Special Sunday Satsang Program by HG Chaitanya Charan Das

After that question and answer session, followed by Aarti, Maha Aarti, Jyotindra and the temple hall. So, it is our request to all of you that after the class and question and answer session, please proceed to the temple hall. We will have a Aarti over there and after that we will go for the session.

So, let us welcome, again it is our fortune to welcome you to this K. C. Sivan temple. So, let us welcome you by loudly saying Hari Jyot. Hari Jyot! Hari Jyot! Hari Jyot! He has sent his wife.

No, the wife is not connected. I will assign my phone to her. Okay, thank you.

Hare Krishna! I am grateful to be here with all of you today. We will be discussing today on some life lessons, some wisdom from the Ramayana.

Broadly speaking, there are good people who do good things. And then there are bad people who do bad things. Now, this is broadly speaking the way the universe is also understood to be in the Vedic tradition.

There is Daiva, Asura, Airvachar. There are two kinds of people, the divine and the demoniac. So… I had a digital and a physical garland.

So now this is the general polarity that we expect. Yes, there are some good people who do good things. There are bad people who do bad things.

But then there are exceptions. There are exceptions where good people sometimes do bad things. And there are people who we think are bad, but they do good things.

So, most people in the real world, they don’t really fit into this neat polarity. Yes, there is good and there is bad. But most of us exist in the mix somewhere.

This is the muddled middle. We all have some good inside us, sometimes bad inside us. So, when some good people do bad things or especially when bad people do good things, if anybody does good, that’s nice, that’s surprising, that’s beneficial, that’s nice for us.

But especially when some good people do bad things, that can be very disturbing. Because when we are functioning in life, life is tough. There are many problems that we face, there are many difficult situations that we have to deal with.

And at such times, we need to know whom can we trust. And who can be our supporters, who understand us, who share our values. So, we want to know about good people.

But when good people do bad things, so what makes them do such things? And how do we deal with that? How do we make sense of that? So, broadly speaking, if we consider the Ramayana, can you give any example of good people doing bad things? Yes. One is Kaikeyi. So, Kaikeyi, she ended up having Ram Exile.

That is one thing. Anyone else? Vali. Yes, Vali is another example.

Sugreev, what did he do? Okay. Sugreev lost himself in sensual pleasures. He forgot himself.

So, we could say that if he wanted to put it on a spectrum. Any other characters? Vishwamitra. Vishwamitra, what did he do? Okay.

Vishwamitra, when he was basically, it was before he became Vishwamitra, when he was a king Kaushik and then he took away the cow and he tried to attack him. So, we see that there are good people also who do bad things. Now, broadly if you wanted to put in a spectrum, let’s see, if we consider, see these three are the most central characters.

Vishwamitra is also a character within the Maha Ramayana. Vishwamitra is also, he is a sage who is widespread. He is there elsewhere also.

Among these three characters, Sugreev, Vali and Kaikeyi, whose bad action was less, whose bad action was more? What do you think? Kaikeyi was more. Okay. Was that the most? Yes.

The worst was whose? Vali. Vali. Vali.

Okay. Then we have Sugreev. Now, we may decide, how do we decide how bad is somebody’s action? So, one thing is we could even look at it in terms of the effect.

Effect, how much did it result? So, basically, how bad, how much was the negative effect? And we can look at how long. How long did that particular effect last? So, from that perspective, Sugreev was for basically a few days. He had made a promise to Lord Ram that I will be there.

I will be there with my entire army to help you find Sita. After you help me to get back the kingdom. So, but there he completely lost himself in sensuality.

For a few days at the most, it might have been a few weeks. After the four months got over, Lord Ram was waiting eagerly, almost impatiently for him to do something and he was not doing anything. Now, Kaikeyi, her action had result for how long? 14 years.

And if you consider the Vali, how long was that? It was practically lifelong. The Mahabharata is not really specific how long Sugreev was being pursued. But it was, it went till his death basically.

Till his death. So, now none of these are villains, none of these are bad people. If you consider what impels anyone to act, so there are, when we act in particular ways, say right now you came for this program.

Some of you may be regularly coming for this program but today you didn’t come for this program. Some of you may be hearing online. So when we do our actions, there are many factors that shape our actions.

Those factors can be broadly categorized as external and internal. But quite often there are very few actions which come only from external sources and very few actions that come from only internal sources. They are generally a combination of both.

So, external we could simply put that as conditions. There are particular conditions when we become impelled to do certain things. And then there are internally, there are conditionings.

Conditionings which also can prompt us to do certain things. So, broadly speaking when we human beings act, we could put it that say if the conditions are positive, conditions are good and normally the word conditionings is used for something negative. But it doesn’t have to be negative.

If I use the word conditioning generically to refer to particular way we are habituated to behave. So, for example, if you are brought up in Indian culture, then if our foot touches somebody then immediately we touch our head. It’s a default way we are offering some respect.

So, that’s you can call it a condition. It’s a habit but it’s more of a default behavior. So, it’s something ingrained within us.

So, now if the conditions and conditionings, they can be in four combinations. The condition can be positive and the conditioning can be positive. That means that say somebody has a tendency to live an honest upright life and they are living in a society where also honesty, integrity, uprightness is appreciated.

So, if you go back to the Vedic context, somebody wants to do brahminical activities like doing yajnas and then there is a king who supports and sponsors and protects yajnas. Then the external condition and the internal conditioning. So, we could say this is the best situation to be in.

And the conditions are positive and the conditionings are also positive. Now conditions could be just the atmosphere of the place. There could be some particular people in that place.

It can mean many different things. But conditions and conditionings. Now conversely the worst situation is where the conditions are bad.

When you say the conditions are bad, that means it can be bad in various ways. Bad means say somebody is in a place in their life where internally they dislike someone. And then when they dislike someone, maybe that person has treated them a little badly, spoken something harshly to them and they are annoyed and they obviously also had a little negative conception about that person.

So, they have a negative opinion about that person. And that is the time say they come to know some nasty rumor about that person. Maybe it is true, maybe it is not true but they come to know about that.

Then what happens is internally there is a dislike and externally they have come to know something dislikable about them. So, this is for example when gossip happens. Now gossip for it to happen two conditions have to work together.

Now when we hear something we like about someone we don’t like. So, if we like that person then what will happen? Okay, maybe this is not true, maybe I don’t want to talk about this. Maybe I will find out from that person what actually happened.

