The Laws of Karma and Dharma
Bhakti Vijnana Goswami · 2018
Chapters
Introduction to karma and dharma
Hare Krishna. I'm very happy that I have this opportunity to address all of you. My name is Bhaktivigan Goswami. I have never been to Greece. Maybe in the future, if I have a good luck.
But somehow or other I was asked to give this Sunday lecture and different topics were suggested. And I combined a few topics which were suggested. In particular, I will speak about the law of karma, its
relationship with dharma, how the consequences of karma work, what kind of diseases we can get because of karma, and what to do with this karma. This is a very relevant topic because we're all dealing
with this karma, something which is inevitable, which is following us, pursuing us as the fate. Incidentally it's a topic of uh great Greek tragedies, ancient Greek tragedies. The main theme of this tragedy is how we are all
dependent on some unseen, cruel, and inescapable force which is pursuing us, which is more or less pushing us to do the destiny or Providence. There are many, many words in English and in any other language describing
this phenomenon. And we all know that sometimes something happened to us and we know that it is destined to happen. Sometimes we get some prediction and astrologers will tell us this or
some mystic, uh, or sometimes we can get a dream, maybe pleasant dream, maybe not so pleasant dream, and something happens to us. So this notion of karma, this understanding of karma or understanding that
there is some sort of predestination in our life, in our life is prominent in every culture and people give different explanations but definitely the most comprehensive and most detailed
Vedic rationale behind karma
explanation of this phenomenon is given in Vedic literature. And in Vedic literature, this phenomenon is called karma, the law of karma, that we have to reap the consequences of our
actions, not necessarily performed in this lifetime, it can be performed in some previous lifetimes. But the main rationale behind this understanding or nothing happens to us without reason.
Sometimes people say it's coincidence, it just happened. But basically when we say this, that something happened to us without a reason or just happen to happen with us. It just betrays our ignorance.
Everything which we know is happening in this world has some reason behind it. And even if it looks like coincidence on the surface, there is a deeper reason. And any intelligent person can understand this.
And in fact, when something bad happens with us, we always ask this question: why? Why did it happen to me? Why did it happen to me? Because that's the nature of intelligence.
Intelligence is given to us to find out the reason behind everything. And ultimately, the reason behind our existence, which is God.
Ultimately, intelligence is given to us to find God when we ask this question, why, why, why, why? But when something bad is happening to us, it's actually a beginning of our search for God.
Our search for God can start from some other point.
But usually people start really looking for God when something bad happens to them and they're asking this question why and ultimately, uh, whether there is some intelligent design in this life.
Uh, intelligent design, uh, in what is happening to me, and who is behind this. And in this way, we are gradually coming closer to God.
So ultimately, the law of karma is meant for us to become more thoughtful and ultimately to sharpen our intelligence and to come to God because the human beings are designed in such a way that they will be able to understand themselves and to understand God.
This is the privilege of human beings. Animals don't have this privilege. They cannot understand themselves. And they never ask this question why.
Beginningless karma and ending individual fate
So when we ask this question, it means that our intelligence is working properly and it means that we are lucky that we are doing what we are supposed to do.
So, as I said, in Vedic literature there is a fairly detailed explanation of the law of karma.
And the first point which we have to understand very clearly is that the law of karma, the our karma which we experience, has no beginning.
This anadi karma this is a very standard phrase which uh um occurs in many places in Vedic literature, anadi karma or anadikarma phala, the fruit of beginningless karma, karma without any beginning. It's very difficult for us to deal with the categories which are beginningless.
Because beginningless means causeless. So when we say that our karma is without beginning, it means that there was no initial cause of our karma.
We definitely understand that there are certain things which don't have beginning. God is one of them. God doesn't have beginning because if he has beginning, it means that he has a cause.
It would mean that this cause or his beginning would be higher than him. It would imply that there's something higher which is not possible by definition. God by definition is the highest.
Another thing which is beginningless is time. There is no beginning of time because there is no cause behind time. So in the same way our karma is uh beginningless and sometimes
people uh try to track down our karma to a particular event uh in the past but that's uh quite useless.
