Guilt Management 1: When Guilt is Unhealthy… Houston – Chaitanya Charan

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Hare Krishna. I’m grateful to be here, all of you today, at the lotus feet of the lordship, Shraddha Nilamadha. And today and tomorrow, I will take a two part series on the topic of dealing with guilt. Here we see, Yudhishthir Maharaj is suffering from a severe attack of guilt. So when is guilt healthy, and when does guilt become unhealthy?

That will be the topic which we’ll be discussing today. So today, I’ll talk about it in two parts. Today we’ll mainly be looking at can this be seen for everyone? Okay. So guilt, healthy and unhealthy.

That will be the topic. So today, I’ll be talking more about the causes of guilt and when they are right and wrong. And tomorrow, we’ll be discussing more the cure for guilt, how to actually address guilt. So today, I’ll talk about three main points. The context, what exactly is going on in this section of the Bhagavatam, and why is Yudhishthira Maharaj feeling so guilty.

Then second is we’ll talk about the general causes of guilt. And then I’ll talk about one misconception about guilt, which can actually create a lot of trouble for all of us. So what is the context over here? The context is that the war has got over. And just now, we’ll go back from the context one by one, that Krishna is about to depart and Yudhishthira has just seen how Parikshit their their only successor who is surviving was so brutally attacked and was miraculously saved.

And before that, Kunti has offered prayers, before that, the war has got over. So now Yudhishthir is feeling immensely guilty and he’s saying, I cannot I cannot become the king. And he says that, I have been responsible for such a terrible war which led to such catastrophic bloodshed. And it is for my own greed for kingdom that I did this. And therefore, a person like me who is driven by greed and who has committed such wrongs is should not become the king.

And he is he is an intelligent person. He is already anticipating objections. So they may say that, actually, you know, even if you consider yourself guilty, you can always do Yajnas, and Yajnas are meant for atonement, and you can be purified by atonement. So he’s anticipating that and he’s replying, no. He says, my crime is so severe that those yagnas are meant for atonement and purification, but this was mass slaughter of human beings and so many human beings.

He says that, this cannot be counted. And Srila Prabhupada often in his purports is very clear about what he is trying to do. Srila Prabhupada has particular points that he wants to emphasize. And quite often for Srila Prabhupada the that is the Bhagavatam purport or the Bhagavita purport or the Chaitan Chartha Murth purport. Prabhupada is He’s one pointed.

His focus is on imparting principles of Krishna consciousness, which are especially relevant for people. So he immediately takes Ashwamedha Yagna and he says, okay, that is not relevant. Sankirtan Yagna is relevant today. And he emphasizes how we should be performing Sankirtan Yagna. Now within this context, let’s look at what triggered Yudhishthir’s guilt.

You know, if if you see the Mahabharata war okay. See the Mahabharata war, it was a catastrophic war. And what happened to Arjuna? Before the war, happened to Yudhishthir after the war. Arjuna had second thoughts about fighting, and at that time, Krishna had to pacify it, pacify him and reassure him, and now Yudhishthir has is having not second thoughts about the war, that’s already done.

But he is having second thoughts, especially about becoming the king. In fact, he could say he is not having second thoughts. He has decided I will not be the king and that’s where it is. Now what triggered it so much? The Pandavas won the war, but it was not a clean victory.

It was basically the victory that came to the Pandavas, it was it was costly, very costly. And it was a very unhazy victory, not a very clear victory. Hazy means what? That even the Pandavas had to do immoral things to win the war. Now we could think of how they surrendered to Krishna and how in the bigger contest, it was unethical.

It was ultimately ethical. But still, there, what was the cost? For him, the biggest there are two big costs. One was that all sons were killed And especially while all his sons were killed, Yudhishthir felt especially responsible for the death of Abhimanyu, because the Chakravyu had been formed by Drona to trap him. And he had said, Abhijvani, if you go inside, we will break in.

Generally, a parent or a parent figure is meant to be a protector of a child. Yudhishthir felt, what kind of king can I be? That I send my nephew who is like my son to his death all for my own protection. And then he had been he had his all sons first of all, Uriasana was killed. Sorry.

Abhimanyu was killed. And then after that, all the sons were slaughtered by Ashwat Dawa. We’ll come to that. But, after that, what really broke Yudhishthir was Kunti’s revelation that Karna was his brother. Throughout Yudhishthir, while Arjuna had animosity with the Pandavas, among the various people, Yudhishthir on the Kaurava side, Yudhishthir had strong negative feelings, especially in terms of fear about Karana.

