Relevance of the Spirituality in Our Life
Бхакти Вигьяна Госвами · Chitagong · 2014
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Relevance of spirituality in modern life
Krishna Karana Sindhudina Bandhija Batbare Govishabika Kantara Kantana Mastudakanchana Goran Gira De Vindha Nishwari Prashabhan Sudadeva Pranamani Hari Priya Vanchapatara Vishapri Prashindavaca Baditanampa Yavashnavyam Vishnu Padaya Krishna Prashtha Vitadeswamat Bhaktividanta Swami Natyaminamastwati Bhavana Pracha Okay.
I'm very happy to address all of you this evening. I feel very much honored by this opportunity. And I was asked to speak about the relevance of spirituality in our life.
Because our life is so designed nowadays that spirituality becomes more and more irrelevant. In the modern outlook of the things and of the world, spirituality seems to be something really outdated.
We are modern people, we are living in the modern world, the modern world is really speeding up. God knows where but the general understanding of people that there is no place for God.
And I found this topic very intriguing because it directly relates to my own life history. I was born in the Soviet Union, and my parents were atheists.
My grandparents were atheists, and my grand-grandmother, she was bold enough to go to church every now and then.
And I remember very clearly when I was a young kid, little kid, maybe six years old or seven years old, I would come to her and say that you're totally ignorant, there is no God.
Because I was programmed very strongly from my kindergarten years that there is no God, and of course, the very scientific argument which I would give was that you know Gagarin the first spaceman would go to space and he didn't see God.
So of course I didn't see Gagarin myself so that that would not be an argument that he didn't exist. But in any case, uh what I want to say is that here I am speaking in front of all of you about God.
Even though I was very thoroughly programmed from my very childhood that there is no God.
Soviet attempts to eradicate religion
And I think this fact in itself proves that there is something about God which is a little mysterious.
In the history of Russia, there was a period when the government of Russia wanted to make the country totally God-free.
I think Stalin, who was the ruler of the Soviet Union at that time said that by the year of 1936 there will be not a single believer in this country.
And well, it didn't work by nineteen thirty six and then you know they still hoped and hoped and hoped. For more than seventy years the government systematically was eradicating the very notion of God in the country.
I remember I was studying in Moscow State University, uh I was in my chemistry department and there was probably around 20,000 students at that time in the university and
there was a big scandal at that time because one of the students he happened to be my from my department
and I happen to know him, one of the students admitted while passing the exam of the scientific atheism that there is God, that he believes in God. It was a huge scandal.
You know, everyone, each and every of these 20,000 people knew that there is some black sheep somewhere in the chemical department who believes in God.
He was kicked out from the university within a couple of months under some pretext. And I mean I'm telling this story just to let you know in which environment I was brought up and how how was the situation.
But interestingly enough, when the country changed its course in 1991 or something like this, immediately after 70 years of thorough programming, when practically there was no people who were not programmed in this way because you know seventy years means at least two or three generations of people.
Immediately you know the believing God came in big flood in the country. Hare Krishna came and you know Seven Days Adventist and Mormons and every everyone practically you know.
All of a sudden people uh as if they were really thirsty they started you know somehow or other sucking in uh this notion that God is there in many different ways some ways are healthy some, ways from our point of view are not very healthy.
But this very fact proves that there is something within our heart which strives for God no matter how much you program your mind.
You know the modern way of life, the modern science, the modern whatever, the modern technology, internet they try to program us in a certain way sometimes in a very gross way, sometimes in a very subtle way, but still, you know.
Inherent human desire for God
The general notion is that God is not there, or maybe he's there, but he's not that relevant, and believing God doesn't bring you anywhere. That's more or less the modern understanding.
But But I think that doesn't work because if you deprive yourself from this thirst for God, you will feel totally unfulfilled.
You know I remember very clearly also even though I was speaking with my grandgrandmother saying that there is no God.
When there was difficulty in my childhood, when I was a small kid, of course small children they also have difficulty. Sometimes they're very bitter, sometimes they you know they they want to die because somebody neglected them.
I remember very clearly in this moment I was praying to God. I I didn't pray to God, I prayed to somebody, I don't know to whom, but I was praying
to somebody, you know, pouring out my feelings of being neglected, of being, you know, left without some something.
So this feeling is there within our heart and no matter how much we try to get rid of it, no matter how much we try to rationalize that there is no God, something is really we will feel that something is really missing in our heart.
So, and of course, this notion that there is no God and this understanding is a in one sense a reaction to the abuse, religious abuse, which was there in the history of humanity.
The history of humanity had tremendous abuse of this faithful nature of people. And it's going on even now.
Sincere people who believe in God tend to be exploited by some cheaters and so many other not nice things happening in the name of God. So in one sense, some people are right while they reject God.
But they actually cannot reject God. They only reject these abusive forms of religion, these perverted forms of religion which are there in this world and we can do nothing about it. It will be there.