But another thing which we have to know about karma is that even though it doesn't have any beginning, it can have an end. And that's what we are all looking for. Our karma doesn't have beginning.
There is no point of trying to track down the beginning of our karma. But the good news is that uh it may have an end.
By our conscious endeavors uh we may uh choose the path or may traverse the path by which our karma will come to a complete stop and our different existence will start. The existence which is not karmically determined.
So these two first points which we have to know about the karma and its consequences, that it doesn't have beginning and we can stop it if we are intelligent enough and actually the human form of life is meant for us to stop the law of karma.
Karma as universal balance
The stop, not the law of karma, we cannot stop the law of karma, but the stop our individual karma, the flow of karma.
So another thing which we have to understand about karma is that karma is the universal law of justice. As I said, nothing is happening to us without any reason. And we have to be very clear about this.
We have to understand very clearly that it's not without a cause that something is happening to us, and if something bad is happening to us, this basically means that we did something bad.
The law of karma is meant to maintain the balance in this universe. And usually living beings which have uh less intelligence which don't have developed intelligence they don't uh violate with the law of karma and they don't create mess in this world.
They don't create some things which will throw out of balance this material nature. And therefore they are more or less meant to work out certain uh karma which they accumulated in the past.
But the human form of life is special because we have uh developed intelligence and this intelligence implies that we can misuse it.
And misuse of our intelligence is when we act against our nature and against the nature of this world, against the laws of this world.
When we try to encroach to another share, when we try to steal, when we try to get some extra enjoyment which we are not meant to have and so on so forth.
By throwing out or by creating some actions which are disturbing the balance existing in this nature, we create consequences for ourselves which will disturb our balance.
When we're healthy, when we're happy, when everything is more or less nice around us. It's a balance. And actually the human body, human mind always strives for a balance, strives for a balance.
But then something happens to us, for example, disease. Disease is definitely an imbalanced state of our consciousness and imbalanced state of our body, of our physical self.
And this imbalance is a source of pain and sufferings.
And again, this imbalance takes place in our life only because we act as to disturb the balance outside of us, the balance of other people's life when we encroach into some of their possessions or when we try to exploit this material nature.
Human beings are very expert in this exploitation. And exploitation basically means to get something which we do not deserve to get.
Ayurvedic classification of karmic diseases
When we live in harmony with the environment, in harmony with our own nature, and when we respect the nature and the needs of all living beings which are around us, in particular human beings but, not only also animals, when we don't kill necessarily these animals, then we are respecting this balance, and uh that is uh a good uh um investment uh in our own life in our own happiness because uh we will more or less ensure that we also will have a balanced life, we don't have, we will not have diseases and so on and so forth, at least very severe diseases.
But even little diseases is the manifestation of some sort of imbalance which we create. In Ayurveda, it is very clearly said that the main cause of all diseases is Pragya parada.
Pragya parada, Pragya means intelligence, apparada means the crime against intelligence, offense against intelligence, action which is opposed to our intelligence.
So, according to this, I'm talking now about different consequences of karma, and disease is a very beautiful example of karmic consequences because first of all, every one of us knows what disease is and experience it in one form or another form in our life.
But we are using this as an example because every other consequences of our karma have exactly the same nature as this particular consequence, which is called disease.
The very English word disease means that you are in a difficult condition. You are not at ease. You are not comfortable. Your body is uncomfortable, your mind becomes uncomfortable, and you cannot be at ease.
The balanced state of our physical body and physical mind is called ease. It's something which is very comfortable and easy. But disease is when we are deprived of this comfort or easiness.
So according to Ayurved, again, there are four kinds of diseases as far as degradation of severity of disease is concerned. Some diseases are very simple and it's they are easily curable.
It means that there is a slight imbalance in our body, and this slight imbalance can be brought back to balance by some sort of balancing action.
We can take some particular drugs, some herb or whatever, and this herb will bring the imbalanced state back to balanced state, and we will not experience the symptoms of our disease.
