much identify with them.
So they're not there in citta. They're in false ego. In this false connection. When this connection becomes slackened then we will not be forced to conform with these mental qualities which are there.
And the next quality of citta, natural quality of citta which is there when it's not contaminated by the false ego.
The next quality, the third quality is śāntatvam. śāntatvam means rāgādi-rahityam. It means that we will become free from all these bad emotions, from the slavery of all these emotions which we experience, from fear and from other emotions.
There is quite a difference between the qualities and emotions. Emotions is the manifestation of qualities. Anger is emotion of course, but I'm an angry person.
So one will be free from this identification with this trait of character which is angriness or how you say this properly in English. And then you will be free from the subsequent emotions which are there.
This is śāntatvam.
The original state of uncontaminated citta when it's clean, it's completely peaceful, it's reflecting the image of God there and it's free from all these negative qualities which are more or less inflicted upon us by the modes of material nature.
So this is the reward and again as I said we have to be very clear what is my course? What do I want? Do I want to get free from this and try to develop this quality of tolerance towards what is happening in the mind?
Oh I want to you know continue with this chain of being a victim and, you know, sure enough it will be confirmed by merciful Lord. If you want to be victim you will become a victim. No problem.
So the choice is ours and Avantī brāhmaṇa is giving us the alternative song. It would be good to record this song in iTunes and to play it in our iPhone regularly. This is the song of Avantī brāhmaṇa. I'm not this mind.
I'm not the qualities of the mind. Will tolerate what is happening. Nobody nobody is is actually bad. It's just what is bad is only one thing is my too much intimate connection with the mind. That's the only problem.
There's no other problem. Everything else is fine. So this is what I wanted to say. And I don't know if there is time for questions. But in any case, thank you for tolerating me.
You already started practicing this by tolerating my lecture. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Maharaj, for that class.
It gives us a lot to reflect on in our in our lives, and you nicely structured it fast to understand.
Also, you were mentioning the three aspects of the false ego and how we can overcome it in order to not fall victim to the mental the certain material emotions of the mind when it becomes our enemy and just the false ego in general.
If we do move on to questions, we have so many lovely questions. We just want to make an announcement for our next session.
So you can all see on your screen, the next session will not be next week, but in two weeks time on the May 22, and it'll be given by his grace, Nidamatha Mapram.
We'll be speaking about the untold of the This is gonna be a slightly different session where we where we'll be more story based.
So please do invite your family member as well to come in here this week until the past past times of the law.
Answers to questions from the audience
So we'll be moving up to questions. Now because of time, we will ask three questions. But most questions, we have combined together as a very similar. So the first question is from Jasmine Wright.
So if we can unmute Jasmine Wright to ask the question. Hi, Krishna. Hi, Krishna. I wanted to ask, hey, Krishna. I wanted to ask how can we forgive other portrayedlers for the suffering and make peace with it?
How we can forgive whom? A perpetrator. Perpetrator. See, you know, we have to understand that if we want to be free we have to forgive. If we want to continue suffering, yes, somebody may inflict some pain to us.
But now the choice is with us. Do we want to continue suffering the same pain? To reenact the same pain? To relieve the same pain again and again and again by remembering our perpetrators?
Or we want to be free from this pain? If you want to be free from this pain it's possible. So why it is so difficult? I will tell a few words first of all for those people who find it extremely difficult.
It's natural for the mind to ruminate on the bad experiences. The mind is created in such a way that we are more easily ruminating over the bad things than on the good things.
Whatever bad is there, the mind is more likely to return to it and to again and again, you know, make the same movie. And we see it again and again and again. So in one sense it's a natural tendency of the mind.
It will be there, no problem. But if we want to take the control of our life, we have to understand that by keeping grudge within our heart we're only inflicting pain to ourselves. Somebody gave a very nice simile.
He says that to keep the offense, to keep these bad feelings, the pain of other, you know, sufferings which somebody else did to us. It's the same as if we have the burning coals in our hands.
And we are working with these burning coals, awaiting the opportunity to throw these burning coals into his face. And in the meantime we are burning ourselves with these burning coals. And who is suffering?
We are suffering more. It's not a fact that we will be able even to throw these coals, but they're there, the pain is there.
So we have to by our intelligence to understand that there's no point and by our intelligence we will be able to break through.
It's actually a question of developing strong intelligence, strong determination and disconnecting all these experiences and saying that this is all basically due to my identification with the mind and I want to finish with this identification.