So uh I just wanted to continue with my personal story and I think it may bring little benefit to all of you. The turning point in my life came sometime when I was a postgraduate student.
I was doing my PhD degree, by the way, I defended my PhD thesis.
I'm not masters, I have PhD degree, but it doesn't really matter because I forgot all about it, so uh you know it's uh uh I I went through it and forgot all about it.
But I I was doing my PhD degree and it was a critical time in my life because somehow or other I felt very empty. I thought, okay, I will do my PhD degree, so what? What is the meaning? What is the ultimate meaning of this?
What is the ultimate value of this? Will I become happy or not? And I couldn't find the questions to the answers. So many questions were there in my mind.
And the ultimate question which every one of us has is that how to become happy.
The ultimate strife, the ultimate desire, uh the ultimate question which every one of us has is that where do I find happiness in this life? And it so happened that you know every now and then uh we find ourselves that we have everything which we wanted but still not happy. The only thing which we don't have is the happiness.
And this is the only thing which we need. We may have money and sometimes people strive for money. But money in itself, you know they're useless. Money for us is the means to give happiness.
You know, we strive for so many things, but ultimately we want to be happy. So I found myself that I fulfilled many of my goals.
That I'm, you know, I graduated from the university with honors, I'm doing this PhD degree, you know, some career is o ahead of me, I'm well established. You know, I I was relatively well to do, I from well to do family and everything.
And the heart was totally completely empty. So at that point, and this is usually when it happens,
Discovering Bhagavad-gita in Soviet Russia
God comes to our life. When there is a great hankering within the heart, God who is there within our heart comes in in one way or another.
So at that time what happened with me, somebody gave me Bhagavad-gītā. And it was not this Bhagavad-gītā, nice Bhagavad-gītā as it is, with elaborate commentaries. It was a really strange edition of Bhagavad-gītā. It was done before the Russian Revolution.
You know the language was really vague and the translation was not done from Sanskrit, it was Russian translation, from English translation, from French translation, from Hindi translation, from what not.
You know it was really watered down kind of edition of Bhagavad-gītā. But what really struck me, and I read this book within you know probably a couple of nights.
And uh of course the book was totally prohibited, I was secretly reading it. Nobody should know that I'm reading Bhagavad-gītā. And it definitely added some excitement. So but that was not the most exciting things.
When I read Bhagavad-gītā, what struck me, what really struck me is that I found in this little book, which is not so little of course in this edition, it's
rather big book, but in this edition it was just verses of Bhagavad-gītā. What I found that there is a rational concept of life, uh the ration the rational understanding of life with God.
Usually we think that God is something irrational, something which has no place in our rational world.
But what I found in Bhagavad-gītā, I found and and it really struck me that there is a very logical, very rational, uh, very understandable uh you know n comprehensive consistent
uh worldview which implies that God is there. And uh and I was really shocked because
I used to live in a world where everything is happening by chance. I really, you know, I studied science very thoroughly, and I knew that Darwin theory and uh you know all this theory about the origin of life and the theory of the big bang and I believed it.
You know big big big big scientists they you know they really applied their brains and they developed all these theories and I really believed it.
And all of a sudden uh here it is just seven hundred verses, just a few verses, and somehow or other I see a completely different picture. And this picture is is is different but it's not less convincing.
So what happened with me at that turning point of my life? I started battling within my heart.
Sometimes I would live in a world where I used to live, where everything is just by chance, everything is just somehow rather and there is of no ultimate meaning.
You know if you accept the scientific notion, the scientific understanding of the world, that ultimately your life is without meaning. There is no meaning.
Just enjoy, try to enjoy, try to squeeze the enjoyment, and that's it. And I was living in this world and I was pretty much convinced and I was trying to do this, I couldn't find happiness.
And then sometimes I would really play with the idea which I found in Bhagavad-gītā, if by chance it's true. Gita, if by chance it's true.
And it was really convincing, it was very consistent and so on and so forth and these two views were fighting within my heart and the rational part of mine would supply arguments after argument after argument after argument against this notion.
But after two or three years I found myself completely defeated. I said, you know, that's it, God is there, I surrender. That was basically the outcome of this battle.
Because no matter how much arguments I would supply, I you know, I would find some counter counter arguments.
And some counterthings and ultimately what I found that this worldview is scientifically logically much more valid has much more proofs in the world around me.
No doubt the scientific worldview has so many proofs and so many scientific kind of arguments behind it.
But what I found that in reality if we are impartial, and I was trying to be impartial, one thing which I learned in my scientific training and is that you have to be impartial. You have to...
if you want to do the experiment you really have to you know be impartial you you shouldn't program yourself this way or that way. You should be very neutral. You should be in this Udacin in between.
And actually it's very interesting because this battle which happened to take place in my heart. Much later I found out that this battle is described also in this book.
