Necessity of Developing Real Krishna Consciousness
Бхакти Вигьяна Госвами · Лондон · 2017
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Prayers and invocation
śrī-rūpa-sanaṭana-bhaṭṭa-yugapad śrī-jīva-gopāla-bhaṭṭa-dāsa-raghunāthau etau mad-guru-deva-pāda-kamalau śrī-rūpa-rūpānugau śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya-deva-śrī-rādhā kṛṣṇa-pādān sa-gaṇān namāmi śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya-prabhu-nityānanda
karuṇā-sindho dīna-bandho jagat-pate, gopeśa gopikā-kānta rādhā-kānta namo ’stu te tapta-kāñcana-gaurāṅgi rādhe vṛndāvaneśvari vṛndāvaneśvari, vṛṣabhānu-sute devi praṇamāmi hari-priye. vāñchā-kalpatarubhyaś ca
kṛpā-sindhubhya eva ca, patitānāṁ pāvanebhyo 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
ajñā-nambī-yogānāṁ kavatā-saṅkīrtanaika-ratāḥ vidharma-pālu-vandī jagat-priyā-karuṇāvatāra ājānu-lambita-bhujau kanakāvadātau saṅkīrtanaika-pitarau kamalāyatākṣau anyāṁś ca hasta-caraṇa-śravaṇa-tvag-ādīn
jñāntaḥ praviśya mama vācam imāṁ prasuptāṁ sañjīvayaty akhila-śakti-dharaḥ sva-dhāmnā anyāṁś ca hasta-caraṇa-śravaṇa-tvag-ādīn prāṇān namo bhagavate puruṣāya tubhyam.
Thank you for inviting me and I suppose I should speak about um the necessity of developing real Krishna consciousness. Very often whatever we do turns into some sort of routine. And we do it by habit.
And usually in this cases we lose the focus on the goal. By just doing it because everyone else is doing it and we are following the suit of everyone else.
And it just becomes kind of boring routine and we sleep and we say yes yes and prasāda mahāprasāda govinde — it's a great chant for you know to give you a lot of pleasure. Or sometimes you know kīrtanas and then again going back to sleep.
The problem with this sort of attitude is that you know this is the general tendency to spend our life in semi sleepy consciousness, in sleepy condition. We are just we are not really awake.
We may not be completely asleep, but we're not really hundred percent awake.
We don't understand what we are doing, where we are going, what is the goal, what we are trying to achieve, where we will we come? And this is definitely not what is expected from us by Krishna himself.
Krishna, very scientifically delineated the path of spiritual life, and one of the most important things which he always says in Bhagavad-gītā is that you should remember about the goal.
And he constantly, basically from the beginning till the end, is insisting that we should be awake and we should somehow rather develop our buddhi.
Buddhi is actually like we have this name Buddha. Buddha means awakened. Buddhi means conscious attitude towards the life.
It basically means that I know what I am doing, and feel what I am doing, I am not in my semi-dreaming condition. Because again, as I said, usually we are living in the dream world, in a future.
We always want to be happy, but we never want to be happy now. We always want to be happy in the future.
When this will come and I will achieve this and I will get promoted and my little you know apartment will be there completely paid off and this and that then I will be happy. You will not be happy.
Because you're not really capable of being happy now.
Functions of manas and buddhi
Because this is not the condition of a dream, you know, to be happy now, you have to develop your consciousness, your buddhi.
While living in manas, according to Vedānta philosophy or Sāṅkhya philosophy, there are some divisions or some functions of the mind. And one is called manas, and manas is emotional mind.
Where all the desires are there and dreams are there, and you know all the emotions are there. It's coming from subconsciousness.
And when we live in this sort of condition, in this mind, we always live in some sort of mind. It's a mental creation. We don't really live in the world, we live in our mind.
So when we live in manas in uh all this uh dreaming state basically constantly desiring something ultimately not very satisfied and sighed.
First of all, we cannot live at present. We're always either in the future or in the past. Present doesn't exist.
It is said that in the spiritual world there is constantly only present. There is no past and there is no future. In the material world there is no present. There is only past or future. Present doesn't exist.
You don't feel the presence. You always, you know, while you're doing something, you're already doing something else. Because this is the nature of the mind.