And Karana had humiliated Yudhishthir on the battlefield on the seventeenth day. And Yudhishthir had celebrated when Karana had been killed. And now when he heard that the person whose death I celebrated was my own brother and that brother whom I thought was so cruel and so evil that he sided with Rirodhan, that very brother had a chance to kill me and kill my brothers. And he did not kill me because he had made a promise to my mother. And he was such an honorable person that he kept his promise.

So this just completely broke him. He was angry with Kunti. How could you have hidden this from me? But beyond that, some people have a lot of those who have a lot of ego, they become very aggressive in blaming others. But those who are relatively humble, one we’ll talk about this.

A misapplication or misunderstanding of humility can lead to we blaming ourselves. Now another another why was it hazy? Because he himself felt especially guilty about the way Drona was killed. Because he see, there are other killings that happened and it’s like the Khababhad war was such that nobody came out unsullied. Each of the Pandavas had to do something seriously questionable.

Bhima had to finally hit Duryodhan about below the waist. Arjuna had to shoot an unarmed Karana, and Yudhishthir had to speak a lie. Now he spoke a lie, and actually at that time, the Pandava’s plan was not so much to kill Drona as drop Drona. And if Drona lowers his weapons, Arjuna’s plan was, we will arrest him. We’ll keep him in house arrest till the war is over.

Because that day, Drona had started using celestial weapons against ordinary soldiers. So he felt Krishna told him that he it’s like in today’s world, if some head of state who has nuclear weapons, start using nuclear weapons in an ordinary war, where only conventional weapons are used. Then the other world leaders may be decided somehow or the other, this leader has to be assassinated. Otherwise, he can destroy not just the entire opposing army, the entire world can be destroyed. So it was with great reluctance that Yudhishthira agreed and he spoke the lie.

But then, the the the Sudyumna took the opportunity and lopped off Drona’s head in cold blood. And Arjuna was enraged at the Sudyumna and he wanted to attack him. And Yudhishthir had great ambivalent feelings at that time. And after that, everything that bad happened, Yudhishthir felt as if it is it is the reaction to my misdeal in speaking a lie that led to the death of my Guru. So this happened multiple times.

Ashwatthama, when he used the Narayan Astra, and that Astra just could not be countered. It is just destroying all of Yudhishthiras. Are we Yudhishthiras spoke? Oh, warriors. This was not not at the end, this was on that very day, fifteenth day only, towards the evening.

Yudhishthir started calling out, oh warriors, this weapon cannot be defeated. This weapon will kill all of us. Leave the battlefield and go wherever you can find shelter. I too will, if I survive this weapon, enter into the forest. This is the reaction for what I did to my Guru.

So he felt especially guilty for Drona’s Drona’s actions. And that was the justification for what Ashwatthama did to their sons. Ashwatthama felt that when your Guru was not awake, was in a trance, you killed him like an animal. Therefore, you deserve to be killed like an animal. He wanted to kill the Pandavas and he also lamented when he found out he had killed the Pandavas’ sons and Duryodh lamented.

And Yudhishthira understood what had happened. He said, you know, for what we did, I should have got for what I did, I should have got the reaction. But my sons got the reaction. And all of them were killed. What was this war for?

So he is completely devastated over here. He is crushed by what has happened. And the Mahabharata actually depicts the harsh nature of the world. That even good people who want to do good things also end up in big, big trouble. This is just the nature of the world.

So his guilt is understandable. And because of this, he’s saying, I just cannot I cannot become the king. So how is his guilt addressed? That we’ll discuss in the next chapter, which will start tomorrow. What exactly Bhishma speaks, we won’t go into the full argument, but specifically how he addresses guilt that we’ll discuss tomorrow.

So this is the context. Now in general, when I’ll go to the second point. When you talk about the causes of guilt, broadly, there are four causes of guilt. One is misdeeds. Now we have done something bad and we have done something wrong, and because of that, we feel guilty.

And generally, this kind of guilt is healthy. So here, we could say causes of guilt. Here, this is positive. The sense that we should feel bad after we have done something bad. So now to his credit, when Karuna acted in a very terrible way during the gambling assembly gambling match, he he was the person who suggested that Draupadi be dragged into the assembly and be disrobed.

He called Draupadi a prostitute. And he stopped Vikarna when Vikarna tried to stop the Dhrushraviya Draupadi. To his credit, afterwards, he at least regrets. He said, in trying to please Duryodhan, I went too far at that time. He doesn’t give up Duryodhan, so that regret in that sense is empty.

