The Role of Association
Bhakti Vijnana Goswami · Hyderabad · 2019
Chapters
Addressing students at the institute
Namov Vishnu Padari Krishna Krishna, Srimati Bhaktividanta Swam Pidamani, Namaste Sraswati, Guru, Pracharini, Nirviche Sasuna Paschatada Satari Vanchakupadrabishakripas Patiana Pavanavyov Vaishnava Sri Krishna Chaitanya Prabhupada Sri Dvaita Hara Sivasriva Rabhakta Brinda, Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hari Ram Hari Ram Ram Ramare, Hare Snapishakishakish, Haream Ram Ram, Hare Snapish Nakish Nakishna, Ram Ramada Ramada Ramada Ramada, Ryan Bambi Bajoka Samkirtana, Kitaruka Mavarada So
these are the students of this IIT college. These are like a topmost uh education institute in India. Some of them they're chanting uh four rounds, eight rounds, ten rounds.
So they come here every week for Bhagavad Gita class, and in the hostel they gather together to chant the practice. I'm very happy to be with you this unique. This this is a great honor for me to speak in front of you.
I'm really happy that you are getting more and more involved in Krishna consciousness. And I will say a few words specifically in regard to the verse which Prabhu
mentioned sadasanga sadhasanga sarva shastra kovy lama madra sadhu sanga sarvasidhihovy how it works, what is the scientific basis for this understanding of this statement of Chaitanya Chaitam Vritam.
On the way here, we were discussing with our driver a little bit about Indian culture and how Indian culture was lost, basically.
For thousands of years Muslim people were trying to convert Indians into their religion with some success, but really it was not impressive success. Only not very highly educated people were converted.
Some people were converted forcefully or whatever. For thousands of years they were trying, didn't work. Then British comes came and they were much more clever than Muslims.
For 200 years they were trying to change the system, the value system, the belief system. And they did achieve more success than Muslim people within thousand years, within two hundred years they achieved some success. Why?
Uh they did a very clever thing. They destroyed the traditional educational system and they undermined the faith of Indians in the Vedic scriptures. They said it was just you know blah blah of primitive people.
They don't know what they're talking about, and you know there are so many discrepancies.
They started, they actually hired people, they studied Sanskrit, and they started interpreting Vedas and Purāṇas in their own way and completely undermined the faith.
So much so that I am from Russia today will speak with the IIT professors about the authenticity of the Vedas, which is ironic and completely ridiculous in one sense. Who am I to speak?
I have no grounds to do this, but still it requires. Why? Because English people very clever, they they put the English education very high up in the value system. They destroyed traditional education.
There were thousands of little village schools where traditionally people were studying and the gurus studying scriptures and would become completely convinced and completely established in their own culture and happy in a sense.
So they did achieve some success, but again, not the full success.
If we take India of time of Prabhupāda, when Prabhupāda was, you know, when he was a freedom fighter, when Gandhi was there and Subhas Chandra Bose was there.
I watched some videos of, you know, Calcutta of this when Prabhupāda was 10 years old. It was, believe me, it was a different city. There was not a single person in Western dress on the street.
Cultural erosion caused by television
All people were in the traditional dress, and you know, still a lot of traditional values were intact and culture was still there despite of all, and the, you know, the cleanliness culture and so many other things were still there intact.
Now TV came in India in probably late 1970. So how many years passed?
TV did what Muslims couldn't do within thousands of years, what the British couldn't do within 200 years, TV did within maybe ten years, fifteen years, maximum twenty years. Destroyed. Khatam. Hogaya. No chance.
It really it really destroyed the very foundation of the culture because people started watching TVs and TV is very attractive in one sense. You look, you're being entertained and you know you you you get a lot of immediate pleasure.
So uh but why?
The reason why it was this it destroyed so quickly because people were associating with completely different value systems through very attractive devices, all the movies and everything, and ultimately adopted this value system based on the principle of association.
It's actually all based on association. How many people, Indian people, could associate with English teachers, professors, so whatever? Very few. Did we know the result?
And you know, they got Western education, Western values, Western things. But the effect was not so tremendous only because
of this simple principle, the people were not accessible to this value system, they were not accessible to you know the way of thinking, the all all kinds of things which constitute culture. What is culture?
Culture is the way we relate to the world, culture is the way we relate to other people, and culture is the way we relate to God ultimately. These three elements are there and they are culture.
So they were seeing how people were relating to the world through the movies.
They were seeing how people were relating to each other through movies and you can still see all the serials and you know, bollywood, which are becoming more and more gross.
And they were seeing how people don't believe in God, or believe in some, you know, Jesus Christ or whatever is there. So, and they naturally started following these things or mimicking, even subconsciously.