Counteracting severe karma through austerities
So this this this is the first sort of consequences when our action are slightly disturbing the external balance around us, the external environment, then the consequences of this will also slightly disturb the balance in our body and our mind, and it can easily be counteracted by some other action or you know some other uh yeah, by some other action uh which uh uh Will uh you know counteract this particular stupid action done by us.
So the second type of consequences is uh or second type of disease is disease which is curable uh but curable only with a great effort. It's a heavy disease, it's much more serious disease than the first one.
And you can cure it, but you really have to take a lot of time and a lot of effort. You have to fast for a long time to purify your body from certain toxins, or you have to undergo very severe sort of uh treatment,
also quite austere, or you have to spend a lot of time in a hospital, taking different procedures or taking very heavy drugs or very strong
herbs, or in Ayurveda there is some class of medicines which are based on metals, in particular on mercury, which are very heavy and they're poisonous themselves, but these poisons
are meant to neutralize some poisons which accumulated in our body and in this way get us free from the discomfort condition of disease. So in the same way,
there are some karmic consequences which we experience which are very difficult to contract, and basically we can only contract them by voluntarily accepting some austerity.
In Christianity it's a very common thing that people have to atone for different sins which they performed.
And atonement means that they have to perform some austerity, they have to voluntarily deprive themselves of certain comforts in life. And most common of course austerity is fasting because uh
our dependence on food is uh very very strong and therefore the suffering which we undergo uh or experience while fasting is very severe.
But by this voluntarily accepted or imposed upon us suffering, we can counteract this karma in the form of disease or in the form of any other sufferings.
Sometimes people, you know, uh have to do some severe uh not severe but uh some work for others and in this way counteract the consequences of their karma and so on and so forth.
And the point is that you really have to endeavor hard for this. It's not an easy process because the consequence of your particular karma is of severe nature. It basically means that you severely disturb somebody
or nature and therefore you experience this.
Scriptural regulations on meat and desires
To give an example of this sort of consequence, that when you inflict pain, inflict pain to some uh living entities, when people um kill other living entities uh and enjoy their flesh
uh then they may develop very severe diseases. And the severe disease is the result.
You know, ultimately what happens when we eat the flesh of murdered living entities or killed living entities, slaughtered living entities. We're taking their deaths inside ourselves.
And there is a lot of toxins, and therefore in different religions, there are different prescriptions how to minimize these consequences.
And also in the Vedas, it is said that you can eat the flesh of sacrificial animals.
But it is specifically said in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that all these recommendations of the scriptures are not to encourage somebody to eat flesh, but to discourage ultimately somebody to do this.
It's a compromise with our conditioned nature. We have very strong desire, this uh desire to eat flesh of other living entities is very strong as much as the desire to have sex and the desire to intoxicate oneself.
So these three specifically in uh 11th canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam are described as actions which are um impetus which are very strong uh within our psyche, within our mind.
So therefore the scriptures say, okay, if you really need to do it, do it, but do it in a limited way.
And uh you really uh do it in such a way that it causes the minimum uh suffering to you at the end. It minimizes your karma.
If you really want to enjoy sex, do it within uh the wedlock, within your marriage, not outside of marriage.
Don't uh create this disturbance by going here and there and enjoying uh you know this sex without any restrictions. Restrict yourself.
Do it within marriage, do it as a sense of duty and ultimately you will uh uh overcome this pushing which is inside you. Uh and the same thing is about eating flesh, and the same thing about drinking wine.
Uh Ultimately, the scriptures say don't do it because it's bad for you, and the consequences will be very severe. There is no doubt about it. We will not be able to really overcome these consequences.
We will have to impose upon ourselves certain discipline, certain austerities to contract this.
Incurable conditions and developing compassion
So this is the second kind of consequence which karma brings. And there is the third kind more severe than the second kind. It's incurable disease. Incurable disease which cannot be cured completely,
but still you can help, you can maintain your disease condition within certain limits when you still can live and the sufferings are not so severe.