But at least he feels guilty. Does Duryodhan feel guilty? Not in the least. So, you know, to not feel bad or doing bad is actually very bad. That indicates that the person’s character if somebody has no remorse, like in today’s language, you know, some people who commit crimes and don’t even show slightest bit of remorse, they are psychopaths and sociopaths, very dangerous people.

So guilt itself is not a bad thing. If misdeeds are done, madam, we should feel guilty. Now sometimes it’s not misdeeds, it’s mistakes. What is the difference between misdeeds and mistakes? Mistakes are generally unintentional.

Misdeeds are quite often intentional. So now when mistakes happen, should we feel guilty? It can be positive, but with a question mark. There should be that that guilt, what it should do and what it should not do. We’ll have to discuss that.

In such situations, there can be some guilt, but we shouldn’t be beating ourselves up. We are all finite beings. We’ll discuss this. Now the fourth could be misapprehension. Misapprehension means we are holding ourselves responsible for something that we haven’t done, this kind of guilt is definitely negative.

So guilt is where it’s something which we have not done and still we are feeling bad about it. And this is the kind of guilt which Yudhishthir Maharaj is feeling, and that’s what will be addressed. So when we misunderstand the situation, say, a doctor gives a medicine and, to a patient and the patient dies. Now, was it because of medical malpractice? Did doctor want the patient to die?

Did the doctor not consider some side effects of of some pre existing conditions of the patient? If none of these are the case, and it is just that, you know, some completely unpredictable complication that happened. Then while the doctor may feel bad, nobody would want a patient to die. But when they die, there should not be guilt over there. It can be misapprehension.

So we are misapprehension means we hold ourselves responsible for things that were not in our control, that we just could not have prevented. Yudhish had tried his very best to prevent the war, but that had just not worked. So misapprehension, that’s a third cause of guilt. And the fourth is the most dangerous, that is manipulation. That people who are a bit insecure, often they can be manipulated by cunning people and by manipulation, they can be made to feel guilty and then they are made to do things that will actually make them guilty, that will actually harm them.

So this is what, for example, Mantra did to Kaikeyi. Now, when Kaikeyi first heard that Ram is being coronated, she was happy. She said to Mantra, this is the greatest news that you have ever brought. Here have this necklace. And Mantra said, what kind of foolish woman are you?

Do you not understand what conspiracy is happening over here? And she just okay. She just didn’t pay much attention. She was hearing. She didn’t take anything very seriously.

But, the mantra said, do you not see that if everything was above board, why does this transfer of power have to happen in the absence of Bharat? This is clearly a plan to sideline Bharat. And this is where it gets her attention. And seeing this, then Kaikeyi thrusts in for the kill. And she exactly accuses Kaushalya of planning what she is actually trying to do.

If you do not protect Bharat’s interests, Ram will always see him as a competitor and Ram will make up some case against him and have him persecuted. He will have him exiled or he may even have him executed. Do you not love your son? Do you not care for his welfare? And this is where lost it.

So there are people who manipulate and there are these self seeking people who manipulate others and make them feel guilty for things that there’s no reason to feel guilty about. So this kind of guilt is totally toxic. You could say this is negative. There’s like a negative square, you can say. This has to be we we should not feel guilty rather.

The guilt needs to be rejected. Now unfortunately, among the people in the world who are expert at using and inducing guilt through manipulation are most prominent are the religious leaders. There is this infamous Catholic guilt as they call it. So in the Christian tradition, the idea is, we are all born sinners. So sin is like a genetic defect that we have all inherited.

And because we are all sinful, even if somebody has not harmed anyone, of course, you cannot say that we live throughout the life without harming anyone. But the idea is, there is always this feeling of insecurity, inadequacy and guilt that is created so that people will feel the need for God. And they’ll feel that, oh, you know, I am so fallen. Without God, I’ll be doomed. I’m going to go to hell.

So the idea that in if you see in the Vedic tradition, it is not that of course, there’s a conception of right and wrong, but the focus is on the fact that the soul is pure. The soul is always pure. And when guilt is used in this way, there are religious leaders who will create impossibly high standards. And when the followers are not able to follow those standards, the followers will become feel very guilty. And when the followers feel very guilty, then they’ll say, oh oh, you leader, you are my only savior.

Whatever you say, I will do. And that’s how okay. You cannot follow the stand standard. You are so followed. Therefore, do this, do this.

They will do whatever the leader tells them to do. That’s how cults are formed. And cults can manipulate people. So when in the nineteen seventies, when our movement started growing in America, at that time, there was this great fear that we are also a cult. And one of the reasons was there was there were some cult leaders who had really horrendously manipulated people.