But when internally there is dislike and externally we get some information. Hey, this person is like this. The two come together and it can be deadly.

So, ordinary people can start gossiping at that time. So, when conditions and conditionings both are problematic, both are negative then it works out badly. So, now we could look at the other two situations where the conditions are positive but the conditionings are negative.

Say for example, Prabhupada tells the story of a thief who went on a pilgrimage. And when he went on a pilgrimage he had this tendency to steal. Now there is a particular behavioral tendency called kleptomaniac.

Some people just like to steal. There was a British king, he was a king of Britain, he had this tendency to steal. Courtiers, people who would come to visit him, he would steal their shoes.

So, he doesn’t need them at all but that’s just the condition. So, he went to that holy place and he has had to steal something. So, what he did was, one part of him said I don’t want to steal, this is a holy place.

But other part he says I have to steal. So, what he did was, he took things from one person’s luggage, one bag and put it in some other bag. He took something from somebody else’s bag and put it in somebody else’s bag.

I have to do something. I don’t want to take it but I have to do this. So, sometimes what will happen is, somebody’s conditions may be positive but the conditionings may be negative.

Then what happens is, the behavior becomes out of place. Physically out of place. Like somebody is very habituated to say speaking swear words, speaking vulgar words or swear words and they come to a society which is very cultured.

And suddenly they speak some swear words, everybody falls high, what is happening over here. This is not the kind of language you speak over here. So, the conditions may be positive but the conditionings may be negative.

Now, sometimes it could be that the, what happens is, the conditionings are positive but the conditions are negative. That means that the person, say a child was brought up in a very good family, good environment. But then that child goes to maybe a hostel and in the hostel everybody is into say drinking or smoking or into drugs.

Now, at that time, then there is a inner war. Now, we could say to some extent there is inner war everywhere but the degree of the inner war can be more or less. So, when there is a mismatch between inner and outer things, the inner war is more.

Now, inner war when it is more, then it becomes like a, this is like a test for that person. That there is a test of temptation. You go into that situation, but what happens? So, for example, Hanuman, when he went to Lanka, he had to search for Sita.

And now Sita is a woman. Now, where is he going to search for a woman? In woman’s chambers. And he has come in here secretly, sneakily, so he can’t just go in the daytime.

So, he is going at night. At night he goes to the palaces of Ravana and looking through the windows, is Sita there over here? Now that, everybody broke into sights over there. But he was not disturbed.

So, sometimes the conditions can be negative, but the conditionings can be positive. So, I am using the word conditioning in a more neutral way over here. So, broadly speaking for us, when we are trying to function in life, so we need to, if now when somebody is a bad person, you see, bad person means that they intentionally like to do bad things and they even get joy in doing bad things.

That is the person who is, you can say evil. Broadly, you can say our conditionings, if I use the word conditionings as interchangeable to impressions. We all have some samskara, some impressions inside us.

We could put them in three broad categories. There is goodness and the opposite of goodness is wickedness. Goodness means that person has a very good nature.

So, they will do good things. So, when the conditioning is goodness, then it is they will do good even in bad conditions. That is somebody who is honest, even if they go into a disruptive dishonest place, they will not become dishonest.

Somebody who is very firm, I don’t want to drink alcohol. They may have to go to a bar, but they will not be tempted by it. So, goodness means it is they will be good even in bad conditions.

On the other hand, some people are wicked. Wicked means they are cool. They not only do bad things, they get joy in doing bad things.

Say, if we have rushed to meet someone and there is a lot of crowd over there, rushing through the crowd. While rushing through the crowd, our footsteps on somebody’s foot. If we notice that, as soon as we notice, oh, I am sorry, we will apologize.

But suppose somebody notices their footsteps, step on somebody’s foot and they look at that person and then they deliberately raise their foot and bang it on that person’s foot. And they get joy. What kind of person would do something like that? So, there are wicked people who will be bad even in good conditions.

Because they get joy in doing that. They get some perverse pleasure in doing that. So, Krishna talks about this as a demoniac nature.

Krishna says not only demonic people are demoniac, asau mayaha dhahishatru hanishe cha paranapi. I have killed this enemy, I will kill that enemy also. But not only that, they say, after that they celebrate that.

That they think, just see how clever I am. Adyo abhijanwanasmi konyasthi satrusho maya. Who is as clever as me, who is as smart as me.

I have fooled everyone else. I destroyed everyone else. So, everybody may have a desire for getting more and more money.

That’s just a part of normal human psychology. But very few of the people who desire money will actually want to kill to get money. And even if somebody kills, even I have friends in the military and they have to defend, they kill.

It’s like we are taking a human life. There is actually lot of remorse and pain and lot of agony a person goes through. So, if somebody delights in killing, that is demoniac.

So, there are people who will do bad even in good things, in good situations. So, Krishna describes this kind of mentality in the 16th chapter. So, everybody is greedy.

Greedy means not everybody but that greed for money is there widespread you can say. But what happens is, from that greed, we can use the word covetous. Somebody is coveting lot of things, coveting greedy.

But from that somebody just becomes murderous. That’s a huge, huge leap. And then not only murderous, that is sadistically murderous.

Sadistically means, sadism is where basically a person gets joy in causing pain to others. So, sadism is where the person has a perverse psychology. With seeing others suffer, the person gets joy.

So, who had a sadistic psychology in our tradition? Somebody associated with Ramayana only? Sorry? Ravana. Yeah, Ravana. But somebody who became good afterwards? Okay, Murugari was there, not associated with Ramayana.

But Murugari, he wanted to half kill people, half kill animals basically. So, sometimes people get joy in that. And Narada Mahatma told him don’t do this.

So, basically the point is that there can be a spectrum in this. You can kill but somebody gets joy in causing pain to others. Things like, oh I am so clever, I killed so many people.

That is very perverse. So, basically now in between these two, there is goodness, there is wickedness and then there is weakness. So, people who have weakness, what happens is, they will be good in good conditions and they may become bad in bad conditions.

So, when we have weakness, we all have certain weaknesses. Say, for example, somebody who has taken alcohol sometimes. And they say, no, I am not interested in taking alcohol, I am not going to drink anymore.

But suppose they go to a party, they go to corporate dinner as a part of the office obligation and there everybody is drinking. You can just take a drink. Now, they may start and they may keep drinking.