I don't want to continue with this. I don't want to remain the victim. I don't want to continue sufferings. So your question is how to forgive?
To forgive is basically to withdraw the consciousness from this experience, understand the real cause of it and in this way ultimately it will heal. Whereas if we always relive the same scene, it will never heal.
The wound which is inflicted will always be there.
It's like this: if we have some little wound and some, you://, blood is coming out, and when it starts healing, it's itching. Right? When it becomes healing it becomes healed. It starts itching.
So as soon as it's itching we scratch it again. And here you are, the blood is oozing again. So the same way we do this, we do with us, the pain becomes less and we start scratching it.
No, no, no, I cannot do this. Let it be there. Because it becomes our self identity. That's the problem. The pain created by somebody else.
I'm not saying that they're right or wrong or whatever, but the pain becomes a part of our identity, and it's very difficult, and we emotionally invest into this identity very much, and it's very difficult for us to [break/deal] with this identity.
So what we have to say [is], I am not this, I don't want to identify with this thing. I want to identify. I'm a devotee of Krishna. I want to identify with Radha and Krishna.
In two weeks Dinavandu Prabhu will tell us untold stories of the Lord. I want to identify with this. I want to put my consciousness there. So this is basically what it is.
We have to understand that the pain becomes part of our identity and there is no point. It's really no point. There is no point to keep this false identity. That's it.
When we are done with our false identity, we are done with all our pains and problems. But I understand it's easier to say than to do. I mean, I give a nice theory. I must admit I not always practice it in my life.
It's difficult. But it's possible. I mean, if the pain is very acute, it's difficult. But when pain becomes little less, it's actually easy to dissociate with it. Thank you so much. The next question, Copacabine question.
So can we help other devotees when they have a situation like the one you described earlier about conflicting with another devotee?
Or because it is due to self perpetuating emotions in the mind, should we allow them to work things through themselves? And how do we practically weaken this identification with the mind?
We do have this facility to look from the neutral point of view within our what's under what is happening with our own mind. It's just a question to practice it on a daily basis.
To look from this and actually Lord Krishna explains this in the fifth chapter of Bhagavad-gītā where he says that someone who controls the mind he sees what is happening with the body. The body is sleeping, the body is eating, the body is evacuating, the body is walking but somebody is just observing it.
This sākṣitva, the position of observer. Sanātana Gosvāmī, he says a very beautiful thing. He says that actually humility means to be an observer.
When we are involved very much in what is happening with us, with our life, emotionally involved, invested with this. That's not humility. That's basically false pride, false identity. Humility means to be an observer.
To be the neutral observer, to observe from the neutral point of view. So we have this facility, everyone can do it.
Not everyone can do it in a very emotionally surcharged and emotionally strong situation but in a more or less neutral day to day life we can practice it and then when the test will come we will be able to also remain less afflicted by all these sufferings.
We will be afflicted to a certain extent but we will be more firmly fixed on the ground of our real identity.
And of course the daily practice which we do is to chant the Holy Name and if we chant the Holy Name with this position, within this position of being an observer which basically means, tṛṇād api su-nīcena, to be lower than the straw and more tolerant than the tree, giving all respect to others and expecting none for oneself, not identifying with the mind and everything, then kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ and then this is the daily training, but outside of these chanting hours we also can train ourselves in this observing what is going on in our mind and be more neutral and be less involved in it basically.
And that means to be tolerant. So this humility and tolerance, they're very much together and they're very much connected with this position of an observer, sākṣitva. Thank you.
The last question is from Amṛtānanda prabhu. So if you can unmute, Amrita. Yes. You mentioned about the magazine where, you know, I'll link back to Prabhupada, where there's a lot of criticism about Vaishnavas.
One is tolerating your own criticism. And, also, on other hand, we sometimes hear to Internet. People inquiring about what they hear on the Internet, and it's negative.
So as a practicing [devotee], what should we kind of completely, you know, avoid those discussions, or should we, you know, what how one should respond because if someone is inquiring, we probably may not go voluntarily to, you know, in that kind of literature. But if someone is inquiring about the incidents or inquiring about what they have read in this different offensive literature, how do we respond to that inquiry?
Should we just negate that or should we just what sort of approach one should take? It depends. As I said already the mind has the tendency, very strong tendency, extremely strong tendency to ruminate over the bad things.