But there is a different function of the mind according to Sānkhya philosophy, which is called buddhi. And buddhi means basically the ability to feel and to witness what is going on, the ability to really experience what is going on.
And if it's underdeveloped, and in most cases it is underdeveloped, uh we are uh you know mm continuing this uh this sort of uh useless experience with life and nothing really happens. It's like in a dream.
We all know in a dream sometimes it's just, you know, I don't know how it is with you, but with me it's like this. It's just completely absurd something and it doesn't move anywhere. It's the same sort of stuff.
It's again and again and again, and it's just and you're stuck there in a dream. And you cannot get out from the dream. It's horrible experience, but you're stuck there and you don't know what's going on.
So the conscious experience when you are awakened is a completely different thing because in this case you are in control of your life.
The most painful aspect of living in this mental creation which we create is that we don't really know what's happening. We are more or less victims. We don't know where we are going, what's going to happen.
We are victims of this of our destiny. Because our destiny is in the mind. And all the horrors are there in the mind.
But buddhi, the intelligence, the real intelligence, awakened intelligence gives you a sense of control, the proper sense of control, because you really know what's going on.
You really know who you are, you really know what you want. Not just this strange mental creation, but you really focus yourself on the goal.
It's actually not so easy, but any successful people are those people who developed to a certain extent consciousness? Buddhi.
You know, even in a material sense, if you want to be successful, you have to develop this faculty.
Even in a material sense, not to speak about spiritual sense, but even in the material sense, you have to be really present.
This presence is a very important quality and ultimately it's given to us for the spiritual purpose. But it also helps to become successful in this material world.
We have to understand that whatever great things which we have, they are equally useful in the spiritual life and in the material life.
So what I want to say is that uh really we have to uh understand what's going on in life and develop this faculty of being present and understanding what's going on.
Otherwise, the whole life will be just useless waste of time when we just do something and we worry about. You know, one of the most important features of material life is that we constantly worry about something.
And if there is nothing to worry, we worry that there is nothing to worry. Because we cannot not to worry, you know? We're always troubled, we're always in anxiety. You know, there's always some cause of anxiety.
And uh you know we are constantly in this condition, you know. What was what's going to happen, you know, now Trump is there. So what's going to happen with the world now? Because the the Trump is there.
As if you can do something about it. You know, you can't do anything about it. Why why should you waste your energy and mental and time and everything worrying about this.
There is a nice story that there was one man, he put an ad uh in the newspaper.
You know, I need I want to hire somebody, and one young man came, came to him on this ad and said, you know what, you know, I'm ready, I'm unemployed. How much you will pay to me?
Ah well, you will get a thousand pounds a month. I said, oh yeah, that's good. So what am I supposed to do?
He said, see, I'm I always worry about something. You know, your only job will be to worry for me. You will just worry. He said, oh that's good. That's good. That I can do. No problem. I'm expert in this.
He said, very good. So they they kind of signed a contract and then he said, so when will I get my check? He said this will be the first cause of your worry.
Because I don't know where to get this money. Anyway, the the the point is that we we constantly worry about something.
And uh and we're wasting our energy and life and time in in worrying and worrying and worrying. And usually it's a trifle thing.
Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura says that one of the great anarthas, something which is really not helpful or rather harmful to our spiritual development is called tucha-asakti. Tucha means insignificant. And asakti means attachment.
Attachment to trifle things, to really insignificant things. And we all have experience of this. We all attach to these little things here and there and there. And we and we forget about the big things.
Krishna consciousness is so big that it's so easy to miss it. It's too big. Because our scale, our vision is really small timers.
Because of this habit being in our mind and the mind is really kind of degrading ourselves, degrading the vision, we'll lose the broader perspective. Buddhi gives the broader perspective of life.
If you have really developed intelligence, you understand what is going on, where you are heading for, what is the things which you should do, which you shouldn't do.
But manas tends to be attached to really small things in life and really make big things out of small things.
You're making you know an elephant out of a fly. Take a little fly and a fly and it becomes a big elephant. A flying elephant. Much more dangerous.
Story of the broken buttermilk pot
So we're creating all these these things because this is this is how our mind works. There is a very nice story actually I read recently.
