Vedanta Psychology-part 4

February 17, 2009 Maharaja: So from the beginning here then we are establishing that the mind is real. The mind being real then it’s something that has to be dealt with. In fact, it’s actually the central feature of material existence. Because the spiritual existence then its main feature is one is absorbed in a particular affection for Krsna, and because of that affection then one has manifest a certain form. So in other words, according to the particular attraction and attachment one has for Krsna a particular form is manifest. That’s how the spiritual system is working. So the same system works here. There is not different formulas for anything in the cosmic creation. They are the same formulas. It’s just the application may be different, but the formula is the same. Depending upon what the mind is attracted and attached to, that’s the particular form it will have and that’s the particular activities he will do with that form. So if the attraction and attachment is spiritual, it’s Krsna, then you have a spiritual form. If the attraction and attachment is material, then you have a material form. So the whole point is actually the mind. Because the mind is connected to the senses, so all action is happening because of the mind. The mind is not moved, the body does not move. If you don’t have a desire to do something, then it’s doesn’t happen. And to that degree that that desire is there, then that activity becomes more enthusiastic, more focused, more directed. So the mind is the central feature in all this. So then Prabhupada is mentioning here, the mind is generated from goodness. So therefore engaging the mind in the Lord’s service brings it from its natural state of goodness to pure goodness. But if one doesn’t do that, then the tendency is, even though it’s generated from goodness, it will try to control and enjoy the material nature which will drop it into passion and ignorance. Then all the problem starts. Because the mind its natural function does not work well in passion and ignorance. It works minimum well in goodness, following the Vedic rules and regulations in the mood of detachment, it works very nicely. It’s peaceful. But as soon as then one wants to enjoy the material energy more grossly than this then all the problems come up. That then is the point is now if the mind therefore is focused on the Lord it brings it to its natural state of attraction and attachment to the Lord, therefore the activities become spiritual, and with time, since we are here, the form will become spiritual. What we have now will be spiritualized, it will become spiritual. So it’s the same process, it’s not something different than the devotional process. But the idea is we have to be very, very careful that we are performing the devotional process. Because the point in here is the connection to the Lord, it’s not the form. The form is important, because it’s how you are going to do something. Just like, you want to cook lunch, you are going to use pots and pans. But when you sit down to eat how important are the pots and pans? You eat the pots and pans? You talk about what a great pot it is? Wow, this lunch is great, you must have fabulous pots. Is that how it goes? No. It’s nothing to do with that. But you don’t get the cooked meal without the pots. It’s very obvious. You go to your friend’s house, you get in your car and you drive there. So when you get there, then you talk about your ride? No. But without it you don’t get there. So in the same way, the rules and regulations of vaidhi-bhakti, all these aspects of the sadhana, the varnasrama-dharma, all the etiquettes, these are very important. Without them you are not going to get to the platform of love of Godhead. No ifs, no ands, and not buts. But that’s not the main point. You identify with those, you don’t get to prema. So this ability to work with both of these simultaneously is very, very important. Means if you want to get to Vraja Vrndavana you’ve got to be able to accommodate this. You want to get to Vaikuntha, then don’t worry about it so much. Get into your rules and regulations, get stuck there, and it will work for you. Because in Vaikuntha they still are into rules and regulations, it matches the mood very well. So there is a consistency there that is quite obvious. And you absorb yourself in the Lord through the performance of the rituals of devotional activities, and you will be doing that eternally, so it works nicely. Straight-forward, very simple, very easy to understand. But worship in Vraja means you are performing the activity, but it’s not the activity that’s the most important. It’s the particular show of affection that’s important. So this is the whole point, this conditioned mentality of, well, if the rules aren’t actually the thing, it’s the bhakti, then we throw the rules out. It’s just so cheap. It’s so modern. It’s so pragmatic minimalist. It’s so bourgeois. You can go on and on with all these nice terminologies that express the present day environment. But it has absolutely no reality in getting you out of the material world. You want to be successful, you want that business, you want that money, you want that car, you want your position, go for it, it will get it for you. All these things will get it for you. But it won’t get you Krsna, on their own. Here Prabhupada is making this point here: If you simply stick to this principle, gopé-bhartuù pada-kamalayor däsa-däsa-däsänudäsaù [Cc. Madhya 13.80], that "I am nothing except the eternal servant of Kåñëa," then you are in the liberated platform. Kåñëa consciousness is so nice. You keep yourself. And for keeping yourself in that consciousness, the simple method is this chanting, Hare Kåñëa. You keep yourself chanting as many hours, twenty-four hours. Why as many hours? Twenty-four hours. Kértanéyaù sadä hariù [Cc. Ädi 17.31]. Lord Caitanya says, "This is to be practiced twenty-four hours." And that you can do. It requires simply practice. Even in sleeping you can chant Hare Kåñëa. Even in