There was one, some person called Reverend Johns or whatever. He he had his own followers on a farm somewhere here in Texas, then he went to Mexico. And he did a lot of criminal activities and immoral activities. And then when he was about to be found, he said, now is the test of your faith. All of you are all of you are sinners, but if you do one act of faith now, you will be delivered.

What is that act of faith? All of you take poison. So first, you give poison to your children, then you take poison. And and when the police came over there, everybody there was dead. So it was all manipulation, and manipulation through guilt is extremely dangerous.

See, in our tradition, Prabhupada does talk about hell. But very rarely does Prabhupada emphasize that, you know, give up sense gratification, give up sinful activity because you’ll go to hell because of that. His focus is not on fear, inducing fear, but on empowering the intelligence. His focus is that we are not our physical shells, we are spiritual beings And we are meant for so much greater happiness. Why should we waste our life in pursuing this meager pleasure?

So it was that this is insignificant pleasure. We are meant for something bigger. So it’s not at all inducing guilt. It’s actually the opposite. It is more of inspiring greatness that we as parts of Krishna, have a great destiny.

We are meant for Ananda Mudhivardhanam and it is that we should seek that destiny that we are made for. So when there is this when there is religious teaching, it can go both ways. It can be either it can induce guilt and try to get compliance from people. You are so guilty, if you don’t obey me, you are going to go to hell. That’s a very toxic way to do things.

Otherwise, it can inspire greatness, That we are meant for great things. What Arjuna says, Arjuna has told Krishna, rise and attain victory. That is not just a message for Arjuna alone. That is Krishna’s call for everyone. So, I’ll now move to the last part, the misconception.

What is the misconception? The misconception has two parts that see, we are all told to be that we have to cultivate humility. And yes, we need to cultivate humility. But but humility, sometimes people think if I feel guilty, that will make me humble. But actually, humility and guilt are very different.

I’ll explain why, and I’ll conclude then you can have questions. There is ego, And often we think the opposite of ego is humility. And, I was in one college and I saw one quote. I I was one boy, he was wearing a t shirt, and he said, my greatest quality is my humility. So you’re proud of your humility.

So what happens is we generally it’s a fair thing that if you don’t have ego, you’ll have humility. If you have humility, we should not have ego. There’s definitely truth to that. However, the truth is also a little more subtle. Actually, they’re not just two components.

There are three components. On one side, there is ego. The other side is insecurity. And associated with insecurity also comes guilt. And in between is humility.

So that ego and insecurity are two extremes of the pendulum. Both of them are centered on our vision of ourselves. How do we see ourselves? So our vision of ourselves, ego is where I can do everything. I am everything.

I am God. So I can do everything that is ego. On the other hand, insecurities, I am nothing, I can do nothing, I am nothing. That is Shunya vad. So Srila Prabhupada came to free us from Nirubhishesh Shunya vadhi.

So we do not want we do not want impersonalism, where I am, I am everything, I can do everything. That is not what we want, but we don’t want this voidism also. That I am nothing, I can do nothing. What is the basis of humility? Humility is, So, I am something.

I am a part of Krishna, and I’ll always be a part of Krishna. So I can do some things. I can’t do everything, but that doesn’t mean I can do nothing. I can do some things and I am something. Something or someone, you can say in this context.

That, and Krishna says, sanatana. No matter how many bad things we have done, we will still always remain parts of Krishna. Krishna will never abandon us. Krishna will always be with us and he will always be there in our hearts as the Paramatma. So humility is acknowledging that I have weaknesses, I have insufficiencies, but my weaknesses and insufficiencies do not define me.

There is a core to me which is pure, which is potentially divine, which is the part of the divine. So this is a healthy relationship with ourselves. Oh, we all will fall short of many things. We will in the series of Anathya Nirodhi, it says that niyama kshama. There are many rules and standards which we may not be able to follow.

We may not be able to fast, we may not be able to do that, we may not be able to do this. And we can always aspire for more. But not being able to do something should not fill us with guilt. Krishna says, not We need to be filled with affection and gratitude that we have the opportunity to serve. That it’s it’s so the mind is so toxic at sometimes, that sometimes you tell somebody to that we should feel grateful for the opportunity for bhakti and just like lust can be a conditioning, this anger can be a conditioning, guilt can also be a conditioning.

I’ve seen I I do a journaling seminar where I tell people, you know, we can try to journal what we are grateful for. So one of the warnings I give is write what you feel grateful for, not what you should feel grateful for. Because, you know, we may theoretically say, oh, you know, millions of people. There are few who get bhakti. And it’s true.