There is a Sanskrit shloka, and this story is more or less an elaboration of this Sanskrit sloka which nicely illustrates this point. It's a weird story, weird. I'm really sorry.
It's it's it's really too weird, but but it's a nice story. Still. It makes a good point.
So the story goes like this: once there was a prince and uh he went for hunting and he had a few few friends with himself and he was in a jolly mood and he saw uh a few women, village women, carrying some milk products on their head, going to some marketplace or whatever.
And he kind of he wanted to frolic a little bit. And uh he remembered Lord Krishna. And Lord Krishna was stealing butter and uh yogurt and buttermilk and he thought it's a good, let's let's have fun.
And he told his friends, he was in a horse, and he told his friends, let's have fun, let's let's uh you know break and smash all these pots and see what these women will do. And then we will pay them.
But initially, he just wanted to have fun to see what will be the emotional reaction of these women. So he did this and you know he smashed by his arrows, all the pots which were there.
And everyone, all the women, they started crying and they started, you know, and one woman she was just standing there very calm and very peaceful and without as if nothing happened.
And everyone was just crying and saying, oh what happened, alas, alas, alas, so this prince, he became very curious.
He thought, you know, if this lady seems to be different, why why she's not so, you know, traumatized by this event. So he approached her specifically and he asked her, can you tell me why you're not crying?
And she said, do you have time? He said, yes, I have time. I will tell you my story. It's a long story. It will take some time before you will be able to understand what happened. And she started her long story.
As I said, it's a weird story, but uh please bear with me, as the prince was listening very patiently.
She said I was a young lady some time back, and I had my nice husband, and we had little child, little son, who was seven years old at that time, and my husband was a merchant, Seth,
and he went to another city for his business, and the king of this city where I was living, because I was so young and attractive, he wanted to seduce me.
And he wrote me a letter and he more or less ordered to me to come to him for his enjoyment. She said, I immediately wrote back to my husband. And my husband came back from another city and I told him what happened.
And we devised a plan. We saw that we will not be able to live in this city. So my husband told me to pretend that I agree with the proposal of the king.
So I wrote him a letter and I told him yes, I will follow your order, I will do what you like, but you have to come in a certain secluded place and, nobody should be with you. You should be alone.
So she said we packed our things with my husband and we went to this secluded place. My husband was hiding in a house and I had uh and I had a sword with me. So I went for the date of the king.
The king was there and I killed the king. And I ran back to my husband. And when I came to the place where my husband was hiding,
I found him dead because there was a snake and the snake in the meantime bit him and he was lying dead there. And I had my little child and I'm alone and I'm afraid and it's the dead of night and I'm just alone there.
So I ran completely mad and frantic somewhere in a jungle and in a jungle I met with some dacoits and dacoits they robbed me and they took all my decorations and all my jewelry and everything else.
And anyway, it's a weird story.
So it goes on and on and on, you know, the child Her child was adopted by another king and she went to a prostitute house and she started living with this prostitute because this prostitute kind of gave
her some shelter and she became the prostitute after you know losing the husband, and uh you know after all this and losing the child. And at one point, uh you know, when the child, this the son grew
up he came to this prostitute and they had some Sangha
with him and she somehow rather she realized that it's her son and she became so you know, she said, I went to brāhmaṇas and I asked brāhmaṇas, what am I supposed to do after all these things?
And the Brahmanas said, the only thing which you can do is just uh to lay down on a pile of wood and burn yourself. So I decided to commit suicide in this way and somehow or other to
purify myself from these sinful things which I did. So I went to a cremation ground and I put all the woods and I put myself there and I lit the fire, but in the meantime it was near the river.
The river came and the flood was there, and I couldn't even burn myself. The river destroyed this pyre where I wanted to burn myself and I I was flooding in the river and somehow I couldn't even drown.
It's just even with this I was not successful.
And then she said somehow or other I was in the another bank and there was this cowherd village where all these people live and they they sell their milk products and I started and I became a maid servant in this village and I'm also helping them to sell the milk products.
And here I am, I was carrying this pot with the buttermilk. And in the meantime, you came and you smashed the pot.
Remembering the real problems of life
And then she looked at him and said, And you think I should worry about the buttermilk pot? You know, after everything which happened to me, you know. I can't worry about the buttermilk pot.