The whole problem is that when you have association, only very little part of association is conscious. Only very little part you take according to your conscious mind.
The rest, it's just the tip of the iceberg, the rest is just going directly to your subconsciousness especially if it is uh with music and with sentiments and with this beautiful ladies oh my goodness, ladies are very powerful and they have such energy with them and they can really, you know, completely and
I remember when I was I was shocked, I was once driving in Delhi and there was this you know advertisement boards and there was a you know there was one very brutal you know Bollywood movie, you know very, brutal man is there and very, you know, half naked lady was there and was something.
You know when when Ajamila was seeing this, you know, it was very isolated. Isolated uh you know occasion. Um anyway the the movie was called um End of Innocence.
Very tempting movie and I saw that the second part of the title should be the beginning of nonsense. Because when the innocence is destroyed, and that's exactly what TV did.
They destroyed the innocence of people. Really destroyed the innocence of innocent people.
And there was a lot, you know, one of Christian missionaries who came from England, who came with really you know good quote-unquote intentions to convert all these pagans into the true religion.
He wrote, he was a monk, and he wrote himself that what I see in India, I think India is the heaven where good Christians are being born after you know leading a very good Christian life.
Because he saw people were so innocent and so pure and so clean and so happy in a sense.
And you know, everything was provided by the nature and you know there was no he was he was converted himself by associating with Indian people at that time. I don't think he would be converted now.
Probably would be more convinced about the truth of Christianity is seeing the state of affairs in the modern India. So when the innocence is destroyed, what do we have? We don't have much.
You know, we have innocence and it's so easy to destroy it. You know, if we have a clean sheet, it's so easy to put black spots on it, but it's so difficult to get rid of them.
So we come innocently, especially from our family background, if it's a pious family, we come and then we we come to IIT and voila. What happens? We see other people, we associate with other people.
We associate we associate very intimately with other people. That's the problem. Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, he explains what real association means. It says association does not mean physical proximity.
Physically, we can be close to other people. Association means that we become intimate, we really open our hearts to these people and they open. And that's why TV is so powerful.
When you come to some other people, you have protective mechanisms. You are not so open.
But here is something very innocent and they do some, you know, some innocent things and they show some nice things and some movie songs and you become completely susceptible to all these influences.
Thought processes and emotional conditioning
You become completely disarmed actually. our consciousness. our consciousness.
Not consciousness, subconsciousness. All the things which we see there go very, very deep into the subconscious mind and influence our thought process because it is the subconscious mind which influences our conscious thought process.
We don't know how it works, but we get all the saṁskāras, we get all these uh things in our subconscious mind and here we are, we have certain thoughts, certain ideas, certain understandings, certain values and everything.
So this is how it works. It goes to subconsciousness, it influences our thought process.
The thought process in the conscious mind creates certain emotional reaction in us, because this is what it is, you know, we have a thought.
It may be little innocent in the beginning, but then it creates a strong emotional reaction.
Emotional reaction basically means that the thought in our mind is translated through through the language of the chemistry of the brain and the hormones and everything.
So hormones from the brain go to the body and create certain havoc in the body, certain reactions, certain physical reactions in our physical body, and condition us.
You know, any thought creates emotion and emotions condition us. They really program us. So what happens next, you know, then the emotion which we experience in the body goes back to the brain.
The signals from the body go back to the brain and says, you know, oh this is good or this is bad and you know do it again.
And you know our thought repeats and repeats again, you know, and we become completely dependent on this, we become completely conditioned by this process.
And our emotional reaction, so thought first, emotional reaction next. And it's already practically impossible to deal with our emotions when it comes to the emotional part.
In the beginning, in a very inceptional stage, you may you know get or kind of trim the thought, you say it's not proper, it's not good, you know.
If it's really in the very beginning, but if you let it go, you know, it goes into the body and it reinforces the thought process which is there and the vicious circle is there.
You know, you thought in the beginning it created emotional or chemical reaction in your body, chemical reaction in your body creates the same size kind of thoughts. And you are dependent.
And the next point is that you start reacting. Reaction is the next, the third point. And uh actually, that should we finish this? We should already finish it. Okay, I'll I'll just speak a few words. I uh I I don't want to.
Uh so uh what I want to say is
Scriptural perspective on material attachment
that yeah, we act according to this thought process and we become conditioned, we become completely dependent on this.
Krishna explains this in the second chapter of Bhagavad-gītā, dhyāto viṣayān puṁsaḥ saṅgaḥ-s teṣūpajāyate. Dhyayataya, you just, you know, you meditate very innocently. You're curious about something.