So, from weakness, somebody can go down to wickedness or somebody can go up to goodness. Somebody becomes sober, they say, I am never going to drink. And even if they go to a particular place, they don’t get tempted.

So, most of us, so when I talk about this black and white earlier, the good and bad, so the goodness is associated with good and bad is wickedness. So, most of us exist somewhere in between these that we may have the weakness of lust or anger or greed, whatever. And because of that if we are put in particular situations, the dark side within us may come out.

So, now if this happens, what can we do about it? How do we deal with it? So, we look at these three characters and we will see how they had some weakness because of which they did something bad. But then they recovered and it took different amounts of time for them to recover. So, how did that happen? So, broadly now even we talk about conditions.

Now conditions can be passive or they can be active. Passive and active, what do I mean? Passive means that they are more like things and active means there are people. Like somebody goes to a bar or somebody goes to a party where there are drinks available.

Okay, those drinks are there and somebody may see that and may get the desire to drink. But somebody goes to a party and there is somebody who is telling them, let’s take a little drink. Take a few drinks.

Somebody is pushing them again and again. Then what happens is the vulnerability becomes more. So, conditions can involve both these things.

Similarly, if we talk about conditionings, now we can say our conditionings are positive and negative, good and bad, but that we already talked about. But there could be conditionings which are weak and conditionings that are strong. So, when there is a weak conditioning, then if the temptation comes, then the desire that comes up is not very strong.

But the conditioning is very strong, then the temptation that comes also is very strong. There is weak conditioning and strong conditioning. So, we could say, with this broad understanding, now let’s look at the three characters.

So, for Sugreev, now if you consider Sugreev’s life, it was quite a turbulent life. He was born in royalty. He lived as a prince and although he was awarded to Wali, still he had royal luxury and prosperity to live in.

And then he became the king because he thought Wali had died. And then Wali came and attacked him.

He lost everything. In some ways, actually Sugriva’s predicament was worse than Ram’s predicament also. Mainly we can say Sugriva’s predicament was worse than Ram because of three main reasons.

One was there was no proper party, no proper separation. Like Ram, he could talk with everyone. He had to go to the forest, he could talk with his mother, he could talk with even his father, he talked with the citizens.

But it is that Sugriva was one day the king and the next day he had to leave from there. He had to rush away from there. In Bangladesh, the Prime Minister was there one day and she had to leave immediately.

She said, I want to give one last speech. He said, nothing, you have to leave immediately. So, there is no problem.

And that somebody has been in an influential position. Somebody is a leading devotee in a community and just one day they disappear. That causes pain.

So, there was no proper separation. Then there was also, there was no family for him. He had friends, Hanuman and Jabal were there.

But Ram had Sita with him. Ram had Lakshman with him. And there was also no safety for him.

Now we could say that being in a forest itself is dangerous. But Ram was not being actively persecuted by someone. He was targeted.

Bharat was not sending anyone to assassinate Ram. Bharat actually wanted Ram to come back. He was eagerly waiting for Ram to come back.

So, there was no safety for him. He was constantly being targeted. And on top of that there was no duration, no clarity about duration.

That how long would be in a forest? Ram, maybe after 14 years he will come back. Somebody is put in the jail and they don’t even know how long they are going to be in the jail. That’s far more painful than knowing at least this is the way.

So, in many ways his situation was very painful, very difficult. And then after that when he suddenly came back, he became the king and then the rainy season started. So, he had to live in complete austerity, complete deprivation.

And suddenly he got all the royal luxury back. And not only he got all the royal luxury back, but that royal luxury and there was no responsibility that he could discharge. So, for material perspective Vali was a good king.

Kishkind was a prosperous king. So, they were well stocked for the rainy season. They didn’t have to worry about supplies.

So, he had like, what happened for him? Suddenly his situation changed and he came back to the kingdom. There was no responsibility in the sense of no immediate responsibility. And there was huge luxury, especially luxury after he had nothing for a long time.

So, let’s say somebody has lived in some forest area where they have gone for some work or assignment. There is no internet, there is no movies, no kind of entertainment. And they suddenly come back home and they have all the entertainment and suddenly there is a lockdown.

So, you can’t go out and you have full net access. Or somebody might just go on a Netflix binge. Isn’t it? So, Sugreev went on a Netflix binge at that time.

He just forgot everything. He just got into enjoyment and he got into so much enjoyment that the four months passed. And he just didn’t remember.

Day after day passed after that. And initially Ram was agitated, Lakshman pacified him. When Lakshman went to the kingdom, then Lakshman heard sounds of dancing and singing and music.

He realized there were his… He was just enjoying and he became angry because of that. So, at that time, Lakshman strongly chastised Sugreev. However, to his credit, he completely changed thereafter.

So, for him, we could say that although he went on a bad track, Sugreev, we could say he was a king. So, if you consider his conditionings, on one side there was kings are habituated to luxury. But at the same time, kings are also trained to take up responsibility.

A king by the palace might be living in great luxury, but a king who goes on the war field, in those times the kings would be expected to lead from the front. And it is not that they would have a lot of luxury on the war field. They have to fight.

They have to risk their lives. So, today often the political leaders and the military leaders, they are completely different. This happened around the start of the 20th century.

Napoleon Bonaparte is considered the last… in the western world, India or something went on it, he is considered the last political leader who was also a military leader. You see, from the Second World War onward, First World War onward also, none of the heads of state actually were involved in fighting. So, because of that, people can, those who are the head of state, they can just sit comfortably in an air-conditioned room and they can send their armies to fight, to be slaughtered.

So, they are ready to take austerities also. But he had got sudden and great luxury. So, now if you could talk about the conditionings.

Now, if you talk about the conditions, you know, there were temptations, huge temptations that came to him. But then for him, he also had good association. So, good association was, for him, first Hanuman reminded him.

Then Tara reminded him and then Lakshman reminded him. And Lakshman’s reminder was much more than a reminder. So, Hanuman was very respectful and very gentle and polite.

Tara was more like a mother figure for him, the wife of his elder brother. She was a little more strong and Lakshman came and shook up everything. But to his credit, he changed completely.

He didn’t have any relapse after that. He didn’t give up responsibility for luxury. So, we can say, in this case, it was primarily due to conditions.