So uh this is much more severe consequences and uh there are certain consequences in our karma which are of this nature. You cannot really completely get rid of these consequences. It's written in your chart, in your destiny, in the stars, whatever it is.
But basically, you have to undergo the sufferings because you inflicted some sufferings to others and without learning this lesson you you cannot do.
And ultimately it's for you to become better, to understand, to become more understandable about the sufferings of others.
You know, sometimes people are so foolish, they inflict sufferings of others, but they don't really understand how difficult it is. So God very mercifully sends sufferings to our life to teach us compassion.
Because if we don't undergo sufferings ourselves, we will never be able to develop some compassion. And some people they have to do it, uh they may be born uh with some defects.
Some people are born without legs or you know due to some accident they uh get deprived of their leg or some other limb, or maybe one eye, or maybe two eyes, sometimes people are born blind.
And this is again very severe consequences, and these consequences are recorded in our mind. Ultimately, karma is recorded within
our psyche, in our mind, and uh uh the mind has this uh power to attract certain karmas through different uh thoughts which are there.
The The mechanism of karma is ultimately psychological because all our karma is recorded within our mind and ultimately within the brain cells when the brain becomes developed. And they create a certain thought pattern.
And the thought pattern pushes us to uh act in a certain way and these actions uh will bring karma to us.
And of course uh thoughts themselves they can create sufferings because they turn on certain mechanisms in the brain which in turn produces certain hormones and uh in this way the even thoughts which are um throwing our brain out of balance uh can disturb our physical conditions.
And usually what I want to say is that all these severe diseases or severe karmic consequences are very strongly recorded within our mind.
It's a certain very persistent pattern or thoughts within our mind which bring about these consequences. Ultimately every cure from our karma has to take place in the mind. We will tell it a little later.
And then all uh the the last sort of disease which is there, which is described in our Vedas, it's incurable diseases.
You no matter what you do, uh no matter how much endeavor you do, you will not be able to get rid of this sort of disease and you will have to die.
So this severe karma which brings very severe consequences and no matter what you do you you can avoid it is also unfortunately there in our life.
And the intelligent person uh tries to live life which is balanced itself and which does not disturb the balance in the life of other people.
So yeah again basically, the law of karma is the law of justice or the law of balance. If you are disturbing balance, you will be disturbed for sure. So now let's come to how to contract this karmic consequences.
As I said, it has to take place in the level of the mind because karma is recorded in the mind. When the human beings are born, they are born with a particular mind, with particular tendencies.
Sometimes it is said that little children are born as a tabula rasa, the just uh you know clear blackboard, nothing is written there. But it's not true. There is nobody in this world who does not have innate tendencies.
You may call these tendencies genetics or whatever, but everyone is born with certain tendencies.
And according to more universal understanding, more complete understanding, these tendencies is the tendencies of our karma. We created certain and we can see it very clearly within our life.
We act in a certain way, and when we act in a certain way, to produce certain result, we get the result, we enjoy the result, and because we enjoy the result, we tend to repeat the same action again and again and again, to enjoy the same result again and again and again.
And in this way we get used to certain uh stereotyped actions, actions which we are doing uh all the time. They're called habits.
And all the habits initially were to bring us some pleasure, some happiness, some sort of happiness, whatever it is. But they become our second nature.
And but we are born again with certain natures which are even deeper than these acquired habits. Everyone has these tendencies, and these tendencies is nothing but the habits which we acquired in our previous existence, which we developed very hard in our previous lives.
So we have to understand that we have these tendencies, habits which we developed in this life and in the previous life. And it took us X amount of time to develop these habits and these patterns.
To contract these habits or these patterns need at least as long amount of time as we spend by developing these tendencies.
Understanding dharma and karma yoga
And again, it has to take place on the level of the mind. And now we come to the second part of the topic which was given to us that is Dharma. Basically, what is dharma?
Dharma is a, the word dharma is literally translated as nature. It's coming from the Sanskrit root dri, which means to support, and we all have some stable nature, something which again we came to this world with.
