Nama Retreat. Session 3
Bhakti Vijnana Goswami · Govardhan · 2024
Chapters
Chanting introductory prayers and mantras
Vandam Sri Guru, Sri Yupadakamala, Sri Guru Vasnam, Sri Ram Sam. Sakrachata, Sadhanarabunatam Ditam Sadam, Sadhitam Sadhuta, Haridana Sahita, Krishna Chaitanya Deva, Shri Rada, Krishna Padaam, Sahaganalita
Shri Shakavitamsha Krishna Karuna Sindho, vinamandhot jagat, kobesa gobikanta, ratakant Taktakanchurangi, Padevranish Vari, Vishamanu Suda devi ramani haricha patarubischa, kripasindubicha, paditanyo,
Krishna Vyamu Maha, Sri Krishna Chaitanya Prabunanda, Sjatanatara, Sivasatipora Brinda, Rekrishnaare H Krishna Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna H Rareare, Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare Hare.
Sanji vai taki la shapti darah swadam naniam, schah, stucharam, shramamam, dwavadi, pranam, bhava te pušae to ja, spasia stu we shwassah, pracy da Dayantu Bhutani Srivam Mithudiya onaschabadram
Bajadata Dhoksha Ayesya Namati.
Overview of the evening schedule
So good evening. Uh the program for today's evening is very simple. We have uh something like one hour and ten minutes before we will have to go down to the bigger hole and to see drama.
I believe it will be Kalia Dhamma Lila or maybe something else. We'll chant for a few minutes and then uh we'll have some japa exercises uh according to the material which I gave this morning.
I will try to rem remind you of certain points and we will do some exercises and then I will uh try to answer the questions which are given to me. So let's chant for a few minutes.
Shri Krishna Chaitanya Prabhunityananda Sriadvahita Badatara Srivta Vrinda Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.
So I want to do with you a little exercise which is based on the material which I gave this morning. First of all, let me say a few words about Sharanagati. Somebody asked me in the questions why
in the verse Anukūlyasya Saṅkalpa Prātikūlyasya Varjanam ca The order is from Anukul to Ātmanikṣepa and Kārpaṇya and why Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura gives the opposite order. This question actually was answered by Vedanta
Desika because in different tantras the order of the limbs of śaraṇāgati is given differently. The verse which we all know is coming from Lakshmi Tantra.
And in Lakshmi Tantra it is said, first we do something which is favorable for our master, and then we avoid to do anything which would be displeasing to him, and we feel that he protects us and he maintains us, and we also feel very humble and ultimately we are ready to give everything which we have to him.
In other tantras, like Ahirbudhnya Saṁhitā, the order is opposite. And Vedanta Desika answering this question because usually order means something.
Usually order either is coming in descending order or in ascending order. Something less important in the beginning, the most important than the end, or vice versa.
But Vedanta Desika he says ultimately śaraṇāgati is just one body. The body has a body itself and five limbs of it.
Of course, different ācāryas, our ācāryas differ from Śrī Vaiṣṇava ācāryas, what is the aṅgī and what is aṅga and the limbs of this.
But ultimately he says, you know, it doesn't matter how you how you mention the limbs of the body.
Start with the leg and go to the hand and then go to the head or starts with this leg and go the opposite order or starts with the head.
It's all one uh in a good sense, not in the Māyāvādī sense. It's all one because it's one entity. And you can describe this entity in different ways. That's one answer which can be given.
Another answer which can be given is that śaraṇāgati uh goes in cycles. It's not just one thing, but it's a progression, it's a development.
And something which is uh at the end, uh in another cycle uh will uh will will be beginning. So you can start from this end, uh go to another end, but then you can start from that end.
Goptritva-varana as core aspect
And uh there is no end to śaraṇāgati in a sense that uh even though śaraṇāgati is complete from the very beginning according to the definition of Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī. He says śaraṇāgati means ananya-gatitva.
Śaraṇāgati, this is the Sanskrit definition of śaraṇāgati, it basically means that I don't have anyone else to ask for protection. There's nobody else to take shelter of. This very acute feeling inside that
here is the one who can give me protection and should give me protection and I go to him and I don't ask anyone else.
I don't ask Indra, I don't ask Varuṇa, I don't ask my temple commander, I don't ask Rahul Gandhi or whoever it is. So ananya-gatitva.
But still within this complete surrender, he is the only one who can give me shelter and should give me shelter.
There could be degrees of surrender to this one entity, to this one all-powerful person who is reciprocating without surrender.
But what I wanted to say in the beginning before we start this exercise is that yeah, first I'll explain how Srila Jiva Gaswami divides Sharanagati.
He says that the aṅga, the body of śaraṇāgati is goptṛtva-varaṇa. The understanding that Krishna, God, Supreme Personality of Godhead, He is the one who maintains me. He is the one who always maintains me and I'm totally dependent on him.
I'm not dependent on anyone else.
And it's a very beautiful description if we go a little deeper into this understanding, because if we take the body as a whole and we take separate limbs of this body, then the each and every separate limb of the body we should be able to derive this limb from the whole body because if we have the body, the body has all the limbs.
So let's first see how this concept that goptṛtva-varaṇa is actually the whole body aṅga and how everything else is just particular case particular manifestation of this complete whole.
So if we understand that Krishna is our maintainer, that He is our protector, maintainer, He is our Bartu. He is our Goptar. Goptar basically means he is our cowherd. He is herding this not very nice herd of cows.
And each cow thinks I am independent. But still nevertheless he's trying, he's maintaining, he's giving us. So if we have this understanding, I have a master.
And this master is responsible to maintain me, is responsible to give me. He gave me this body. He gave me my intelligence. He gave me all my abilities. He gave me this light. He gave me the air.
He gave me Govart Retreat Center. He gave me so many things. He is the one who is giving, and he continues to give, gives all the time.
Then obviously, if this understanding is very clear in our mind, then obviously uh we will want to do something which is pleasing to him, isn't it?
If you have a master and you're dependent on this master and this master is giving to you and you want to get a little more from this master, then naturally what you do? You try to figure out what is pleasing to him.
So that's mm point number one, very clearly. And uh obviously you will also try to avoid something which is displeasing to the master.
Because if you're dependent on the master and the master is displeased with you, what will happen at the end, you know you will get less. So these two angas are very easily coming from that.
Now of course, if we have this master and he is maintaining, he is responsible for us, then will he protect us or not? Will he give us protection? Of course. Naturally he will give us protection. He is the master.
You know, if you have a cow, I don't know if you have a cow. Nowadays it's mostly brahmacārīs who have cows. Gṛhasthas cannot afford to have a cow. So
if you have a cow and you're responsible for this cow, you're feeding this cow, you're making sure that the cow is clean, that the uh the cow shed is nice and then the cow has enough sun to walk.
Then naturally you will protect this cow, isn't it? Protection is just a particular case of maintain maintenance, isn't it?
And then ātma-nikṣepa kārpanya, you know, if you really understand that I have a master and I'm totally dependent on this master, and you have internally this feeling that I am dependent on this master. Then naturally the desire to reciprocate with what Master is giving comes. He is giving us so much.
Why don't I give him myself? Anyway, totally dependent on him. I'm his. I belong to him. So it's actually, you know, it's a very nice and generous gesture, you know, I give myself to the Lord, you know.
Come on, you're already his. You don't have to give yourself to the Lord. It's just a reality.
And then Atmanikshepa Karpanya, the last point of uh śaraṇāgati is kārpaṇya, which is uh which comes from the word kṛpā. Kṛpā means mercy. Kṛpā means I don't know if there is a good English word for this.
In Russian there is a very good word for kṛpā. Kṛpā doesn't mean milest. Kṛpā means žalost. When you pity somebody. Kṛpā is this feeling when you feel the pity upon somebody.
And uh you know and kārpaṇya means uh I feel uh that I'm pitiful. That somebody should look at me and see how pitiful I am. This is this is what kārpaṇya means, it's dīnatva or whatever.
This feeling that I'm, you know, I I I need some pity. Not even mercy, pity, because mercy can be little discriminate. Pity is just, you know, this guy is so hopeless, you know. Let's pity him. So that's kārpaṇya.
So if again this all can be easily derived from this notion Goptṛtva-varaṇa. Krishna is my maintainer, and everything else is just particular cases of this uh idea, of this concept, or of this feeling.
Again, we're talking about śaraṇāgati as uh emotional state. So the main point of śaraṇāgati is to understand that I'm totally dependent on the Lord and He is protecting me and He is seeing how I need His protection.
And I show to him that really I need your protection. I need this.
Connection between emotions and body
So this morning while I'm talking about this. This morning I told a very important point. That is, emotion always has some physiological component in it. Emotion which is coming in the mind, which is which arises in the
mind from the desire of the soul, the soul desires, and then in the mind a certain emotional feeling comes, and this emotional feeling transforms the body.
As I gave the definition of emotion of bhāva, this is manavikara. This is the transformation of the mind which ultimately comes and transforms the body.
There are certain processes, physiological, chemical processes, which are taking place in the body when we experience some emotions.
So this is the process which is descending process. The soul wants something, then the mind experiences certain emotion according to this desire of the soul, and then the chemical chain reaction starts in the body.
But the opposite is also true. When we reproduce a certain physiological state that it influences our mind and helps us physiological state that it influences our mind and helps us to experience the same emotion.
So, what I want us to do now, I want us to think about the situation when we felt completely protected, completely dependent on somebody, and at the same time completely protected by this particular person.
I'm sure any one of us has some sort of this experience. It could be our association with spiritual master, with some saintly person, with our parents, maybe with teachers who loved us completely, causelessly.
I want us to remember this thing. You know, the human being is a very special creation of God because we have a very developed mind and developed intelligence, developed brain.
And in this developed brain, we can relive the emotions. We can re-experience the emotions again and again and again. That's exactly what we're doing all the time.
We remember certain situations, and the same emotion comes, and the same chemicals are produced, and the same feeling is there.
So I want us to go deeper within our memory, to remember somebody or some situation when I felt completely, totally, absolutely protected and therefore very bold and therefore at the same time very very grateful internally. And try to feel how it feels on the level of the body also.
I know it will be difficult for this part of the audience and it will be much easier for this part of the audience.
Because female bodies are more uh talented as far as the emotional part is concerned the right brain is more developed and men are just you know just left praying there.
They will first analyze what he's talking about and in the meantime the exercise will be over.
So what I again I want to uh ask to try to relieve uh this emotional experience again and uh try to chant uh uh Hare Krishna mantra in with this emotion because ultimately that's what Saranagati means.
Saranagati means the emotion of gratitude, the emotion of total complete I am absolutely secure. There is nothing to worry. Somebody asked Śrīla Prabhupāda, Prabhupāda, how you feel when you chant, Hare Krishna.
And Prabhupāda made a pause for a short while. He was thinking. And he said, I feel fearless. That's exactly what I mean.
This emotion of Saranagati is the feeling when you totally protect it, when you're fearless, you know that there is a protector with you, and you want to express your gratitude, or you want to say something to him.
So it may be, you know, in for different people it may be different situations, but I'm sure that every one of you had some sort of experience of this sort when you're completely protected. So that's what it means.
And by this emotion of Sharanagati, and by chanting with this emotion, we will conquer over the stressful negative emotions which we experience normally.
Guided chanting exercise with surrender
So let's do this exercise for 10 minutes. Are you ready to chant for 10 minutes? Okay. Hara Shivasadigora Bhakta Vrinda. Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Ram Hare Ram Ram Ram Hare Hare.
Please don't be lazy. Don't be emotionally lazy. I don't want to disturb you, but ten minutes is over and even more. Somebody was bored about chanting. No? So that's a very important point.
As I said, emotions, as some people little jokingly uh uh derive this word emotions, they say energy in motion. But it's a fact. Emotions is a certain sort of energy.
And we should be able to reproduce these emotions of Sharanagati and as I said this Goptrita Varanam and the understanding, very deep understanding of gratitude. How much I was already given, how Krishna maintains me, how Krishna takes care of me.
So this sort of feeling will help us to actually chant properly and ultimately all our attachments will be destroyed. We will do more exercises, but maybe not now, because we only have 20 more minutes to go, right?
So I will try to answer some of your questions. You like the exercise? With reference to yesterday's example about the what is this? Gokul Maharaj. Ah okay, okay, okay. Who used to chant five lakhs a day?
How should uh he completed that. You know, our philosophy is called Acintya-bhedābheda-tattva, this phrase answers all the questions I heard in one m uh that uh Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda.
Look now, to can you can you read? And I will read something else. He took a vow to complete the vow: one billion names. Yeah, which require him to chant for about twenty-two hours in a day.
How to understand this, Maharaj, here other commitments also like establishing Math meeting and discussing the business.
Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda, who took a vow of chanting one billion names. It took him several years. Nine years.
At that time he was not a sannyāsī, at that time he didn't have uh he was not the head of big institutions so uh he didn't have headache uh so he only had a little hut on the bank of Ganges. So no problem, don't worry, he managed it.
Relationship between endeavor and divine mercy
After that, you know, the headache started.
Maharaj, you mentioned that we can't practice bhakti. Uh uh But practice śaraṇāgati, surrender, how to understand uh when it is said uh sādhanā-bhakti bhakti leads to bhāva-bhakti. Bhaktyā sañjāyate bhakti.
Śrīla Prabhupāda gives example of unripe mango becomes ripe mango. It's uh original example by Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura. Can one practice? Oh, that's the second question, right?
You can read the uh second one and I will answer this one. Uh no, what I said I didn't say that uh we should not practice bhakti. We do practice bhakti.
Uh we get up early, we go to mangalarati, we chant our rounds, we follow regulative principles. So many things which we do, and that's called sadhana-bhakti, and that's still important. uh but we should not think that
uh the result of it uh is the result of our endeavors. Usually when people talk about sadhana and sadhya, what they mean is that you know, there is certain sadhana to make a soup.
If you are to make soup, then you go to the market, then you buy the vegetables, you cut the vegetables, wash vegetables, cut vegetables, put it in the pot, put pot on the fire, and so on so forth, put some
spices in it, and uh here you are, uh the sadhya is there. You did certain sadhana, and as a result you get soup. Of course, if you know how to do it, but basically it's more or less sure inevitable result.
When it comes to bhakti, we do the mechanics of bhakti, we do the practice of bhakti, we do bhakti.
But at the same time, we very clearly understand that the result of it does not depend on our endeavors, it depends on the mercy of Krishna.
And therefore, what is most important is to do this mechanics with the proper mood which is Saranagati.
And what we do, when our practice is imbibed with this mood, then there are bigger chances that Krishna will hear our prayers and ultimately gives us the desired result. So that's what I mean. Sadhya is given to us.
Even though we do sadhana, but it's not an ordinary sadhana because ordinary sadhana means we do something and for sure the result will be there. Uh in bhakti it's a very strange thing.
We do something and uh nobody assures us that the result will be there. But it will be there causelessly. Irrespective of your endeavors.
Gradual practice of surrender limbs
Okay. Can we practice the all six anga-s of saranagati in the stage of sadhana-bhakti or it manifests as love develops in succession. Initially in the beginning you can make a case definitely
that uh uh first you accept something which is favorable and you're not in a hurry to reject something which you don't want to reject.
It's in the beginning it's difficult to reject something which we don't want to reject. Accept something it's okay, you know, it's something extra. Reject something maybe a little more difficult.
So you may make a case that it's a gradual development according to the slims, and you know, ultimately you uh understand that you're very much dependent and uh you give yourself and you you understand that you're very humble.
But um it's never stressed like this. The stress is given is that we understand what is the essence of Saranagati.
And by understanding what is the essence of Saranagati, and by kind of tuning up, making this emotional tune up, we will practice all the angas of Saranagati very easily.
If we really understand, if we really enter into this relationship with the Lord, that He is maintainer, then naturally we will do anukūlyasya saṅkalpaḥ prātikūlyasya varjanam and all other things and they all will be included.
So you can make a case, but uh normally we say this is śaraṇāgati and all six limbs are there and if you don't want to remember six limbs, just remember one gopْتṛtve varanam. Everything else is included.
I try to follow perfect height, perfect sleep time, nice hearing, but I cannot do it for long time. Very few days I do that. I am not able to follow be in goodness for long time.
Kindly help me can improve my lifestyle, which can be conducive to better japa. So he or she is doing something but cannot maintain it for a long time. Why?
They want to maintain, they're asking how to maintain the same thing. See, to all these questions, the answer is always the same. If you have good association, all these problems will be solved.
Ultimately, what we can do? We cannot do much uh by our own endeavours. But if we have good association, if we have example, uh then uh something which was difficult for us becomes very easy.
You know, when we imagine ourselves how it is, you know, to chant five lakhs, we will be just, you know, we will be completely stunned and uh completely flabbergasted and uh overwhelmed and we will say no not possible.
Then you know go to one sādhu who chants five lakhs and in two weeks you will also chant at least three lakhs a day. Easily, in a very natural way. So it's a question of association.
When you see that somebody is doing it, when you imagine when you're sitting somewhere in a corner in your kitchen and you think, you know, how I will do it, of course you will not do it because you're sitting in the kitchen.
But uh if you think in front of you somebody who is doing it, you say, oh very well, okay, no problem. I can also do it. So it's mostly a question of association.
Faith and the stages of surrender
We learn everything by uh by this process. Maharaj you stated that Sharanagati is entrance to Bhakti. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī states in Bhakti-sandarbha that pūrṇa-śraddhā is the symptom of śaraṇāgati.
My question is before coming to this stage, is our bhakti is mixed? Yes. Actually it's a good question. Uh if we analyze the stages of uh spiritual development given by Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu,
we first have śraddhā and then we have niṣṭhā. And both Śrīla Prabhupāda translates śraddhā as faith and niṣṭhā is firm faith.
So basically, everything in between śraddhā, which is uh pliable or not very firm faith, and niṣṭhā, which is firm faith, is development of śaraṇāgati.
Because śaraṇāgati is the equivalent of faith uh and uh when we do it properly then uh our śaraṇāgati becomes more uh deep and uh our bhakti becomes less mixed.
So in between mm you know from up to niṣṭhā our bhakti is mixed and therefore Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura says uh it's called bhakti uh only because uh our ācāryas have very generous heart.
Actually it's not bhakti, it's bhakti-ābhāsa. It's just a shadow of bhakti. It's a little ghost of bhakti. It's not bhakti proper.
So, but when śaraṇāgati becomes firm, and that means achieving the level of niṣṭhā when you don't have any doubts, when you don't have all these mental disturbances, and you know that Krishna is maintaining you and you achieve the humility of the heart, then your bhakti, śaraṇāgati is to be practiced.
At the stage of niṣṭhā when one is self-realized, he sees within himself all the anarthas, past life, this life, sins and he cries āmāra jīvana. This and does uh this śaraṇāgati is naturally manifest.
So till coming to the stage, how should one strive without artificially acting or pretending? There is a difference between following and pretending.
Pretending means externally, you manifest something, but internally you have some different ideas. You basically have some wicked ideas, you want to achieve some other means by showing,
by making this show that you're completely surrendered soul. You come to somebody and you pretend that you're totally surrendered to him, but ultimately you want to you know cheat this person. So that's pretending.
That's pretension. Pretension is not good. But if we try to follow śaraṇāgati, if we try to rehearse śaraṇāgati, that's difference. You don't have any ulterior motive to do it. You don't have any other reason to do it.
You just want to do it because you feel it's necessary, because you feel it's purifying to the heart, because you feel good about it. So that's not pretension. And there is a very subtle but very important difference.
And you don't try to show it to others. You try to practice it internally within yourself. And that's good and it's very purifying, so there is no problem.
Like Brahmananda Prabhu, one of the first disciples of Śrīla Prabhupāda, he and Śrīla Prabhupāda, of course, from the very beginning he was teaching his disciples to bow down.
You know, it's probably the most suicidal course to come to Manhattan in the middle of the 60s during this hippie revolution. And uh the first thing you uh So
he was teaching his first followers, this hippies from Manhattan to bow down. And then Brahmananda being very bold and self-confident, he said, Prabhupāda, I don't feel like bowing down.
Prabhupāda said, you still bow down, and after a while you will feel like bowing down. So in the beginning, you don't have to feel like. Feeling will come later.
In the beginning, we practice and it doesn't mean that we're pretending. You know, I'm just I'm not pretending, I'm just bowing down. Uh uh Pretending means I'm bowing down and I'm looking, you know.
Do they see how I'm bowing down?
Healing past betrayals and building trust
Do they appreciate that's pretending if I just bow down, it's not pretending, I'm just practicing śaraṇāgati.
I have a lot of experience of Krishna's protection and devotees care, but also there is very strong experience of being rejected after imposing total trust in some devotee.
And now when I hear about trust, especially total trust. My body spontaneously shrinks and I feel fear and tense and expect uh expectations of new strokes.
How to practice this exercise and Thank you very much for this question. That's a very perceptive and very important question. Because yes, our past experiences, emotional experiences, manifest in our body.
And if the experiences which we had in the past are not conducive for surrender, then definitely the mind and the body will revolt against it. There will be some resistance.
Luckily, besides mind and the body, we also have intelligence. So, intelligence is this conscious part of us by which we can overcome the unconscious reactions of the mind and the body.
Both mind and the body are not conscious, they just react According to the saṁskāras which are there from the past, past experiences.
And if we didn't have this little tiny buddhi, conscious mind which can uh understand and analyze and ultimately overcome this, everything would be hopeless. But Krishna gave us this mind, this Buddhi, this intelligence.
And this intelligence is actually there to analyze our reactions exactly as you're doing in this question. You're observing this reaction, you know that there is a resistance,
you know that there is an obstacle, but at the same time by your conscious intelligence, you will be able to say that this this is not conducive, this is not a good reaction. Like some people, they had different phobias.
And usually phobias is a result of some frightening experience, especially when they were very vulnerable, little kids, babies, and then something happened to them and uh you know this experience became very big in their mind.
You know they they say that Napoleon he had panic attacks whenever he would see cats.
Because when he was a little baby, his nurse came to the garden and the nurse left him alone, and at that time the cat approached little Napoleon.
And at that time Napoleon didn't know that he's a Napoleon. And then the whole world will surrender to him.
And he became very much afraid of this. And Lord Nelson from British side, somebody did probably the same to Napoleon. So when the Battle of Waterloo started,
Then in front of the British army, there were hundreds of cats or a few dozens of cats. And Napoleon, when he saw them, he became so frustrated, he just left and he lost the battle.
So, but the point is that all these fears which we have, all these emotional reactions, they're real. But they're based on certain illusory experiences.