sleeping. And there is no bar. In sleeping, in eating, in going to the toilet room, there is no restriction. You can go on, "Hare Kåñëa." You see. That will keep you in your svarüpa, in your real identification, and you'll never be attacked by mäyä. No, it’s not that one. It’s this next one. Ok, so that’s the simple point, the chanting always goes on. So it can be done any time, even in sleeping. When you are sleeping and you are worried about something and anxiety is going through your mind all through the night, so chanting can also do the same thing. So here is that thing. So that chanting that’s the essential point. Now to engage the conditioned nature then we deal in all these other forms, these external forms. Here is another quote, this is Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, Brahmana and Vaisnava. Devotee (1): Maharaja, which page? Maharaja: I think it’s 15 of the introduction. If varnasrama and other fruitive activities enjoined in the sastras become prominent in one’s life then one cannot become kincana, or fully dependent upon the Lord. Rather these activities provoke offences against the chanting of the holy names in the form of conceptions of I and mine. For a person who is fully surrendered to Krsna becomes proud of following varnasrama principles then it must be considered he has become most unfortunate. Due to the influence of association with women the whole material world is daily advancing in adversion to Hari. So we can see here, this form is very important, but at the same time, if you identify with the form you got a problem. The boy is giving a gift to the girl. So it’s the gift that is the medium for exchange. Now if he identifies I am the gift, then what’s going to happen? Where is the interaction going to happen? Because he is identifying as the gift. So how do you express anything except through a medium, you have to use language of some variety, either spoken, or abhinaya from the facial features and other physical features of how movement. Some field has to be there, something through which it’s expressed. But the important thing is what you are expressing. So then in the sadhana we practice the performance of these activities. These activities are performed. And we practice how this form should be done until we get the form right. But when we get the form right if we identify with it, you have made a mistake. You are talking to somebody if you think I am this language, it’s going to be a problem. Because how does that language interact with the other person? You are interacting through the medium of language. So the varnasrama is a medium for which you show your appreciation for Krsna through serving Him, engaging body, mind, and words in His activities. But if you become those identities and activities how is that relating to Krsna? Then it’s not you relating to Krsna. So this is the thing, how the mind tricks. This is what the mind does, on the spiritual platform then the spiritual form and all those things are non-different from its transcendental desire. But in the material world then the activities and things that go on here are non-different from our material. So what happens is here in engaging, you want to engage in an activity, so there is going to be a field in which this activity is present. Then those elements within that field one will contemplate, because you have to understand what are all the elements, how is their relationship, what is going to actually get done what it is that you want to do in this field, and you’ll have your natural attractions to what elements you want to use in this field. So this way the mind enters the field and those things that are important within the field to you for accomplishing your results, that enters the mind. So this is material consciousness. Very simple. So now what happens do you identify with that. Basically what you do is become dead matter. In effect you are as good as dead matter. That’s the difficulty. Because we identify with it. So here he is making the point that this gopé-bhartuù pada-kamalayor, that you are using this but you are not identifying with it. And as soon as you identify I am servant of Krsna, you are liberated, you are not on the material platform. It’s actually that simple, that easy. So the idea is one is very careful to perform one’s duties very nicely, know exactly what is my position in the varnasrama, what is my particular duties, how to particularly effect them. I am a manager, how to manage nicely. I am a preacher, how to preach nicely. How to do whatever I am doing very nicely for Krsna, because why? The result is for Krsna. But now if we identify with that whole process that this is us, then it is not us serving Krsna, it’s that dead matter. And the dead matter already is serving Krsna, because as we discussed before, it’s already Laksmi, and she is already doing her service to Krsna. But you don’t get any credit for that. She is doing her service. But you are not technically doing yours. Externally yes, but technically no. And just because you reject varnasrama, saying it’s external, like Lord Caitanya says, doesn’t make any difference, doesn’t make you more internal. Internal is the mood in which you perform the external activities. Unless, of course, it’s Satya-yuga, then you just sit down in meditation and do that for 60000 years, and then after that time then you can get some credit. But if that’s not the case, if you don’t have 60000 years, or sometimes Bhagavatam says 10000, some did it in 10000. I think, Kardama was 10000 or 60000? I can’t remember. Some of them they were 10000, some of them were 60000. So you don’t have 10000 years, ok, we work on the quicker thing here, we got less time. If you don’t have that it’s not going to work. So that means then one has to be able to perform an activity. So one has to be careful, the activity and the mentality go together. Basically you check, any difficulty you have in any relationship anywhere that there is a problem it’s because you are not combining these