So therefore I'm not as emotional as everyone else. But uh, you know, this is the story is the point of the story is we tend to forget the real problems in life. And we worry about small things in life.
We tend to forget that we are supposed to die. Who remembers about this? Nobody remembers about this. Nobody remembers that we will die and we will have to leave everything behind. This is the real problem.
And we worry about the buttermilk. We worry about Trump. You know, he will go to hell, so it's not our problem, it's his problem. We have to worry about our problems, the real problems.
That's somehow rather again, as I said in the beginning, that's the condition of our mind. Because we're living in this mental creation, we're losing the big picture. We are losing the real picture.
We're really losing what what's going on in life.
And we're only following a kind of day-to-day activity and yes, yes, another week and another week and another year and another one more year, and nothing happens. Nothing really happens. Nothing significant happens.
So what I want to say actually is that when and if we develop the intelligence, this very natural desire which is innate to our heart to develop spiritually will be burning there because we are spiritual beings. We cannot be happy no matter what is our material environment.
We cannot really be 100% happy. We will always feel that something is lacking in our life. Something is lacking.
But what happens in reality, we feel this lack, this scarcity, that something is is not really there. We feel that I'm not completely fulfilled.
But uh because we are not really conscious, we're saying that if I get this or get that, or you know, uh achieve this material goal or arrange this material thing, then this then I will be happy.
No, the point is that we will not be happy. Nobody is happy. Even Queen Elizabeth is not happy because she will die soon. And it will be miserable for her as for everyone else to leave everything behind.
It's probably more miserable for her than for us because she has a lot to leave. We don't have so much to lose, but still, still it's very miserable. The point is again uh to understand uh that whether
uh d do I really understand what's going on with me? I am just floating like I was telling to today, yesterday actually, as a dead fish in the flow of a river.
Am I just floating in this flow of time, completely helpless and like a victim? Or is something really happening, something significant happening? You know, whatever is is connected with matter is temporary.
And in Kaṭha Upaniṣad there is a very nice statement. If you run for temporary, leaving behind eternal things, you lose both.
Because you already left behind the eternal things, and temporary you will lose because it's temporary. You can't keep it by definition. So and that's that's usually the mistake which we do.
We're trying to catch something which cannot be caught. Which really you cannot really catch. It's a mirage. And we are exchanging it, we are kind of substituting and forgetting the real substance.
The substance is a very important thing. And it's and we forget about the substance and we are running after illusion.
In the very beginning of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam it is written that Kṛṣṇa is vedyaṁ vāstava-vastu daṁ tapanaṁ śrī-tāpa-nirmūlanaṁ. You know, there is illusory things.
Maya, creation, which is not really there. It's not really substantial. There is substantial things, was too. But then there is God. And God is Vastavam Vastu. He is the essence of essential things, of the real things.
He is the very essence of this. But again, because of our you know mental mental state we're living in, we uh for us something which is really unsubstantial becomes substantial.
Something which is really not so important becomes important. Can anyone confirm that we have so many things which are not really important but somehow or other in our mind it becomes very important.
Now it is important uh you know after one week it's not important. So it means that now it's not important either. So so many times we make these mistakes, we tend to take something which is not important to be important.
But vice versa also we tend to take something which is important as not important. And Krishna is important, God is important. I'm part of him. I belong to him. I'm really connected with him.
He is substantial, but for us he is just a picture. He's not, you know, he's just a picture. Nice picture. Yeah, it's there. No problem.
Reviving the soul's eternal blissful nature
But see that's that's the world we are living in. And Krishna consciousness is nothing but, you know, a step forward towards reality. We want to live in the real world.
Confronting the real problems, trying to solve the real problems. Śrīla Prabhupāda said the real problems is birth, death, old age and disease. And nobody is exempt of it. You know, we're just dying.
And people people are celebrating their birthdays. Which is very funny sort of, you know, habit. Celebrating birthday, you know. Yes, I became one year closer to death. Create cause for celebration. Can you imagine?
You know, there are some people who are sitting in a prison house and they are in one cell in a prison house together.
And then one of them says, you know, I'm here for three years let's celebrate this it's a great occasion for celebration let's have a party No, but uh you know uh again this is all the way to forget something substantial.
