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| October 2008 ~ Issue 1 : : email: janananda@yahoo.com |
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Philosophical Food for Thought
(Some thoughts and readings over the past few days)
“Why is this happening to me, why do people get on my case always, why does no-one respect me? Why has Krishna taken so and so away like this? Why am I suffering when I have given my life to Krishna? What is there in it for me? Why am I afraid to speak my mind? Nobody understands me. The dilemmas of living in this world go on and on.”
There is no end to the flow of problems from our bodies, minds, the world around us and from other beings. Birth, death, disease and old age are constantly haunting us. How can we change the situation? What can we do to solve the problems? With the present crisis in the world economy amongst other things, people are talking of reform. How to save the situation from depression? But can we really improve the situation by our material manipulation? Can the problems of life be resolved by our external adjustments?
Change of Heart
Even in our spiritual endeavours we resort mostly to the external approach. Change of service, change of partner, change of place, getting my rights or my way, change of doctrine, religion, guru and so on. Some mental exercise to control the raging mind. Rarely do we take the stance of changing ourselves – of seeing ourselves as the key in the door – the change of heart. It’s easy to blame others - to find fault without, to point the finger and expect others to solve our problems. To expect the guru, or the society to do everything is shirking our responsibility. Of course to some extent the society is arranged to facilitate the fulfilment of life’s mission and is meant to make it easier. Unfortunately today’s society makes it far from easier but serves to increase the problems. The guru is pointing us in the right direction but we have to make the steps. We should look at reforming ourselves not others or things around us. In the following quote from Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati an insight into the solutions to the problems of life is given.
Self Reform
“The world stands in no need of any reformer. The world has a very competent person for guiding it's minutest happenings. The person who finds that there is scope for reform of the world, himself stands in need of reform. The world goes on it's own perfect way. No person can deflect it but the breadth of a hair from the course chalked out for it by providence. When we perceive any change being actually affected in the course of events of this world by the agency of any particular individual, we also know very well that the agent possesses no real power at any stage. The agent finds himself driven forward by a force belonging to a different category from himself. The course of the world does not require to be changed by the activity of any person. What is necessary is to change our outlook to this very world. This was done for the contemporary generation by the mercy of Sri Caitanya. It could be only known to recipients of His mercy. The scriptures declare that it is only necessary to listen with an open mind to the name of Krishna from the lips of a bona fide devotee. As soon as Krishna enters the listening ear, He clears up the vision of the listener so that he no longer has any ambition of ever acting the part of a reformer of any other person, because he finds that nobody is left without the very highest guidance. It is therefore his own reform, by the grace of God, whose supreme necessity and nature he is increasingly able to realise by the eternally continuing mercy of the Supreme Lord.”
Don’t Identify
From this we can see the real reform the solution, is to become conscious of Krishna’s presence always and in every thing and situation. Nothing is happening without His will. This is Krishna consciousness. In such a state there is no cause other than our own perception which is to be dealt with. A permanent solution within that does not need to spend all the time adjusting without when we lose something or things don’t go the way our mind wants. Naturally on the phenomenal plane, adjustments need be made according to the direction of scripture, in order to assist in facilitating the spiritual objective, but the primary change is with one’s own perception.
At present seeing ourselves in the centre, we respond accordingly to how those around us recognize our being in the centre. We accept and reject according to the effect of our surroundings on our minds.
Life is something like watching a Television programme. Now we may have experienced that whilst watching even a fiction movie, we identify with it so much that we may experience all varieties of emotional responses, from love to hate, to eroticism, to fear, to anger, to lust, greed, envy, depression and so on. The material world including our mind is like a 3D TV. If we don’t identify with it then we are not affected by it. See it for what it is. The following extracts for the song of the Brahmana of Avanti may help us to realize the futile attempt to solve life’s problems by external manipulation.
The Avanti Brahmana’s Lessons
SB 11.22.58-59
Even though neglected, insulted, ridiculed or envied by bad men, or even though repeatedly agitated by being beaten, tied up or deprived of one's occupation, spat upon or polluted with urine by ignorant people, one who desires the highest goal in life should in spite of all these difficulties use his intelligence to keep himself safe on the spiritual platform.