two. You are performing the activity, the mood is wrong. Or the mood is right, the activity is wrong. It’s that simple. If it’s going to break down your relationships with Godhead, why wouldn’t it break it down with everybody else? They are His parts and parcels, they will also have similar, in small amounts, the same kind of desires and ways of dealing. So if it doesn’t work with establishing a relationship, why would it work with anybody else? So all of the problems spiritual and material come from this. One can’t combine. Now if you combine them nicely, then it will work on the material platform. The problem is you’ll stay here, you won’t go back to Godhead. So one has to be able to separate that I am working these things nicely, but I don’t identify with them. Because what happens is the mind identifies with them, that what creates mundane consciousness. Devotee (2): The analysis of the point of liberation, Prabhupada brings out on gopi-bhartuh on verse, 24 years, and also taking from what you have expanded yesterday. So in this position, at least I myself… as a tatastha jiva… if the jiva becomes liberated is not any longer tatastha. Can you…? Maharaja: No, the tatastha is the position in that. Because in the liberated state one is still, that is actually the pure state of tatastha. Devotee (2): Actually the question was it’s actually about if you could elaborate, because the stages of liberation are so diverse from the impersonal to where it’s actually bhakti the pure svarupa. So in this side, not just already in the spiritual they say already contemplation of the svarupa. But here in this side if there is no 24 hour meditation on consciousness even in the sleeping stage, therefore if I am as spiritual spark, Brahman, I will be relating in an impersonal way according to the proportion that I am conscious one hour, two hours, three, four hours. So the analysis always from this side. What is the interrelation actually the mind and the intellect, because I sometimes skip in my focusing, the mind tricks me and I forget. So in essence if you can elaborate about where faith arises…? Maharaja: Faith, where faith arises in that, ok. So the question basically is that are discussing here Prabhupada is saying that by, our method liberation is establishing ourself as a servant of Krsna, the identity is servant of Krsna. Because liberation or conditioning is actually a state of existence. So that means the state of existence is defined in sambandha-jnana. So if your sambandha-jnana is mundane, your existence is mundane. If the sambandha-jnana is spiritual, your existence is spiritual. So if you identify as servant of Krsna, you are not in the material sphere. If you identify in any way with the material, you are in the material sphere. So then the question comes up, as a conditioned living entity, we are not talking about once we get to the liberated state, but as a conditioned living entity, then when we are not actually Krsna conscious, when those moments that we are not identifying as Krsna’s servant, are we dealing therefore, it will appear therefore we are dealing with Krsna from the impersonal platform. So how to rectify that, or how to move that forward? The important element here then is the definition of devotional service as given by Baladeva Vidya-bhusana. Whatever is in connection to Krsna consciousness then is counted as Krsna consciousness. So the process of sadhana-bhakti, even though technically it’s not bhakti, because bhakti means you have love. But the process of sadhana is still counted as bhakti, because the living entity is aspiring for that. So if the goal is connected to Krsna, then the process becomes spiritualized. So even though we may be still dealing in that way, it’s not actually prominent on our consciousness, so it’s not counted. Like the child, you have the very small, like Krsna, Nanda Baba asked for his shoes, and so Krsna goes and picks up his shoes, not in a very expert way brings those shoes. But because he is not thinking, yes, I am very expert, I am very coordinated, I am so efficient in getting things done, then no one considers that as part of the process. The process is simply seeing the endeavor to actually try to please. It’s not the expertise of that. Or Krsna and mother Yasoda asked for something, the pot for churning, He goes over and tries to pick it up, so He just puts His hands there, but He can’t do anything, He just goes umm umm umm, like this, and so all the gopis laugh, because He is trying. So in the same way, because our consciousness is not thinking, yes, I am great on this impersonal meditation and process, therefore it’s not taken into consideration. What will be taken into consideration is that you are doing it for Krsna. So that’s why it’s so important not to identify with it. If by habit you are identifying, it’s still not taken as an important thing. It’s just habit is going on, that happens. But if we start to identify with it, think we are very good at this, very expert. I am a very expert manager, I am management and all these different things, that’s when then the fault comes in, then it’s counted. Before that it’s a fault, but it’s not counted. It’s just like the kid in first grade can’t read, but nobody counts it as a fault. Because he is learning the letters, learning the process. But if he was in twelfth grade and he can’t read, then we might say there is a problem here. But if the little kid the first-grader thinks, yes, I am a great scholar, big great writers move aside, Noble Price here we come, like that, then you might kind of tell them that no, your place is actually here. Just because you can read Dr. Sues doesn’t now make you a great scholar. That would be the element, that’s why the element of sincerity. Krsna was pleased with Lord Brahma, it mentions in the Second Canto, because of his sincerity. His sincerity was that he wanted to do these things to please Krsna. Not that what he was doing was so expert. But it was that he did it to please Krsna. Therefore the process