Bhagavad-gita 3.34. Emotional Intelligence (continuation)
Бхакти Вигьяна Госвами · Хайдарабад · 2019
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Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. Nārāyaṇaṁ namaskṛtya naraṁ caiva narottamam, devīṁ sarasvatīṁ vyāsaṁ tato jayam udīrayet. devīṁ sarasvatīṁ vyāsaṁ tato jayam udīrayet.
bhaktir utpadyate puṁsaḥ śoka-moha-bhayāpahā. Ājānulambita-bhujau kanakāvadātau saṅkīrtanaika-pitarau kamalāyatākṣau, viśvambharau dvija-varau yuga-dharma-pālau vande jagat-priyakarau karuṇāvatārau.
Namāṁsi te bhagavan vācaḥ sarvārtha-pratipādikāḥ, sarva-śakti-dharāḥ sadā sarvānanda-pradāyikāḥ. nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine.
namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe | nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe || vāñchā-kalpatarubhyaś ca kṛpā-sindhubhya eva ca | patitānāṁ pāvanebhyo vaiṣṇavebhyo namo namaḥ ||
Jaya śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu-nityānanda, śrī-advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda. Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare, Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare, Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Spiritual maturity and emotional intelligence
Hare Kṛṣṇa. Good evening. I'm happy to see all of you tonight. And I thought that I would continue the topic from yesterday. Those of you who were not there yesterday, maybe will listen to class or whatever.
And the reason being that I did touch certain points but I wanted to elaborate more on this theme of spiritual development or emotional development as a means of spiritual development.
What does it mean to become spiritually and emotionally mature? How it happens, what are the stages of our emotional maturation in the spiritual life, and what we should do. I only touched it little bit.
And while explaining this very important for every one of us topic, it will become very clear why Prabhupāda comments on this verse in a way he comments.
Because superficially it may seem that Prabhupāda contradicts the notion of the verse. The verse itself says that one should regulate activities of your senses by using your intelligence or the śāstras.
And Prabhupāda says that even this is not enough. That ultimately something else should be there.
So I wanted to elaborate on this, how deeply Prabhupāda explains the inner meaning of this verse and reveals to us the essence of what we're supposed to do.
So that will be the topic of our discussion, and as I said, we are talking about our main topic is this emotional intelligence or EQ as opposed to IQ, and how to develop this EQ.
And we said yesterday that this is very important for everyone of us, it's a very pertinent topic, a topic relevant for everyone's life because EQ is the ability, specific ability which can be developed to be the master of one's emotion, not to be the slave of emotion, not to become under the sway of emotions, but to use this emotional energy and emotions is a very powerful energy, extremely powerful energy, in a productive way so that it will ultimately bring our advancement in life, both material and spiritual life.
So, how to use this emotional energy and not to become the victim of this emotional energy. We all have this experience, how we are victimized by our emotions.
Anger comes and we're completely overwhelmed by anger and we forget about ourselves,
or greed comes and we do something we cheat other people, or lust comes and we act in a very shameful way and we regret later on, and we have this guilt feeling. Or anxiety comes, or fear comes.
Sometimes completely uncontrollable fear comes. This uncontrollable fear is called panic.
You know, one starts panicking out of nothing, or anxiety, disturbance, all these powerful emotions, very powerful emotions, contain a lot of energy.
And in fact, human beings waste a lot of energy for these unproductive emotions. How much time we were disturbed or in anxiety, whereas nothing can be done about the situation.
We're going to the airport and there is a traffic jam. You are in Hyderabad, welcome to Hyderabad. So and you're late. And you're becoming completely anxious in anxiety.
You look at the watch and you look at the driver and you push the driver as if the driver can do anything about it. And you become nervous and you know so much energy is wasted. And you cannot do anything.
You know, it's you know whether you will come on time or not, it doesn't depend whether you will be worried or not. You know it's the outcome doesn't depend on your emotional reactions.
All these irrational emotional reactions are very very powerful and how to control them. It's easier to say, you know, I give you very nice advice. Don't worry. Nice advice. Very good advice. Who can follow this advice?
Oh, another example: you wrote an exam, right? You wrote an exam, and then for two days you don't know the result. What you do today is you worry. You are in anxiety. As if anything changes.
Whether you worry or not, nothing changes. But still, you are in this complete anxiety. You cannot sleep, you know what's going to happen.
So that all means lack of emotional intelligence, lack of ability to control one's emotion and control one's mind, lack of this very important ability.
That's all these examples; they only illustrate or show this principle that this is the skill or the ability which we will have to develop.
And it's very important for us to have the tools because those people, those psychologists who study psychology and study this particular topic, they give some advice, but it's not so comprehensive and profound.
Krishna consciousness has a comprehensive philosophy of life; it gives the best solution to this problem. It's a problem, and yesterday I mostly concentrated on the problem itself.
How the problem arises, how we have all this programming inside us.
And of course, on the solution which is given particularly in this chapter, in this verse, and some other solutions were also given or described to a certain extent.
And only in the end I gave the real Krishna conscious solution to this problem.
So I will recap very quickly from a slightly different angle what I said yesterday so that we again come close to this problem by using this verse as a starting point.
And then we will come to the real topic of today's class, which is how to develop spiritual emotions, if it's at all possible, because I said that it may not be possible, you know; spiritual emotions have to happen, so what to do?
Okay, so that's the introduction.
Sensory programming and raga dvesha
I will chant the verse with you together. indriyasyendriyasyārthe rāga-dveṣau vyavasthitau tayor na vaśam āgacchet tayor na vaśam āgacchet tau hy asya paripanthinau. So it's a very clear Sanskrit.
In Indriyasya, Indriyasya Arthe Raga Dvesha Vyavasthito, there is a very clearly established rāga and dveṣa in our senses.
The senses are designed in such a way that they naturally like something and dislike something else. If it's too hot, even if you are Indian, you still dislike it. You cannot get used to it if it's too hot.
In fact, Indians they misuse AC more than anyone else because they are so conditioned by this heat. They're so paranoid about this heat. So it's natural that our senses don't like certain conditions.