SB 11.23.3
Sharp arrows which pierce one's chest and reach the heart do not cause as much suffering as the arrows of harsh, insulting words that become lodged within the heart when spoken by uncivilized men.
SB 11.23.5
Purport
Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura comments as follows. "Often those who give up the materialistic path and devote themselves to renunciation are attacked by impious persons. This analysis, however, is superficial, since the punishment is actually the cumulative result of one's past karma. Some renunciants show lack of tolerance when presented with the remnants of their previous sins and thus are forced to enter again onto the path of impious life. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu therefore instructs that one should become as tolerant as a tree. If a neophyte on the path of devotional service to the Lord's pure devotees is attacked by envious persons, he must accept it as a consequence of his previous fruitive activities. One should be intelligent and avoid future unhappiness by rejecting the ethic of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. If one refuses to enter into enmity with envious men, they will automatically leave him alone."
SB 11.23.15
Generally, the wealth of misers never allows them any happiness. In this life it causes their self-torment, and when they die it sends them to hell.
SB 11.23.16
Whatever pure fame is possessed by the famous and whatever praiseworthy qualities are found in the virtuous are destroyed by even a small amount of greed, just as one's attractive physical beauty is ruined by a trace of white leprosy.
SB 11.23.28
The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Hari, who contains within Himself all the demigods, must be satisfied with me. Indeed, He has brought me to this suffering condition and forced me to experience detachment, which is the boat to carry me over this ocean of material life.
SB 11.23.29
The brahmana understood that all his suffering -- from other living beings, from the higher forces of nature and from his own body -- was unavoidable, being allotted to him by providence.
Purport
Rather than try to adjust his external situation, he tried to adjust his Krsna consciousness and thus realize his actual identity as eternal spirit soul.
SB 11.23.41
The brahmana said: These people are not the cause of my happiness and distress. Neither are the demigods, my own body, the planets, my past work, or time. Rather, it is the mind alone that causes happiness and distress and perpetuates the rotation of material life.
SB 11.23.47
All the senses have been under the control of the mind since time immemorial, and the mind himself never comes under the sway of any other. He is stronger than the strongest, and his godlike power is fearsome. Therefore, anyone who can bring the mind under control becomes the master of all the senses.
SB 11.23.48
Failing to conquer this irrepressible enemy, the mind, whose urges are intolerable and who torments the heart, many people are completely bewildered and create useless quarrel with others. Thus they conclude that other people are either their friends, their enemies or parties indifferent to them.
SB 11.23.50
If you say that these people are the cause of my happiness and distress, then where is the place of the soul in such a conception? This happiness and distress pertain not to the soul but to the interactions of material bodies. If someone bites his tongue with his own teeth, at whom can he become angry in his suffering?
Purport
Although bodily pleasure and pain are felt by the soul, one must tolerate such duality, understanding it to be a creation of one's own material mind. If one accidentally bites his own tongue or lip, he cannot become angry and pull out his own teeth. Similarly, all living beings are individual parts and parcels of God, and thus nondifferent from each other. All of them are meant to serve the Supreme Lord in spiritual equality. If the living beings give up their master's service and instead quarrel among themselves, they will be forced to suffer by the laws of nature. If the conditioned souls establish artificial relationships of affection based on the material body and having nothing to do with God, then time itself will destroy such relationships, and they will be subjected to further suffering. But if the individual living entities understand each other to be of the same family, all having connection with the Supreme Lord, their mutual friendship will develop. Thus one should not exhibit anger that will be harmful to oneself and others. Although the brahmana was receiving kind offerings of charity from some people and being harassed and beaten by others, he denied that these people were the ultimate cause of his happiness and distress, for he was fixed on the platform of self-realization beyond the material body and mind.
SB 11.23.52
If the soul himself were the cause of happiness and distress, then we could not blame others, since happiness and distress would be simply the nature of the soul. According to this theory, nothing except the soul actually exists, and if we were to perceive something besides the soul, that would be illusion. Therefore, since happiness and distress do not actually exist in this concept, why become angry at oneself or others?