I’m not saying it’s not true. But we may not really feel that fortunate on daily basis. If we go, I have to follow this rule. I have to do this. I have to do that.

So sometimes what happens is, if we try to cultivate gratitude based on not what I feel grateful for, but what I should feel grateful for, then we we start thinking that I should feel grateful for this, but I don’t feel grateful for this and therefore, I feel dreadful about not feeling grateful. And there is guilt at not feeling grateful. So guilt can be like a cancer that can completely corrupt our inner world. Not just corrupt, corrode our inner world. So we have to be very careful.

Yes. Should we feel insecure, or we should not never feel insecure? No. We will discuss this whole topic more tomorrow session about this toxic misconception about guilt and how to address it. But I’ll make one more point here, that our focus focus should not be on how fallen I am.

That should not be our focus. Our focus should be on how glorious Krishna is. And yes, there are expressions in our tradition of even say great soul like Krishna’s Kaviraj Goswami saying that, I am lower than a worm in a stool. I am more sinful than Jagayana Madhai. But that does not that statement does not make them feel discouraged about practicing Bhakti, about glorifying Krishna.

So what we want is to be focused on Krishna. That we our our Prabhu Shlapa did not come to start the International Society for Guilt Consciousness. Isn’t it? He came to start the International Society for Krishna consciousness. So to the extent our feeling, oh, I am impure, I am fallen, inspires us to take shelter of Krishna.

To that extent, it’s okay. Now what does this how do we define this extent? That I’ll talk tomorrow, but the key point is our focus should be not on the self. I am so great, that is one distraction. Another distraction is, I am so wonderful is one distraction, that is ego.

I am so dreadful is another distraction. Because in both cases, we are we are becoming self conscious rather than be Krishna consciousness. Have any of you heard this statement? I am a fallen soul. How many of you heard this statement?

You know? You probably already heard this. It’s one of the most common statement that comes. Now, sometimes what happens is, in this statement, this the fallen becomes so big that the soul becomes forgotten. From I am a fallen soul, it has become I am fallen.

Now we have to remember that this fallen is also a temporary designation. Just like to think that I am a male, I am a female, I am young, I am middle aged, I am elderly. All these are designations associated with something external to the soul. Their designations are associated with the body. Now there can be a signations associated with the mind.

I am an introvert, I am an extrovert, I am I have a Kshatriya nature, I have Brahmana nature. All those are important, but they are external to the soul. We shouldn’t identify too much with them. So the fallen should not become so big that we forget the soul. We are a soul.

We are eternally a soul, eternal part of Krishna, and presently we are in a condition that is fallen. But this is temporary, and by Krishna’s mercy and by our endeavor, this condition will be rectified. So let the focus be on Krishna and remembering Krishna. And we focus on those things that energize us to remember Krishna, not de energize us. So if guilt is energizing us, wonderful.

If guilt is de energizing us, then put that guilt away. We’ll summarize what I discussed today. I talked about the topic was dealing with guilt, understanding when guilt is healthy and unhealthy. So within that, I discussed three points. First, with the context, the context is Yudhishthir’s guilt.

And what is the reason for Yudhishthir’s guilt? There are two reasons. One is that he the cost, the cost is that all his sons had been killed. And often his sons had been killed for his sake. And now his grandson, Solsarab, might also have been killed, somehow have been survived.

And not only that, his brother, he had he had celebrated the killing of his brother, who had the opportunity to kill him and didn’t kill him. So that cost, he felt was too severe, and then apart from the cost, it was what he felt was the morality, the immoral immorality, especially it was killing of Drona. He felt that I lied, I played a terrible role, and everything that is happening to me is a reaction, and I deserve this and worse. So I don’t want to be the king. I don’t deserve to be the king.

Then broadly, we discussed the causes that may come because of guilt. And in terms of causes, we may decide which is healthy. So when is guilt healthy? First is when there are misdeeds. So here guilt can be definitely positive, then if there are mistakes, then yes, we might have guilt, but it should not be too much.

Then when there is misapprehension, when we are seeing things wrongly, when we are holding ourselves responsible for things that were not in our control, at that time, guilt should not be there. And when there is manipulation, when somebody uses our sense of right and wrong, our goodness to try to control us, then that greed is definitely talk guilt is toxic, and it needs to be rejected. We need to keep a distance from people who cause that kind of guilt for us also. And then the last one we discussed was the misconception about guilt. What are the misconception?