And certain conditions they don't like, they say, "Oh, this is very good." Rāga-dveṣa-viyuktais tu. It's already programmed. We are already programmed in a certain way. We think we are free. We think we are free citizens.
But we are not free. We are already programmed and we don't even know the extent of our programming. This extent of our programming is called karma and it's very, very deep. So, what to do?
Tayor na vaśam āgacchet: Krishna says that you should not come under the control of this programming. Tayor na vaśam āgacchet. You should not become the victim of this program. Why? Because this is tayor asya paripanthino.
Paripanthino means obstacles, stumbling blocks. I like how Prabhupāda translates it. And paripanthi, pari, panthā. Panthā means the path, the road, wide road. And then there is the stumbling blocks.
Like sometimes they put this, you know, this stumbling block, speedbreaker, right, on the road, so that you cannot go too fast.
Basically, what Krishna says, he doesn't specify for what it's a stumbling block, but in general it's an obstacle in our life if we are controlled by our emotions; it's an obstacle in all spheres of life, whether material or spiritual.
Do you agree with Krishna? Yes? No? Maybe? Okay. Thank God. Okay, that's good. We have to be very clear that this is this rāga and dveṣa, this program, this binary program. Like, don't like. I like, don't like, zero, one.
You know, this binary programming is there ingrained in our senses, and we should not become slaves.
And basically, what Krishna means to say by this verse is that we have to develop the inner meaning of this, is that we have a certain mechanism at our disposal which helps us not to become the victim of this programming.
We have the higher intelligence. This higher intelligence is located, or the mechanism of this higher intelligence is located, as I said, in this frontal lobe.
You know, it's a very developed part in human, particularly in human brain.
And they can, if they are developed enough, they can control the more primitive parts of our brain, which is called limbic brain or emotional brain. The brain which produces all these powerful emotions.
So if we develop this higher intelligence, which is ultimately the advice of Krishna in the last verse of this chapter, where he says that you have to, by the help of higher intelligence, you have to control your lower intelligence or your mind.
So we have these two parts of our mechanism of our mind, higher and lower, and we have to place the lower part under our control.
And one of the simple ways to do it is to follow strictly the rules and regulations of the śāstras about which I spoke yesterday.
Perverted habits and conditioning
And basically, what śāstras are saying, they more or less, as I also explained just today, putting the system of rāga and dveṣa in us in a normal, undistorted manner.
Because over the years, being under the influence of material nature, our rāga and dveṣa, and due to misuse of our intelligence, we develop strange habits, strange rāga and dveṣa, strange addictions — something which we normally, in normal conditions, human beings are not really addicted to.
So there are so many perversions. People are addicted to smoking. You know, have you ever smoked? Anyone of you smoked before? Okay, very good.
But I never smoke myself, but I know how hard people work to start liking smoking. Smoking is completely unnatural.
You know, just imagine you inhale this very astringent, very you know, very sharp smoke they smog and they cry and they say it's horrible and it's whwa but they try again and again and again and then they like it and then they cannot live without it.
You know, and there are so many unnatural, completely unnatural habits which we have. Smoking is a very vivid example, but you know, people drink and and they become completely animalistic.
Well they're under this influence of alcohol, they forget everything. They become totally completely like a like a pig, like a hog. They lose the human image, dignity.
They do all kinds of crimes under this influence of alcohol. That's unnatural, but still people are addicted. So, and there are so many of this.
There is a very funny example from the life of Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī, spiritual master of Śrīla Prabhupāda. He sent a party of his people in Burma to preach.
And in Burma, when uh Indian people from Bengal came to Burma, they discovered that this Burmanese people they have a special intoxicating drink which is produced from dead animals.
They collect dead animals who wrote, they put it in a special pot, they place some certain liquids there, and then it's dripping.
The liquid is dripping, and there is a lot of poison because all the intoxicating substances is actually poisonous. It's a certain poisons which create specific reaction in the brain.
And they drink this disgusting intoxication, and this is supposed to be very delicious drink.
You know, they only give it uh at the end of their feasts and you know when everyone is really ready for it you know drink this totally disgusting thing so this Bengali people they were amazed it's it's it's so I mean it smells bad it tastes I I don't know how it tastes.
Probably the reaction is bad, but still people are addicted to it. And uh that but that's not the problem. The problem was that when this Bengali preachers, devotees started frying putries in ghee.
All the neighbors started complaining because they didn't like the smell of ghee. They loved the smell of this obnoxious drink. They drink it and they don't like the smell of ghee.
This is to illustrate to which extent this program of Raga and Dva can be perverted in human beings. It can be completely perverse. You know, and there are so many perversions all over the place.
So, as I explained yesterday, the shastras teach us how to bring this rāga-dveṣa, the program of rāga and dveṣa, back to normal, more or less. They regulate us, and you say you don't eat meat; it's not normal.
Eat vegetable, this. Don't eat this.
Limits of following basic scriptural rules
You, ultimately, that's the only thing that's why. Śrīla Prabhupāda says that this solution is not the ultimate solution.
Because, you know, people think that if I follow all the rules and regulations of shastras, I am very advanced. Śrīla Prabhupāda says, "No, you are not advanced, you're just a normal human being."
Everyone else is abnormal; you are more or less normal. Nothing special. You just become somewhat civilized.
The rules and regulations of shastra is just to make you civilized or cultured, or not to misuse your intelligence. Unfortunately, we all have a tendency to misuse the intelligence. So it's nothing really spiritual.
Because again, unfortunately, there is this misconception among people. If I follow rules and regulations of shastras, that's it. I'm done. No, you're not done. You only started something.
You're only preparing yourself to start something which you are meant for. This is the very minimum; this is the beginning. This is nothing special. Why?
The reason is very simple. The reason is very simple because this rāga and dveṣa, which becomes normal under the regulation of shastras, is in itself the product of what?
Rāga-dveṣa is the product of asmitā or ahaṅkāra, false ego, the identification with the body, and asmitā or ahaṅkāra is the product of avidyā or ignorance. Rāga and dveṣa is nothing.