What he did was bad, but those conditions were exceptional. It was a unique, not exceptional, but very rare confluence of conditions that he had no external responsibility and he had huge luxury which he never had before, for a long long time. So, it is, you could say, this is largely excusable.

It is bad, but excusable. It was largely caused by the conditions. Now, which is the next character we are discussing, Kengai.

So, basically, you know, when, why are we discussing this? We are all dealing with each other. Sometimes we ourselves do something wrong. Sometimes people around us do something wrong.

So, we need to be able to understand. When somebody has done something wrong, how much should we just reject the person or condemn the person or how much should we excuse the person. So, by understanding the situation, understanding the person’s conditionings to whatever extent we can understand and understanding the person’s conditions as much as they can be understood, based on that we can decide.

Now, for someone whose conditionings are relatively stronger, we will come to that. We will look at these three cases and then we will finally come to some broad conclusions. Now, in Kengai’s case, what happened, if you consider, what were the condition, what were the conditions? Sorry? Conditions can be basically events, things that happen and it can be people.

So, the event was? Yes. So, it was the sudden succession plan. Everybody knew that yeah, Dashrath is getting on in the age and he will be hanging over the Kimidogi.

And Ram was widely known to be, he was the senior most, the eldest and he was also very worthy, very virtuous, very much loved. It was to be in one sense expected. But Dashrath decided to do it quickly.

Now, there are many reasons for that. One of the reasons is astrologically he felt that, he was told that after some time there will be a lot of inauspiciousness. So, better do the transfer as quickly as possible.

So, there was a sudden succession plan. So, that was a little unusual. But along with that there was Mantra.

Mantra’s manipulation. Mantra’s poisoning of her mind. And now in her case, we can say that the, now if you consider the conditionings, now what were the conditionings? There was a certain basic level of jealousy or rivalry among the co-wives.

That is natural. It was never to the level of hatred, never to the level of I want to destroy you. But it is just natural.

If two people are in a similar situation, you know, what is this person doing? What is this person doing? Now a days there may not be co-wives, if two brothers are living close by and their wives are there. And then when you say okay, you know, how big is your house? What are you doing? There is always a comparison will be there. So, natural jealousy and rivalry was there.

So, that conditioning was there. But at the same time, you know, there was also a dutifulness. Dutifulness means she was a mother.

She had a maternal sense of dutifulness. That she never hated Ram. She of course loved her own son, but even Ram also she loved.

So, even when she wanted to send Ram to exile, it was not out of hatred for Ram. It was more of her affection for her own son and she wanted Ram to get out of the way. So, now for her, if you see, there was a particular confluence.

Confluence means coming together. Like the Triveni, the Ganga, Yamuna, Saraswati, they all come together. So, sometimes conditions and conditionings, there can be a confluence, both come together.

And say, it can work positively. Sometimes we are going through something in our life because of which we are questioning, what is the meaning of life? What am I really meant to do? And say that is the time somebody gives us a Bhagavad Gita, somebody invites us for a Gita class. Then the conditions and conditionings, conditioning means we are thinking.

I am basically talking about conditioning generically. We are thinking about something spiritual. And somebody shows us the path of something spiritual and then we take it up.

So, both conditions and conditionings can come together. So, now in this particular situation, what happened? So, there was this insecurity or rivalry or jealousy or whatever word, but it was mild, it was not very strong. Her sense of maternal affection for her children, for Bharat primarily, but for all the children, it was quite strong.

But then at that particular time, when Mantra poisoned her mind, she just could not resist it. Mantra told such a story that she just completely bought into it. Now that itself is a completely, how Mantra was able to persuade and pervert Kaikeyi, that itself is a complex story and that could be a separate class.

But let’s focus here on, there was a negative influence from outside, from Mantra’s side. Now for her, if you see, she went on and she didn’t listen to anyone. See, normally what happens for us is, this is the soul, this is the mind.

And then, say here, there is some person. So, most people, we look at them through our mind. That means, say if somebody is very nice to me and immediately my mind will say, why this person is so nice? Do they want something from me? What do they want? So, if I have a suspicious mind, I will look at them through my mind.

So, for most people, we look at them through our mind. But there are a few people whom we trust. And then what happens is, they are so close to us that we look at our mind through them.

That means, say, if somebody has hurt me, and then, this person is so terrible, this person hates me, this person is my enemy, this person wants to destroy me. And that’s what, every action we will see from there, we will see from that perspective only. But if we have some close friend, if we have a spiritual guide, spiritual master or spiritual mentor or whatever, then we trust.

And then they tell us, actually, you know, you are being too suspicious, you are being too critical over here. No, yes, that person was going through that situation that time, that’s why they spoke like that, that’s why they did like that. But that person has also been kind in this way, this person helped that person over there.

That person has been, you had a nice relationship with that person in the past. So, we need someone we can look at, through whom we can look at our mind. Normally, we look at everyone through our mind.

But we need some people through whom we can look at our mind. So, this is a trusted friend. There are very few people who are that close to us.

Because whenever anybody has an opinion opposite to our opinion, immediately we become defensive or offensive. And the more closely cherished that opinion is, the more we become offensive or defensive. And if anybody challenges that, then we want to dismiss that person.

So, for Kaikeyi, for her, when Mantra poisoned her mind, then she was looking at everyone through that poisoned mind. And Dashrath begged her, okay, if you want Bharat to be the king, that’s fine, but please don’t send Ram away. Why? What has Ram ever done to you? Please don’t do that.

Vashishtha requested her, Sumantra requested her, but she was not ready to listen. But fortunately for her, there was one person whom she trusted enough that through him she could look at her mind. Who was that person? Bharat.

So, it was only when Bharat came back and he told in a very sober yet celebratory tone, you know, the king is dead and the kingdom awaits you now. Now, Bharat was shocked to know what had happened. Now, Bharat’s, you know, his shock was actually at four different levels.

First was at the event itself. What had happened? Oh, my father is dead and my brother has gone to the forest. That itself was, the event was shocking.

Then the cause was even more shocking. And my brother, my mother did this. You know, my father had died because of natural causes and maybe something had happened.

Maybe my brother did something because of which he decided I want to go to exile. The cause, how could she have done this? That made it even more shocking. Then not only that, the intent.