You look, you know, Sanghasta Shupa Jayat, Sangha the attachment develops, Sangha, Sanjayati Kamah, the desire is created, and it's already on the level of chemistry.
Desire Alas, Kama, it's already the thought went to the body and it's already very difficult.
Kamat, you know, come from Kamakroda, from Kroda the you know Smriti Samoha become completely forgetful who you are. You don't know what you're doing. Ten more minutes. Ten more minutes. Okay. I'm lucky.
So and then Smriti Vi Brahma Smriti Brahma shadow Buddhina Sha Buddhinasat Pranasyati. You're finished.
Your whole system, you're forgetful because you don't remember who you are, what you are, what the dignity of your life, what is the value system, what you should value, what you shouldn't value, and so on and so forth.
You know, in pranacity, you are you're finished. And it's it's so easy, be and it starts from this inattentiveness. You're a little inattentive in the beginning. You don't know how where the thought is coming from.
But now my main point is that where the thought is coming from. Initially, the thought is coming from my association. The thought is implanted in me. The thought which I never thought before.
But all of a sudden, all of a sudden I just watch myself and think, oh, it's very interesting, let me try it. You know, maybe it will work, maybe it will give me some nice experience, maybe I will become happy.
You know, and and here it goes.
So so this is how it works, but the thought process is coming from association, and as I said, association is only uh very few percent of this association is on the level of consciousness. The most of our association is taking place on the level of subconsciousness.
Especially, as I said, there are special devices. These people who create movies they're very intelligent people, super intelligent people.
And some of them have definitely very, you know, vicious plans and vicious ideas and they're all you know basically you know geared to get some people to do what they want to do. Program people. TV very uh powerfully programming it. Why?
Because we have certain neurons in our brain which is called monkey neurons or it's called what is the other name? Oh sh- or Shimpanzer or uh egg neurons or whatever neurons.
Uh it's basically you know if you see monkeys how they behave, you know, one monkey starts scratching its body and all of a sudden all the monkeys start scratching their body. Why?
Because this is the this monkey neurons or some there's some other name, mirror neurons.
The other name for this special type of mechanism, which is very important. It's actually very beneficial for us mechanism, but we have to know this.
This mirror or mirroring neuron neurons which are there in the brain, they are here in the you know pre-frontal cortex, or whatever, and when we see something when we see some other person, when we especially when we hear some other person, or when when we see, or especially when we associate closely, when we have this personal satsang or whatever, you know there is a conscious mind gets very little.
I'm sure you will forget most of what I said the day after tomorrow. And within one week, if you didn't listen to it again, you will say, oh, nice Svamiji came. Police was chasing after him.
came. He gave some interesting talk or whatever you will say. You will not remember much. You all know, you know, I I learned biochemistry in my student studies. I don't remember much of biochemistry.
And I had all my highest marks and everything was there. I don't remember much. So because it's it's on the level of conscious mind. Some of it goes deeper into subconsciousness.
But conscious mind is very it's a short-term memory, it doesn't retain this dhāraṇā-śakti, which is there in the intelligence, in the mind, and the brain also. It's on a deeper level, not on the level of conscious mind.
But what happens when we see something or when we associate with somebody, especially if we open, if we are not, if we're disarmed, if we are not protected inside, if we are not on guard.
Uh if this is some bad people, you know, these neurons, which are very aptly called chimpanzee neurons, start reading what is there in him.
And we become infected by his thought processes. His thoughts, whether we know it or not, come to our mind.
And all of a sudden, tomorrow, after this short association with somebody, you start thinking something strange which you have never thought before. And you wonder where it is from, you know, how it is.
I, you know, where it is from? It's from him. It's from this short moment of association, this lava-matra asat-saṅga. Total complete destruction of the intelligence takes place.
This short moment of asat-saṅga may have a very profound influence in you. And Ajāmila is an example. You know, but again, Ajāmila was so completely, totally innocent.
You know, how much we get, you know, and I I only spoke about movies, I didn't speak about internet. What was unheard of before internet era? Now it's freely available there.
There's all this garbage you can just, you can, oof, you can enjoy this garbage as much as possible and impossible.
And become completely influenced and completely destroyed within your mind and within, you know, within your value system and everything else. So this is how it works. This is how the association is so powerful.
We have to understand the power of association, any association. There was a psychologist, a Western psychologist, very famous, maybe Eric Fromm, I think Eric Fromm.
He said that any contact with any person leaves some impression in your mind. You become influenced, whether you understand it or not.
The influence may be less, maybe more, depending on closeness of your association, depending on your, you know, how you are designed, but some influence will be there.