works. That’s why if you identify as servant of Krsna, you are liberated. So we have this hard and soft side, this thunderbolt and the rose. As long as we are humble, the rose is applied. As soon as we become proud, then the thunderbolt is pulled out. And so therefore the element it appears confusing. But this is also back to the first point we were making in the class about this ability to accommodate these two conflicting elements. You have the form which is important, but it’s actually the expression that is being given through the form that’s more important. But it can only be expressed through the form. So they go together. So in the same way this sincerity to perform an activity, that the result is for Krsna, you are trying to do it to please Krsna without the false ego, then that combination works very nice. But if we become proud, then the process is lost. Because then we are identifying again with the material energy, we are going back into material energy. Just because you go back into material energy from a very sophisticated platform doesn’t make it any less material energy. Prabhupada give the example, if you are bound by an iron chain or you are bound by a gold chain, you are still bound, you are still in the material world, though you can show off your gold bling. Yeah, check out the gold bling here. Your iron ball only weighs 50 kilos, but this is gold so it weighs 150 kilos, check it out how much gold. But that means you are three times more immobile, but whatever it is, it works. I mean now they put the chain from the loop into the pocket, there it’s from the ankle to the ball. So it’s just another, just give us some time it will become popular. So there is these fine points of just identification. So the idea is this is to get it where we can appreciate this and understand this. Then Maharaja will go into the different points of very finely how to identify the difference between the identifying with the material energy and not, or how to do that. But as we said, without the faith then that mood of sincerity that it’s being done to please Krsna and the focus on trying to develop that and make it. So Brahma was appreciated for his sincerity, not for his expertise, and that’s Brahma. So there is basically nothing that we can do in the way of expertise that we consider good. So it’s always going to be sincerity. That’s what Krsna looks for. Expertise is nice, but the point is the expertise comes with practice. So more important is the mood. But the problem is when practice is there and expertise comes, then pride can also come. And as soon as pride comes it’s ruined. Krsna is not proud of being God. It comes natural to Him. He doesn’t have to prove it to anybody. He was God before anybody else existed, or at least in the manifest state, and He was quite satisfied, He was atma-rama. So He didn’t have to get anybody’s attention and He says, hey, check that…I am a great God… He says, what do you think? Mother Yasoda comes running in, mother Yasoda, oh, you are such a nice little God. Don’t worry when You grow up everybody will worship You. He doesn’t have to do all that. He is very satisfied. So the faith then means the sincerity can be there. If there is no faith, all you have is expertise, and if all you have is expertise, you have to identify with something. Faith means you identify as servant of Krsna, therefore through sincerity you will become expert. But if you don’t have the faith, you will become expert but through material identity. So even though it’s very sophisticated, it’s still you are in the material world. It’s a problem. So sophistication isn’t the symptom of advancement. Sincerity is. Devotee (3): …this identification…do some service and think we are very sincere with that, but still we have so many material desires and then identifies so much with them. So how much does Krsna accept that because we are still very much identifying? Maharaja: How much does Krsna accept, ok, we are performing our service, we are trying to do it nicely for Krsna, but so many other desires are there in our life. So how much does Krsna accept our sincerity or not? Basically speaking He accepts the sincerity on how much you want Him to. Because He reciprocates with you how you surrender to Him. So if you think God is so strict and all that, so therefore if I do anything wrong, then it’s just a matter of time before that thunderbolt coming out of the sky gets me and I am just this little pile of ash sitting there, like we do in most religions. So that’s why we see, you can tell how much we can forgive others. If you can’t forgive others and anybody makes a mistake and they are eternally damned, then basically you are in the same boat. Not because God works like that, because He reciprocates with you as you surrender to Him. So the point is if you are sincerely trying to serve, then even the desires are there, that doesn’t matter. Because in your sincerity you will try also to connect those desires to Krsna. And to that degree that you are successful to that degree Krsna is pleased. Means the degree of success is how much you are trying to connect them, not in how expertly you have connected them. Because if you are sincere that you want to, Krsna will give the intelligence. Krsna says, I give, dadami buddhi-yogam tam, I will give you the intelligence how to come. You want to do it, He’ll let you figure it out. Devotee (3): So even if we fail. Maharaja: You fail, you try again. It’s just like this, the mother is there, the mother’s friends are all there, the baby for the first time gets up and starts to walk, what does it do? It falls over. And so all the ladies go, wow, look at that, oh my God, my kid is so useless, what a stupid idiot. Is that what they do? No. So the kid gets up and tries again. And he keeps trying until he gets it right, and the parents are very happy about that. So the problem is God doesn’t have a problem that you made a mistake as long as you are trying to correct it. The baby makes a mistake, but it doesn’t