Kaikeyi told this whole thing as if I have done all this for you and you should be pleased with this. It’s like not only, what kind of person are you? Yesterday in the Artha Forum class I was giving the example that we want our children to do well in exams. Say, our child comes and says, I came first in my class.

Oh, wonderful! How did you do that? You know, you wanted me to come first in class. So, I learnt how to hack computers. I hacked my teacher’s computer and I got the full question paper first and I had all the answers.

That’s why I came first. And now, if a child says that, we will be shocked. Not only what kind of person are you? That’s a shock.

But what kind of person do you think I am? That I will be pleased by this. Isn’t it? So, for Bharat, it was a shock like that. Now how could you have done this? And how could you, in what universe could you even think that I would be pleased by this? And then, not only that, the fourth shock was perception.

That everybody was thinking that he was a part of this plot. And Bharat, he had no idea, he had no way supported it, he condemned it, he was being accused of doing it. Or at least an unspoken accusation was there.

So, it was like a huge series of shocks for him. He just totally condemned her at that time. He says, you cannot be my mother.

You must be the goddess of destruction, descended into our family to destroy our entire family. When Kalgai heard those words, she was just completely jolted out of her illusion. Shocked, what is this? Why is Bharat speaking like this? And then as the whole bubble of illusion that she had created around herself, it broke.

It just burst completely. And that was when she came back to her senses. And then she terribly repented, what have I done? And she even went all the way with Ram to, sorry, with Bharat to get Ram back.

So, of course, Lord Ram refused to come. But the point was, we can say here, the conditionings, were they there? They were there. But it was the conditions primarily.

Conditions, especially in terms of not just the situation, the event, but the person. And when a positive person came in her life, somebody who she could trust, that whole thing ended. So, you could say Kalgai’s actions were more severe than Sugriva’s actions.

Because the consequences were far greater. They were worse. Nobody died because of Sugriva’s actions.

Dashrath died because of heartbreak. And they were, they lasted longer. So, in that sense, those actions were worse.

But here also we will see that what happened essentially is that, okay, there is a bad situation. To be in a bad situation and to have a bad person at that particular time in our lives, that’s a difficult situation. That’s unfortunate.

It’s something which can make even good people fall. So, now, if we consider, the last is, who is the case we discussed? Wali. Wali, yes.

Now, in the case of Wali, we can look at, again, conditions and conditionings. Now, from the perspective of conditions, now, it was, basically, I won’t go into the whole story, but you know that they had got to, Wali and Sugriva were both pursuing a demon named Mayavi. And Mayavi went into a cave.

And it was a long series of caves. It was like a catacomb and underground. So, Wali said, I will go inside.

Sugriva told Sugriva to stand on the door. And Wali was gone for a long time and there was no sound from him. And Sugriva saw blood coming out and Sugriva heard the screaming of the demon.

But he didn’t hear any sound from Wali. And he concluded with a heavy heart that his brother had been killed. And he decided that, if that demon is powerful enough to kill my brother, then it will be very difficult for me to kill him.

And if he kills me, then he will go and destroy an entire kingdom. I have to stop that demon. Therefore, he blocked that cave’s entrance with a giant boulder.

And he came back and he reluctantly became a king. Accepted the kingship. Because Angad was too young at that time to become the king.

So then, now if you see from Sugriva’s perspective, it is a misunderstanding. But you can say it was an understandable misunderstanding. An understandable misunderstanding.

Anybody could have come to that conclusion. Similarly, when Wali came back, when Wali came near the cave entrance and he saw this huge boulder, he started suspecting. How could such a giant rock come and exactly cover this? This did happen by chance.

How did it happen? He called out to Sugriva. There is no Sugriva over there. After great, great effort, he finally pushed that boulder out, away and he came out.

And he looked and he saw there was no sign of any scuffle, any violence. So had Sugriva been killed and some demon had put it over there? Did Maya be an accomplice? It didn’t seem like that at all. And then he started thinking.

In royal families, when there is so much at stake, there could be trust but there is also suspicion. There can be betrayal. There can be brothers fighting against brothers.

And did Sugriva do this to me? And when he came back and he saw Sugriva on the throne, he just exploded. He started jumping on Sugriva and pounding him. Now you could say it was an understandable misunderstanding on Sugriva’s side and Wali’s side also.

So that is true. But where did he go wrong? Sugriva was trying to explain, explain to him but he was just not ready to hear. So Sugriva decided that the kind of mood my brother is in, if I stay here, he will beat me to death.

Better let me go away right now and I will live to tell my tale on another day. But unfortunately when Sugriva ran away, for Wali it confirmed his suspicion. If he was not guilty, why would he run away? And then after that what happened is, so it was an understandable misunderstanding, it was tragic.

But after that the conditioning that came into the picture over here was his arrogance. His first misunderstanding was perfectly okay. But then afterward the other citizens, the other courtiers, even his own wife Tara told him that Sugriva thought that he had died.

Now what happened was because of his arrogance, if somebody is a leader, somebody is a king, they have to have a certain level of confidence. Now if somebody is constantly second-guessing themselves, hey should I be doing this, should I not be doing that, if somebody is constantly second-guessing themselves, somebody has a lot of lack of confidence, they have diffidence, then they can’t even manage their own life. How can they manage anyone else’s life? So somebody who is a leader has to have a certain level of confidence.

But from confidence to go to overconfidence, that is very easy. So Gwali did have a certain level of pride. So what happened is because of that pride, he dismissed what explanation everybody was giving him.

He said he told you a story and you all believed the story. Now how will you actually know what was Sugriva’s thought? He said Sugriva made a whole plot and he came up with a story and you just believed the story. You thought I could be killed like this? So anyone who tried to support Sugriva, he just dismissed them.

So what happens is that arrogance can lead to overconfidence, it can lead to dismissiveness. Dismissiveness towards other’s opinions and not only other’s opinions, he could have at least given Sugriva a chance. Now what happened? You tell me in your words that Sugriva could have lied.

It’s possible of course. But generally if somebody is lying right in the face, unless they are very good liars, as a very bad people that means, but it’s very difficult to lie completely in the face of someone. And if you know someone very well, their lying can be detected.

Especially those who are supposed to administer justice. And they call it somebody in the police or somebody is an investigator, somebody is an attorney, lawyer. They are supposed to be good at what you call as deception detection.

If somebody is trying to deceive. So at least he could have given Sugriva a chance to tell his side of the story. But he did not do that.