That we may think guilt is good, because guilt is equal to humility, or guilt will lead to humility. That will guilt lead to humility? Possibly, but frequently not. So we discussed how ego and humility are not exactly opposite. They can be, but there’s one more dynamic.

There is a feeling of insecurity, where that that can also very easily come with guilt. So when, guilt comes because of insecurity, then that is not humility. That keeps us self centered, self conscious. And our focus is we want to be not self conscious, either in the positive sense of how wonderful I am or in the negative sense of how dreadful I am. Both self consciousness positive and negative, both are unhealthy.

What we want is to be Krishna conscious, and we need to see that is my guilt helping me to become Krishna conscious, or is it obstructing me in my Krishna consciousness? And accordingly, we need to look at ourselves in a way that is healthy. Thank you very much. Let us pray to Krishna. My dear Lord, please guide me so that I can always stay conscious of you and keep coming closer to you.

And my guilt may bring me closer to you and never let my guilt become a weapon of maya by which she uses my guilt to keep me away from you or to go further away from you. Thank you very much. Are there any questions or comments? Yes, please. Maharaj, any comments?

Thank you. Thank you, my Rajas. You have blessings. Yes, sir. It seems like in Kali yuga, there’s it’s justified to say that it could be justified to say that everyone’s sinful and, you know, the Christians say everyone’s sinful.

So is it possible that when they think of Jesus being a forgiving and they could turn it into a positive I mean, like, there’s a lot of I agree with you that the guilt in Christianity seems very toxic, but is there any possibility of examples of Christians that, see Jesus in a very positive, loving way? Oh, yeah. Definitely. So two things. I won’t say that guilt is always toxic, and I won’t say guilt in Christianity is also toxic.

It can be. And and historically, it has been used like that, to make people compliant and to keep. So but it’s not intrinsically like that. That guilt can also what I said, like we can if our guilt inspires us to take shelter of Krishna, and that is what the focus is, to be Krishna conscious, then that is not a bad thing at all. That’s a good thing.

So similarly, their idea is that you desperately need Jesus. And because of that, if people take shelter of Jesus, and not just that that idea that, oh, you know, Jesus died for our sins so that we are free from all sins. No. Because of that. That is largely an idea that comes more from polyanity than Christianity.

Paul was one of the apostles of Jesus who didn’t never met Jesus actually. And he shifted the focus on Christianity from Jesus’ teachings to Jesus dying. And he said that by that you are all freed from sins. Now, of course, there is a lot of debate about this in Christian history, but the point is that if that inspires people to focus on Jesus’ teachings and live more morally and live more devotionally, then that is a good thing. Now, historians of religion also say that, to some extent the influx of Hindu teachers, and they mentioned his Swami Prabhupada, into America and their vision of a God of love rather than a God of judgment actually caused Christianity to soften their image of God also.

So in, many popular Christian movies now or popular Christian novels, one common character, one common trope trope is like a repeated theme that comes is that some young person is invited to a church and they go they say, I don’t want to go to church. I used to go in my childhood and I didn’t like that experience at all. And they say, when they come to a church now, and maybe they are 25, 30, 40, and they come and they say the pastor speaks a message of love, how Jesus forgives and he wants us to forgive those wrongs that have been done to us, our wrongs have been forgiven. And they focus more on how Jesus is a God of or Jesus or Christianity reveals a God of love and acceptance rather than a God of judgement. So that has happened to a large extent.

Now that can go to a complete extreme where, you know, God may accept everyone. This is the point I’m going to speak tomorrow. God accepts everyone. That does not mean He accepts everything. That certainly doesn’t mean He appreciates everything.

There are certainly things which are right and wrong. We will discuss that tomorrow. But yes, that effect has come in Christianity also. So they say, I grew up with a very critical conception of God, but now the conception of God in the church is so loving. So Protestants have adopted that wholeheartedly.

They very rarely, unless except for a few fringe branches of protestantism, God of judgement. Most protestants talk about the God of love only, and Catholics are also totally adopting that. Okay. Thank you. Yes, sir.

Hare Krishna, Prabhu ji. I have a comment and a question. Actually, the comment comes from CS Lewis. CS Lewis famously said, humility is not thinking less of yourself. It’s thinking of yourself less.

Yes. Now the question Yes. It is not about devaluing ourselves. It is about valuing something bigger than ourselves. Oh, I am so terrible.

I am so terrible. Not it’s not about devaluing ourselves. It is about, there is so much more to life than me. And I can be an instrument for something bigger than myself. I can be a part of something bigger than myself.