then get all mental about it. If they, oh, I can’t walk…oh, I am so useless. It doesn’t do that. It just gets up and tries again. So you make a mistake, then you figure out, ok, that was a mistake, how to correct that, do it again, until you get it right. Devotee (3): Isn’t it a point that we don’t identify any more with material matter…at the point of liberation, so until we come to that point… Maharaja: But that point, that point of liberation is not something, it’s not all and nothing. It’s like this, one of the greatest comforting elements of spiritual life is God is not American. He does not work on this 100% or zero. You are either a pure unalloyed devotee untouched by that, or you are a complete write-off that there is not even words to describe how disgusting you are. God is God and He is able to accommodate even these moments, you are trying and that’s what’s seen. So those moments you are identifying you are liberated, those moments you are not you are not. You can move in and out of it. It’s not that until I am completely 100%. No. It’s how much degree it’s done it’s that much done. Let us say you are cooking rice, it takes ten minutes, it’s been cooking for two minutes, how do you identify it? As two minutes cooked or eight minutes uncooked? Oh, it’s partially done, it’s partially cooked. We know it’s uncooked, but the focus is on the cooked part. So those identifications with Krsna is what is seen, and the other parts are the parts that haven’t developed yet. So as long as you are not proud that’s how it’s seen. But as soon as you become proud, then it’s like, hey, it’s only two minutes cooked. God is very kind as long as we reciprocate with that same moods. If someone is very kind, you should be humble. If someone is very kind, we become proud, it’s a problem. The parents are kind to the child, then they become puffed-up. That’s a problem. The parents are kind to the child, the child appreciates that and tries to render service and somehow or another be connected to be useful, then that’s proper. That’s the element. Devotee (4): …the pillar example, that it’s Laksmi-devi is…her service… Maharaja: So you want to know why that one? Why not that one? That’s why it says, sahasra-koti-laksmi. He is surrounded by thousands, there is lots of pillars out there. Devotee (4): You have also mentioned previously that it’s actually just dead matter that’s infused by the universal form. Can you clarify the difference between the two descriptions? Maharaja: There is a difference there and there is no difference. Means in other words, there is Krsna and His svarupa-sakti. Krsna is the complete form of Godhead. Svarupa-sakti is the complete form of God’s energy, that includes all the energies. So therefore then depending upon how you are perceiving, in other words, means the material energy is dead matter, but it’s not called dead matter technically, it’s pradhana. We are dealing with the element of dead matter, because we are seeing it separate from Krsna. That’s the problem, we see it as dead matter. We don’t see it that this is the medium for Krsna’s energy to hold something up. This is the problem. We see form, we don’t see the cause behind the form. What is it the two, there is the efficient cause, what’s the other cause? The material. So we see the material cause, we don’t actually see the efficient. We see the pillar, we don’t actually. We just say, oh, the pillar there. Pillars hold things up. But how does a pillar hold it up? We can’t build a pillar out of straw. There is only certain mediums that can hold the building up and everybody will agree with that. So therefore everything that is efficiently working is because it’s the proper medium. And the degree of the efficiency is how proper it is to carry that potency. A bicycle has a certain amount of potency, a car has more of that, an airplane more. But they are all carrying that same potency of locomotion. But still those aren’t as potent as the things where the siddhas, they just move through space without anything, or Narada Muni, much more efficient, it doesn’t take any petrol. So there is always the form through which the energy is there. So then there is a non-difference then between the two. So then Laksmi is expanding, because He is performing the material pastimes, He is the creator, so that means she as the energy is the created. And their interaction is what is dynamic. Because pradhana is just sitting there, there is no interaction. He is not interacting, she is not doing anything. He interacts as Sadasiva, then she starts to be active. Then you have mahat. When Sadasiva interacts with pradhana then you have mahat. That’s the response. So the response of Sadasiva is Vasudeva-sattva. So therefore Siva is that position of being in the liberated state. And then as then Brahma in the secondary creation are created then the response is there with all the different interactions. The desires of the living entity are there, so therefore all the primeval forms are made and all the potencies of those primeval forms. So then that’s already going on, that interaction is already happening. But now on the platform of the universal form. The universal form is interacting between Himself and His energy, but it’s through the medium of what is the material energy. So because she is svarupa technically she is both. Your head does one thing, your feet does another, but it’s all the same person. But of these that interaction or that rasa is the greatest in the spiritual platform. The mediums are the most perfect and the expression is the most perfect. But while here then the mediums are inferior and the expressions are inferior. So the thing is then we are here in this and being tatastha we can see either, spiritual and material. So here can also see it’s the spiritual. Sukadeva Goswami is seeing it as spiritual, because it’s Brahman. It’s not Bhagavan spiritual, it’s Brahman spiritual. Because it’s santa-rasa. Everything we see that’s all technically expansions of the santa-rasa, its field