So the conditions were bad. But what he did went far beyond the conditions. In the conditions he is attacking, Sugriva was understandable.

But he is never giving Sugriva a chance to tell his side of the story. That was unreasonable.

struggle between him and his brother. It is unfortunate. But the thing was it was his conditioning that were primarily responsible for his actions.

So what do we conclude by this? Two main points. For all of us there are actions are determined by our conditions and our conditionings. So as far as conditions are there we need to try to situate ourselves in positive conditions as much as possible and we all need to avoid or minimize, situate or maximize.

So the conditions that will inspire us to act virtuously, act devotional, we need to maximize those conditions. That’s why satsang is so important. Satsang is external, going to temple is external.

But in our social circle, this is one advantage of being outside India is that for many Indians, if they become devotees, their social circle becomes their spiritual circle. And then we become encouraged and facilitated in our bhakti by that. So we need to maximize the situations, maximize the positive situations.

And similarly, say it appears to basically to the things, the places and also the people. If there are people who we see, by observing sometimes when we spend some time with people, now after that our consciousness completely goes down. Now they gossip about this.

They may be devotees also. But sometimes devotees also are of different kinds. They just gossip about this, they blame about this person, they blame that person.

Now of course, it can happen that sometimes some devotees may have gone through some great difficult situations in their life and they are feeling hurt and they need to vent out. That’s once in a while is okay. But that’s how they are always complaining about this person and complaining about that person and blaming that person.

Then they may be devotees, but Chakravarthy says that we should keep a distance from such devotees. So there are people who bring out the worst within us, whether it is intentional or unintentional. And we have to be careful that for the things and the people, the conditions, we try to minimize them as much as possible.

And that is where this, see, how the conditioning surface in our life, that is not so much in our control. Now we can say what kind of conditions come in our life also is not in our control. Well, yes and no.

That there is a significant degree of control we have. We don’t have to necessarily go into places of temptations. In the early days, devotees would go everywhere and preach.

So they would go to, and one day devotees went to a bar and they started doing kirtan in the bar. And in the bars, they have generally some kind of singing happens. So devotees went and did kirtan over there.

And for us, kirtan is sacred. For them, it was just some music. Not for them, the people in the bar, I said.

And they came and told Prabhupada. Prabhupada said, we need to consider, are we likely to make devotees over here or are we likely to lose devotees over here? So even in the name of service, we have to be careful. We don’t have to put ourselves in tempting situations unnecessarily.

So in traditional cultures, there was generally, say, there was some level of gender segregation. That is, male-female distances are there. Now in contemporary cultures, that level of gender segregation is not there.

But a certain level of gender distance, gender separation, certain level of respectful distance is necessary. Now if we don’t have that, then now we may put ourselves in unnecessary tempting situations. So we need to be careful.

I was in America when I started doing Western outreach. So in the West, the gender differences are quite less. So I was in a college program in America, in Texas.

And then there was one American girl. She asked a question, why do religions fight among each other? So I gave an elaborate answer. And I could see she was quite relieved by that answer.

And then after that, at the class, I was talking with different people. And she came there. She said, I’m so grateful for this answer.

You know, I always had a spiritual urge for a long time. But this, seeing all the violence in the name of religion, that made me always hesitate in my spiritual search. You have removed a big burden from my heart.

I’m so grateful to you. Can I give you a hug? Now, in their culture, a hug is just an expression of affection. So now, I looked at the devotee who was a youth preacher over there.

I told him, please help me. I didn’t say that. I just indicated to him.

Now, he helped me, but in an entirely unexpected way. He said, he’s a monk. On his behalf, you can hug me.

His wife was next to him. And his wife said, I’m his wife. On his behalf, you can hug me.

And then they hugged each other. It’s protection through parampara. So, I talked about this incident with my spiritual master, Radhamanth Maharaj.

So, now, since I’ve been doing Western outreach, and Maharaj also is focusing on that, so, I talk about him and give a report of what I’m doing. So, Maharaj said that, when they are offering some appreciation or affection, if you just apply Indian standards, don’t you have any sense of decency? Don’t you have a sense of culture? If you reject that, if you condemn or reject that, you will be alienating them. That will be violence to their spiritual life.

But if you accept that, that will be violence to your spiritual life. So, we have to find a graceful way. We don’t want to be rude, but at the same time, we have to be careful.

So, the point is that, we may be in particular conditions where certain actions, we could justify them because of the situation. But we have to be careful. So, we don’t have to put ourselves in situations where our conditionings may get triggered.

So, for us, with respect to conditionings are there. Now, what happened to Wali was that, he didn’t accept anyone’s good advice. Because he was the king, he was the top person.

He had no authority above him. No one whose guidance he could turn towards or even their input he could take in. Kaikeyi took in the input of Bharat.

Not anyone else, but at least Bharat. But for Wali, there was no one, unfortunately. So, for us, our conditioning should never become such that, I don’t need advice from anyone else.

Everybody can have a certain level of pride. And we all have some pride. But the pride which says that, there’s nothing I can learn from anyone else.

That’s a terrible thing to be. So, if our conditionings are there, what we need to do is, the positive conditionings, we need to nurture them, we need to strengthen them. And the negative conditionings that are there, that we need to reduce them.

We need to ultimately renew them. So, how do we do this? So, basically, the conditions are changed broadly through the bhakti environment. The bhakti environment could be, in our home we have a temple.

We come to the satsangh. And the conditionings are changed by our bhakti practice. Through our personal practices.

And that’s why one of the key practices that is often neglected, we have our sadhana, we have our japa, we have satsangh, we have various things. But one of the things is, We need to have close friends with whom we can share our heart. They can share their heart and we can share their heart.

We can share our heart with them. So, even if we have one friend like that, then our mind’s conceptions, whatever they might be, they won’t rule us, they won’t dominate us, they won’t destroy us. So, cultivating that kind of friendship is important.

It is a limber bhakti. We may have general association, that is good. But we also need some like-minded association.

So, I’ll conclude with this point that, What is like-minded? Sajatiya Sangha. Like-minded association. It has broadly three features.

That, in that association, they… First of all, it is that we understand their mind. That means, when they speak, things click for us. Like, sometimes what happens? Sometimes we ask a question and we get an answer that only raises more questions in our head.