Finding answers through Bhagavad-gita
Of course, in this book we know the real battle and the Kurukṣetra war is described but, also there is a description of the battle within our heart.
And when Krishna, when Arjuna, who is the main hero of Bhagavad-gītā asked Krishna to put himself in between the two armies.
He exactly asked for the same sort of position. He wants the neutral position between the two armies.
He asked Krishna, who is the speaker of Bhagavad-gītā, to place himself in between so that he could see this way and that way. And so that he could choose.
And while thinking about Bhagavad-gītā, you know, ever since uh when I read Bhagavad-gītā for the first time, it was thirty-four years back. It's pretty long time. It's the whole life. 34 years back.
So ever since I read the Bhagavad-gītā for the first time, I read Bhagavad-gītā again and again and again, many times, you know, parts of it. I was teaching Bhagavad-gītā, I was studying Bhagavad-gītā.
So I know little bit about Bhagavad-gītā. You know thirty years is not enough to know this book nicely, but it's a long enough time to know something about Bhagavad-gītā.
So I found that actually this book answers all the questions which I had at that time, all the questions which I had over the thirty years after that, and probably all the questions which I will have in the next one thousand years or whatever whatever is there.
So and the answers are already there.
Amazingly enough, all the questions are very nicely answered, provided you're very neutral provided you maintain your impartial position and as I said ultimately I was convinced and uh you know when I became convinced I started convincing others
about God and about Bhagavad-gītā about the truth and uh the
main thing the amazing thing which happened with me also was that as soon as I became involved with Hare Krishna movement in a more serious way and became more convinced and became little a involved. Somewhat superficially involved.
The course of my life changed very drastically from superficially favorable to unfavorable.
You know the secret police came to my work, they said they will kick me out, they will deprive me of my PhD, degree, this and that, and they will put me in prison. And you know, so many threats were there.
I I I I don't want to tell you the story, it's not a very interesting story, not a very exciting story. I was interrogated and you know I was not physically tortured by mentally I definitely was tortured a lot by the Soviet thing.
But the paradoxical thing, the paradoxical result of this was that I became very happy. Before that everything was fine in my life. I was on my way up and I was totally empty and unhappy.
And then everything broke, and you know, I was kicked out from my job. I had to leave the country, my relatives turned away from me but inside
Defining yoga as balance
I was so happy, and I still am happy, and I can't explain why I'm happy, but the thing is that what happened with me at that time, I found a certain peace and balance in my life.
Actually, Krishna explains in a very beautiful way what spiritual life is in Bhagavad-gītā. In Bhagavad-gītā, Krishna says that spiritual life—talking about the relevance of the spiritual life.
And of course, in Bhagavad-gītā, spiritual life is called yoga. Yoga means the process, yoga means the path, yoga means the spiritual practice, yoga means connection, of course. Everyone knows this meaning of yoga.
But Krishna defines yoga in a very beautiful way. Please listen very carefully. Krishna defines yoga very amazingly.
In the very beginning of this book, he says, samatvam yoga ucyate, he says, samatvam—samatvam basically means balance—samatvam yoga ucyate, he says that what you call yoga is the ability to lead a balanced life.
What I found in my own experience when I found God to a certain extent, when I found spiritual practice, I found that in my life there was much more balance than before. I really felt that I was imbalanced.
And what I see in the world around me is that this imbalance is becoming more and more visible and more and more prominent in the world around me, around us.
Because people turn away from God and develop this artificial technological civilization. The whole world is upside down and everything is out of balance. You know, we can see people's lives are in havoc.
You know, here you live in a relatively nice country. I know it's a poor country, but still it's nicer. I live in the West. I know what it means to live in the West. People are so miserable.
You know, they earn more money, but they are so totally, completely miserable. And uh you know 80% of the marriages just a failure.
80% you know nowadays it's not a problem for someone to have you know three, four, five, six, god knows how many marriages you know in life and uh and the whole thing you know the environment is totally imbalanced people are totally throwing the whole world out of balance.
And I would be bold enough to say that this whole imbalance in the modern society because of the original imbalance in people's heart.
You know what we have now in the modern world, the modern world is the creation of the left brain. Especially the Western world.
You know the the left brain, logical brain, the science and everything, the technology, I, I, I, it is the logic, it's the prerogative, the creation of the left brain but we have right brain and in
the modern science you know in the in scientific world there is no place for love and there is greatest hankering within our heart to love somebody and to be loved and ultimately to love God.
You know, this is there, this is our nature. We cannot neglect our nature. If we try to neglect our nature, we will be really suffering because of this.
And the whole world is suffering because of this fundamental imbalance. You know we're trying to develop technology, fine, good. But we're not trying to develop some finer feelings.
And people becoming um more and more mechanical. You know, if you go to the West or if you go to America, when I came to America, I was really shocked.
In America, uh 56% of the population is a psychiatric patient. Fifty-six percent, more than half of the population are psychologically sick people.