If I say I like something and I don't like something else, it means that you are under illusion. You are in māyā. Have you ever said, "I like something"? Next time when you say this, remember.
So it basically means you identify yourself with the body. And identification with the body means that you are under this ignorance, gross ignorance. I'm the body. I like something and I don't like something.
Therefore, Lord Caitanya, he says—it's a very shocking statement—he says, He says that if somebody says this is good, this is bad, this is all manas-dharma, this is the concoction of the mind.
This is just some imagination. This is all you know, if you're driven by this conception, it means that you are under this spell of this conception, I am this body. And that's it. Nothing is good and nothing is bad, really.
In reality, nothing is good and nothing is bad from the spiritual point of view. How to understand this? It's a good theory. How to apply it to practice?
Next time when you come and you take some nice prasāda, you will just say it's very nice. Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Prabhupāda, you know, he used to do and it's still practiced in many spiritual groups,
like Swaminarayan people, they do the same: the sannyāsīs of Swaminarayan people. They take nice prasāda, you know, Gulab Jamuns, and sweet rice, and puri and sabji and dal. And they mix everything together.
Sweet and sour and you know everything together and then they not to get addicted, not to come under control. That's exactly what Krishna says.
You should not come under control of this rāga and this, I like this, I don't like this, I don't, you know, I'm being under control.
And if you only follow strictly, even very strictly, śāstras, you're still under the control of this thing. You're still in māyā. You're still in this misconception.
I am this body, and therefore you will always be driven to find something so-called good materially from material point of view, avoid something so-called bad, and you will not develop the higher understanding.
Your understanding will be limited. So even though it's a good start, but it's only a start, therefore, this is what I wanted to say. Therefore, we have to see how to go further.
What to do to go further for that, I wanted to say something else.
Biological mechanisms of emotional addiction
Something very important. How we come under the control of these emotions. We have to really understand this emotional control, the mechanism of emotional control.
I again touched it a little bit yesterday, but I will explain in little more details how it is. You know, let's say you feel initially some emotion, one emotion. It may not be very strong.
For example, you feel some anger, you encounter something which you don't like. Basically, what is anger? Anger is this dveṣa; it's a manifestation of dveṣa. I don't like it.
You know, and maybe it's not so bad, you know, somebody did something wrong, and you know, it's little. You experience little anger.
So immediately when this emotion is there in your brain, it produces certain chemicals as I explained yesterday.
And not only here it produces chemicals, then the chemicals from the brain gave the signal; they control some other, you know, hormones in our body and some other hormones are produced.
Specifically, the hormones of stress are being produced. Specifically cortisol, all these negative hormones of stress.
Whenever we have this reaction — please listen very carefully — whenever we say "I don't like something," it means that we are in stress. Because reaction of stress is nothing but this reaction of aversion.
"I don't like it." "I don't like it." And if you're chronically under the stress, it means that your body constantly produces all these poisonous hormones. You know, this stressful reaction, "I don't like it."
Scientists call it fight-or-fly response. When you meet with something which you don't like, you only have two possible reactions.
If something which you don't like is weaker than you, then what you do with what you don't like? You fight. Right? And if something which you don't like is stronger than you, what you do? You fly.
You know, there is only two way. Two directions. One way. No, two directions. So you meet with something, some obstacle, something which you don't like, some obstacle to your enjoyment, basically.
What we don't like, we don't like when somebody messes up with our enjoyment, with our propensity to enjoy. So if the obstacle is not so strong, you fight with it. If the obstacle is very strong, you fly from it.
And all these hormones, they prepare our body to fight or fly? You know, they make certain... they prepare our body.
They, you know, they pump our heart stronger, you know, our blood pressure becomes higher, and, you know, we have more energy either to fight or fly. Both need the extra energy, right? So, please listen very carefully.
How it works: So you experience some anger. Anger is this fight-or-fly response. Your adrenals get the signal from your brain and they produce all these hormones which are there. And they are floating in your veins.
Now, what happens next is that if you do it regularly, if you regularly say, "I don't like it, I don't like it," if you regularly under the stress, if you regularly in the situation which you don't like, which you basically want to change, you are completely, you always in tension and your body gets addicted to this or conditioned to these chemicals, to these hormones.
You develop some sort of addiction to these particular chemicals, because initially what happens when it's just very weak in emotion, then the body, you know, adjusts itself.
But if it repeats again and again and again and again and again and again, then the body has to somehow or other deal with it.
Body has to adjust itself, adjust the whole chemistry so that it, it really, you know, starts ultimately depending on these hormones.
This emotional addiction is a very strong and very powerful thing which we have to know. You know, because what happens?
You experience one emotion, and then you repeat this emotion, and after some time it becomes your mood, and the mood continues for a few days. And then the mood continues for a few days.
And then, you know, you get used to it, the body gets used to it. And when these hormones are not produced from the body, the body says, "Something is wrong." You know, "I... something... I feel a little uncomfortable."
Exactly like when people are addicted to alcohol, they, they, or smoking, or any other addiction, they stop doing this and the body says, "No, no, something is wrong.
I already adjusted my whole chemistry to work in a different way. So get angry again." And then the brain says, but there is nothing wrong. And then they say, no, find some excuse. That's exactly what's happening.
Exactly what's happening. You know, have you seen people who are becoming angry without any reason? Perhaps in a mirror. Why? Why? There is no reason. There is no reason.
There are some people who are very irritated, they are so angry, and there is no reason for them to be angry. They're still angry. They're angry just because they're angry. They became angry. And they cannot change it.
So, this point, this is exactly what Krishna says: you should not come under the control of this. But very imperceptibly, very subtly, we come under control of these certain emotions.
Some people become, you know, very lusty. They are completely controlled by their lust. Some people are controlled by their anxieties.
Have you ever seen people who are constantly—there is no reason for anxiety, but they're still in anxiety. Have you seen such people? Yeah.
Have you seen people, you know, some people are fearful, they always fear something. And if there is no—if there is nothing to fear, and the body says, you know, the body starts controlling the mind.