of activities in which things will go on. So it has its natural form, the dhama and everything there, and then here we have the material form. But it’s the same potency. Just in its natural state of santa which is coming from the sandhini potency, or in its perverted state of existence which is ignorance. So therefore everything is conscious there. Here everything is dead matter, it’s ignorant. But we then identify with the dead matter. And so we think, we just see the stuff here, we don’t see everything else that’s going on. That’s the problem. When you see everything in connection to Krsna by some platform. This is the beginning intellectual platform to connect yourself. We use that a lot because much of the time in the sentiment our sentiments are so mixed that we need this intellectual element to be able to split it. Because the sentiment is just connect your emotion to Krsna, the mind to Krsna, that’s all you require. But along with that, we have our mind also connected to our family, and our money, and our position, and our rubber ducky in the bath tub, and whatever else it is. And because of that then the emotion is mixed. So we never get there. So without the intellectual how you’ll know what to keep and what to not keep, because many times people can’t tell the difference. Sahajiyas can’t tell the difference. Smartas can’t tell the difference. So both of them keep one away from Krsna. Therefore the intellectual process, this jnana-yoga, is given so that one can properly distinguish. But it’s connected to bhakti, because you are doing it not because it will get you liberated, not because you are intelligent and therefore you are comfortable engaging all that and that’s your purpose, and not because it’s just the right thing to do, it’s the pious nice thing to do, or it’s not because it’s the most efficient and it will make my business work better, or I get better sense gratification. It’s none of those. It’s because it will please Krsna, therefore it’s counted as bhakti. So buddhi-yoga includes karma-yoga, jnana-yoga, dhyana-yoga. Then all those because they are done used to please Krsna it’s all counted as bhakti-yoga. We don’t really make a distinction between, bhakti-yoga, karma-yoga, jnana-yoga, dhyana-yoga, or the combination of all that as buddhi-yoga. We can use any of those terms to mean the devotional process. It’s just we’ll use a term depending upon where we are emphasizing at the time. It is a matter of your activities, we are talking karma-yoga. Like this we are intellectualizing on these things, this is jnana-yoga. Dhyana-yoga, how to absorb the mind in Krsna. But then when these are combined in active service, action in Krsna consciouenss, this is buddhi-yoga, and that will lead us then to prema, or actually we’ll use it up to the point of liberation, then we’ll use bhava-bhakti. But below bhava then buddhi-yoga is the most efficient form to use. Devotee (5): What does true forgiveness consist of and how to attain it? Because a lot of times they say, yeah, I forgive this person but I don’t forget, I will never forget, and then… Maharaja: Forgive but don’t forget, isn’t that the saying? Devotee (5): And then it changes the relationship because one always remembers that. And at the same time being merciful to a person sometimes means one avoids that person or one deals in a particular way, but as Vaisnavas I try to… the platform of true forgiveness. So what does that consist of? Maharaja: In a nutshell, because it’s kind of the end of the class. Something has happened, some interaction has happened that we don’t appreciate. But that interaction is actually the interaction of the field of activities. So if we identify with that field then whatever happened in that field is actually very important. If we don’t identify with that field then what happened is actually not so important. So then if there is some understanding of it, or we are having a good day, or some emotions then we may forgive, but like you said not forget. But that forget is there, we don’t identify with the…in the field. It’s like I am a senior devotee, some junior devotee didn’t deal properly. But then we are identifying with the field. We are identifying I am senior devotee field, they are junior devotee field, it’s material. Devotee (5): There is minor sin, there is major sin, and there is cardinal sin. Maybe this is too Christian. Maharaja: No, but cardinal sin is I and mine, I am the controller and enjoyer, that’s the actual cardinal sin. So that’s why we are here, all other sin comes from that. Devotee (5): Still in the material world you distinguish between minor misgivings and things which are… major… Maharaja: But major is based on what? Major is killing a brahmana, or blaspheming a brahmana, or in some way insulting a brahmana. In that also comes killing a cow. And sometimes even it’s considered within the category but lesser of that most heinous of all crimes is killing a friend, so that would also include blaspheming a friend. Does our Western First World Christian attitude count those as cardinal sins? I don’t think so. Blaspheming devotees is kind of like breathing for Westerners. And they don’t understand it’s as bad as killing a cow or killing a brahmana. They’ll just say, oh, I am just being practical, I am just being truthful. But it’s still the worst sin you can commit in the material world. And if you have done it by accident, just the emotions came up or something like that, then you can be purified of it. If you have done it intentionally and you mean it and you want it to stick, there is nothing that can purify you, nothing material. The only thing is chanting Hare Krsna, and that’s only when Krsna is going to let you go for it. So there is no atonement for that. Sins of moral sins, means if you are having sex with the guru’s wife, then it’s one of the major sins, or with a cow or with an unmarried girl, then these are major. But if it’s not in that category, then they are considered minor sins. Devotee (5): What about child