You know, when the little children come to school and shoot their schoolmates, it really shows the state of the the environment. You know they, they kill little children. You know, it's a sick society.
And it's coming all over the place, it's coming everywhere, and it's coming here unless we do something at least within our heart.
It's actually a very aggressive sort of civilization which kills the whole world because it kills the very basic need of our heart. There is greatest need within our heart, the need to love and be loved.
And ultimately the need to love God. And unless you fulfill this desire, unless you do this, you will be unhappy.
Limitations of scientific origin theories
You know what happened in my own life, I became happy uh and peaceful uh because I was somewhat connected with God.
Our movement is called Krishna consciousness movement and Krishna consciousness movement means that you have to be connected with God by your consciousness. You have to be conscious of God.
God is there, there is no doubt about it. I mean it's there is no doubt about it because otherwise if there is no God, how would I appear? It's so s it's so silly. I'm a, as uh our host said, I'm a molecular biologist.
So uh when I started uh you know studying the nature of life, I realized that this is I mean it's impossible to create the living cell. Living cell is much more complex than than this little thing or any computer.
You know, and to say is it possible that during evolution this things will start appearing just on its own and uh in this thing will be some reproductive system so that they will just you know there will be female recorders and male recorders and they will mate and uh there will be little recorders which they will produce.
You know, this thing is nothing. This thing is it's not you know and then they say that the living entity or living cell was created just by chance. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous.
There is no scientific explanation of this. So God is there, there is no doubt about it. But if God is there, then I have to understand what is my duty.
You know what I found myself is that if I understand that there is God, it basically means that I have to change my life.
What I understand in my own uh experience is that if there is God, then I cannot live the way I lived before. I have to change something. And I did change. I became vegetarian, I started chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra.
I you know I really changed the whole course of my life. Even though before I was eating meat and of course I was not really drinking, I didn't like this stuff.
But all the people around me were drinking and they were, you know, doing all kinds of nonsense. But what I want to say is that it's relevant for each and every one of us if we want to become happy.
It's relevant for our families if we want to have nice families and have nice relationship. Because if we love God, we love everyone else.
It's relevant for our country because unless there is a strong understanding that God is there, you know the whole country will become uh upside down.
Of course, you know Bangladesh I was really pleased when we were flying from Dhaka to Chittagong uh in a in a plane.
You know, the first thing which uh the said Allah Akbar and I said, Yeah, that's nice to remember about Allah. But uh what I wanted to say why it is relevant.
Uh you know our movement is called Krishna consciousness movement, it means that we are connected with God by our consciousness.
And what it gives, Krishna explains in the very beginning of Bhagavad-gītā, he says if you connect yourself with God, then you obtain peace. Why? Because God is the only permanent thing in this world.
Everything else is impermanent. Everything else is just in flux. Everything else, you know, it's just, it's just. As soon as you become connected within, you feel peaceful.
You know, if you're not connected with God, you are really in trouble. It's you know if if you are in an open sea and you're in a little boat. And sometimes the sea is peaceful, it's fine.
The sun is there, you're there, you kind of, you know, you take little sunshine, it's nice. But very soon there will be huge waves in this ocean.
And in this world, sometimes it's peaceful, but very soon there will be waves. I'm not predicting it. I cannot see future, but you know, definitely there will be waves in each and every life of us.
You know, I remember once there was a governmental official who came to our Hare Krishna temple in Moscow. It was in the beginning of the 90s and the Hare Krishna movement was really new and so many new movements were there and this people were somewhat intrigued and somewhat interested in the movement.
And then he said, uh, we were talking a little bit, and he said, can I give you one advice? How you should preach? I said, yeah, definitely. Please give us the advice how we should preach.
He said, you should really give predictions about the future.
Because people are afraid, they are really, you know, they don't know what will be in the future. Everyone is there, you know, and that there will be this crisis or that crisis, the whole economy will crash and this and that and you know that they always go to astrologers, they go to this and that and he said if you do this you will be very popular because people will come to you.
You should somehow rather give some predictions. And uh and I said to him, we're already giving predictions. I can give you, I can predict your future. He said, really? He was really interested.
He said, please tell me what will be in the future with me. I said, you will die. He was not very impressed by my prediction.
But what I want to say, the point which I want to make, the problems will come to our life, this I can predict. In one way or another, the problems will come to our life.
And in the time of the problems, it's very much necessary to connect it with something permanent. If we are not connected, we are in trouble.
We will be swayed, we will be totally completely you know smashed in this ocean of material existence, people who don't have this inner connection with God they're really vulnerable.
They may seek protection in money, in possession, even in some relationship, but because all this has impermanent nature, temporary nature, it doesn't really give the protection.
The only real protection which we may have is the connection with God. And therefore, this is the only way, this therefore, the spirituality is so relevant for us. It's relevant here and now.
If we want to be protected, if we want to feel protected, if we want to feel peaceful in this turmoil, cold material world and material life. We have to be connected with God.