So yes, humility is at the same point of it’s phrased differently. Sometimes that play of words is good, but it doesn’t really clarify what it means. Not to think less of ourselves, but think ourselves less. What that means is humility is not about devaluing ourselves. It is more about valuing something bigger than ourselves.

Yeah, go ahead. Your question. So in the, six divisions of surrender, the famous verse goes and it ends with and the translation is given as, full self surrender for and karpanya is humility. So my doubt is the same word karpanya appears in the Bhagavad Gita where it is classified as a dosha, karpanya dosha. So can you explain what is the karpanya in Gita and what is the karpanya in this specific words?

Yes. See, words can have many different meanings. And, it’s a good question. Karpanya in the Bhagavad Gita so broadly, I’ll take about two distinct words. One is feeling helpless.

That kar panya is the helplessness that makes us feel the need for God. Sometimes devotees say we should feel helpless and hopeless. I have some reservations about that. We can feel helpless, but we should never feel hopeless. Helpless that I cannot do anything.

Draupadi was helpless, but she never became hopeless. Sometimes we can use that word as a rhyme to say that we should depend on Krishna, that I have no hope in myself. I have hope in Krishna. But then you even to take shelter of Krishna, we need to have some hope in ourselves. That I am worthy enough to take shelter of Krishna.

So, now the thing is that, specifically for us, that in the context of the six limbs of surrender is, it is what inspires surrender. Now when Arjuna is saying one says Arjuna is borrowing the language of Krishna. The borrowing of borrowing the language of Krishna is 2.23. Krishna has said that, So initially, Arjuna refuses. No.

He says, No. I am not being I am not being cowardly. I am not being petty minded. I am not being I am not being weak. I am actually being thoughtful.

It’s not easy to fight. How can I fight against my elders? But then eventually he says that, whatever it is, I am confused. My whole conception of life has been completely shaken. My very nature is being afflicted by weakness.

So I think the the word is the same, but the context is very different. In my journey from learning more about Christianity and then into my body and personalism, and like, unlearning a lot of the things that I thought about my thoughts and my feelings, and becoming isolated almost from my heart, and thinking that it doesn’t matter. That it’s just things that are arising. You spoke on things that we feel as though we should be grateful for, but yet are not in the moment. And one thing that resonated with me about that was the things that I’ve given up in the four principles that, you know, now that the parmama is working to purify my heart, that, you know, it’s like a burning sensation that I’m not familiar with, because I’ve been so disconnected with my heart space, and it’s very uncomfortable and unfamiliar for me.

And being in this unfamiliar territory, being in a space of helplessness and surrender to that, although I’m not comfortable with where I’m going, and I’m unsure of where I’m going and how it’s going to work out, just trusting that it’s going in that direction anyway. Yeah. Thanks for sharing your journey. I’d say two distinct points here that, one of the ways we may deal with, negative emotions is to just create a distance from the whole world of emotions. Like some people, if they’re betrayed, then they may just say that, you know, I don’t want to connect with anyone at all.

And that may keep our heart safe, but it’ll make our heart cold. And that’s not what we want. So now with respect to connecting with our heart space, I just start where we can. One of the meanings of this phrase, Somehow or the other, fix your mind on Krishna. That somehow or the other means start from where we can right now.

So is there something in the current, ambit of experience for us where we feel some softness of heart? Where we feel some emotion connect with something beyond ourselves in terms of something that is positive, something that is uplifting. If you see somebody in pain, and you feel, I should I should help that person in pain. Sometimes in Kirtan, sometimes we look at the details, we feel some special connection. We hear some stories, some pastimes.

So wherever we have that emotional connect, cherish that and try to see, you know, how that can be increased. Maybe look for similar themes, look for similar stories, look for similar experiences. And gradually, the the you could see the flower of the heart that has shrunk, It has shrunk not because it has become old and decayed, it has shrunk out of defensiveness that that flower will start blossoming. In fact, one of the metaphors that is used for the growth of Krishna consciousness is the blossoming of the flower of our heart. That will happen.

Start with wherever we can right now. And as far as what we should feel grateful for, because at an intellectual level we can have a list. It’s good to have that list. But at the same time, at a personal level, we may not feel grateful at that time for that thing. So we can look at what do we feel grateful for at that particular time.

If I before I came to America, I had a severe throat issue for almost seven, eight weeks, I was having cough constantly. Almost every class, I was coughing. So now now that cough is gone, I am grateful. But there are sometimes when I speak for more than one hour, one and a half hours, I feel my throat losing energy. Now at that time, I may not feel grateful.