abuse? Maharaja: There is going to be a problem here because there is no understanding of the levels of sin and how they work, it wouldn’t be able to be explained. Because the point is these things what I am saying don’t actually mean anything to the Western conditioning. So the hierarchy of sins won’t actually mean anything. Because it’s said that you wouldn’t eat onions and garlic, leeks… I mean all these other things, mushrooms, they wouldn’t be ingested. But those are very minor sins. But you can lose your brahminical status from that, but they are considered minor sins. Within the minor sins you have I think it’s five different categories. So to be able to understand these things this would have to mean something to you. Because the general problem in the Western mentality is it’s all this or it’s just nothing. So if I say it’s primary then it’s worth getting your head cut off, if I say secondary means you don’t take it seriously. So the conditioning you are dealing with here actually clouds the ability to be just. Because generally in the Vedic thing there isn’t really so much the element of child abuse. It’s more of a tribal thing. And if you are not fitting within the four varnas you are a tribal, sophisticated, but tribal. So then in here then you come up with these mixes of things. So then you have to consider what’s been done, how much has been done, what are the mentalities of the people meaning what is their natures, how much were they involved meaning consensual or non-consensual. Consensual then it drops it quite seriously, non-consensual then it keeps it quite serious. Because even though it may be a minor sin, it’s still depending upon your mentality, may result in very severe punishment. Capital punishment, corporal punishment, banishment, all these different things. But it very much depends upon who it is. So that’s not accepted. It will be said, oh, you did this, that’s not brahminical. But if you say, well, what is brahminical and how would you deal with a brahmana? That’s not there. So it’s totally inconsistent. So you can’t actually answer the question nicely. Because all these unless they are considered you can’t come to a proper judgment. And unless you consider all these if you come to a judgment, then what is shortfall on it you will get the reaction for, and it can destroy you, your family, your direct service, and even your area of service. The temple president deals wrong on justice, it can destroy his life, his wife and family’s life, the devotees in the temple, and even the temple community. That’s not known. Everybody deals with it as if it is a joke. At the same time they take it so seriously. So until these mentalities are corrected you can’t actually get to much into the definition of that. Because we were giving an example there but otherwise this whole thing of justice and punishment is a very large topic that only very qualified people can understand. Qualified means that any devotee can understand it, because being naturally a devotee being a brahmana then it works as long as they are acting on the devotional platform. Otherwise in their conditioned nature there has to be brahmana or ksatriya, otherwise forget it. Higher and vaisyas, yes, but if they can be kings like Nanda Maharaja, they can also understand, because they also have to give justice. But anybody below that don’t even bother. Because their own conditioning will throw the whole thing out of proportion to such a point that it doesn’t function. It doesn’t matter because they think that’s ok, material energy is material energy. You think the fire shouldn’t burn the little baby, it will anyway. So you think I can make this decision, it doesn’t matter, it’s for Krsna. No, it’s not. Because your decision is based on your own conditionings, therefore then the reaction of that is going to come to you. Unless it was correct according to guru, sadhu, and sastra then you are getting a reaction. That’s all, it’s that simple. That’s why justice has to be dealt with very, very carefully and only by those persons who are qualified to deal with it. That’s why the common person doesn’t take these things into their own hands. They leave it up to the authorities to deal with it. You deal with it in your own family, in your own little circle but with all these considerations, then it works nice. But on these bigger things, then if you don’t know what you are dealing with, you’ll get burned. So the difficulty comes, this is not a philosophical point, this is a cultural point. And because of the identifying so strongly as we are saying here with the modern culture, especially the Protestant, as the prominent element of the First World culture. Means it doesn’t mean, you can be any religion, but the whole social economic thrust is Protestant, meaning it’s just you and your feelings, because that’s what the Protestant is, me and God and my bhava, that’s more trying to be raga, not so vaidhi like the Catholics were. But in that the bottom line is, as Narada Muni pointed out to Vyasadeva, you are going to drop the actual purpose of it, the Mahabharata is trying to get you Krsna conscious and you are just going to see the material side of it and forget the God conscious, so in the same way, they are going to it’s just my bhava, what I want to do that’s reality. And that works very nicely with the sophists, the sophistry of vox populi. This is what I feel, if I can find other people that feel like that, that’s truth. So then with this combination of the sophistry and just the emotional element of the Protestant, that culture is totally devastating to any sense of authority, because that’s the first thing they go after. That’s the first thing that’s gone after is any authority, sastra, Prabhupada, previous authorities, anything like that, varnasrama. It’s all just thrown out, it’s the first thing to go, because it’s just your mood. And then whatever I feel and my friends feel that’s truth. So therefore if we establish, this is law, it’s correct. But this is all coming