Much stronger tendency to ruminate over bad things than over good things. Mind is attached, mind is very much negative fellow and it's very much attached to the negative things.
Therefore people are naturally attracted to all this negative news.
Therefore, you know, all the journalists they know if they want to attract attention they say something bad about somebody or some conspiracy theory or this and that. You know, the mind will just dive into it.
So first of all we have to explain to ourselves very clearly and to other people that we already have this tendency or the attraction to negative things.
And this attraction to negative things only attracts negative things within our life.
So if we don't want to attract negative things we have to, you know, to do is to more or less to finish this attraction towards negative things which is already there. We definitely should not feed it.
So by reading this and ruminating over this and spreading this and discussing this and you know going into all the details we're more or less feeding the same natural quality of fault finding or, you know, negative attraction.
And in this way we invite negativity within our life, within our minds and our whole life becomes completely negative. And Krishna consciousness is the most positive thing in the world.
Krishna is the most positive, he is the most positive person. So first of all we have to really clearly understand how this attraction to negative things spoils our own life.
And we have to gradually gradually unlearn this or break free from this habit of being attracted to negative things, negative occurrences, negative qualities of other people.
Because we are thriving when we hear about this we become excited you know oh yeah yeah yeah I always thought this And when we hear about bad things which are done by other people, they're usually not very critical.
We immediately, we have a lot of trust that other people are doing bad things. When somebody says something good about, we become a little skeptical whether it's like this or not, it's not clear now. We're not jumping.
But when somebody says something bad, [he] says: Yeah, of course. I always knew it. Now it's only confirmed.
So this is the first thing which we have to be very clear about and if somebody is dependent on us we have to explain to them in a very nice way. It's not a question of mind control or anything else.
It's just a question of our own safety, spiritual safety and actually even material safety because if we don't want to attract negativity we have to break free from this habit. So the second thing about this I don't know.
Uh-huh, okay. And the second thing about the concrete events which may be there. Usually people don't say open lies, they say the average percentage of lie within the lie is rather small.
Average percentage, of course it's a joke, but usually it's something like 96% truth and 4% lie. So usually lie is very nicely camouflaged by the truth. It's a little lie and on the top of it there is a lot of truth.
So this is what is going on in all these magazines and everything. They say something which may be true but there is a rotten core into this seemingly truthful event or whatever description.
And it's sometimes very difficult to discriminate between the lie and the truth. And usually people do they just they swallow the pill and because it's so attractive and so seemingly correct in according to the truth.
But with the pill they also swallow the poison which is there. Like for example this theory that Prabhupada was poisoned. There are very intelligent people who believe in it, really believe in it. Because why?
Because they want to believe in it. So the second thing which we have to understand is that there may be some truths but you know it's not the complete truth.
When we talking about somebody else we really have to understand what was happening in the context of his life. If we take it out of context we will commit an offense. If we understand the motivations of other people...
The problem is that we usually judge other people from the external point of view and never try to go a little deeper into their motivations. So then how to deal with this if the person is really affected by this?
Either you have to discover the truth and explain to him the truth. Like for example in this theory that Prabhupada was poisoned.
There is one brave devotee in America, Mayasura, probably he published recently a book where he, you know, more or less reveals all the fallacies of this theory, all the illogical things or whatever, factual mistakes and everything.
So if you can do this, if you can show how within the truthful covering there is some lie there, it's good. I heard this, please tell me what's going on, please explain to me.
Or you ask somebody who is close to him, who knows him, who can explain this. And perhaps you will know something else and know you something which will make even, you know, your connection with this person stronger.
In other words, if you want to know the truth, try to know the truth not just by believing all this bad news which is so easy and which is so tempting.
But by really discovering the truth, going directly to the person, asking the straight questions in a nice way, begging him to dissipate your doubt which was created by these people. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you so much once again Mahārāja for this lovely talk, very reflective and for all of your answers. And we thank everyone who is on the call and who was on the call. Thank you so much.
We hope to see you in two weeks time for, you know, on the progress talk on the untold past times of the Lord. What we will do, I know many devotees like to ask questions and give their thanks.
So we will unmute everyone to give their thanks to His Holiness, Bhakti Vijnana Goswami. Please, I'm your... Thank you. I can answer to the questions.
You can write to Dina Chaitanya, my secretary, and I will try to answer your questions if it's some burning questions. Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks, everyone. Again, thank you all for being here.
And we hope to see you in two weeks time. Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna.