Bhagavad-gita 4.10
Bhakti Vijnana Goswami · Muscat · 2019
Chapters
Connecting the heart with God
Good evening. I'm happy to see all of you here. I will try to speak a few words about uh Shall I put it down, Mahārāja? Um, Bhagavad-gītā.
In regard to the topic which I was given today, how to connect, how heart with God and feel connected. So I will I will read a verse from the fourth chapter of Bhagavad-gītā. Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya.
Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya, vāsudevāya, oṁ namo bhagavate Vāsudeva, nārāyaṇaṁ namaskṛtya. naraṁ caiva narottamam, devīṁ sarasvatīṁ vyāsaṁ, tato jayam udīrayet.
Feel connection with God is very important because we are not complete, but tiny small particles of spirit, little souls which are wandering here in this world. And sometimes we feel very strong.
But usually that doesn't last long. Sooner or later, the moments of weakness come, depression, we're feeling lonely. And that's all manifestation of our partial nature. We are tiny.
And every one of us, no matter whether he believes in God or not, whether he believes in anything or not, feels that he needs some help sooner or later.
And of course, we try to get help from some material sources, from government. Of course, government never gives help. And from doctors, from friends, from family members.
But ultimate solace is coming when we feel connection with the higher power, when we really feel, not theoretically, not on a level of just blind belief or whatever, but when we feel connection with the higher power.
Because we need it.
Importance of divine connection at death
Otherwise, this incompleteness, our tiny nature, our weak nature, generally weak nature, will cause a lot of troubles. And especially we need to feel this connection at the moment of death.
Because during lifetime, somebody else can connect, can help us, our money can help us, our achievement can help us.
So many other protective mechanisms we may try to invent or try to establish in our life so that we feel protected. But at the moment of death, nobody can help us. No doctors can help us.
They will become helpless themselves. They will say, we can't do anything. Our relatives, however well-wishing they could be, they will not be able to help us.
What helps us at this critical moment, and this critical moment will be there in everyone's life and it's better to be prepared for this critical moment because it can happen very unexpectedly.
I mean, it usually happens unexpectedly. Because we never expect it. We always think that this will never happen to me. It all happens with somebody else.
So we better be prepared, and in this moment of time, only this higher connection, connection with God, can help us. And those people who manage to establish this connection, they leave this body happily.
I mean they feel very secure. Ultimately, we all need security, we all need it. And again we try to establish different means for security, you know, insurance company.
But you know, insurance company can help us, but not so much and not always. They may pay some contribution to our relatives when they are dead. It will not help us so much. So anyway, it's necessary.
It's necessary at least every now and then to think about it and to know the ways and the culture — every culture in the world tries to facilitate this connection.
You know no matter which culture we take, Christian culture, Muslim culture, Hindu culture, you know, this sect or that sect, they have different means, but ultimately it's all about the same thing.
Understanding Krishna divine birth and activities
How to feel this connection and how to feel it in reality, not just theoretically, not just because we are believers, how to really bring some life into this connection.
Krishna gives a very interesting advice in this regard in Bhagavad-gītā. In the beginning of the fourth chapter of Bhagavad-gītā, he says a very profound thing and a very simple thing.
He gives a very simple method, which actually is about this: how to feel completely protected at the moment of death.
He says, Janma Karma Ca Me Divyam, Evam Yo Vetti Tattvataḥ, Tyaktvā Deham Punarjanma Naiti Mām Eti So 'rjuna.
He says if somebody managed to understand Janma and karma, my Janma and karma, Janma and karma Ca Me Divyam, which are divine, which are not of this world, which are not ordinary, that I am not born as an ordinary human being who is bound by the fruits of His karma.
And my karma is not ordinary. Those people who understand this evam yoveti tatvataha in reality. This is a very important, uh, emphatic statement.
He doesn't say that somebody who knows some, you know, some little knowledge about my janma and karma or whatever. He says Tattvataha. One who really knows in truth, what is going on? Which is not so easy.
I mean, it's a seemingly very easy recipe, you know. Oh, we know Krishna is never born, he's just pretending to be born. His little baby, meh, meh, meh, meh. Yeah. We know Janma Karma, we figured it out.
No, Krishna says it's not that easy. And he will say it in the next verse, which I wanted to discuss in more details. He says to understand his janma and karma is a tapasya, is an austerity.
It's not easy to really know evam yov vedi tatvata evam in truth, tatvata, in reality, evam. He, he stresses this point: you need to know it in reality; in other words, you really have to have a very clear picture.
And it's apparently not so easy as it may say. But then he says: when he is leaving his body, he never comes back. He is free.
He gains a different state of existence, which is not bound by birth, death, old age and disease. Completely different status, existential status. Punarjanma is finished for him. Khatam. No more punarjanma.
And apparently he becomes very happy. And there are many examples. In the next verse he will say that many people in the past did it.
How he actually, in the next verse, he describes how he left the world, what happened with them. It's not that they just died and then they merged or whatever. He says Vītarāga-bhaya-krodhā man-mayā mām upāśritāḥ.
These people achieved love for me, mām upāśritāḥ. And they, they became purified. Pūtā mad-bhāvam āgatāḥ. So this is the topic which I wanted to talk about.
How, what it means, how to get this connection through the understanding of Krishna's birth and activity, what it implies, and what difference it makes in our life and what are the obstacles in this path.
Reading Bhagavad-gita verse four ten
So this is what I wanted to talk and therefore I wanted to read first this beautiful tenth verse of the fourth chapter of Bhagavad-gītā and then discuss it in more detail.
And hopefully there will be some practical hints what to do and what is the what is the what is the obstacle what is the hindrance in our path
okay so please let's chant this verse together: vītarāga-bhaya-krodhā man-mayā mām upāśritāḥ, bahavo jñāna-tapasā pūtā mad-bhāvam āgatāḥ. pūtā mad-bhāvam āgatāḥ.
Bhava Magatahan, Vitaraga Bayak man-mayā mām upāśritāḥ, bahavo jñāna-tapasā, pūtā mad-bhāvam āgatāḥ. So uh Krishna says in this verse, I I'll chant uh I'll read the translation and uh part of the purport.
Being freed from attachment, fear and anger, being fully absorbed in me and taking refuge in me, many, many persons in the past became purified by knowledge of me, and thus they all attained transcendental love for me.
As described above, it is very difficult for a person who is too materially affected to understand the personal nature of the supreme absolute truths.
Generally, people who are attached to the bodily conception of life are so absorbed in materialism that it is almost impossible for them to understand how the supreme can be a person.
Such materialistically minded person people cannot even imagine that there is a transcendental body which is imperishable, full of knowledge, and eternally blissful.
In the materialistic concept, the body is perishable, full of ignorance and completely miserable. Therefore, people in general keep this same bodily idea in mind when they are informed of the personal form of the Lord.
For such materialistic men, the form of the gigantic material manifestation is supreme.
Consequently, they consider the supreme to be impersonal And because they are too materially absorbed, the conception of retaining the personality after liberation from matter frightens them.
When they are informed that spiritual life is also individual and personal, they become afraid of becoming persons again, so they naturally prefer a kind of merging into impersonal void.
Generally they, compare the living entities to the bubbles in the ocean which merge into the ocean. That is the highest perfection of spiritual existence attainable without individual personality.
This is a kind of fearful stage of life, devoid of perfect knowledge of spiritual existence. Therefore, there are many persons who cannot understand spiritual existence at all.
Being embarrassed by so many theories and by contradictions of various types of philosophical speculation, they become disgusted and angry and foolishly conclude that there is no supreme cause and that everything is ultimately void.
Such people are in a diseased condition of life; some people are too materially attached and therefore do not give attention to spiritual life at all.
Some of them want to merge into the supreme spiritual cause, and some of them disbelieve in everything, being angry at all sorts of spiritual speculation out of hopelessness.
This last class of men takes shelter of some kind of intoxication, and their affective hallucinations are sometimes accepted as spiritual vision.
One has to get rid of all these three stages of attachment to the material world, negligence of spiritual life, fear of spiritual personal identity, and conception of void that arises from frustration of life to get free from all the stages, the material concept of life; one has to take complete shelter of the Lord, guided by the bona fide spiritual master, and follow the disciplines and regulative principles of devotional life; the last stage of the devotional life is called bhāva, the transcendental love of God.
Okay, so let's think about it.
Challenges in understanding God personal nature
What Krishna is talking here? He says, it's not easy for us to understand that God is a person. It's much more convenient to think that He is just some energy.
And most of the people, they believe that there is some energy, there is some force. They don't know that God is a person. And Śrīla Prabhupāda explains here why they don't know this, why it's so difficult to understand.
Because they project; they think that personality means limitation. I'm limited. God must be unlimited, so He cannot be personal. He cannot have personal existence.
And therefore, when Krishna speaks in the previous verse that when you understand in the reality how I take birth, that I am a person, then only you will come to me.
He explains, Krishna himself explains this difficulty, and Prabhupāda elaborates on this. He says the problem is the projection.
And therefore, we have different kinds of spiritual movements, so-called spiritual, I mean different spiritual movements. And Prabhupāda says some of them are based on the negligence of spiritual life.
Some people say, you know, it's not a spiritual movement, it's a quasi-spiritual movement. They are materialistic. They just neglect spiritual life. Nothing is there. But they create quasi-religion.
I'm from Russia and I know very well how this quasi-religion works. You put Lenin in a tomb and you worship Lenin. And you say Lenin is your God. He will do good for you. You go to Mausoleum, you pray to Lenin and he will.
Well, they don't say this, but in reality that they create still, some sort of believing people, some sort of quasi-religious understanding is there.
And then Śrīla Prabhupāda says that because Krishna says, vītarāga-bhaya-krodhā, it's either you're too attached to material life and you become materialistic or you uh by you're fearful of personal existence and therefore you create some sort of impersonal ideas.
When everything is finished, I will just merge and I will become God. We very often hear this: you're God. You just forgot about this. Somehow or other you're completely forgetful God. You're God which had some amnesia.
You know, you are God, but you know how I am God. I am God? In which way I am God. You know, some people fantasize, they they they think, you know, now I'm God.
I, you know, I know some people, they meditate and they meditate, you know, when the sun rises and they meditate, it's because of me the sun rises. Nice meditation.
Yeah, and sure enough, sun rises and they say, yeah, because of me. When they forget to meditate, sun anyway rises. But it's a nice feeling. It gives them some nice feeling, you know, I'm God, I'm God. No, we're not God.
We are tiny little living entities.
And uh and Śrīla Prabhupāda says that the some fear is there, and therefore uh this fear forces us to create some sort of fantasies in regard to ultimate reality and imagine that we will become God and you know.
But the point is that you cannot become God. God is already there. It's already a fixed condition. And then krodha, the anger. Anger may also be there.
And then you become angry, you know, so many people, so many sects are there.
Somebody says this, somebody says this, Buddhists say there is no God, Hindus say God is this, and Christians say Jesus Christ is God, Muslims say Allah is God, and you know, people become angry and say, you know, just forget about it.
So many ideas are there, and Prabhupada explains this verse exactly like this: vīta-rāga-bhaya-krodhā, you have to overcome this idea, and therefore it's so difficult.
You really, it's not so easy to discover, you know, you really have to do archaeological research to find out what is reality? It's not so easy.
Internal impediments to realizing divine reality
But what I want to do, if you allow me, I want to give a slightly different interpretation to this verse.
Prabhupada speaks from the general point of view, and he says that there is obstacles in people's mind due to these traits, materialistic traits.
But what I would like to do with you tonight, and I invite all of you to this thought process, uh I would like to explain this verse from a slightly different angle how these three emotions, rāga, bhaya and krodha, which are there in everyone's heart, how they are the impediment for us to understand the reality of God.
Because any verse of Bhagavad-gītā has many many meanings. And Prabhupada explains on a macro meaning, on a macro cosmic level, so to speak, how it creates certain tendencies in human thinking.
What I would like to do with you, I would like to ask you to look in your own heart and to find the impediments to understand God in our own heart. And Krishna is very clear about this.
He says there are three things which disconnect us with God.
As I said, the topic of my talk is connection with God, and here it is said that you have to purify your heart from something to feel this connection, to feel this love for God.
And what you have to purify your heart from is listed here as three things: rāga, bhaya and krodha. vīta-rāga-bhaya-krodhā man-mayā mām upāśritāḥ.
So uh let's uh try to think together about this internal impediments in our heart. Rāga means attachment, bhaya means fear, and krodha means anger. And these emotions, these three emotions, they all have one origin.
These three emotions have the same origin which is rāga. Therefore, rāga is listed first by Krishna. We are attached. Rāga means attachment. We are attached to our body, right?
We are attached to our family, we are attached to our position, we are attached to this sort of life we are living. We are attached in so many ways.
And every religious movement or every religion is talking about this, that attachment is actually an impediment, because when we are attached to something material, it's very difficult to be attached to something spiritual.
People try to be attached to both. In the Bible, it is said: "You cannot serve two masters." You cannot serve God and matter. Because it's difficult. You try.
We're trying to be good here and to be good there; it somehow or other it doesn't work. It's not a solution.
But the attachment is a problem, and we have to understand that this is a problem because when we are attached, so many things happen with us which is out of our control. We may be attached to our body.
And body becomes sick and it becomes painful, and it creates such an emotional turmoil. You know, it's one thing if we feel pain, experience pain. It's a problem, but it's not such a big problem.
The emotional reaction to the pain and to the prospect of leaving this body, this is much bigger problem. Pain is a problem, no doubt about it. Disease is a problem, it's, uh, no doubt about it.
But different people may react to the disease in different ways. Some will take it easy and he will be able to overcome disease.
Another person will start thinking about it and thinking, and you know, and becoming very fearful about the consequences and this and that, and disease will only grow. You know. You can actually overcome many diseases.
Most of the diseases you can overcome easily. But because of our emotional reaction to the disease, the disease becomes more strong. The attachment is a big problem.
There was one beautiful story, little story, which I read recently from the life of Buddha.
When Buddha was preaching, once he was traveling with a bunch of his disciples in the forest, and they sat down and started eating some lunch, and they were in a very happy mood.
And in this moment, some person came and he was very morose and he said, did you see my cows? And they said, no, sir, we didn't see my cows. And he said, oh my goodness.
You know, I I was herding my cows and I had twenty cows, and the cows went in different directions, and I'm looking for them. And I'm so unhappy.
And you know, I also plow my field and I put some sesame seeds and some insects, ate my sesame seeds and I'm I I'm ready to commit suicide.
And Buddha he gave some consoling words to this little poor fellow, and the fellow by crying, you know, went away. And Buddha looked at his disciples and said to them, You know why you're happy.
Because you don't have cows which could be lost. That's the reason why you're happy. That's the only reason why you're happy. You know, he saw this example.
We think, you know, we live in this world and you know by living in this world we need something. There is no doubt about it.
But it's one thing to need and to use something, another thing is to use something and to get attached to it. Attachment is a cause of a problem. And it creates a lot of, as I said, emotional disturbance, imbalances.
The more we're attached, the more we're imbalanced. If we are not attached, you know, everything is easy.
Śrīla Prabhupāda, while commenting on not in this verse, but in different verse, where there is the same phrase, Vita Raga Bayakrotha, in the second chapter of Bhagavad-gītā, Krishna uses the same phrase.
Śrīla Prabhupāda gives an example of Socrates. Socrates was a great philosopher and he was destined. He was by the court, he was supposed to die, he was supposed to drink the poison, Hemlock.
And actually, the judges didn't really want it, they somehow or other, they forced. So they kind of arranged the situation that he could be easily he could easily escape. And he had very influential friends, rich friends.
And his friends came to him and said, you know, why don't you we will arrange? You will run away, no problem. You don't have to. He said, No. No, I want to die.
I, yeah, and he happily, he said, I'm very interested to know what's going to happen within this process because I know I am a soul. Soul doesn't die. I'm not afraid at all.
And he happily drank this poison and then he said, he started explaining, oh, this is what I feel now, and this is what I feel now, and this is very nice. He remained completely balanced at this critical moment of time.
Why? Because he was not attached. And when we are attached, no matter what we are attached for, we ultimately are attached to our false position in this life. False identity.
Identifying with this body, with this, you know, citizenship, with this bank balance, or whatever it is, we are attached to this and when we are attached to this we try to maintain it.
But the problem is that in the material life we cannot maintain our status indefinitely. Either our body changes and people have crises. This is called life crisis. You know, middle-aged crisis.
The body changes and the soul is the same, and the soul cannot understand what's happening. I had a young, nice body, and now it's, you know, it's all wrinkles. What kind of useless body is it?
You know, and soul becomes disturbed. You become disturbed. You know, and there are so many disturbances there, and of course, the ultimate disturbance is at the moment of death, you're totally disturbed.
Everything is disturbed. So the more we are attached, the more we are disturbed. Because we will never be able to maintain our status in this life. And we want it because the soul is unchangeable.
Krishna establishes this in the very beginning of Bhagavad-gītā. He says, soul never changes. And therefore, soul, when the soul identifies with the body and the changes take place in the body, soul becomes bewildered.
What's happening? Deep inside, we don't feel we change. Deep inside we feel the same when we feel young. And the body is not young anymore.
Deep inside we want to jump and play and dance and, you know, but the body is, you know, shaking and doesn't allow us to do this.
So, what I want to say: the three emotions, we will touch other emotions too, but the three emotions give us stress. This is the emotions of stress.
We are constantly in this material life, under the stress, the emotional stress. And the cause of this stress is this attachment?
And this attachment, raga, which is there, it's a constant cause of stress, constant cause of anxiety.
Anxiety may be very high, maybe a little low, maybe you know, enormous, maybe little, but still the anxiety is always there. The background, this background anxiety is always there because what's going to happen?
What's going to happen?
Origin of fear and anger
So and this attachment gives rise to two twins: bhaya and krodha. Bhaya means fear, and krodha means anger. When we are attached to something, we are attached to, and some impediment comes on our way.
We are attached to, I don't know. To whatever. So many impediments. We attach to our position, to our conception of what we are.
So and if the impediment is very strong, like for example, something threatens our life, then the emotional reaction is what? Fear. Right?
If the impediment to our attachments, if if something is threatening us to deprive us of our attachments, then uh and this is very strong, you know, somebody comes and threatens our life. We become fearful, right?
Or somebody wants to take our money and it's very strong. We become fearful. If uh this impediment which wants to you know deprive us of our attachments is very strong, then the fear is there, bhaya.
And if impediment is a little weak, then what is the reaction? Anger. Yeah. To remove this impediment, the anger is there. You know, who you are, I'll show you who is stronger.
So this attachment inevitably gives rise to anger and fear. And therefore, when we are attached, we are always fearful and we're always angry.
We may be angry at ourselves, we may be angry at others because they don't do what the way we like to do. But the point is that these three emotions are always there in our heart.
And we're so used to them that sometimes we think, no, I am not angry, I am not fearful, and I'm not attached. I am very peaceful.
You know, just wait till somebody comes to you and pinches you or says something not nice to you. And you know, somehow or other anger out of nothing will appear. No, it's always there.
It's always there, and it's called stress. And this stress is actually the main cause of all our problems. All our problems are coming from this stressful condition.
The health problems, health issues, why why do we disease? Because of the stress. You know, all the all the health fanatics they try to relax, you know, and uh I listened recently, one person.
He explained very nicely how all the problems are coming from the stress in the mind. Because when you have stress in the mind, then you have tension in the body.
You may not notice it, but any stress, the mind is so intimately connected with the body, any stress in the mind creates some tension in the body, and you become little, you know, little crippled you know you become tense and that creates physical disturbance and this physical disturbance the body adjusts and ultimately i it uh it creates uh disease.
So this person very beautifully explained how the stress in the mind and tension in the mind created the disease. And then he says the solution is of course relaxation. He says, and we're teaching people to relax.
And they come to us and we teach them to relax and they try to relax.
And he says, when they try to relax, and we uh connect with their brains that the brain shows that they become even more tense because they're hard trying to relax. You know it's it's it's it's a hard work to relax.
The point is that we are so used to these uh three emotions, Raga, Bhaya and Krodha. Then uh and they always live in our heart, and this is the emotions which actually deprive us the connection of God.
They disconnected with God. Please listen very carefully because this is our choice. We are free to choose. We can feel connection with God, but for that, we need to get rid of these emotions. And how?
That's another question I will try to tell uh this a little later.
But um first of all we have to understand that uh this emotions becomes a screen which covers over God. Because we always worry about this and about that, and you know, and all this emotional turmoil is there in our heart, and therefore, it's very difficult for us to think about God.
Even if we try. Sometimes we start chanting Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare Hare. But you know, it doesn't last long because the emotion, some some stress is coming. What's going to happen?
What shall I do? No, I should do something. You know, we're sitting and chanting, and at the same time we're, you know, we're thinking how to start doing something.
You know, this this condition of the stress and uh the stress becoming the number one problem in the modern world. It's amazing. The modern civilization is supposed to free us from stress, you know.
They created so many machines, and you know, you you don't have to do anything. You just relax, you know. Robots are there. The stress now is much more than before.
Because nobody has physical work, everyone is in the computer, and computer is an enormous source of stress. And all these messengers, WhatsApp, and this and that, and you're bombarded by all these messages.
And all these messages are usually not pleasant, and you get email, and this and that. And stress is becoming more and more and more.
So much so that it's it's an official statistic: 49% of the American population is under some psychiatric disease, has some psychiatric disease. Depression is the disease number one now. Why is depression there?
Because of the constant stress, permanent stress. And ultimately people die. This is actually the medical science admits that the number one cause of all diseases is the stress and the constant stress.
And this constant stress is very beautifully described here by Krishna by these three words. Vīta-rāga-bhaya-krodha. One should get rid of this rāga, bhaya, and krodha: attachment, anger, and fear.
And actually, you should get rid of only attachment. No need to get rid of anger and fear. They will disappear themselves. Take out the root. Attachment is the only problem.
Negative emotions obstructing spiritual revelation
So, and uh in Padma Purāṇa there is a beautiful verse which explains this uh where it is said that śoka-harṣādibhir bhāvair ākrāntaṁ yasya mānasaṁ. sah. This is exactly the statement which I did before.
It is said: śoka-harṣādi-bhir bhāvair. If you have this bhāva of śoka, śoka means grief, and amarṣa means anger, and ādi, etc.
If you have these material emotions, stressful emotions, unpleasant emotions, negative emotions, emotion of guilt, anxiety, anger, fear, you know, and attachment. If you have all these emotions, if your mind is ākrāntā.
Ākrāntā literally means attacked. Constantly attacked by these emotions. In other words, if you are living under the stress or under this pressure of these emotions, kathaṁ tasya Mukunda-sphūrtiḥ sambhavana-bhavet?
How is it possible, then in this in his heart the image of God will appear itself?
Mukunda, who is giving liberation, God, who is the giver of liberation, who is ready to give liberation, who is ready to make you happy, he will never appear in your heart. You will never think about him.
You will... so the point is that the main problem for us to feel connection with God is these material emotions. And the cause again of these material emotions is again this false ego.
In the first evening, when I came, of course, many of you were not there, but I was talking about this false ego, false identity.
This false identity, false ego, to which we are miserably attached, is the cause of these emotions, is the cause of stress, is the cause of all problems.
And this false ego is actually depriving us of spiritual experience. As I said, many people believe in God, but who really feels God? Many people believe in God. Most of the people believe in God.
But who really... you know, they just feel just in case he is there. Just in case. We don't know who he is, you know, but you know, it's a very vague concept, just let, yeah, I believe in God because I'm afraid.
And some people even make philosophy or religious, you know, you have to be afraid of God. What kind of God it is of whom I should be afraid? Be afraid. Please tell me what kind of God it is.
You know, God is not a cruel somebody. You know, He didn't create this world for His, you know, to enjoy sadistic enjoyment, you know. I will enjoy how you're fearful. No. Fear is a material emotion.
Unless you have fear, you will never feel God. Until you have fear, you will never feel God. There is no need to be fearful of God. It's crazy. It's crazy. He says in Bhagavad-gītā that I am suhṛdam sarva-bhūtānām,
I'm the best friend of all living entities. All living entities are my children. Why we should be fearful of God? We should be fearful of our mind. The only cause of all our problems is our mind.
Mind role in manifesting reality
Because the mind always invents different attachments and different fears and different things. And it's all, you know, it's all invention of the mind.
There is a very funny story, it's a parable, but it's a very deep parable. There was one poor man, and this poor man was collecting wood in the forest.
And he was living, he was making his living, it was in old age when he was not making his living by working on the internet, you know, selling some junk in the internet.
So he was at least keeping some wood and doing something worthwhile.
Anyway, once he was he went deep in the jungle and somehow or other he lost his way and it became dark and he realized that he he will never be able to live from this jungle now.
He has to spend night and uh he became very afraid, you know, because it's jungle and you know it's dark and you know some voices are there of animals and so on so forth. And then he became also very hungry.
Anyway, he sat under the tree and he decided somehow or rather I spend night here. Let's be very calm and composed. And he started thinking, it would be nice to have some nice food.
And he imagined, you know, I have some rice and dal and sabji and roti, you know, and all of a sudden, lo and behold, you know, all these things which he was thinking about appeared in front of him.
And he looked at the tree and he thought, Oh, I read about this desired tree, Kalpataru. Perhaps it's a very special tree, Kalpataru, because it fulfilled my desires. And he was happy.
He happily ate everything and then he desired some something else, some I don't know, buttermilk or whatever. He ate everything. He became very happy. He thought, "Oh, it would be nice to have a nice bed to sleep."
And lo and behold, the bed was there, and he lay down and he slept very nicely.
And then during the night, because it was a desire to, during the night he woke up all of a sudden and he looked around and he, you know, he was a little bewildered because he was sleeping. He looked around; it was dark.
He said, "Oh, maybe the tiger will come." So what happened? He's under the desire tree. The tiger did come. But the moral of this little story is that we are living under the desire tree. What is the desire tree?
It is our mind. We attract different things. You know, when we become afraid, "Oh, something will happen." For sure it will happen. Because you will always meditate and think about it. This will happen.
Of course, it will happen. Because this is how this world is created. This is the design of this world. Whatever we meditate on will come to us.
If somebody is very negative, you know, he will have ample opportunities to be convinced that his negative outlook is the only right outlook.
Krishna will give him all the facilities to be convinced that he is right and everyone else is wrong. So that's, and that's stress. We're living in this stress. This is bad. This is bad, you know.
And people, they become, when they become old, they become attached to these emotions. Please listen very carefully. What happens, we always rehearse these emotions, these negative emotions.
During the life we rehearse negative emotions. Somebody chooses to rehearse anger. At the end, he becomes what? Very angry. Was he born angry? No, he was not born angry. He was nice. He was cute. He was smiling.
But because he rehearsed it so nicely, he became totally angry. As his standard emotion, uh, which he will always manifest, somebody becomes very fearful.
You didn't see some people, somebody becomes, you know, he's afraid of everything. You know, people have panic attacks. They're just there, they're sitting, you know, I know one person.
You know, he's in his home, he has so many locks, he he locks his door for so many locks, then he goes to the toilet and he locks the toilet and he sits in the toilet and he's he's trembling in the toilet.
And it's not a joke. He's suffering there. There is absolutely no cause of suffering. Why? But he rehearsed it. His mind is used to it. His body is used to it. It's actually a chemical mechanism.
When we create certain emotions in our mind, certain hormones are being produced. They go to the body, and the body becomes attached to this particular chemicals.
And these chemicals by the mechanism of feedback they produce certain thoughts in our mind.
Why some people are become, you know, when especially when they become old, they become very, um, in anxiety, always in anxiety, you know, they they they have they become very restless and in anxiety, you know, there is no cause for an anxiety.
But why? They invent the causes for anxiety. You ask them why your anxiety, oh, because of, and they think a little bit and they will give you a good cause.
You know, because again, this is all invention of the mind, this is all games of the mind, this is all plays of the mind, which ultimately deprives us of the most important experience in our life, to experience God in our heart.
He's there in our heart. He wants us to be connected with Him. But until we stop this game, this emotional game which is there, and we are very attached to these emotions.
You know, these emotions again become something permanent, our permanent reaction to the events of our life. Unfortunately.
And Krishna himself says that whatever bhāva you have at the end of your life, your next life will be the same.
Taking shelter through positive emotions
What I want to say is that we are ourselves creating our destiny by our mind and by our emotions.
So Śrīla Prabhupāda very beautifully explains at the end of this part of the purport which I read: that to get rid of all these three stages of material concept of life, one has to take complete shelter of the Lord, guided by a bona fide spiritual master and follow this disciplines and regulative principles of devotional life.
Because it is said here, man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī mām namaskuru, how you can get rid of this stress, of this stressful, unpleasant, negative emotions. How can you be free? Only by this. Man-manā bhava mad-bhakto.
We really have to take shelter of the Lord. We have to surrender to the Lord. How? By doing some spiritual discipline. Lord wants us to do something, to live certain sort of life, certain disciplined life.
And when we do this, we feel protection, we feel His presence more. And ultimately, listen, but this is there is a secret, there is a little secret which I wanted to reveal.
It took me 35 or 38 years to discover this secret. But I wanted to share it with you because when I discovered this secret in me, uh in my life, in the practice, it really changed my practice.
I was I started doing some spiritual discipline, some sādhu-sanga in 1980, good 39 years back. And for many years I have been doing it with some success or with some struggle.
But the secret which I wanted to share with you tonight really changed a lot in my own life. What does it mean to take shelter of Lord? What does it mean in reality? Krishna is very clear here.
Man-manā bhava mad-bhakto: You have to take shelter of Me, and this is the only way to get rid of these negative emotions.
To take shelter of the Lord means that you have to take shelter of some positive emotions which bring you closer to the Lord.
To overcome or to conquer over the negative emotions, you can only by the means of positive emotions. Because when you're disturbed, how can you take shelter of the Lord?
You're fearful, you have panic attacks, and you try to chant and you don't feel anything. And fear is so strong. This emotional, you know, emotional disturbance is so strong in you. So how to get rid of this?
And your body, as I said, by the mechanisms of this is completely conditioned by these emotions. Your body is producing emotions. Your body needs to be fearful. Your body needs that your mind will be fearful.
Because your body is used to this chemical, to this hormones of fear, to this hormones of stress. People become so used to stress that they become stressed because there is no stress.
When there is no stress, they become very stressed because something is wrong. Something is not right, you know. They become little unhappy. They cannot become happy.
So please listen very carefully to what I wanted to share with you because it's it's very important for me. The taking shelter of the Lord is an emotional act.
It's an act of some positive emotions which can be rehearsed as much as we can rehearse our negative emotions. We all know how to rehearse anger. We're all experts in this.
Somebody says something unpleasant to us and then we think about this again and again and again and again and the more we think about it the more angry we become against this person.
At the end we cannot think about anything. In the beginning it was very small, but then we rehearsed it and rehearsed it and rehearsed it, and the anger became big. And we only think about this anger and what to do.
And this person already forgot about this. And 30 years later we still remember about it. Especially in family life. You know, I'm I'm trying to help one family now.
And the lady, you know, she keeps painful experiences for 25 years. And you know, she cannot get rid of them. They're there. She's so attached to it. Attached to this negative emotions.
So what I want to say is that as much as we know how to rehearse negative emotions, we can in the same way rehearse positive emotions.
And the positive emotions of surrender: what does it mean to take shelter of the Lord and to feel that the Lord is there?
Five constituents of spiritual surrender
Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, one of our teachers, he explains very beautifully.
He says that there are five emotions of surrender: taking shelter of the Lord or taking protection of the Lord, begging Lord of the protection, it's an emotional act. And this emotional act has five constituents.
First is determination. I will do what God, what Krishna wants me to do. I will follow his discipline, no matter how difficult it is. This determination is uh is a very important beginning emotion which we can rehearse.
It's not innate quality.
Of course, some people are more determined, other people are less determined, but still, if you understand, I need protection of God, and for that I have to follow what He wants me to do, we can do it.
The example in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is Dhruva, a little five-year-old boy, and he's so determined, I'll do it, I'll make it. And he goes, and of course, he's successful because this emotion is so strong.
If we have this emotion of determination, we can overcome other emotions. This is actually the first positive emotion, which is very helpful to go our upward movement.
If we want to go up and up and up, if we want to develop emotionally, and this emotional development is very very important.
Now, people, psychologists, they say before they were judging people according to their IQ, intellectual quotient, or whatever it's called. But now it's more important EQ, emotional intelligence.
If they're emotionally intelligent, in other words, if they're mature, if they can control their emotions. If they know where to use emotions, where to not to use emotions.
If they are emotionally mature, they are much more productive and much more successful even in their professional life. So what I want to say that you start this taking shelter of the Lord by being determined.
This is the principles I want to follow. This is the moral principles. I want to be moral.
And yes, there are bad habits which we have, we may have bad habits, but we can overcome them again if there is emotional charge in it. If people just say, oh, let me try.
Yeah, I like smoking, but you know, I know smoking is bad for my health. Let me try. Yeah, you can try. Mark Twain says, giving up smoking is very easy. I have done it many times. Which means I never did it.
So, you know, tomorrow is an ekādaśī. And we're supposed to fast on ekādaśī. Uh it's uh it's uh that's actually quite a strong statement in the Shastras that on an ekādaśī you should fast.
Fasting means take some fruits or whatever, don't take grains. And you know, I did many ekādaśīs, I did complete fast and many ekādaśīs. And I know perfectly well.
If I think the evening before, or if it will be too difficult, then I will eat a little bit, no big deal. But I'll try it. For sure it will not work. You for sure will fail. You already prepared to it, no problem.
You know, if you think if it will be too difficult, it will be too difficult, no doubt about it. If you think I will fast, you will not notice it. It becomes so easy.
Determination, if it's uh uh if it has some emotional charge becomes very easy and pleasant. You just do it, you just say, you know, I'll fast. It's easy. Krishna wants me to do it. It's pleasing. It's good.
It's good for my health also, by the way. But it's not the main reason. So I want to please the Lord. If this is the reason, I want to please the Lord because how you can take shelter of somebody?
How you can uh ask for protection of somebody if you don't want to please him? If you want to please your wife, uh if you want to take shelter of your wife, you have to please her, right? You have to.
If you have to, you know, if you need protection of somebody, if you need protection of government or whatever, you have to please them, you have to follow their rules. There are God's rules, God's laws.
So follow God's laws. And determination is the first emotion to overcome negative emotions. You become less stressful.
If you lead the life, the proper life, proper conduct, according to the laws of God, stress will become less, attachments will become less.
Developing trust and gratitude toward God
And then the next emotion which we can and should rehearse is the emotion of trust. Americans they have this slogan in God we trust, but in reality they trust in dollar. Therefore, this statement is there in dollar.
But but that's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to trust God. This trust means, you know, you think about it. God has given us so much and He has protected us so many times.
If we really think about it, we will find some occasions in our life when we were protected by the Lord.
And so many stories are there which show how people, when they trust God, you know, they really find the real emotion of trust in Sanskrit; the word trust is called vishwas. It's a very interesting word.
The prefix vi means special, vishesh, and shwas means breathing. Vishwas means a special kind of breathing. You know, when a child, the child may be disturbed, emotionally, fearful, and angry or whatever.
But when the mother took the child on her laps, ultimately the child starts breathing very calmly. And we know if we want to become calm we should breathe in a special way.
So what I want to say, if we feel protection of the Lord, and the Lord says, I'm ready to protect, mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja. Sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja. Ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo. Mā śucaḥ. No need to worry.
No need to worry. Just come to me. I will protect you. I will take care of you. Yoga-kṣemaṁ vahāmy aham. You know, no, but we think, you know, it's all mythology. It's not mythology, it's reality.
You know, and if we have, if we develop this, at least try to rehearse it, as I said, we're capable of doing it.
Even if little trust is there, if we rehearse it more and more and more, if we think more and more and more how God protects us, this emotion will grow in our heart. And then the next emotion is emotion of gratitude.
God has given us so much. Didn't He give us? Did He give us eyes? Have you ever said thank you to God that He gave us eyes? There are so many blind people who don't have eyes by some reason.
He gave us legs, He gave us hands, He gave us, you know, some people cannot breathe properly because they have asthma. We can breathe. There are so many reasons to be grateful to God.
And we always know what God didn't give to us, right? You know, he gave so much to us.
Cultivating self-surrender and spiritual humility
And again, this is something to be rehearsed. Thank you, God. You know, when you get up, the first thing which you do: Thank you, God. Somehow or other, I'm still living. It's amazing.
And somehow or other, it's so, so it's not so bad. Maybe not so good, but don't say not so good. Say it's, it's okay. You know, this gratitude, it's actually very healing. This emotion of gratitude.
Again, all these emotions are healing because they counteract the negative emotions. And then the next emotion is the emotion of self-surrender, when we say, you know, I'm yours, I belong to you.
And you know, if we say it or if we do it with emotional content, "I'm yours, I belong to you, I'm your child." You know, if you come to your mother and if you say, "I'm yours,"
or even if you come to your wife and say, "I'm yours," will she be pleased? She definitely will be pleased. And God will also be pleased. If you come to Him and very sincerely say, "I'm yours" and "you are mine."
If you establish this connection emotionally while chanting His holy name, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare, Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare.
Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare, Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. You will immediately feel connection with God. And you feel relief of stress. And then the next emotion is the emotion of humility.
You come to Him and you're helpless. And you say to Him, "What can I do without You? I'm zero without You. I'm zero without One." You know. And yes, I have many zeros in my bank balance, but many zeros is just zero.
If there is no One in my life, if there is no God in my life, I'm zero. I'm nobody. And if you say this, God will say, "Yeah, I'm, I'm here for you. I am ready to become One in front of you,
so that you become not zero, but somebody." So if we all know this theory, but the point is that it's not theoretical, it's emotional understanding. And this is an act of emotion.
And when Krishna says, "vīta-rāga-bhaya-krodhā man-mayā mām upāśritāḥ," he says, you will be able to overcome negative emotions by the positive emotions of accepting me as a shelter.
And there is no other way to overcome negative emotions. And this is the choice which we have.
Either we become completely stressed under this enormous stress of modern life when we always want to, you know, increase and we're always fearful of losing something or whatever.
Either we become completely, our life will become, we will become victims of these negative emotions.
Purification of heart and divine love
Attachment, fear, and anger. Or we become happy people who feel the protection of God.
And at the end, it's not the end because Krishna goes there, "bahavo jñāna-tapasā pūtā mad-bhāvām āgatāḥ"— by these emotions you will purify your heart. Your consciousness will be pure, will become very pure.
And then "mad-bhāvām āgatāḥ," you will achieve love to me. And love is a very amazing experience. Whoever has real love for God, he will not change it for anything else in this world.
Because it gives such immense happiness, real blissful happiness, blissful experience, everything else becomes pale in comparison with real love of God.
But the point is that this road to love of God goes through this positive emotions.
If we're always going through these vicious circles of negative emotions and we always in this negative state of mind, we will never go there. To go there, you know, it's a way.
And when Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that this discipline, sādhana, especially sādhana and the path of bhakti, it's emotional sādhana.
When we chant the holy name together, or when we chant individually, it's still, it's a very deeply emotionally charged act. If we just mumble it and think that this ritual will help me, will save me, it will not.
Mumbling, you know. Krishna doesn't need our mumbling. Mumbling. Krishna says, what, what is he doing? What is the point? Krishna needs our heart. He waits when we are coming to him with open heart.
And he's ready to reciprocate. He's ready to give us protection. He's ready to give us security, he is ready to give us bliss. But we need to prove to him that we want it. And how we prove to him?
By cultivating these positive emotions. There's still material. They are not spiritual. Love of God we cannot cultivate. It's not a question of cultivation. It descends, it happens to you.
Love you cannot really squeeze out love of your heart. You know, "I love." No. Love will come as an effect. But gratitude you can cultivate. Not a big deal.
Just say this, just find this gratitude, this emotion of gratitude in you, and say it with feeling. And in this way, ultimately we will get to this highest goal of life, which is love of God. And we will become happy.
And we will overcome all our problems. And this is the way to connect with God. This is the way to really feel connection. And it's easy. It's really easy. Especially if we start in the right place.
If we just say, you know, I'm ready to do it, Krishna, I'm yours, I belong to you. You know, little Dhruva did it, why not me? I will also do it. I will come to you. And all facilities are there.
The whole universe is, as I explained, that when we think something negative, the whole universe is trying to fulfill our negative understandings. And the whole reality changes around us in a negative way.
Because we have this negative replica of reality in our mind.
In the same way, if we create this positive replica of reality and if we cultivate it by the means of sadhana, by chanting the holy names, associating with people and serving these people, then our heart will be purified.
Putta. And when the pure by this tapasya, by this austerity, our heart will be purified, and mad-bhāva-gatāḥ, the love for me will come. And what Krishna says: this is the consolation, bahavo.
Bahavo means many people did it. You're not alone. It's real. It's not a problem. It's doable. It's possible. You can purify your heart, you can become very happy. Just do it. And you will never regret.
And you will never come back to material world. And to India, of course. Krishna himself says: They will never. Punar-janma, no, they will never come back. They're with me. They're happy. They become happy servants of mine.
And I become their happy servant. Because love is always mutual. If you serve God, God will serve you. And you will live in this loving union. So that's that's little message which I wanted to share with you.
Thank you very much. I I hope that I gave you some practical case.
Eradicating fear and past sinful reactions
Maybe there are some questions. Fear of God, actually, at the time we are fearing of our sinful acts, yeah, but therefore in the shastras, if you read shastras, you will be uh struck. You will be stricken, yeah?
Is it correct word? You will be struck or whatever whatever correct word. My English is not my first language, so.
You will be struck, yeah, you will be struck to find how many statements are there that it's so easy to get rid of sinful reactions. Again and again, again, again. Shastras say: don't be fearful.
Just go around Tulasi three times. You can go four times just in case or five times. It basically means that you know if we always fearful and we have this guilt feeling, I did this, I did this,
we will never move from this point. We will all we will be stuck. So the Shastras give us facility. Please don't worry about this. It's not so difficult. You know, there are people who created horrendous crimes.
They killed other people. And then somehow or other they they became remorseful, and you know, and lo and behold, they they are completely happy and uh and they're not fearful because they felt the connection.
You told me the story about this person who was drinking. You know, Madajya Purvashakti can tell you the story about someone who was, you know, he was drinking liters and liters and liters of wine.
And all of a sudden some some transformation took place in his heart.
And all his friends with whom he was drinking, they all either dead or have liver disease, and he's completely healthy, and he's not drinking, and he's, you know, and he became so transformed completely.
So the point is that this transformation can take place in a very sudden way, in a very drastic way. It's possible. The facility is there. It's just a question of sincerity of the heart. It doesn't take much time even.
So when this transformation takes place, all the saṁskāras, sinful saṁskāras of your previous life, will become eradicated. You can do it in the process of meditation. It's a slow process.
In Yoga Sutras, Patanjali Muni says that saṁskāras become weakened. What is sin?
Sin is nothing but saṁskāras, the impressions, subliminal impressions in our subconscious mind, which forces us, which creates different desires, sinful desires, and forces us to do the same nonsense again.
But what I say that Shastras say don't worry. Don't worry. Śrīla Prabhupāda told us a funny story in this regard. There was one thief. He was a professional thief his whole life he was stealing.
And he somehow rather he was converted and he became a devotee and he decided to become to lead a saintly life and he started with pilgrimage. And he joined a group of yatra of some pilgrims who were going to holy places.
And for the first night, he couldn't fall asleep because usually during the night he was stealing.
And the habit was so strong, and he he was, you know, he was swirling and turning and you know, tossing, and he couldn't sleep, and the desire to steal something was too strong.
So what he did, he woke up, and not woke up, he got up and he changed his place.
You know, he took use case of somebody and put it somewhere somewhere else, and he took shoes of somebody and put somewhere else, and then, you know, very peacefully he slept because he did what he used to do.
And then, you know, in the morning everyone became a little disturbed because they found out that the the goods are not there, but then they found out that somewhere there and they asked what happened and he said, please forgive me, that's
me, I'm a thief, and I need to steal. I don't want to steal, but I need to steal. The saṁskāra is too strong. But you know. So what I mean to say is that maybe the habit may go on for a while, but very soon it will vanish.
If you start afresh with this emotional determination, Very soon, all the sinful there is no need to fear. And therefore Krishna says, mā śucaḥ, mā śucaḥ, no need to fear, no need to fear. Just it it's never too late.
Never too late. But you need good association. Imagine that these positive emotions, gratitude, humility, all these are minimum requirements to develop the uh to take the sha But
there are some people who just limit themselves, they say being good is the end of all. They say that hi we need to have our devotional service to the Lord and all those things.
That's enough for the material world and and we that's but we like them after coming to this one we understand that it's not easy to be remaining good in the mood of goodness and but how we can explain Yeah.
Yeah there's some people say yeah yeah I'm good I'm a good person you know I uh that's the main purpose. But first of all, being good, first of all, this world is a very dangerous place.
You may commit sinful activity without knowing it. You may create an accident and kill somebody in the road. You may be very good person, still you will kill somebody. Or you you kill a dog or you kill a cat or whatever.
But this is not even so bad. At least this is something gross and you know about this. Sometimes you may commit some sinful activity without completely knowing about it.
You inflict some pain to somebody without knowing this.
Very, you know, and and the person becomes very hurt and he has a grudge against you and is he harbors ill feelings, and because he harbors ill feelings, it will come back to you.
So, uh, and as you rightly said, the modes are always changing, you know. Now you're good because the sattva guna is influencing you.
But then you look the wrong page on the internet and some other mode of nature overcame your mind.
And here you are, some desires which are still there is driving you, and you, you know, you you don't know what you're doing, even. You're completely overwhelmed by these passions which are there.
So this is no, it's not a protection.
We are very vulnerable and it's a very dangerous place, and you can create so many, you know, within one lifetime, being good, you will create so much karma that you will never be able to exhaust this karma within one thousand times.
Even if you're good. And and you uh being good will never give you ultimate solution of all your problems. You will be born again and you will again become old and diseased and die again and be fearful of death.
It's not a solution. It's not a solution. It's it's better than nothing, but it's it's not a solution. It's not even it's yeah, whatever.
Is positive emotion of yours equals positive energy or there's a subtle difference in that? Uh emotions are in automatic and spinal surgery. And I was much fascinated by your your your lecture per se.
But is there a stability between positive energy and positive energy?
Yeah, absolutely because or they are they have some interference uh the very word emotion is coming, English word emotion is coming from Latin word immovile. Like somebody says, emotion means energy emotion.
Emotion, emotion is an energy. When we feel emotion, you know, we disturb, you know, we are we start, you know, passing, you know, back and forth or you know, we're fearful, the emotion becomes we start trembling.
It's all energy. And anger is definitely strong energy. Lust very is a very strong energy. It's all energy, emotional energy. So when you have negative emotions, you emanate negative energy around you, definitely.
And you live with this negative energy. And this negative energy is destructive. You know the negative energy has this destructive force.
So when you change negative emotions to positive emotions, it becomes much more constructive and the energy becomes benevolent.
You use this energy to help other people and so on and so forth and you become much more enhanced by this energy. Yeah, there is a difference.
You know it's not exactly the same, but emotions have the nature of being energy. It's a manifestation, it's emotional energy which is there.
Whatever you say in the earlier conversation whereby we collect some negative baggage which you have done knowingly or unknowingly, does it mean that the past will go away or it can get lightened or it will remain?
Yeah, absolutely. Therefore we say Hare. Hare means Hari. Hari means the one who takes away. We first say Hare and then Krishna.
First he has to take away all the negative and then we can say Krishna with some positive feelings. No, he's there, he's ready. Therefore he's black. Black means everything goes there inside. Yeah. Yeah.
You know, he's ready to take, he's ready to relieve us from our emotions. The problem is that we are attached to our negative things. We are attached to our petty problems. You know, to our grudges.
Yeah, I will never forgive you. Okay, fine. Next lifetime you will have a chance to manifest it again. So just let it go. Krishna. Yours. Okay? Yes.