Chanting holy names for balance
And as Śrīla Prabhupāda, the author of this book, writes: the best way to be connected with God is to chant His holy name.
Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. You feel, you immediately feel the difference within the heart. You immediately feel the difference.
And then you will be able to be balanced. As I said, Krishna says, spiritual life means balance.
And if we bring balance within our heart, our family life will be balanced, our work will be balanced, we will be able to balance this.
What we have now total imbalance in in in the whole society and ultimately hopefully if more people will be balanced the whole world will be little more balanced than now.
We are living in a crazy crazy crazy world and it's becoming progressively more and more crazy day by day by day by day.
And of course, we are not religious fanatics, we're not going to do some drastic measures and it's not going to work anyway.
But we have to really fight with this imbalance within our heart by devoting a significant part of our life towards spiritual practice. You know, basically, you know, we are designed in a special way by God.
In Sanskrit, the living entity is called aṃśa, and Shesha means part. God is called Sheshi, which means the complete whole. And there is a logic which says that if the part, the meaning of the part is to serve the whole.
The part if it's not within the whole has no meaning. If we take any part of this little machine and take it away from the whole, does it have any meaning? It's useless.
It's for all practical purposes, it's totally useless. You know, if you take little part and it's throw it somewhere, it will be useless. If you take if you cut this finger, this finger is very nice.
It can do so many things, it can paint out the culprits around us. You know, you're guilty and he's guilty and she's guilty. It's a nice finger, very hand handy useful.
You can also do some some other business with this finger. If you cut this finger, does it have any meaning? It doesn't have any meaning. It only has meaning when it's connected with the whole.
So in the same way, the living entity in itself is useless. In itself we don't have any meaning.
We only have meaning and we only have you know some some sort of usefulness if we are connected with the whole, if we are connected with God. Then we feel connected with the whole world and everything else.
So what I want to say is that there is nothing more relevant than spiritual practice. And God designed us in a certain way and designed the whole world in a certain way.
We have to understand the design and the purpose of God.
You know, when somebody manufactures something he really knows for what he manufactures this and God manufactured this huge world and we really have to find out what is the purpose behind this creation.
Unless we do this, we will not be able to understand what is the meaning of my life.
Reserving morning hours for spiritual practice
And he explains this in Bhagavad-gītā, it's very simple. And he also he gave the special time for spiritual practice. It's called Brahma Muhurta. There is a special time for everything. Like daytime, it's for work.
It's no doubt about. Daytime when the sun is there, the energy is there, the passion is there, you have to work. And nighttime definitely for sleep. An evening is to have some nice association for some talks.
You know, we have to come to home, we have to open our heart, we have to do some loving exchanges. So days for work, night is for resting, the evening is for our family members, but morning is reserved for God.
It's His design. If we know this very carefully, if we know that this is the time which I have to devote to Him. Then our life will be balanced.
Then we will be able to work in a very peaceful way, then we will be able to have very deep emotional relationship with our relatives, then we will be able to sleep nicely at night.
But mornings we have to devote to spiritual practice.
And the special time for this is before sunrise one and as Mataji Devaki already explained to you you know if you want to develop good habit just do it for 40 days and you're done with it, you can develop the new one.
But one of the most important habits in our life:
connected with all areas of our life is to get up early before the sunrise and to do some spiritual practice when it's peaceful and when you know most of the people are sleeping.
This morning I got up at 4:30 and around 5 o'clock, you know, all these nice Muslim prayers were there, and the whole city was reverberating with these prayers. I was really amazed by the vibration.
And this is the call, you know, this is the call. This is a very wise system. You know, just get up. It's time to think about God. If you think about God at that time, the impression will be strong.
You will get very strong sort of feeling within your heart. And then the whole day will be very peaceful. Recently I found out one very nice saying. The saying belongs to one Christian reformer Luther.
He is the famous reformer from Germany and he supposedly wrote in his diary one very nice sentence. He said today there will be very intense day, very tough day, intense day.
It means that I have to spend extra hours in my prayers. Usually, when people have very intense hectic days, they say, you know, let's cut my prayer. Ten minutes not more. I'm too busy.
Luther says, will be very difficult day. It means that I have to spend one extra hour in prayers. Then only I will be able to do what I'm supposed to do.
Then only I will be able then only I will be able to be concentrated and to be sober enough to do whatever I am I'm supposed to do, I'm to do in this day. And you know, this is what it is.
If we want happy, fulfilled and balanced life. We have to do spiritual practice. And there is no substitution for this. Nothing can really change this. Because this is the design.
We are designed in a certain way and if we are not fulfilling the uh the purpose of our designer then we will be useless. We will be good for nothing as the finger cut from the whole body.