Sometimes we may not be able to make sense of something from scripture logically. And we ask a question and they explain a scriptural point with another scriptural quote. And that’s okay, but how do we make sense of it logically? So, when they speak, we understand their mind.

Then second is, they understand our mind. So, if we speak, they don’t necessarily mean, Hey, you know, you’re being too over analytical. You’re being sentimental.

You’re being sahajiyaic. You’re being mayavadi. And then they understand our mind.

They don’t just label and dismiss. And third is, that they help us understand our mind. Yeah, I know, I understand how you’re thinking.

And your thinking is right till here. But maybe here, your thinking might be going wrong. You need to evaluate that.

So, they help us understand our mind. So, if we have even one person like that, country had Bharat, Wali did not have anyone. So, having good association in general and having at least one close association that can save us from a lot of the problems that may come, either because of the conditions we are in or because of the conditionings we may have.

So, one person, what is this? What like-minded association, what happens by that is, we are able to look at our mind through them. For most people, what happens is, we look at them through our mind. So, if there’s even one person who can help us look at our mind through them, that is extremely powerful.

Many people nowadays have mental health problems and they go to therapists. One reason is, not that they are insane, not that they are mad or something like that, but just that they just need someone to clear their mind. Now, I am not recommending going to therapist, but I am talking about how people when they are lonely, mental health problems often increase when there is a lot of loneliness.

So, when they are lonely, the mind is speaking something and you just don’t have any alternative narrative to the mind’s narrative. So, we need that in devotee association. If we develop this close friendship, it may be in our particular community, it may be a different community, it may be a different place.

If you find that clicking happens within one person, invest time in that relationship so that we can be there for them and they will be there for us. So, I’ll summarize what we discussed today. Broadly, we discussed three points.

First was, we discussed about this paradox of good people doing bad things and how do we understand that. So, I discussed that our actions are determined by two factors, our conditions and our conditionings. So, what is inside us and what is outside us and we discussed this spectrum of positive and negative, sorry, positive and positive conditions and conditionings.

And I won’t go into the diagram fully, but the idea is that this is the best situation and this is the worst situation. So, as much as possible, we try to avoid the situation where we have conditionings also and the conditions are tempting for that. And we try to have the best situation as much as we can.

Then we discussed about the human nature. We could put it in terms of, there can be three broad kinds of people. Human nature can be goodness, that means, in all conditions, they will always act properly.

Wickedness means, in all conditions, in good conditions, they will act bad. When there is weakness, then it depends. So, as examples of weakness, we discussed the spectrum of three characters.

Who are the characters? Sugriv, Kaykay and Bali. Yes, excellent. And what we discussed was how, for Sugriv, it was largely, it was primarily the conditionings.

Was it? No, it was primarily the conditionings. As the conditions was much more, the conditioning, it never came back afterwards. It was just exceptional conditions in which he did something wrong.

But for him, in each situation, we will see that it was some individual, some person who rescued them from that situation. Now, for Kaykay, we could say, here it was the condition much, much more than conditionings. For her, the conditions were there.

But actually, you can say, there were definitely some conditionings also. There was jealousy. There was some level of rivalry, which led to some suspicion.

Now, even in Mantras, poisoned her mind. There has to be something inside her for her to get that much affected. Isn’t it? So, there were some conditionings definitely there.

But in this case, here it was mostly that the conditions were passive. That it was not that the court dancers were deliberately trying to provoke Sugriv. They were just doing their job.

But here, the Mantra was, there was active condition that was there. That was, actually someone was trying to instigate. There is Mantra over here.

Now, in the case of Bali, it was the conditions hardly played any role. Definitely, the initial was the conditions. It was understandable misunderstanding.

But in his case, let alone anybody instigating him, there were people who were actively, active deterrents were there. Deterrents means, there are people who are telling him, don’t do this. And yet, he did that.

The courtiers were there. The Tara was there. But he didn’t listen to anyone.

So, in his case, it was primarily his conditionings that led to the wrong action. And that’s why he needed that final shock treatment of Lord Ram’s arrow to be corrected. And then the last part to discuss was, so, how do we bring about protection for ourselves or for others in particular situation? So, basically, if we have to judge others or evaluate others, then we have to see what primarily caused it.

Was it the condition or the conditionings? So, generally, if it’s the conditions, then mostly it is guard against the conditions and forgive. Don’t hold it against them afterwards. And don’t get into those conditions again.

Be careful. But generally, if it’s conditionings, then some amount of disciplining or punishment is required. So, it depends on the corrective action that is required.

Overall, we talked about how the protection can come is, the spiritual environment can provide us positive conditions. So, whether it is our children, ourselves, we try to have as much of a spiritual environment as possible. And it is our, that environment may be good, but we need to have our personal spiritual practice by which we can have positive conditionings within us.

And in this way, we all can, from this position of weakness, move toward goodness, so that even in tempting situations, we won’t be pulled down. And we won’t go down ever toward wickedness. So, Vali actually went down toward wickedness for a particular phase of his life.

Sugriva never did that, nor did Kaikeyi do that. She was weakness. In weakness, she did something terrible.

But she came back to goodness soon. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.

Is there any quick question? Yes, ma’am. Right. This condition and conditioning are predestined or part of free will? Is this question predestined? Okay.

I think it is a complicated thing. Certainly, there is a role of destiny in it. The kind of conditionings we have, the kind of conditions we have, say, destiny plays a role.

If this considers the situation of Ajamil. Now, Ajamil, he didn’t plan to go into any tempting area. He just went out to get firewood for his father’s fire sacrifice.

And that’s what he’d been doing regularly. And that time, suddenly, he saw this sight. So we could say it was completely destiny for him.

So destiny can sometimes put us in provocative situations. So sometimes, the situation that we get in is completely due to destiny. But sometimes, we ourselves know that, you know, I am getting into a dangerous zone right now.

Say, we are working in our office and there is some person who, you know, who seems to be attracted towards us, who has some interest in us, improper, adharmic interest in us. And we notice that, but we don’t shut it down. The way that person coming in our life might be because of destiny.

But, you know, if we get some pleasure in that person’s attention and we enjoy that pleasure, we will not do anything wrong. But we just, we don’t discourage that. Then that is not due to destiny.

That is, our indulging in that, even to a small degree, that will be our own actions. Our own free will be misused. And then, after that is, we are going, that is, we move on for some time.