Substantial means you know I'm I'm eternal spirit soul. And I have my innate nature.
And ultimately I have to develop this nature. Unless I develop this nature, I will not be happy. And my nature is I'm immortal, sat, I have knowledge, I understand everything very clearly, cit, and I'm blissful, ānanda.
And Krishna consciousness is nothing but reviving this sleeping for the time being real nature of the soul.
And for that the chanting, Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare And while doing this we have to understand for what we are doing this.
And we are doing this for becoming really happy, no matter what materially. Materially it may, you know, so many things may happen today, so many things may happen tomorrow.
We have to do our duty, we have to live normal life. There's no doubt about it. But at the same time, we have to really remember the most important things.
And as far as the topic of today's talk is concerned, then actually whether I progress in Krishna consciousness or not is basically it's a very simple question.
And the answer to this is whether I am happy or not. Whether I'm happy, irrevocably happy. You know, the spiritual happiness is diametrically opposed to material happiness because material happiness is flickering.
Today I'm happy, tomorrow I'm not happy. The day after tomorrow I'm not happy again. And the day after tomorrow I'm not happy again. But then sometime in the future I will be happy, that's for sure. Somewhere near this.
Anyway, so it's it's coming and going. It's coming by some you know sometimes I'm elated, sometimes I'm sad and depressed and then and then again I'm in anxiety and this and that. But spiritual things are not like this.
Spiritual things, if you are happy you're always happy.
You're happy when you're asleep and believe it or not, you're happy even when you you know and early in the morning you have to get up, which is the most miserable time of the of the day, when you have to go from one phase to another phase. But you're happy because this is the nature of the soul.
When you come close to the nature of the soul, when you discover the nature of the soul through this process, spiritual process, then you're happy always.
And if you want to ask, you know, whether you're progressing in Krishna consciousness, you should ask this question, whether you're you know becoming happier or not.
You know, it's not necessarily that just by by being uh within the society of devotees and doing something little here and there, you're progressing. Not necessarily.
You know, yeah, we're on the path, but what we're doing on the path, it's not really clear.
Whether we're going forward, or we are standing on the pass, or we're laying down on the pass, or we are looking behind on the pass, that's the point.
But again, to be sure that we are progressing, we have to really understand for what it is. We all have only one purpose in our life.
You know people sometimes think I have this purpose, this goal, this I want to achieve, but ultimately there is only one purpose. Everyone has the same goal. We want to be happy. There is no other goal.
Whether you are sannyāsī, you know sometimes people think that sannyāsī they are just you know different species of life. Not at all. Same old stuff. But the only goal, the only real goal is to become happy.
And the only real means to become happy is to come to reality, to confront the reality, spiritual reality, eternal reality, to awaken this eternal reality within ourselves.
And even if we are not spiritually yet happy, but we feel that we are coming closer, that in itself is a is a cause to be happy. Yeah, I'm coming there. I'm coming there.
Because again, if we're not doing this, we will be just floating and it's not it's not really fun.
Subconscious habits and spiritual impressions
There was this famous psychologist, Carl Jung, very famous psychologist and really great psychologist. And he said that whatever you're not bringing up to your conscious mind.
Whatever you're not really bringing to your consciousness is coming to you as fate. And you will have to basically submit yourself to the fate.
You know, everyone is afraid of fate, you know, and they we all go to astrologers and say, dear astrologer pandiji tell me when my sadesati is finished you know don't worry
when the sad sati is finished something else will start in your child, there's always something there. You know, but all this fate, all this karma, which everyone is afraid, everyone is afraid of karma, it's nothing.
It's nothing but your subconscious mind. Nothing but your habit not to be completely conscious.
And Krishna consciousness basically means consciousness. Krishna consciousness is nothing but consciousness, real consciousness, when you're awake, when you're here, now, when you live, and when you manifest your real
nature, and our real nature is to be happy, to be compassionate, to be helpful, to be generous, to manifest all these beautiful qualities which are innate, to be righteous.
Bhakti Nyana Thakur says this is the constitutional virtues of the soul. To be righteous, to be compassionate, to be generous and that gives a great satisfaction.
So basically the question is the question is not whether we want to become Krishna conscious or don't want to become Krishna conscious. The question is whether we want to become happy or not want to become happy.