The reactions themselves are real and we have to recognize the reality. We shouldn't reject them. We shouldn't try to push them away. No, instead of pushing them away, we should go deeper into them.
And try to understand uh is it something substantial or not? And with this analysis, uh this uh uh emotional thing will shrink.
You know, here the author of this question says my body shrinks when somebody says to surrender. Now I suggest you to shrink this fear instead of shrinking the body. Just try to go there. Not be afraid of this reaction.
Admit that this reaction is there, uh sit with this reaction and you will actually understand that maybe cats are not so bad. Maybe they're nice creatures, you know. Um maybe they're not so harmful as you think.
So, you know, cats are maybe not so bad, but devotees whom you surrendered it's a different question. But what I want to say is that if you analyze this, maybe you will find somebody who is really trustworthy.
You might have done this mistake. Just admit that this was a mistake. Nobody is guilty. I was foolish enough. I invested my trust into somebody who was not trustworthy. It happens. No problem.
It doesn't mean that I should not trust anyone from this point on. The trust is my way of living. Without trust, I will not be able to achieve anything. Trust is very necessary.
And if this painful experience which I have precludes me of developing trust, then I have to deal with this with this experience in a very mature way and say, yeah, I was cheated, I was betrayed.
Somebody inflicted some pain to me, that's fine. That's a lesson which I learned. I will be more careful next time. But it doesn't mean that there is no trustworthy people in this world.
I might have been cheated for hundreds of times. It doesn't mean that, you know, on the 101st I will also be cheated. No. Just be intelligent and go very boldly into what we should go. Trust is necessary.
Addressing underlying causes of negative emotions
Trust is very necessary. In the lecture you said that if negative emotions, the question is in Russian, if negative emotions uh do not go away, it means that we're doing something wrong.
But if there is some permanent service and uh senior devotees are happy with us, uh and some sadhana is there. And nevertheless, negative emotions only grow and grow.
So basically, the question here is that you know I'm doing something, everyone is happy with me, my uh seniors are happy with me, uh I'm doing some sort of sadhana. Uh and the negative emotions grow, what I'm doing wrong.
Well everything you're doing is wrong because negative emotions grow. It basically means that your motivation is wrong. The very fact that somebody is happy with you doesn't mean that you're doing everything right.
It just means most probably in this case it means that you're just doing uh it with some ulterior motive. You just want to please him. Not to please Krishna, not to achieve some spiritual development or purification.
Yes, they may be happy, but that's not service in real sense.
The motivation is wrong, and because the motivation is wrong, then as you said in the question, suddenana Kakaya Nikakaya. It's very difficult to translate into English. Some sort of sadhana I'm doing.
So this sort of sadhana which you're doing uh nikakaya it's not good it's not kakai, it's nikakaya Okay, yeah. So now we have emotional part of our uh retreat, drama.
Drama is the best way to experience emotions, especially when we absorb uh into what is happening. And mm I don't know if you know the uh director, the leader of this group, which we are going to see.
Her name is Madhuri Kadambini. And I know her for a long time. Madhuri Kadambini her very name means the cloud of nectar. And she very humbly calls her theater the cloud of nectar.
But she's an amazing devotee. She's really wonderful. She's really special. She's so determined, she's she's extremely special and very talented.
She makes very beautiful dramas and everything and she goes and uh shows these dramas in Nepal and in uh in uh other parts of the world. And she's so inspiring, she's so dedicated. She's talented in many, many regards.
So I really want you to uh experience uh what she's and her little group uh uh are about to show. And in this uh performance I heard there will be I don't know how they manage it, you know.
Usually when we talk about Kāliya-damana-līlā, it's mostly Krishna and Kāliya and maybe Mother Yaśodā. In this drama, there will be 40 different people. I guess 39 will be showing the different heads of Kāliya.
Anyway let's see how it works. Let's go on down and uh see.