Transformative power of saintly company
Some influence will be there, no doubt about it. And the same sort of principle works when it comes to sadhu sanga. Why it is at lava-matra sādhu-saṅga, sarva-siddhi-hō, we have to finish it. Right? Yeah.
Okay, so basically what I wanted to say, this Prabhuji inspired me about this. I don't consider myself a sadhu. I'm not talking about myself, but I'm talking about the real sadhus. Their thought process is different.
They are from completely different, you know, they have this advaya-jñāna. They have this spiritual realization, when they come close to them, why it is so important to why this tradition of darshan is there, you know.
You may come and have little darshan, and all of a sudden you get some faith. You get some ideas which you never had before. What is faith? You never had faith before. Maybe I was brought as an atheist.
I'm proud to say that my parents were atheist, both parents, my grandparents were atheist, my grand-grandmother sometimes would go to church, very rarely.
And when a small child, I would mock her and I would say, you know, I going to her this is just for ignorant people.
And I I really want to beg forgiveness from her because here I am travelling all over the world and saying God is there. Why? Only because of association.
Only because there's no other reason, no other reason, no other reason. And therefore it is said, Sarvasidih, you know, Lava Matra, you have little association,
but then it's a seed and this seed grows in your consciousness. If you continue associating Lava Matra doesn't mean that you had Lava Matra, voila, you know, you are done. Let's wait when the Sarvasidis comes.
They will not come. But what will come?
The impetus to continue association, to come again and to experience something new and to have association with sādhus and that may bring ultimately sarvasiddhi if it's genuine sādhus.
So please seek association of Radha Pramod Prabhu and people like him and uh you know and I think you again that's that's it. One question I'll ask for all So like we come
here and we practice and we see our classmates and all their enjoyment.
So by coming to Krishna and by practicing, don't we lose the enjoyment which they are getting and they are losing something and they are gaining something because they are enjoying and we are every material enjoyment uh has the counterpart which is called suffering.
There is no exception of this rule. No exception of this rule. Believe me, if you don't believe, try it. No problem. Every material enjoyment has a price attached.
It's just it comes very nicely, you know. It just comes and it comes in a very nice shape and it comes, you know, and behind it, somebody you don't see immediately. Every material enjoyment has the price attached to it.
Unfortunately, this is how it is explained, and you know, if I had time, I would explain to I would give you the whole lecture about this from yoga Sutra. In Yoga Sutra uh there are four reasons why every material enjoyment is the cause of suffering.
Therefore it is said that Vivek is somebody with intelligence. And you're supposed to be intelligent, so let's see the future will show. So but uh you can read this sutra from Yoga Sutra and see the commentaries.
Uh how it is inevitably, inevitably, inevitably. You become conditioned, you become used to it, then you lose it, uh you need to increase the enjoyment and uh you know you become bored and then something changes in you.
So many other things are there, so many solid reasons, logical reasons, intelligent reasons, which are there. So human life is not meant for enjoyment. It's not meant. It's just because we're so foolish.
We look at this body, it's just like, you know, let's say you are an aborigine in Australia or somewhere and you've never seen a computer.
And somebody gives you a computer and you try to figure out what to do with the computer and on the surface of it there's some nice games or some nice movies or whatever and you somehow or other you happen to get it.
And you think, oh, this is the purpose of the computer. Is it the purpose of the computer? How much you will be able to figure out what is the purpose of the computer?
Human body is much more powerful computer than any computer which will ever be invented in a human history. Never such a powerful computer will be invented. How you will figure out what it is for?
So naturally, you just try to play an experiment with it and then oh it works yeah that must be this is the purpose all right oh I found out the the the button you push this button oh wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. No.
This isn't, this is māyā. So you have to go to somebody who knows for which purpose this computer had been invented and created. Who is that? It's Krishna. And he says very clearly it's not for enjoyment.
It's just by-product, the byproduct you will you will get this byproducts. If you do the true purpose of human life, you will get plenty of byproducts. I have my friend a devotee.
He said, before I became a devotee, I didn't know even to enjoy how to enjoy life.
Only now I know how to enjoy it, you know, in full full sense, you know, he and he knows what he's saying, you know, he definitely knows. But uh but it's harmless if you do it properly and it doesn't create suffering.
Uh it's a byproduct, but you get much more as a result. You get much more if you do it properly. So that's it.
You don't lose anything, you you gain a lot. But of course you have to do it properly and you have to be careful and there are so many other things but uh we don't have time to talk about this. So you if we are more interested we are having tomorrow morning we have a corporate center in Madhapur.
So if somebody's interested we can come to our centre Maharaj and giving a talk on. If If I survive. If I survive. Tomorrow and after tomorrow, two days. If I survive. But anyway. Thank you very much.