from identifying, the mind identifying with these things. Because if one doesn’t then the whole point is if I am servant of Krsna, therefore this has to be pleasing to Krsna, so it has to be coming down from Krsna, so what does Krsna say in the sastra, what is Prabhupada saying, these would be the prominent elements, what is the example Prabhupada set, what are the previous acaryas set. Then we would start looking at it from that angle and that’s a completely different flavor. So then that’s the point then that would I guess then go back to the answering of the question of the mood, the forgiving and the not forgetting means that the form is there but not the actual mood of it. We haven’t taken the identity I am servant of Krsna, so therefore it doesn’t really matter. But on that still as a practical point, the forget doesn’t mean you are stupid. In other words, if they have proven themselves that they can be forgiven, then they are forgiven and you forget about it. But it doesn’t mean that if any symptoms come up of their previous behavior that wasn’t correct, you are not at that point not defending against it. It doesn’t mean you are just open and trust and therefore you get run over. This is not a sentimental thing, you use your intelligence. So as long as there is no symptom of it, you leave yourself open. As a relationship you have to leave yourself open. But as soon as a little bit of something pops its head up to that degree you pop up your defense. But it’s not from the past, you are dealing with the present. You have forgotten about the past doing wrong, but you know that they could do this, so it’s just there. And if they do do it, then you deal with it. If they don’t deal with it, it’s not dealt with. So that’s the problem, it’s either you have to protect yourself and feel bad towards them, or throw it all out and leave yourself completely open and then get trashed again and then lose more faith in relationships and God. But intelligence means it’s a balance. You forgive, you forget, and as long as nothing shows up… Like Romaharsana Suta, he is a suta, so technically speaking he is varna-sankara which puts him outside varnasrama. But being a suta that means his father is a ksatriya, the mother is a brahmana, then they could by association and by the nature of the parents the mentality, he could take up brahminical activities very nicely, he take up ksatriya activites and be a great king, he could take up be a chariot driver, or he could go out and snare small animals. These are the mentalities that would work with this. So therefore the Vedic would be he is varna-sankara, but where will he fit? So you see, so Romaharsana Suta behaves as a brahmana. So he is accepted as one and everybody forgives and forgets about his past. But as soon as Balarama comes into the assembly and he doesn’t stand up due to pride, because that pride wouldn’t come from the brahmanas or ksatriyas if a superior came, and a chariot driver also would not be proud of a superior coming because that’s what he does, he serves on that mode of nobility. So it has to be dropping down into the small animal snare mentality. So therefore then they just go, well, he was suta anyway, it happens, and so then they move on. But until that point no one ever brought it up. In fact, all the 18 Puranas are spoken by either Romaharsana Suta or his son Ugrasava Suta. They are not spoken by some other brahmana or this, they are all spoken by the sutas. So when they are on that platform, no one thinks about it, nobody cares. Just like the devotees, they are from whatever countries, from whatever background this and that, nobody cares. But the same not caring still applies even as a devotee if they make a mistake. This idea, oh, whatever you did before we can forgive that, but anything as a devotee that can’t be forgiven? That doesn’t make sense. Some made some kind of mistake, sensual mistake or this or that kind of mistake, and that’s so big. But somehow or another eating a million cows is just let off like that. It doesn’t make sense. That’s why I am saying that it’s very hard to bring about what Vedic adjudication on things if the mentality isn’t seen in balance. Because they’ll just write off having eaten cows so easily, but then someone else ran off with someone else’s wife and that’s it, they are eternally damned. But how is that? He says, it’s like somehow or another that one you can just figure out, this was stupid and get back to normal. The other one even you think it’s stupid it’s going to be in your genes for 2½ generations. Your grandchildren will be freed from your sin of eating cows. It takes that long. The other thing is just, ok, you get rid of that. So that’s why therefore the Vedas understanding these they give different ways of dealing with the punishments that the modern mentality would not have an understanding at all with, because they look at the gross, they don’t understand subtle at all. If you are Supreme Court judge, they deal with that. High Court judges are supposed to be able to deal with that. But your common vigilante with pitch forks and torches doesn’t have any understanding of this at all. You are green, you have pointy ears, they go and burn your house down. That’s all. They don’t understand maybe the ork is a nice guy. They can’t understand that. They can only see form. They can’t understand mentalities behind the form. Because until you can understand the gross and the subtle you are unqualified to make a judgment. So that’s why then in this case, don’t worry about his mentality, worry about your own. I can forgive, I am in control of that. But I am also in control of protecting myself by not being stupid. So as long as they don’t show any symptoms of behaving badly I’ll deal with them nicely. And they reciprocate nicely, it goes on, great. But as soon as they show any symptoms of behaving badly I will protect myself from their bad behavior. It doesn’t mean…so I throw it into, oh, you did this this this. No, you just deal with what’s right now.