And it's a result of our previous karma, we developed certain nature. And if we come to this world with this particular nature, the best way to deal with it is to act according to this nature.
And the Vedic scriptures, and not only Vedic scriptures, of course the every scriptures in the world, they contain certain principles and certain laws which regulate our lives and uh this regulations is nothing but the recommendations for us how to live our life to contact karma and to bring uh to minimum possible all the sufferings to possible minimum the sufferings which we will have to undergo in this life.
So, what is dharma? Dharma is when we act according to our nature and And we uh enjoy uh the action itself without being dependent on the fruits of this action.
So when we do it, we perform our dharma and this is technically called karma yoga or the means to put an end to our karma, to the sufferings of our karma.
As I said in the beginning, that karma is beginning less, but we can put full stop to our karma, and there are certain methods which are developed in Vedic culture and in other cultures of the world, and one is called karma yoga or the culture of actions according to our nature, when we are not dependent on the fruits of our action.
There was a very famous psychologist, American psychologist of Hungarian originin um Nikai Chick sent Mikai. Chick sent Mikai. So uh uh very difficult uh name. Uh so this this person Chiksent Mikai uh studied the best performances of in different fields of different people.
It may be a football player, it may be a great artist or a great musician or anyone.
And he discovered that there is a common feature in the lives of all these people when they do something which they really meant to do, they forget about the time, they forget about themselves, they definitely forget about the fruit of this or the reward of this action and they're completely immersed in this action and they enjoy this action itself without being so much bothered about the reward of this action.
So karma yoga is exactly this. Karma-yoga, the principles of karma-yoga is that you have to uh find out your nature.
You have to find out and everyone has a particular nature or has a particular um talent uh in yourself, and try to act according to this talent. Don't try to do something which you're not meant for.
You may be even doing it very well, but you will not be able to get rid of your karma and you will create very severe consequences if you do something which is not according to your nature.
Unfortunately, in the present society, everyone is pushed to do something which he's not supposed to do according to the social norms.
There is so much envy being inflicted, being you know everyone, the greed is uh is is burning very severely in the hearts of living entities.
Everyone wants to have the best cars, the best, the most beautiful wives, the most beautiful homes, and everything. And everyone is driven by this.
And they're ready to do anything to get this because they think that they will be happy. But the scriptures are very strict about this. No, you will not be happy.
You will only be happy if you do something which is uh in harmonious to your nature and which you can do without being dependent on the fruits of your action.
Without being dependent on the reward, whether it's a gross reward in the form of money or subtle reward when somebody is applauding you or uh you know praising you how good you are.
If you don't bother about this and you do something which you're really good at, uh you are basically doing some sort of karma-yoga. Of course, in the higher sense, you will have to devote all these fruits to God, but
uh you you still begin to act in a proper way, you begin uh to act to contract your karma uh only uh when you are not dependent on uh uh subtle or gross fruits of your action.
And you're happy because of the action itself. Krishna says this in the very beginning of Bhagavad-gītā, karmaṇy evādhikāras te mā phaleṣu kadācana. Dachana.
You have the Adiqar, you have the qualification, you have the right to do the work, but you don't have the right for the fruits of your action. Fruits of your action don't belong to you.
And it doesn't mean that the fruits will not come, they will come. All those people who are doing this great job, whether it's a great artist like Michelangelo or some great
Greek sculptors they get beautiful results and people still you know admire their work and their results.
Dharma as a framework for nature
But uh the first condition is that they should not depend on this. They should do it uh uh out of the sense of duty or out of the sense of doing it for the sake of doing, because that's their nature.
And that's the first thing which we have to understand about dharma. Dharma is nothing but rules which help us to develop our nature.
Like, for example, if you are intellectual, there are certain rules which are there in the Vedic scriptures which help you to develop your intelligence?
And the first rule in this case is that you should not really sell your intelligence in a sense that you should not really get salary for your intelligence. You only have to depend on what is coming to you on its own accord.
So because the intelligent people have to be independent. If they are dependent on s on somebody on some salary or whatever, they become institutionalized.