So anyway, this is a little talk which I can give. I I don't want to really take advantage of your
kindness. I wanted to share little experiences of mine coming from a different culture, but somehow rather coming from a different culture, being originally from a different culture, I am here and I am dressed in this way, and I have an Indian name
and I never knew that it's going to happen with me.
But uh I became what I became not because I was particularly interested in in a particular form of religion, but because I was searching for truth and because I was searching for happiness.
And I have to admit to you that even though I have a difficult life, my life is not an easy life, but I am quite happy. I am quite definitely much more happy than I was 34 years back.
Even though I'm 34 years older and usually when people become older they're not becoming more happy than than the young ones.
Defining yoga as balance in Sanskrit
Thank you very much. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Is there any questions I can try to answer? At the beginning you said you said that the Kṛṣṇa told Arjuna there are three things. First one is the balance. What about the two?
I didn't say Kṛṣṇa said to Arjuna three things. Kṛṣṇa said to Arjuna many things. You use three Sanskrit words. Samatvam Yoga Muchati. What are the meanings of this three words?
Uchate means it's called Yoga means yoga, samatva means balance.
What you call yoga means balance or the balance kind of outlook of life, the ability to balance the dualities of the life, the contradictions of the life, ability to balance your life basically.
And he also says that that if you want happiness uh then you have to lead the balanced life. You have to balance your food and you have to balance your rest. What is this? What is the verse? The sixth chapter? Huh?
Yuktahara Viharasya. Yuktahara, you have to be balanced in your eating. Uh eating you have to be balanced in your resting, sleeping and everything else and then this is this happiness will come.
So balance is a very important thing. Balance is a very important thing. So balance is the main thing. But Krishna has so many nice things in Bhagavad Gita, not only three things, he says many things in Bhagavad Gita.
And it's amazing how this little small book contains everything and answers all the questions. It's really amazing. So my I will tell you three things, okay? I'm not Krishna, but I will tell you three things.
To round the whole thing, you know uh first thing uh of course please read Bhagavad-gītā. Second thing is please chant Krishna's name. And the third thing, please do it early in the morning.
So, in this way, you will feel the difference in your life. Even if you devote some little time, even if it's fifteen minutes in the beginning, it's it's better than nothing. It's better than to sleep this 15 minutes.
So but there are so many nice things which I can also say about Gita. It's a very relevant book. Very relevant.
Limitations of science versus creation
Anything else? Yes. Yes. So you started with one thing.
I'm also a Bhagavad-gītā student, you being a microbiologist. And with due respect, the only problem is when I said there is a famous word in the Sanskrit also, kṛpa-kāropatāvyasya janma-bhāva-surā.
When the bulb was made, it was made almost 10,000 times. When we say when the cell first cell was made, how it was made nobody knows. When we do experiments in the lab, something goes wrong, right?
So when the first light started, it might have just started with one cell. We have pacemaker which sees where the heart, you know, pacemaker starts, then you
have in vitro solutions right now where you have embryos, you know, getting so how can I say, see, I can feel the air, I cannot feel the word.
But on the other hand, on the other hand, when I say science, when you say science is not done, you know, inventory or science has not given the first self.
My only question I have, why can't you try for another 10,000 years and then see, yes, science has achieved the life. That's the only thing. I believe in God, I believe in science also. My only thing is this.
I cannot feel right. There is a little joke in this regard. Once scientists and God decided to make a competition, scientists said, you know, I can do whatever you do. You're doing these nice things.
And I can do basically the same things. So God says, okay, let's have a competition. So God says, so I take the earth, and you know I do something with the earth and I create something with the earth.
And the scientist says, okay, I also take the same earth and I do something with the same earth and create something with the same earth but God said wait a second please take your earth the earth which you created then we can be on par with you.
So science can do many things, but what science does, science basically imitates.
And when science imitate something nicely we're really amazed but we somehow rather we take for granted when the original scientist does this originally. You know, it's it's amazing human nature.
If if a human comes, this is the example which Śrīla Prabhupāda gives, if somebody comes and starts uh starts imitating how the dog is barking. You know, and he's really good in barking like a dog.
You know, so many people come to hear how somebody is just barking like a dog. But when the real dog is barking, nobody pays attention to do anything. So in the same way, you know scientists what they do, what is computer?
Computer is basically a very nice imitation of the brain. And everyone is amazed and everyone is praising scientists, oh so nice, such a beautiful creation. But this creation is nothing in comparison with the brain.
And who created the brain? God created the brain. And you know we have our limited capacity, science has limited capacity to reproduce something in the test tube, no doubt about it.
But what it reproduces, it reproduces what already exists. And who created the original thing?
And that's one argument which I can say you know but I I can say so many other things about it so many other things first of all it's not true it's not at all true that uh it only takes just one cell and then everything else is just from this one cell.
No, it's not true. It's not true. You know this whole creation and variety of creation. You know, scientists say, yes, we don't know how this first cell appeared, but after that we know everything. It's not true at all.
you know even if we have a little faith okay let's say this one cell somehow or other you know by just by chance you know let's let's be very generous okay this one cell appeared, but it's not the solution for the whole thing.