And if we want, if we do want, it's available, it's possible, it's really available. But it takes little endeavor and it's sometimes it's a little struggle, but you know it's natural.
Anything which is valuable is not so cheap, but it's available. Anyway, I I don't think I should torture you any longer. The prasāda is already ready, I believe. Anyway, thank you very much. Maybe you have some questions.
Difference between contentment and spiritual bliss
Maharaji I have one question. Yes. How is happiness different from being content? So is there any difference between being happy and being content? Uh no.
If you're content, if you feel fulfilled, if you're satisfied, It's happiness, yes. Um actually uh it may be slightly different. Being content, there is a Sanskrit word santosha.
And santosha basically means you're satisfied with whatever you have. You're not hankering for anything else. You're more or less you have this attitude. Whatever I have is fine.
I don't really need to expand and to do these things. But when we talk about spiritual happiness, that's more or less a neutral position. It's a zero point. It's a very nice zero starting point.
But spiritual happiness is something much more positive. It has a very strong positive effect.
Spiritual happiness is that when you want to love everyone, you know, when when your heart is really expanding, then you really want to embrace everyone.
I mean, not literally but you're really happy because the heart is expanded. So contentment is good but it's more or less neutral sort of things.
You got rid of all these trifles worries which you have and all these problems which you have, and you're content. It's a it's a great virtue.
Actually in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam it is said that this satisfaction of the mind, santosh, is the only means to purify the mind.
If we want to purify the mind from all these problems which are there constantly you know being cooked in the pot of our mind, then this attitude, yeah, it's fine. It's very nice. Positive attitude.
The modern business gurus they call it abundance mentality. It's a it's a nice phrase for very ancient wisdom, you know. And in Vedas it's called santoṣa, you have satisfaction of the heart. They say abundance mentality.
Basically the same thing. There is no scarcity in my life. Whatever I need is there. And they say it's the greatest virtue which will help you even to succeed materially.
It's uh Stephen Covey, he says, abundance mentality, that's his phrase. So that's contentment. That's being content. But spiritual happiness is more than this. It's really more than this.
So, but it it's a it's a very you know great positive experience which you get and it's so strong and so overwhelming that everything else become uh you know can it be compared to this.
Transcending physical pain through devotion
Yes. Can I just uh just going further on this uh subject of happiness, if say a person is really critically ill and is uh suffering a lot of pain to the can spiritual happiness transcend that? Yes. Definitely.
I had recently uh one experience. Uh there is one devotee, there was one devotee, he passed away recently. He was not young, he was in his probably mid-60s or something like this.
So he wrote me a letter, Guru Maharaj, I'm losing my eyesight, I don't know what to do. I wrote him something back and I said please check sorely. And then he writes another letter.
And he says that uh one eye of mine is totally blind and uh uh but uh this is not the worst thing and one eye only has uh ten ten percent of vision another eye.
And he said, but uh the doctors they uh found out that I have tumor in my brain. And he said it's probably my last letter to you. It's uh it's quite advanced. So I call him. He lives in another city.
And I kind of prepare myself to console him or to give him some sort of and even before I start saying something he said Guru Maharaj
I'm so happy I'm so happy you can't imagine how happy I'm I I'm the happiest man in the world I'm so happy and uh I just I I thought maybe he should console me really
and he was saying yeah yeah sometimes it's difficult but still you know I'm I have this experience and he was going on and on and on like this uh and his wife is she testified this.
And I called after that one week or two weeks after that, actually recently, just a couple of days back, she passed away. And the wife said that he became before he passed away he was still alive.
At one point he couldn't get up from the bed and he just closed his eyes and he doesn't open his eyes but uh he still hears everything and he smiles and then he she said uh
we started once we started playing kīrtana in in front of him and to the amazement of everyone he tried to get up and tried to dance.
For days he was lying there with closed eyes and but you know he he's experiencing something. He's not really his consciousness is not eaten up by all this pain and everything else.
Because ultimately we are not this and we can transcend this. I mean it's not easy, it's definitely not not an easy experience, but it's possible. Uh if you develop really strong saṁskāras, spiritual saṁskāras.