The body says, "I need some hormones of fear." The body, by the feedback mechanism, dictates the brain: "Become fearful, give me some hormones of fear."
And then the brain produces some thought: "Oh, maybe, oh, or maybe this is the source of fear." Maybe this, you know, it really invents the source of fear.
There is nothing to fear, but in your reality, in the reality of your brain, there is a source of fear. In the reality of your brain, there is a source of anger.
You think that the source of anger, why you are angry, is because somebody gets you angry. No, my dear sir, you are angry because you are angry. And you just found somebody who is an excuse for your anger.
You know, this is how it happens. Please do try to understand, it's not a joke, it's a really serious matter. How we become conditioned. So, what happens? First, you experience one emotion.
It's very slight, it's very weak, it's feeble, but then you like it.
For example, you like certain emotions, and then you repeat it, you repeat it again and again and again, then it becomes your mood, then it becomes your habitual reaction, the emotion becomes your habitual reaction, you habitually react on certain things, you know, with this emotion.
Because you are used to this emotional reaction and then it becomes your state of being. There are certain stages how you become conditioned and this last stage that becomes your nature.
When I said that some people are angry, they're always angry. 24 hours a day. They're angry when they sleep.
Emotional state at the time of death
Because they always produce this emotional energy, they're angry about everything, you know, so this is how it works, you know, you rehearse this material emotions: emotion of guilt, emotion of anger, emotion of anxiety, emotion of lust, emotion of greed. You rehearse them again and again and again until it becomes your nature.
And Krishna says this in Bhagavad-gītā. He says, yaṁ yaṁ vāpi smaran bhāvaṁ tyajaty ante kalevaraṁ taṁ tam evaiti kaunteya sadā tad-bhāva-bhāvitaḥ. He says, he uses this word bhāva.
Bhāva means, uh, it means emotion, of course, bhāva, but bhāva also means the state of being. So certain particular emotional state becomes your state of being. You become completely emotionally conditioned.
Your emotion becomes—you can't control this emotion.
And what happens, you get your new life according to this emotion: yaṁ yaṁ vāpi smaran bhāvaṁ tyajaty ante kalevaraṁ, in what state of being you are at the moment of death, you will get the same state in the next life.
Because you are conditioned. So that's why it's so important to get out of this control of lower emotions. Otherwise, we will get what we want.
You're angry, you know, there is a very nice joke, like in Christian tradition they say that every human being has the guardian angels.
And these guardian angels are always with you and they are higher beings and they're protecting you and they're trying to fulfill your desires.
So the joke goes like this: there is an angry man, and he's in the bus, and the bus is packed, and there are so many people out there. This angry man is looking around and he's under the stress and he doesn't like her.
He says everyone is just it's just fools and and then he remembers about his family.
He says, My son is such a is such a nonsense and my wife is such a witch and you know and my boss is such a mean person and the guardian angel is standing behind his back and writing in his notebook: wife is a witch, son is a fool, and everyone is bad.
You know, very strange wishes, but what can we do if you if he likes you know so uh what I want to say is that your bhāva, your certain emotional condition, attracts certain events in your life?
You literally attract certain events. You know, in Vedic literature, the mind is called Kalpataru. It's a desire tree. And we all sitting under this desire tree, under the mind. You know, you will get what you want.
And if you want to be angry, you will get plenty of opportunities to be angry. No problem. Krishna will help you. This material world is designed in such a way. Whatever you want, you will get it.
There is a very nice story that once there was a man who was cutting wood, woodcutter.
And he was cutting wood and he was a poor man and then you know it became late and the sun set and he really went deep into the jungles and he couldn't find a way and it became dark.
So he he thought, okay, I will spend night here. And then he starts thinking, you know, but I I really want to eat. And he starts imagining what he wants to eat.
And lo and behold, all of a sudden, all the things which he desired appeared in front of him. And he realized, oh my goodness, that must be desire tree. That must be this Kalpataru, about which I read.
So he he was very happy, he started eating it, he satisfied his hunger, and then he thought, oh now I want to sleep. And he imagined him in a very nice bed.
And you know, lo and behold, the very nice bed is there in front of him. And he says, Oh, very nice. And he lay down and he looks at this tree to really you know notice you know how it looks like. So it's a nice tree.
And then he starts and he you know he sleeps and then during the night he wakes up and he's it's dark and he's in the jungle and he's in this tree and he looks around he says, "Oh, tiger will come." And he's still under the desire tree.
And of course, tiger scouts. So but this desire tree is nothing, it's our mind. Our mind is the desire tree. Our mind is producing all these kinds of desires.
Therefore, Krishna says, "Yam yam vāpi smaran bhāvam tyajaty ante kalevaram tam tam evaiti" kaunteya, tam tam evaiti kaunteya. You will get exactly this.
Sadā tad-bhāva-bhāvitaḥ, whatever bhāva, whatever emotion you practice during your life, you will get what you practiced. Whatever state of being, you will not get anything else.
Sadhana as rewiring the mind
You know, that's the basis of our sādhana, what is our emotional what is our sādhana? Our sādhana is to produce certain emotions to guarantee that we are in a better state; our sādhana is to change our bhāva.
It's actually very interesting. Please listen, I will say a few words more and then maybe we can answer some questions. I don't want to keep you too long.
But please listen, it's very—did you understand this mechanism, how we become emotionally addicted to this?
So we have to—we can, we have the ability, we have the you know facilities in the human body to unlearn this and learn it differently. And this is called sādhana.
Sādhana is a systematic practice to change our state of being, to prepare us for the better life. Both in this life and in the next life. That's sādhana.
Sādhana is nothing but the system of activities which rewires our brain, changes our mind, and makes changes on a very deep level.
And if we really want for sādhana to be successful, we have to see and to note the changes which are taking place.
If we practice Krishna consciousness, if we chanting every day, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma, Rāma, Hare Hare. And nothing changes. Something we're doing wrong.
Our emotional reactions should change, our mood should change, our state of being ultimately should change. You know, if this does not take place, something is wrong.
Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura says that we have to note every day what progress have I done today? Was there any changes in my state of being, in my condition? Is there anything substantial? Something is happened or not?
So, what I will explain now, how to reverse this process, which is very important, how to get rid of this, how to come out from this conditioning, emotional conditioning.
And actually the solution is simple, and you know the solution. Prabhupada repeats it so many times and he says it in this purport.
But let me explain it maybe in a slightly different way, which helps sometimes when you have some slightly different angle. It helps you to get a fresh and to see what you have to do.
Redefining happiness through service
Basically, the problem which we discussed yesterday and today is very clear. This is rāga and dveṣa. And control of this rāga and dveṣa. Like, don't like. Good, bad. This is the problem. But the problem is actually deeper.
As I said, rāga and dveṣa is coming from false ego, asmitā. Or ahaṅkāra. False ego in itself is created by avidyā, ignorance, wrong knowledge, wrong understanding who I am.
So, this false ego, this is what has to be changed. Because rāga and dveṣa, please listen very carefully. Rāga and dveṣa is nothing but the manifestation of our concept. What is false ego?
False ego is our concept of how I can be happy. Because the happiness is what we want. False ego is our understanding or the concept. You know, this is the ideal situation.
If I have this, if I am this, if my surroundings like this, that I am happy.
You know, so rāga and dveṣa is nothing but the manifestation of the very deep program in the false ego that you can only be happy and you are happy when your senses are in a very, when your senses are happy.
In other words, the culprit is not the senses itself. The culprit, culprit is not rāga and dveṣa.
Culprit is this understanding that happiness means everything should be nice, everything should be good according to my desire, according to my liking. That's the problem. My definition of happiness.
Today, in the morning, I gave lecture on exactly this verse where Krishna explains this wrong definition of happiness. 22nd verse of the 5th chapter of Bhagavad-gītā. Na tvaśnu-ramate budhā, how it goes? Yeah.
Yeah, ye hi saṁsparśa-jā bhogā duḥkha-yonaya eva te. If we think that that happiness means happiness of the senses, that's the problem. So and uh but there is another concept of happiness. I can be happy if I'm serving
please please please please listen very very carefully. These two completely opposite concepts of happiness are there, and we all have experience of both.
But somehow or other, this wrong concept of happiness that happiness means some sparśaja-bhoga, the comfort of my senses, is dominating over our consciousness.
We all consciously and some consciously think that you know this happiness of my senses is my happiness. But luckily for us, we all have at least little experience that we can be happy if somebody else is happy.
If mother is looking at her child and she sees that the child is smiling, is she happy? She is happy. We all have this experience.
We do something good for for some other person and this some other person becomes very pleased. Do we become happy? Yes. We become happy. We definitely become happy. And this is exactly what the word premā or prīti means.
The word premā or prīti comes from Sanskrit root prī and the Sanskrit root prī has two main meanings. The one meaning of Sanskrit root prī is to please somebody. To say, to make somebody happy.
Another meaning of the same root is to become happy. Harṣa. In other words, what the Sanskrit that the wisdom of this ancient people tells us is that there is a way of becoming happy by pleasing others.
By pleasing others you become happy. And this happiness is much higher quality, much higher quality than this selfish egoistic happiness because the selfish egoistic happiness always brings about miseries.
You know the English word love, do you know from which root it comes? It's also come from Sanskrit. English word love, German word lieben, Russian word lyubov.
They all come from Sanskrit root lub which means desire greed you know so usually people think love means Give something to me. I should be loved. But the concept of the Vedic literature is completely different.
Love means happiness. You want to be happy. Here is the way to be happy. Just develop this other nature which you have, other emotional nature.
This emotional nature ultimately puts you under the stress, because inevitably you will never be able to create a situation in this world where everything is how you like.
And even if you will be able to create a situation where everything which how you like, then you will not like that everything is how you like. People become bored. If everything is too good, they think something is wrong.
You know, we always have this concept, what I want to say, this concept of good and bad, according to our senses, is a wrong concept. But you can become unlimitedly happy, much more happy if you develop other nature.
The problem is that this nature is underdeveloped. Our animalistic nature, this concept, this false nature, which developed under this false understanding of false ego. It's overly dependent or overly developed.
You know, there's so much problem in this. So we have to work equally hard to develop some other nature, and this other nature will give us some different emotions.
When we experience these emotions of real love, when we feel happiness, if some other person is happy, you know it gives you satisfaction and it can bring you much stronger satisfaction if you develop it.
As much as you know you have to develop, I said to you that you have to develop certain liking and disliking in this world. In the same way you can develop this other nature.
Developing spiritual emotions and empathetic joy
This emotional nature or habit or experience or how to say this, or ability to experience happiness when somebody else is happy. And especially you can develop the happiness when you experience Krishna's happiness.
Ultimately that's what it is. Yesterday I started by explaining that this empathy, you know, this ability to feel what other people feel. Emotional maturity is nothing but this ability not to feel only what I feel.
We become dull because of these gross emotions, because of these material emotions; we don't even know what we experience, what we feel. And our emotions have to be grosser and grosser and grosser and grosser.
And they are very destructive, they are destroying us. But if we develop this other side, the ability to become happy, to feel emotions of other people and to make them happy, you will become immensely happy.
Krishna himself — listen very carefully. Krishna himself, as I said yesterday, the one who is the most emotionally developed, who is it? Rādhārāṇī. She is the most emotionally developed. She serves.
She's the living manifestation of service. When she serves Krishna, she experiences happiness millions of times more than Krishna's own happiness. And Krishna says, "How is that possible? I'm the source of all happiness.
And I see that she's more happy than me." And therefore he says, "I want to experience what she experiences." And here he is, he comes as whom? Caitanya. Caitanya Mahāprabhu. He comes to experience this happiness.
And to teach us how to experience this happiness. This whole path of Caitanya Mahāprabhu, of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava, is how to develop the spiritual emotions by reflecting the emotions of other people.
Listen, and this is very important. This is a new thing. I will only say this and I will finish because — are you with me, right? You are still okay. So listen, it's very important.