And instead of talking the truth to other people, they will start telling party line.
And that's uh a great offense to in intelligence and actually the way to lose your intelligence in your next life because you're misusing your intelligence. So on and so forth.
What I mean to say is that Dharma is nothing but uh how to develop your uh nature to the greatest extent and uh n uh you know and that will m bring you a lot of happiness.
Like sometimes people say about the dharma of women's dharma, men's dharma.
Again, you got a certain body, body of a woman or of a woman or body of a man. So Dharma is nothing but a set of rules which help you to develop this nature to the maximum possible extent and to get the best result out of this opportunity which you get.
Because the human body is nothing but a very great opportunity. And ultimately what it brings to us, it gives us happiness, there is no doubt about it.
All these people, all this great performers, they say that this is the moments of the greatest happiness in their life when they perform what they're supposed to do.
And this Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, he says that this is like a flow. He wrote a famous book which is called Flow. So, and he where he describes this.
And uh he says that somebody is i is in this state of flow in a very harmonious and balanced state of mind where he feels united with himself and with the whole universe. And ultimately that's the main result.
The main is not to give you happiness. Happiness is just a byproduct. It's actually a very important point to understand that in this life, all happiness which we experience is a byproduct of our right actions.
And if we strive for happiness itself, the happiness will escape us. But if we don't strive for happiness, uh we will become happy.
If we strive for something higher, happiness is just a reward or just a indication from God that we're doing something right. So again, of course if it's the happiness in and anyway, let's not talk about this.
Our main topic is the law of karma and how to counteract it and what dharma means.
Again, coming back to this point, ultimately, when we perform our dharma or our duty, the end result is that we become more united with the whole world. We become more united with the living beings or human beings around us.
And we will become closer to God and we become more united to God.
Building love through execution of duty
We will feel more expressly and more vividly the presence of God in our life when we perform our duties and when we live a righteous life. How it works, everyone can experience this.
For example, if men and women live together and they try to perform their own duty. The wife performs her own duty and tries to do it at her best.
And the man tries to perform his duty and they appreciate each other and appreciate each other's endeavors to perform their duty. Ultimately, they develop a very strong bond. And this bond is called love.
Love is not this romantic feeling which we experience in the beginning, which evaporates after uh two, three weeks of our close contact with each other.
Love is a feeling of respect and understanding, mutual understanding of each other when we really become one mind or one heart within two bodies, when we really understand each other.
But the basis of it is performing of the duties. When we perform our duties, we develop our nature.
And this development of our nature helps us to enter into very deep and productive relationships with other people and brings as a side product happiness.
But the greatest result is that we become closer to God because this is the design of God. God wants us to become happy. God is not a cruel person. He didn't create this world because he wants us to suffer.
He wants us to enjoy. He wants us to become completely happy. He's happy himself. But unfortunately, we are stupid and we are uh creating these uh activities which are against the intelligence given to us by God.
We're disturbing the balance in the environment and uh in other people's life, in our own life, and therefore with suffering. The sufferings are always self-inflicted. Nobody else is inflicting us sufferings.
Of course, some other people can inflict us sufferings.
But ultimately even this is a result of our own stupidity, which we have to understand very clearly, and God created this world for us to understand how to act, to become completely happy, and to feel the happiness which He experienced Himself.
Ultimately, this is what God wants. He wants us to experience His happiness, but He teaches us at the same time, how to come to this point.
And to come to this point, we have to understand the law of karma, we have to respect the law of karma and not to destroy the balance around us.
We have to understand our own nature, act strictly in accordance to our own nature without depending on the fruits, uh completely depending on God and on God's arrangement, because if we act according to our nature you know God will arrange, God will provide us what we need.
There are many, many stories in the history of humanity when people uh initially would undergo some sufferings or some lack in their lives because they were very devoted and determined to act according to their nature.
But ultimately the result would completely supersede all their expectations. The result would be much, much greater. And yes, of course, the results is not coming so quickly, but they're coming, there is no doubt about it.
We don't have to be concerned with the results.