Purport
Because a dead body does not feel pleasure or pain, our happiness and distress are due to our own consciousness, which is the nature of the soul. It is not, however, the original function of the soul to enjoy material happiness and suffer material distress. These are produced by ignorant material affection and enmity based on false ego. Our involvement in sense gratification drags our consciousness into the material body, where it is shocked by the inevitable bodily pains and problems. On the spiritual platform there is neither material happiness nor distress because there the living consciousness is fully engaged, without personal desire, in the devotional service of the Supreme Lord. This is the actual position of happiness, aloof from false bodily identification. Rather than uselessly becoming enraged with others for one's own foolishness, one should take to self-realization and solve the problems of life.
SB 11.23.53
And if we examine the hypothesis that the planets are the immediate cause of suffering and happiness, then also where is the relationship with the soul, who is eternal? After all, the effect of the planets applies only to things that have taken birth. Expert astrologers have moreover explained how the planets are only causing pain to each other. Therefore, since the living entity is distinct from these planets and from the material body, against whom should he vent his anger?
SB 11.23.54
If we assume that fruitive work is the cause of happiness and distress, we still are not dealing with the soul. The idea of material work arises when there is a spiritual actor who is conscious and a material body that undergoes the transformation of happiness and distress as a reaction to such work. Since the body has no life, it cannot be the actual recipient of happiness and distress, nor can the soul, who is ultimately completely spiritual and aloof from the material body. Since karma thus has no ultimate basis in either the body or the soul, at whom can one become angry?
Purport
Thus the miserable or pleasurable reactions of karma ultimately act upon the false ego and not upon the body, which is composed of dull matter, nor upon the soul, which has nothing to do with matter. False ego is the illusory concoction of the mind; it is specifically this false ego that is suffering happiness and distress. The soul cannot become angry at others, since he is not personally enjoying or suffering. Rather, the false ego is doing this.
SB 11.23.55
If we accept time as the cause of happiness and distress, that experience still cannot apply to the spirit soul, since time is a manifestation of the Lord's spiritual potency and the living entities are also expansions of the Lord's spiritual potency manifesting through time. Certainly a fire does not burn its own flames or sparks, nor does the cold harm its own snowflakes or hail. In fact, the spirit soul is transcendental and beyond the experience of material happiness and distress. At whom, therefore, should one become angry?
SB 11.23.56
The false ego gives shape to illusory material existence and thus experiences material happiness and distress. The spirit soul, however, is transcendental to material nature; he can never actually be affected by material happiness and distress in any place, under any circumstance or by the agency of any person. A person who understands this has nothing whatsoever to fear from the material creation.
SB 11.23.57
I shall cross over the insurmountable ocean of nescience by being firmly fixed in the service of the lotus feet of Krsna. This was approved by the previous acaryas, who were fixed in firm devotion to the Lord, Paramatma, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
SB 11.23.59
No other force besides his own mental confusion makes the soul experience happiness and distress. His perception of friends, neutral parties and enemies and the whole material life he builds around this perception are simply created out of ignorance.
The false ego – seeing objects of this world as being meant for one’s own pleasure. This is the root cause of the suffering in this world. Everything is meant for Krishna’s pleasure, even our so called family property, body, mind etc… Nobody is our enemy – everyone is acting under the influence of the modes which are under Krishna’s direction. Nobody it to blame for our so called misfortune or fortune. We are merely experiencing changes in the material energies around us according to our desire and how we relate to the pictures causing karmic reaction. it is stated the material is reflected on desire as a tree is reflected on water.
Don’t Blame Others
We ourselves are responsible and when we stop blaming others or circumstances then our lives take on quite a change. Do not even blame karma, fate, God, Maya. They are only responding according to our desire. They are neutral.
Get to the Root
Instead of treating the effect, as is only too often the case with conventional approaches, we should look for the cause. The cause is not material but spiritual. The cause - our ignorant identity with this body, mind and the world around us. Let us try to identify everything with Krishna and all problems will be solved immediately. Hare Krishna ………….
Approximate Schedule |
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| Sept 26 – Oct 9 | Philippines |
| Oct 9 | Malaysia |
| Oct 10 | India, Mumbai and Vrndavana |
| Dec 11 - 29 | Malaysia |
| Dec 29 – Jan 11 | Philippines |
| Jan 12 –14 | Malaysia |
| Jan 15 onwards | New Zealand – Australia |