What I said yesterday, I quoted this very nice verse from Padma Purāṇa. How it goes... uh, akāntasya sa manasaḥ, uh, kathaṃ tasya mukundasya sphūrtiḥ. This is the verse.
And in this verse it is very clearly said that until you experience all these material emotions, starting with śoka, which is grief, and amarṣa, anger...
You're depressed or you are completely... you're not happy with what is happening, this is working.
And this is actually dominating material emotions. People become very angry, people become very depressed, especially by the end of the life.
Actually inevitably, all the people, especially in the West, practically ninety percent of people in the West, when they become old, they become depressed. And they they need to take antidepressants.
In America, 50% of people are taking antidepressants. It's a huge market. Many, many multi-billion markets of all this antidepressants.
But in this verse it is said, until your heart, your mind is attacked by all these emotions, katham, kathaṁ tasya Mukundasya udbhāvanaṁ bhavet? How you will get the reflection of Mukunda in your heart.
You will never get reflection of Mukunda because your heart is occupied by these material emotions. So we have to first of all to unlearn these material emotions. We have to eradicate, erase these material emotions.
We have to really program ourselves that there is nothing bad. Something bad is happening and you smile. You just smile, you try it, it works. It works. You smile. You smile. Raise your hands and say Hare Krishna. Hare! Krishna!
Hare! Krishna! Krishna! Krishna! Hare! Hare! Krishna! No material emotions. All this shock is gone. No not no shock anymore. You know, we we really have to we have to understand this is the dirt.
This radar and dress, this material emotions, I like, I don't like, and you know, all this dress which is always there in the heart, dominating in the heart. It's dirt.
And you will never experience anything higher until your heart is occupied or attacked by this dirt. You know, get rid of them. You know, you feel this mood. Say that this is false mood. This is not wrong, this is not right.
Smile. You know everything is fine. Krishna is in control. What can be wrong? Nothing can be wrong. God is in control, He's behind everything, you know. When you say that something is wrong, it means you say God is stupid.
I should become God. Because I know better than Him, right? And you know, I mean hopefully it will not happen that you become God because you will mess it up. You will create a big mess. He knows what He's doing.
Everything is right. There is nothing wrong. There is no reason to grieve. There is no reason to be unhappy. There is no reason to be depressed. That's exactly what Krishna says.
This is the first verse of Krishna in Bhagavad-gītā where He says, Arjuna, you think you're very intelligent, but look at yourself in the mirror, see how completely morose you are. It means you're a fool.
You're speaking very highly sounding words, but you're a fool. Why you're a fool? Because you're so unhappy. Unhappiness is the sign of foolishness. And if you are unhappy, it means you are foolish. Nothing else. That's it.
So become happy. That's why Śrīla Prabhupāda said, chant and become happy. Sometimes devotees don't understand this instruction of Śrīla Prabhupāda.
They think if I chant I'll become happy and they chant and they wait when I become happy. No, Krishna didn't say, chant and then you become happy. Śrīla Prabhupāda said, chant and be happy. It's an order.
There are two orders. Chant and be. Not that if I chant I become, He didn't say this. He says, "Chant and be." Why not? Why not become happy? What is the, what's wrong with you? You know, you'll be happy.
That's exactly what Krishna says to Arjuna, you be happy, be happy. So we shouldn't learn this material emotions, anxiety, fear, all this. There's nothing.
This is all emotional conditioning, which is very strong, which is very difficult to overcome, still we have to fight. This is part of our sādhana-bhakti.
Progression of spiritual emotions through bhakti
But then what will happen? Listen how to do this. And what what we should do, what we are doing for this, we're serving, we're trying to serve, right? We develop this tṛṇād api sunīcena bhāva. This is bhāva.
I yesterday I said about this five emotional beings of śaraṇāgati. But there is another formula for this. It's the same formula.
I said yesterday determination, starting with determination, this is something which you, you know, this is the starting point, determination. It's a certain emotion, you become very strong, determined.
I want to go to the goal. But actually another formula of it is tṛṇād api sunīcena taror api sahiṣṇunā amāninā mānadena kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ. You become humble and you become tolerant and you respect everyone.
It's the same. It's śaraṇāgati. It's different descriptions of the same emotions, this the same bhāva.
So we, as I said, we try to learn and to repeat and to rehearse again and again this mood, this bhāva of humility, the service mood. What will happen next? And this is the most the best news:
your heart will gradually be purified from these lower emotions, and you will get the reflection in this pure heart.
The state of tṛṇād api sunīcena taror api sahiṣṇunā is a state of pure heart when our heart, the citta, restores its ability to reflect the emotions of others.
You will get positive emotions, reflex, reflection of positive emotions of other people. You will serve somebody, especially if you serve some advanced devotee.
And somehow or other you will feel what he feels in your heart. All of a sudden you will feel very elevated feeling.
If if your heart is somewhat clean and simple, you will be able to get the reflections of spiritual emotions. I remember once it was a very funny story.
We had a Janmashtami and we had many people, few thousand people coming in Janmashtami in Moscow. And then till the end, till 12 o'clock, not many people remained; all devotees remained, and few guests remained.
And we had this last kīrtana, last and emotions, you know, building up and building up, all the spiritual emotions, Krishna is, he's happy, you know, he's about to be born, and this last kīrtana, and the kīrtanī was very nice, and you know everyone is just chanting this Hare Kṛṣṇa, it's approaching 12 o'clock, the culmination.
And I'm uh going, you know, through this uh the the spot where we have Janmashtami to see. It's a very pleasant sight, you know, to see all these people, how they're chanting, how they're absorbed, how they're happy.
And all of a sudden somebody taps me on the shoulder and I turn around and uh uh there is a uh young man and obviously he's a guest, he's the first time newcomer, and he's uh and he asked me, can I ask you one question?
Very humbly? And I say, yes please. He says, can you explain to me what is happening to me?
You know, I'm just chanting this Hare Kṛṣṇa with you and I'm the first time here, I'm chanting this Hare Kṛṣṇa and I'm crying and crying and crying. Something is wrong with me.