You know, I read one evolutionist, and this evolutionist he says when the original amoeba, original one-cell creature, came out from the water of the primordial ocean, and he really says he believes it, he says that,
of course, he's he's putting it in a very paradoxical way. He says that at that point, uh you know this this little amoebo or whatever, one cell, turned right. If we turn left, the life would be completely different.
Do you really believe it? You know they say that okay, let's say one cell appeared and then but the rest is just you know again by chance by chance by chance.
And ultimately you're by chance and I'm by chance and we are sitting here by chance, you know, there's nothing, no design, no reason behind it. I remember, you know, I was an ardent believer of this theory.
And once I approached my mother, and my mother said something you have to obey to me and you have to be a nice boy, and I was something like 18 years old, or maybe 20 years old, or something like this.
And I said, Who you think I am? I am just a uh how did I say this? I am just a uh uh a incidental combination of genes. I have nothing to do with you. This is what I told my mother.
My mother was so greatly offended by this statement. She couldn't forget it for many years. You would say you just incidental combination of genes.
This is what people say just to prove or just to kind of say that I am independent. I am independent of God. I'm just by chance here. No, nothing is by chance.
Albert Einstein, one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century, he says that God doesn't play dice.
It means that in God's creation there is no place for chance. You know, there is a design, there is a very very intelligent design.
You know if we see ourselves it's intelligently designed and according to the philosophy of Bhagavad-gītā, the form which we have is the original form of God. It's not by chance.
And uh it's it's the same form which we have, the whole creation is has the same form. In Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam it's very nicely explained that as much as we have seven chakras along our spine
seven centers seven energetic centers and you know, yoga means you develop the command over the centers and you uh
you raise your energy level from one center and another, from one chakra into another. They say that the same design is there in the universe. That there are seven uh levels, uh, seven planetary systems there.
And astrology very beautifully explains this and very beautifully proves it that there is it it's not by chance there is n there is nine planets in this planetary solar planetary system and each and everyone has some connection with us.
So the Mikro Cosm and the makrocosm, the cosmic creation and our little creation have the same design. Originally is coming from the original designer.
So, you know, some people say that you know it's just by chance, but it's not by chance. The whole thing is you know everything all every form in this creation has some meaning and it's basically
the development of the evolution, uh evolution of the consciousness, not the evolution of the body. So it's not that easy. You know. And even if you know science they they cannot they cannot create life.
They can only try to reproduce life which is already there. They can only try in a very bad way to imitate what is there.
You know, like now there is a big problem all over the world because molecular biologists and I have misfortuned to belong to them,
they created this genetic engineering and they put some, you know genes of the scorpion into the potato. And potato obtains some qualities of the scorpio or something like this. And it creates havoc.
All this genetically modified food is is just I mean it's a poison. It's not a poison. It's it's something really something is wrong. You know, they're trying to uh you know permutate and combinate which
is already there and even this they are doing it in a very wrong way. Really wrong way. In a very, in a very unholistic way.
You know, it's so it's it's a very you know this when when you try to do it independently of God without respecting God's creation and God's wisdom, you can only create heaven.
And people become overintelligent and they say we know better. God is little senile. He couldn't do the perfect world. We will do the perfect world. I mean good luck.
I don't want to live in the perfect world which they will create. You know, and God's creation, everything is so beautiful, so balanced. You know before that just 20 years back, everything was very regulated.
We knew that vasan panchami means wasan panchami. You know if it's wasan panchami immediately at the same very same day the hot weather will start or warm weather will start. And it was year by year by year.
Now everything is just, you know, now you know in i I I don't know how it is here, but at least in Moscow, uh you can have snow now in May. Which is unheard of. In May you still can have snow.
Why and uh in December you can have you know some nice green you know grass growing or something like this. Imbalance, everything is just upside down. So there is a there is a great design and great wisdom behind this.
And if you are trying to be, you know, and we know what what scientists know, what do they know? They know little tiny part of the creation. They don't even know this well enough.
You know, I'm a scientist myself, you know, thousands of scientists using billions and trillions of dollars every year des studying one cell, E. coli it's called. We have one bacteria in our intestine. It's called Escherichia coli.
It's the smallest bacteria. They studied and studied and studied and studied and still cannot say that they know everything about this little one cell. Anyway, you know, if you believe it, good luck.
Applying three gunas in daily life
But I think it's much more much more uh Uh wise to believe in God and try to live according to his design and to his will. Simply that, uh, three guṇas are written in Bhagavad-gītā. Yes. Sattva, rajas, tamas. Yes. Yes.
This is, see, this is the beauty of the science of Bhagavad-gītā. The modern science is very complicated, and you really have to know this, and you can only know little little part of the whole science.