And then, after that, somehow, some situation comes up, you know, there is a late-night project and that person is there and we are there and everyone else goes. Now, we can say that situation may also have come out of destiny. But then, all that attachment or attraction or infatuation that we have fuelled in the intermediate, that may impel us to do something adharmic.

And so, we can say the conditions may come because of destiny. But we do make choices by which the effect of those conditions can become worse or lesser. Like, somebody is, say, alcoholic and they are trying to recover from alcoholism.

And they just get a job. They just don’t get a job anywhere. The only job they get is in a bar.

Now, somebody will say, I just die. I will not take a job in a bar. But, you know, that is the only job they get.

What can they do? Maybe that is their destiny. But, if they are there, now, maybe they have to create some systems. You know, maybe they have some, in Alcoholics Anonymous, they have the accountability partner.

You know, every few hours, you call your friend and you talk with them and inform them, keep yourself on track. But if they start neglecting that, you know, let me take one drink, what is the big deal? And one drink becomes two drinks and becomes three drinks and then it just becomes full roll of glass. So, conditions may come by past karma.

But it is we who fuel or weaken our position in those conditions by our present actions. Similarly, conditionings. Sometimes, you know, we may be practicing Bhakti and we may find that a particular desire has more or less gone away and suddenly that desire starts coming back.

And, you know, we have not done anything to indulge in that desire. We are not fantasized. But suddenly that craving starts coming up.

Like somebody may be living very, may practice Bhakti, they lose their desire, I want a big house and I want a lot of wealth. And suddenly one starts feeling a lot of discontentment. Oh, this person has such a big house, this person has a big car.

Start feeling agitated by that. So now, now that kind of conditioning suddenly rising up, that could happen because of past karma. But then, what do we do? So, the worst situation is by past karma, we are in, we are with strong conditioning and by past karma, we are in a tempting condition.

If that happens, that’s really a difficult situation to be in. But even then, how have we lived our life before that? If there are small temptations have been coming and we have been saying no to those temptations, then when that big temptation comes, we will be able to say no to it. But small temptations, we have been saying yes.

When a small temptation, you know, I say yes, what’s the big deal? It doesn’t make any difference. I have been thinking like that. But then those small temptations and the indulgence of those temptations will lead to a situation where by destiny we come, that confluence of strong conditionings and tempting conditions come up.

Then we may just fall and we may have a grievous fall at that time. So, our choices do matter. Both conditions and conditionings may come because of destiny, but our choices do matter in how we will deal with those conditions and conditionings.

Thank you. Good question. Important question.

Any other last question? Yes, ma’am. What about Mantra’s situation? She will be in the mode of weakness or wickedness and throughout her life, what was she? I actually don’t know. So, maybe little… Yeah, good question.

Again, interesting. See, Mantra is by no means like a central character. There is hardly any reference to her after that incident.

In the Ramayana, when Lord Ram comes back after the 14 years exile, so Kaikeyi is there to welcome. Now, Mantra is not a part of the family, but there is no mention of her. So, she doesn’t play any major role.

Now, what is described in the Ramayana is that there are two levels of understanding it. It was not wickedness so much. She had been a friend of… She was like a nurse of Kaikeyi since her childhood.

She had come from her mother’s place with her. So, they had a close relationship. She was generally known to be irritable.

But she was… She was irritable, but she was never evil. That’s why even Kaikeyi was caught off guard by what Mantra did. But Kaikeyi did not blame Mantra for it.

Kaikeyi… I believed her. So, she took responsibility for it, for what happened. But… So, we can look at it from a psychological perspective.

And we can look also from a philosophical perspective. So, from a philosophical or a devotional perspective, what we understand is, it was Mantra’s mind was influenced by the Devata so that Lord Ram would go to exile. And so, she became an instrument in that.

But it was not that just she wanted to be of service to Devatas. She had her agenda. What had happened was that she was a hunchback woman.

And because of that, she was often… Because of her hunchback, because of that being this figure, she was teased and mocked sometimes. Not very viciously, but just playfully. And… She had resented that.

But when Kaikeyi became the favorite queen of Asura, then she was the favorite maid of Kaikeyi. So, her position in the royal staff became elevated. So, in Kaikeyi’s father’s, Kaikeyi’s kingdom, she was often mocked.

But here, since the time she came, soon after that, she had got a privileged position. And when she heard that Ram will become the king, then what will happen is, that Ram’s mother will get the privileged position or Ram’s wife. But either way, Kaikeyi will not have that privileged position.

And if Kaikeyi doesn’t have the privileged position, then I won’t also have my privileged position. And she didn’t want to lose that. So, you could say it was a selfish agenda, definitely.

But was it evil? She had no agenda to destroy Ram. It was her own small concern because of which she ended up causing a large catastrophe. So, sometimes it has happened in Indian political history.

At least two, three times I know that there are two brothers but they had some rivalry. One was the king, the other was the minister. The king did not treat the brother properly.

Other brother felt mistreated. And then the brother allied with some invading Muslim army. And then what happened was, their invading Muslim army promised him that, we will make you the king.

And then after he helped his brother to be defeated and killed, then the Muslim invaders killed the brother also and they took over the kingdom. So, or even if they let him become the king, they kept him like a puppet. And then they spread Adharma all over the world.

So, now there is a small rivalry that could have been resolved. But from that rivalry there was conspiracy and from that conspiracy there was treachery and treachery led to complete depravity. Terrible things happened.

So, it was bad but probably she never expected that this would lead to Dashrath Maharaj dying. So, because Dashrath Maharaj died and his wife becomes a widow, then again she would not have much privilege position there. So, it sometimes… So, you can say she is not an evil character.

So, it is more on the weakness. But in that particular phase, what she did led to a chain of events which was terrible. So, thank you very much.

Shri Ramachandra Bhagwan ki Jai! Shri Lapa Prabhupada ki Jai! Gaur Bhakti Bindu ki Jai! Tai Gaur Premanand ki Jai! So, much of what I spoke today is similar to the contents of this small book, Living the Ramayan, Life Lessons from Ramayan. So, about eight, nine essays are there in this. And incidents such as what we described, narration of the incident along with some life lessons from there rather than this book.

If you would like to have it, I will be here for some time and I can sign the book also. And there is this calendar with 365 days.