I looked at him, I said, no, something is wrong with me because I'm not crying. Everything is right with you. You're supposed to cry with the kīrtana.
So what I mean to say is that, you know, when your heart becomes sufficiently clean, all of a sudden you will get the reflection of all these elevated emotions. And all of a sudden you start crying.
And you don't know why you're crying. And sometimes you think maybe something is wrong with me, but you know, the devotees will tell you something is okay with you. No problem. That's the beginning.
So as much as, and I will only say just one sentence or two sentences, as much as I explain to you this downward spiral of material emotions.
When we get first very feeble and weak emotion, and then we rehearse this emotion, the emotion becomes strong.
And when the emotion uh and we sometimes may be in this mood for a few days or even a few weeks and then when we rehearse more, the this emotion uh material emotion becomes our temperament, becomes our habitual reaction to the events of this life.
Becomes our temperament. If we rehearse more and temperament means more or less we can be months in a row, or you know, we habitually react. And then ultimately it becomes our state of being.
Like this stages: little emotion, then mood, then temperament, then the state of being. In the same way, the spiritual emotions will develop.
And on the stage of niṣṭhā, you develop this ability to reflect spiritual emotions of some elevated devotees. You read Śrīla Prabhupāda's books and all of a sudden the shadow of his emotions comes to your heart.
And you start crying and you don't know why. Or you listen to a lecture, and you start crying or, you listen to some story about Kṛṣṇa.
And you listen to this story hundreds of times and you know this story, and all of a sudden you cry. Why? Because this spiritual emotion is reflected in your pure clean heart which is cleansed.
So this is and this is and it's very feeble in the beginning. In the stage of niṣṭhā it's very, very fickle. It's not stable. But then in a stage of ruci it becomes smooth.
It means that you can experience this elevated spiritual emotions for days and maybe weeks in a row. You are in this elevated spiritual mood. Ruci means you have this taste, spiritual taste.
You are above this material world. You are not really in this material world. And then in the stage of āsakti, the spiritual emotion becomes your temperament.
The spiritual emotion becomes your habitual reaction on the events of this life. Like Śrīla Prabhupāda. Yesterday I told this story how Śrīla Prabhupāda was somewhere, I don't know.
Here, how Śrīla Prabhupāda was laying down and everything is bad, and Śrīla Prabhupāda is just laughing and laughing and laughing. That's his mood, that's his āsakti, that's his, that's his temperament.
That's his reaction on these events. Something, everything is bad from material point of view and he's laughing. Would you like to become like this? No, not really.
And then on the stage of bhāva it becomes your state of being. You become spiritually, emotionally surcharged being. There is nothing but love of God in you.
And in the stage of prema and then there is a lot of stages above it that's development. So but I, that's what I wanted to say that we can get to this elevated emotions and we can become happy.
If we understand this basic difference, that there are two ways of becoming happy.
One is a selfish way, which depends on raga and dvesa and external circumstances, and another way is to become happy by being a servant, by developing this real nature, by depending on God in all circumstances and by trying to depend on Krishna's devotees.
That's what I wanted to tell you. Hare Krishna, and that is exactly what Śrīla Prabhupāda says in this purport. Śrīla Prabhupāda says it's not enough just to regulate our senses.
What is the real solution to this problem is to serve by our senses to Krishna and by developing this service mood through our senses, develop our higher nature or, rather, come under the control of higher nature.
Okay, that's it. Thank you very much. We're late again.
Expressing emotions without causing offense
If you have any questions. Yeah. Maharaj said yesterday when we have emotions we should not suppress, whether we should express that. But sometimes we feel like we have to express that emotion.
We feel like maybe others may look at it very, very badly. And also you continued saying that we should be honest and we should express it.
But in many situations when we express our honesty, it looks like the person who is on the other side may feel offended. Our relationship with you is very, very important, and we want to continue the relationship.
It's an important question, and actually, I answered this question yesterday when I explained this, but I can understand why it's not so obvious.
It's a very important question, but it's basically a question of a certain culture. We should learn this culture, how to express this without offending others.
And we have to really understand that offense comes when we express our emotions wrongly. We don't really express our emotions properly. Why?
Because we don't understand really our emotion; we feel our emotion, we don't like this emotion, it's an unpleasant emotion, and we think that he or she is the cause of this emotion.
And when we start expressing our emotional reaction, we are completely convinced that he or she is the cause of this emotion. And we know that if we start expressing it the way we think it is, he or she will be offended.
And sure enough, he or she will be offended. But the point is that we are wrong because it's not he or she is the cause of the emotion, he or she did something and this is my emotional reaction.
If I express my emotional reaction exactly in these terms, this is what is happening with me. In other words, I'm not saying you are guilty that this is happening with me.
I'm saying maybe I am wrong, maybe I misinterpret what you said. Maybe all these possibilities are there. I'm completely open-hearted. I'm just saying very honestly that I feel hurt. When you said this, I feel hurt.
Can you please explain to me why did you say this? And if you say it like this, then he only he or she only have one to two choices.
Whether he says no, oh I didn't know, I'm sorry I'm wrong, or she will say this is the reason you said this and that, and you know, and that's why, and this is what I meant.
And you know, it will be very quickly dissolved. If you express it in these terms, you don't say you, you are wrong, you did this. You don't ascribe the motivations to other people.
What happens actually, what is wrong, please listen. This is also very important. When it comes to judge our own actions, we only see motivations. We don't see the actions. We judge ourselves according to our motivations.
When it comes to others, we only see the action, not the motivation. So in reality, we have to learn to behave ourselves 180 degrees opposite to it.
We should try to understand the motivation of other people, not the action, and we should judge ourselves according to our actions, not according to our motivation. This is what you meant today, emotional maturity. Yes.
Yes.
Emotional maturity means you try to understand the emotions of these people and you feel and you will understand you know if you are if you're dull emotionally if you're dumb if you don't really understand what other people feel he's yelling at you.