We have to be uh very dutifully concerned with following our own nature and of course we should know for this not only our nature but what are the scriptural injunctions which help us to develop this nature and to act properly according to our nature.
And for that, there is different sort of dharmas which are there, as I said, men's dharma, women's dharma, parents' dharma, children's dharma, social dharma, dharma according to all status in life, whether it's brahmacārī, gṛhastha, vānaprastha, sannyāsa or dharma according to our nature, whether we are intellectual or we are managerial type of persons we like to manage or we are enterprising, we are mercantile type of person, or we are just workers.
This all different uh natures which are there and the scriptures say how you should act according to this to maximize the positive results of your karma and ultimately to feel more more directly the satisfaction of God.
In Viṣṇu Purāṇa there is this famous verse by varṇāśrama-ācāravat that when you act according to your duties in life. It means act according to your nature, strictly according to your nature.
This is the way to worship the Supreme Lord. The Supreme Lord will become pleased with you, and by being pleased with you, He will bestow upon you what you need.
Purifying heart and discovering spiritual nature
But of course, this is not yet the highest result because it's a very preliminary result on the spiritual path.
We have to be again very clear that we are performing different spiritual duties and spiritual practices not to contract karma. This is a byproduct. And not even to perform our dharma and not even to become happier.
This is all byproducts of it. Ultimately when we perform our dharma or our duty in life, our heart will become very pure. And this pure heart is a prerequisite for us to understand our nature.
This time I'm talking about spiritual nature, conditioned nature. Because when we perform our duties according to our conditioned nature,
the result of it is that we will start to understand that I am eternal spirit, soul, and I have eternal nature, and I have Sanatana Dharma, eternal uh duties in my life.
And then I will start performing my eternal duties which is called service, service to God or worship God. This is the next point.
Purification of the heart definitely makes us happy and balanced and free of all disease and gives us so many other good results. But the main result of it is that we understand that who I am, I am spirit,
soul, I am servant of God, and what are my duties in relationship to Him. And this is the highest Dharma. When we understand our highest nature, spiritual nature, innate spiritual nature, then we will understand with
this nature our highest dharma, our highest duty. That is to love God. And that, of course, is the first commandment of the Bible as well. You should love God.
Because why it is the first commandment, why it is the first duty, because its duty reflects your deepest, most basic, most fundamental nature as a living spark, spark of spirit emanated by God.
And to love him, to love our source is our main duty. And for that we perform bhakti yoga. Karma yoga is the beginning of our spiritual journey,
and it's necessary, and the elements of karma yoga are of the foundation of our human existence, but it's not the ultimate.
The ultimate is the yoga of love because the very word yoga means unity and unity is the description of love. So by performing our duties we counteract our karma.
By performing our duties we become more united with this world. We become more united with people around us, we become more united with God.
But then the real spiritual understanding comes to us very clearly and we understand what is our function in this most important relationship between us as spirit soul and God as the original spirit or original source of all existence.
And this God, absolute, the original source of all existence of this world and us is called by many names, but we call Him Krishna because the word Krishna means the most attractive existence.
Kṛṣṇaḥ vācaka-śabdo naṣṭa-nivṛtti-vācakam. This word Krishna means existence and bliss merged together. Kṛ means existence and ṇa means bliss. When existence becomes blissful, it's God.
And when we approach Him and come closer to Him, our existence as well becomes very blissful. And that's what we are all seeking for. We want bliss.
But for that we have to understand very basic principles of karma, how karma works, what we should not do under any circumstances, and what we should do in our life. Thank you very much.
This was my uh short presentation of uh the science of Krishna consciousness, uh philosophy of Krishna consciousness. It's a great science. It's a very universal science. It's applicable to anyone and everyone.
And I hope that you will be able to uh find something useful in what I had to say. This is all is given by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda Swami Prabhupāda in his books.
And the main purpose of these lectures is to instill some desire in yourself to go deeper into this topic by reading and studying his books on a daily basis. Again, thank you very much. Hare Kṛṣṇa.