In Bhagavad-gītā, you have this very general concept of rajas, tamas, and Sattva, and it's so universal, so simple, and
at the same time, it's so deep and profound that you can use it in so many different varieties of situations in life, and you can see how it works, and you can you can very practically use this concept.
Like also in Āyurveda. In Āyurveda, there is the concept of vāta doṣa, pitta doṣa, and kapha doṣa. dosha. And I spoke with one student of, uh, Ayurvedic College. He said I was studying in Ayurvedic College for six years,
and on the very first day of my studies in Ayurveda College, I was introduced To this concept of vāta, pitta, and kapha.
And he said, in the last day, you know, for six years we were studying vāta, pitta, and kapha, and, uh, you know, in the last days of my college we were still studying vāta, pitta, and kapha.
It's simple so simple that every layman can use this concept uh to bring some balance within your biological system. You can understand in very simple terms how it works so
that you can maintain the balance of your body and lead the healthy life by knowing this, by you know by changing your food according to the season, according to the this and that.
It's it's very simple for the layman and every layman can use it. At the same time, it's so profound that great experts they use the same concept, but they of course know it on a very deep level.
You know, like in India, you probably know there was this tri-guṇa-ji, the great, you know, diagnostic. Using the very, very same concept of vāta, pitta, and doṣa.
They, you know, yeah, I I can give you very a interesting example.
We have one Russian student of Āyurveda. He was uh he graduated from uh Jamnagar University in Gujarat, uh Ayurvedic University and he knows very well this pulse diagnosis.
And we have one very nice lady. She's a governmental official in Moscow, a highly placed lady. And she came to me and she was practically in tears. And she said, it's really amazing. You guys are really amazing.
She said something was wrong with my body. I felt something wrong. I went to Switzerland and I was for two or three weeks in a clinic and I spent $20,000.
And after 2 or 3 weeks, and spending $20,000 after a thorough checkup by the most, you know, top, modern, you know, equipment and all the methodology and medical science and everything, you know, finally they said to me that something is wrong with the left, how you call it, left part of your heart, left, whatever, left stomach of your heart, something is little little and then and then I came to your, you know, Ayurvedic practitioner and he took my pulse and it took him fifteen seconds and he said something is wrong with the left part of your heart. And
and she said, I was shocked, she said, I spent twenty thousand dollars, I spent three weeks of my life, you know, trying and trying and trying and he said it within just a few seconds.
And the point which I want to make is that the concepts which are there are not less scientific. They are very profound and very scientific.
This concept of the guṇas is extremely scientific. If it's developed on a scientific level, it can be, I mean, it there is a great science behind it.
And, uh, but at the same time it's so simple, uh, on the surface and everyone can use it. You know, you can, uh, superficially get acquainted with this concept and you can be benefited by using it in your own life.
But at the same time it's very deep and very scientific. That's the beauty of this science. It's very holistic, it's totally systematic, it's very, you know, it's very nice and at the same time extremely
profound, extremely deep. So that's that's Bhagavad-gītā, and when I said that you should, the practical example how to use this concept of rajas, tamas, and sattva, of the guṇas,
Ayurveda says that these three guṇas, they mostly constitute our mind. And they say that the natural condition of the mind is sattva. The only healthy condition of the mind is sattva.
And when the mind is sāttvika, when the sattva-guṇa is prevalent in our mind, if the influence of sattva-guṇa is there, then our life is normal, then our relationships are normal, everything is normal because everything depends on our the condition of our mind.
When the raja-guṇa and tamo-guṇa become more prominent within our mind, then we have havoc in our life. And you know, when I said that you should get up early, why you should get up early?
Because this early period of day is a very sattvic period. When the sattvic influence is very, very prominent outside.
And if you are not sleeping at that time, then the sattva-guṇa, which is very prominent and outside, comes within our mind. And our mind becomes more sattvic.
And if we sleep at that time, if we uselessly sleep, these very precious moments of time before dawn, before the sunrise, then on the contrary, rajasic and tamasic tendencies become more strong within our mind.
Our mind has a certain setup makeup, karmic makeup from our karma from the you know astrological position of our birth we we have certain tendencies within, ra— within our mind.
But we can balance these tendencies, even Rajasic tendencies, passionate tendencies, and tamasic tendencies, ignorant tendencies, by using or taking advantage of this sattvic periods of life.
And therefore if you get up early before sunrise, when the sattva-guṇa is very prominent and if you wake up and if you meditate or you know pray to God at that time.
Then the sattvik influence becomes uh prominent in your mind and the whole life will be changed. The whole life will be more satvik and more balanced because sattva means balance.
Rajas means passion, out of balance, ignorance means tamas-guṇa means sleep and you know ignorance and all kinds of indulgences. But sattva means balance. To lead the balanced life you need sattva.
To have sattva in your brain you have to get up early and do some spiritual practice. Okay, that's it. We have to be balanced because it's already nine years of Thank you very much Maharaj for sharing your