And you're reacting in this. And you start yelling at him and nothing is resolved. Or you or you suppress your anger. You know, your anger is there, you suppress it. It's even worse. You're not expressing it.
But if you're emotionally mature, he's yelling at you and you look at him and you see he has a pain. He has some pain. Somebody hurt him and you tell him, you know, why, you know, I know something is bad, your pain.
Can you explain to me what is the pain? You know, you will become, your reaction will become different. You will express your feeling. Honestly express your feeling. But the message in this feeling, I feel this.
Not that you're wrong. Usually when we say, we say, "You're wrong, you did this." No, no, no, no, somehow or rather I feel this. Can you... you know, somehow or rather I feel this. Let's talk about this.
Let's talk about my feelings. And nobody will be offended if we are talking about your feelings. People are offended when you say, "You are like this." And he is not like this. But you say he is like this.
This is the offense. If you ascribe to a person something which he is not, this is an offense. And if you say, "I feel this," how can you offend anyone? You cannot offend anyone. Okay? Is it clear? And this is a skill.
This is a skill to express it properly. So does it also depend upon our relationship with the person? It depends, definitely depends. You have to be sensitive.
But you know, you also sometimes, you know, we have to be sensitive. Sensitive means emotional maturity. Emotional maturity means ability to see behind the surface.
Techniques for managing overwhelming emotions
Not only the surface, but to see what is really the motivation of a person. Yes. And you will mention that sometimes we reach to a stage where we know something which we are doing is not correct.
And Krishna has said it and still we do it. So we should not reach at that stage. We should check ourselves before we reach that stage.
When we cannot actually restrain ourselves and we do that activity, which we know is wrong. And that way we have to observe ourselves and we should not reach at that stage you were mentioning yesterday.
So I just want you to know more about, like, sometime in case of anger, like we reach that stage very, very quickly actually. We cannot absorb ourselves and we react actually.
So how we—so there are two things which can be said about this. First of all, if you know how this emotion develops in stages, you may catch anger in a very inceptional stage.
You're becoming angry, even though it's an explosion definitely, an explosion is very quick.
But if you understand how it works, then you may, you know, start—you may develop the ability to check this emotion when it's still checkable, so to speak, when it's still controllable. That's one thing.
If you really understand how it is, you know, you feel it's coming, so you don't reinforce it by your thoughts and something; you try to avoid it and you can check it.
But another thing is that if it reaches the stage when you cannot do anything about it, still absorb it. And it will become less. You know, recently I had a very interesting experience.
Anyway, maybe I shouldn't tell this, but I did experience—I made a mistake, a certain mistake—I let a certain very strong emotion overwhelm me. It was actually emotional fear.
I had, you know, a certain condition, physical condition or whatever. So I know something is coming, and the fear came, anxiety came, and it reached a certain level when it became really uncontrollable.
Very strong, you know. Completely you are carried away by this emotion. So, what I started—but still I didn't want to go, because I know it's hell, you know. If you go too far, it's hell and you create.
So what I started doing is, I started commenting on it, dictating it as an observer, what's going on in my mind and in my body. I was sending WhatsApp messages to one friend of mine, you know.
This is now, the nice boxing match is going on in my heart. Fear is boxing with me and I'm trying to fight with it.
And you know, for some time I was doing this, and fear is raging—really, I mean strong, very strong emotion which is, you know, based on some saṁskāra, strong saṁskāra; saṁskāra is very deep, it's strong.
You know, but then after some time it didn't go to the completely bad stage.
I still remained in a normal state because I started absorbing it, and it was not enough at this moment of time for me just to silently absorb it. I had to just, you know, loudly speak what is going on.
I remained neutral in a sense. I understand this is emotion, but I'm not this emotion.
Observer means you still remain on a neutral position, you are not completely overwhelmed, you still have your understanding, you understand that is wrong, that this is useless, this is anarch, this is nothing good, it's not good, but still you know it's it's there.
And you absorb it by you know, and you you comment on it, you you try to analyze how it appeared, what is the mistake, how you you know was little careless to to get to this uh extent and you know you still remain some soberness, some intelligence by this.
And ultimately this emotional reaction, because it's difficult to fight with this emotional reaction, it's on a level of body. It's already chemical. You have all these bodily expressions of it.
So, and even you understand it's wrong, but you cannot do anything about it because it's too strong and the thoughts are produced by the feedback mechanism, by this emotions in the body, by these chemicals in the body.
But you still can remain, even in this situation you still. Even in this situation you may say, you know, I know I'm wrong. But you also wrong.
I know that anyway even in this anger situation you still or at least you know just go and just yell and Śrīla Prabhupāda said actually Śrīla Prabhupāda that's his advice.
He said, if you feel very strong emotion, you cannot do anything, it's really strong. He said, you go to the field. Of course, it's difficult to find the field here.
He said, you go to the field and you yell at the top of your lungs, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare. Hare! Hare Rāma! Hare! Something like this. It will help. So you're expressing it by something.
Or sometimes it's good to if you have somebody who is still sober. It's good for you to explain to him what is going on.
Because when you are trying to explain to somebody else what is going on within you, you are getting control, you're getting grip over these emotions. Something like this. Okay? That's it.
But the main point is to become humble and start experiencing spiritual emotions which are there. Okay. Okay.
Navigating material environments and workplace stress
Hare Kṛṣṇa, daṇḍavat-praṇāma. On the point of suppressing our materialistic emotions or removing our materialistic emotions, we'll be successful when we are in the presence of saintly people and all devotees.
But when we go into our normal working climates and all that, they will be playing the major role than any other spiritual role. And most of the time we'll be in a material atmosphere.
See, again, we can use all these emotions, but we shouldn't come under the control of them.
If you need to use these emotions, dealing with specific people in a specific environment, you need to use anger, you need to use, you know, sometimes you need to use, so you use it.
And "use it" means that you use it as much as it's necessary, and if it's not necessary, you know, you learn how to use it without coming under the control of it. That's the only thing. You know, use it and become calm.
Anxiety is necessary sometimes, you know. Different emotions may be useful, but learn how to use them without coming under control. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you.