At least I’ve got this much. My my throat has not come back to normal capacity. I am not feeling grateful at that time. You can say, look at people who are worse than you and feel grateful for that. But sometimes it doesn’t work.

We would like to be where we are. Okay. If I don’t feel grateful, don’t push yourself too much. Okay. What do I feel grateful for?

I feel grateful that at least I could come on this tour. I feel grateful that, you know, I had some good experiences, interactions, I could do some service. So to be that approach somehow or the other can also be applied to these positive emotions. Okay. Wherever I feel grateful for, let me start with that.

And generally, emotions see, with respect this is a big topic and I’ll talk about this tomorrow a little more. We only talk about with respect to the mind, we have to control the mind. And that is true, but it is desires that need to be controlled. Emotions can’t always be controlled. Sometimes they need to be comforted.

If somebody is feeling loss or pain or grief, at that time, you know, loss, pain, grief are not simply to be controlled and crushed. We need to be comforted at that time. So we cannot have like a one one size petal approach. So control is not the only way to deal with what has happening in the mind. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.

Okay? Thank you very much. I think we are going in lower time. You wanna take one more question? Do you tell me what?

Whoever is in charge? Yes, Prabhu. Last question. Radhakrishnanapur, do you have any comment? Just like saying, Vaishtrauma aaprat can be need not be done by associating with the Vaishnavas.

So we keep away from Vaishnavas, then we will not do Vaishnava Aparad. So in this world in this world, so many advertisement, so many influence comes. How to select the right thing? Okay. So we cannot avoid everything in the world.

So someone says somebody says that, okay, I don’t want to offend devotees, so I won’t associate with devotees only. Well, we may not offend devotees, but we’ll do so many other things which will be self destructive. So I would say the boundaries come at three levels. The boundaries is first what we see. Now sometimes we can just avoid certain things.

If I know I’m going on this road every day and there’s a holding which is quite obscene over here. So we can put some boundaries. So boundaries can be on what we see. Then boundaries can also on what we dwell, what we remember, what we replay in our mind. We have seen something, but we try to avoid replaying those things.

And then, certainly, what we enact. Just because I saw something, because something is going on in my mind, then that does not mean that I have to act on it. So this is 2.58, that is set boundaries so that we don’t see only. Then what we replay in our mind. So there are many places where Krishna says that we shouldn’t be contemplating the sense objects.

So for example, 3.6 he says that that if you are dwelling on the sense objects, that’s not a good thing. And then he says sometimes our mind may be agitated, but we don’t act out on that agitation. In 1842, he says, shamo dhamastapa shoucham. So shama is peacefulness of the mind. Dhamma is sense control.

That means sometimes it’s best we can avoid the mind getting agitated itself. But even if the mind gets agitated, we don’t act it out. B, may get agitated internally, but we don’t act it out. That itself this is also there in 3.41. So what happens is, ideally speaking, let’s try to avoid perception, but we can’t.

So if you can’t avoid perception, avoid action or contemplation. If you can’t avoid contemplation also, then at least don’t let it not go to the level of indulgence. And gradually, whatever is there, we are also perceiving Krishna, we are also remembering Krishna. Whatever we have seen in the past will also get purified. K.

Yes, please. History is his story. Correct. Yes. How many hiss we have to follow.

True. Nicely put. Yes. So whatever has happened in our past life also, in our past, you know, that we may say, oh, this is terrible. I have a bad history.

But even through whatever bad has happened in our life, Krishna is working. Krishna is planning, and Krishna can bring something good even out of the bad. Thank you so much. So I have written a few books, so So especially what I talked about guilt, not having a guilt centered relationship with Krishna, but more of a prayer centered relationship, a devotion, affection centered relationship. This is a book of prayers inspired by the Bhagavad Gita.

So there’s a poetic rendition of key verses from the Bhagavad Gita, and there’s a beautiful video feature of Krishna, and then there’s a prayer inspired by a particular verse. So more than my wrongs is your capacity to free me from those wrongs. So Krishna, this is in April in the Gita. Even if your sins are dark and vast, more than all who sinned in the past, the boat of wisdom when you firmly ascend, the ocean of illusion you will surely transcend. So if you would like to, have this book, it’s available.

And there’s another book, Gita for the CEO, which talks about leadership principles based on the Bhagavad Gita. So like simple diagrams which illustrate the concepts of the Gita are here, and it’s in the form of conversation between two people. One corporate leader who knows the Gita, another who wants to know the Gita. Very accessible way of sharing Gita wisdom, not only for our own application, but also with those who may not yet be ready to read the spiritual wisdom of the Gita. Thank you very much.

Hare Krishna.