In Yoga Sutra it is very interestingly said, perhaps this is important thing I will tell you.
There is one sutra in the third part of Yoga Sutra, where it is said that there are two types of samskaras. The material samskaras, all the material impressions which we have, memories which we have, everything which is stored in our memory.
And then we have spiritual samskaras, samskaras connected with Krishna, with Krishna's holy name, with devotees, with everything.
And it is said when you sit down to meditate, that's to the subject matter of today's class, how to determine whether you're progressing in Krishna consciousness or not.
So Patanjali Muni in this Yoga Sutra he says, when you sit down to meditate, these two types of samskaras start fighting with each other.
Material samskaras want to drag you down to this material level and wants you to think about all these you know casualties which are there in your life, all this, you know, vanities and whatever is there.
And spiritual samskaras want to, you know, or help you to become absorbed in the spiritual realm so to speak and uh give the spiritual experience
so therefore for the big beginners in meditation there is this flip-flop experience.
You know, you try to chant and meditate on Krishna, and for some time you're able to concentrate on Krishna and have some experience according to the level or the extent of your concentration, but then you're immediately dragged down to the material level by the samskars.
So you know if if the spiritual samskars are really strong then even in this condition when you're sick and you're really you know in pain the body is suffering, you still will be able to go to this area of your mind where you're not affected.
You're there in the spiritual reality. But that will only happen if the spiritual samskaras are strong. What happens in our normal conditions, the material samskars are very strong.
And by building them up every day, by feeding them, all this experience which are there, and by feeding them again and again and again.
But if we develop the spiritual side of our personality strongly, then we will be able to transcend. So it's basically up to us. Otherwise, it will be very difficult because it's a painful experience.
And we know, you know, we have little pain in our teeth, and all our consciousness goes to the, it's not Krishna consciousness, it's this consciousness. The whole consciousness is just drowned there. It's just totally there inside.
Cultivating spiritual samskaras through discipline
Hare Krishna. Just I have this one question regarding this. How can we develop this spiritual samskara? So by just doing chanting?
Not just by chanting, but by trying to concentrate on chanting and uh really understanding uh who is Krishna, why we're calling him, you know it's the whole you know by hearing not only by chanting but also by hearing.
Because when we are chanting it's nice, but when we hear from some higher consciousness, it also helps a lot to concentrate on the spiritual matters.
And we have to hear about Krishna and basically, whatever saṁskāras help us to be conscious and to be concentrated. It's spiritual.
Therefore, you know when we do so many things at once, like you know, nowadays you surf on the internet and you eat something and you you know so many things. Multitasking.
It's it's very bad. It's really bad. It's really degrading for our consciousness. It's really developing the wrong side of our personality, the mind becomes really distracted.
So, you know, to help to develop these spiritual saṁskāras or samādhi saṁskāras, saṁskāras which help us to concentrate on the spiritual reality. We also have to follow certain regimen and hygiene of the mind.
Not to do so many things at once. If you do something, do what you do. If you eat, just eat and try to be there in eating, not on your work or whatever. So that will help.
It's actually a scientific process of how to deal properly with the mind and how to maintain the proper hygiene of the mind. And you should sleep enough, it's also Yes.
Uh I noticed they've got a transcendental calendar here. Is it just up on the shelf? There's a quote from Prabhupāda there. Can you read it, Maharaj? It's December nineteenth.
in which Prabhupāda points out this this spiritual reality. December nineteenth. It's a letter to Jayapatāka Svāmī. December nineteenth? Yeah.
And it's when Jayapatāka Svāmī asked I I read the letter The secret of surrendering to Krishna is that such surrendered devotee sees that everything is a part of Krishna's plan. Whatever is meant to be, I am doing.
Let me do it with my full attention to every detail. Let me become absorbed in such service, never mind what it is.
Let all other considerations be forgotten and only my desire to do the thing best for Christmas alone pleasure is my motive. Yeah beautiful. Beautiful. Very beautiful. Yeah that's the attitude.
That's that Krishna consciousness. You're completely aware of what you're doing and you're doing what you're doing uh with the best of your abilities. And your whole life becomes complete uninterrupted samadhi.
And that's the that's the highest possible ideal and it's achievable. Okay, I guess I should say thank you. Thank you very much.