What cricket can teach us about life 2

Congregation Program in the Middle East

Transcribed by: Sadananda Krishna Prema Das

… just think negatively about it. Madam eva cha…Mada is intoxication

na vimunchyati durmedha, and a person does not give this up, no matter what happens. That person is having determination in the mode of ignorance. So, sometimes some people say… say somebody wants to wake up in the morning, and they just don’t wake up, just keep sleeping, and then they say, ‘Why didn’t I wake up in the morning? No, I don’t have any determination. So, I can’t wake up.’

Actually if somebody is very lazy and they don’t do the work, they keep shirking over or postponing over, and then they think, ‘Why don’t I have any determination?’, actually no one can say that I don’t have any determination, because even a lazy person has the determination to stay lazy. (laughter) Actually what do we mean by determination? Determination simply means that, holding on to something even when it is difficult to hold on. Isn’t it? So, when we are lazy, quite often we are criticized by others, we get mocked by others, we also feel bad about it, but still we hold on to that laziness. So, actually that is determination, but normally we use the word determination to refer to something positive, something good, and if we hold on to something bad that is not called determination, that is called stubbornness, or obstinacy. So, the example of this is the father-son pair: Dhritarastra and Duryodhana. So, holding on to kingdom… Krishna Himself came as Shanti Duta. So many other seniors told him that, ‘give the Pandavas back their kingdom.’, but he was holding on to it.

So, everybody has the capacity to hold on to things. The only thing is, we are all differing in what we hold on. So, sometimes we hold on to something which is good for us, and sometimes we may hold on to things which are not good for us. So, that choosing is what we need to do wisely. So, this point is actually very encouraging. That means nobody can say that I don’t have determination. I have determination, now I just need to redirect it, from this to that. Instead of holding on to laziness, let me try to hold on to timeliness, and that way we can change ourselves gradually.

So, if you look at sports, there are broadly two kinds of sports – there is individual sports and there is team sports. So, for example Tennis or Chess is individual sports. So, one player plays against another player, and in this the result depends only on two things: one is how well this player is performing, and how well the opponent is performing. Say a particular player performs better than the opposite player, then that player will win, and in contrast there may be a very good player, but if that player doesn’t perform well on a particular day…that player has a off day, then that player will fail. Even if say in tennis, sometimes there are upsets. There is world no. 1 player, and someone is un-seeded, even unranked almost…. outside the top hundred or top 200 or whatever. At one particular day, that player plays very well and this number one player just looses. So, here what happens, where it’s a game which involves solo play, then everything depends on one player’s performance alone.

Cricket, hockey, football or baseball, all these are team sports. In team sports two things happen, that actually one single person’s good performance alone may not be able to lead to victory. A batsman may bat superlatively well, but the batsman will himself take the team to victory. But if there is no one to support… if all the other batsmen keep getting out, and this batsman stays not out till the end, the team will not be able to score sufficiently. So, in the team sports actually one person alone cannot lead to victory many times. And conversely, in team sports even if one person has a bad day, others can make up. Sometimes, every team has a star batsman or a star bowler, and even the best batsman sometimes have a off day. So, when they are not able to perform, other team members can step forward, and then the team may still be able to do well even when the star player does not perform. So, that means that in a team play actually there is more of a scope for making up for one persons poor performance, but there is also the scope of one person not outshining others, or one person single handedly leading the team to victory.

So, when say India won the world cup in 2011; at that time, as the Indian captain had glory, at that time Sachin Tendulkar was soon going to return, so he had the glory, but then it was not one person’s glory. That was a whole team’s glory. Say, in Tennis somebody becomes a Wimbledon Champion; it is that one person who is a champion.

So, now is life like a solo sport or is it like a team sport? What do you think? ‘It is a solo sport that we have to play with different teams.’ (laughter) For example, in IPL.. say in one particular event, say a player may be belonging to say Mumbai Indians, and then afterwards that player may be purchased by RC or some other team like that. So, then they belong to another team, but they cannot play alone, but the team changes. So, like that when we are going through life, actually every soul is alone in his journey.  So, we come in this world alone, and we will leave alone. Our karmic destiny is something which we will have to endure ourselves.

So, at one level it is sobering and at the same time it is also empowering. Sobering because we understand… just because I am with others, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is security, but at the same time that means that, if I am doing… (inaudible..08.25-28) So, it is solo in the sense that, when it comes to our mind, others can help us but I have to deal with my mind. So, for example if we consider a person who is having some say negative habit; So, when that temptation comes, at that time they have to deal with it alone themselves. Others may be there. Others may say, ‘don’t do it.’, but sometimes that desire catches the person. They just neglect the other person and go and do whatever they like. So, we have to… especially when we are battling with our mind, we can take the help of others, but that help also requires some level of control over the mind.

Say broadly speaking, if normally we look at everyone through our mind… that means that our mind filters our perception of everything. Now, if somebody suddenly comes and starts smiling and talking very sweetly, then immediately the mind starts thinking, ‘What does he want?’ (laughter) Probably they want something from me, that’s why they are talking so nicely, isn’t it? So, we always filter what people are speaking through our mind. Now, a strong relationship when we have. When we say I have good association, I share a strong relationship…. Strong relationship means that there are at least some people, or at least one person in our life at whom we do not look through our mind, rather we look at our mind through them. That means that as soon as somebody criticizes us, you know immediately our mind starts criticizing them back, ‘Maybe he is envious of me, maybe she just burns… whatever’ We just filter what people are saying, through our mind, but if there is some person who we can trust… ‘This person is my well-wisher. So, rather than evaluating what they are saying through our mind, we evaluate our mind through them. So, if we have that, then we are extremely fortunate. We are extremely fortunate if we have a person like that in our life.

Now it is difficult, and even if we get one person like that, it is fortunate, and even if we don’t have a person who can directly evaluate…through whom we can evaluate our mind, at least we can try to create this ..11.15.(inaudible).. There is an instinctive reaction that comes.  Why is this person criticizing me? May be they are envious, may be they don’t understand, but it is possible that they may not be understanding, but it is also possible that I am not understanding. So, what we do is that, if somebody tells us something, we have to deal with our mind alone, but when the mind is tricking us, quite often it is difficult for us to understand it. Others may be able to see it better. So, if somebody tells us something, rather than immediately reacting to it, slow down, and then wake and think about it.

So, I am a writer and although I have been writing for many years, when I am writing something like an article or a book, it is like my baby. Say, if some neighbour comes and tells the mother, ‘Mataji, your baby is not well dressed…’ The mother takes it as a personal insult, but then if the neighbour explains, “You know, this kind of shirt doesn’t match with this kind of trousers’, then the mother thinks, ‘Yea what she is saying makes sense.’, and then she will put some other dress. So, what happens is, initially when I write something I myself cannot spot it. So, if I have some devotees who I ask, ‘You just go through it and tell me what you think about this?’, and then they give some feedback. So, at that time if we take the feedback personally, that means we say that, ‘Oh, this person is criticizing me.’, then that feedback will spoil our relationship, but if we see that whatever I am doing, my actions and me are different… So, they are responding to a particular action. Ok, I wrote an article; that article is mine but it is different from me. So, they are not criticizing me. They are critiquing that article. In that way, we can bring a distance, because whenever we feel that somebody is criticizing me, then immediately we go on the defence, and when the ego goes on the defensive, nothing can penetrate through it. Even nuclear bomb cannot destroy the ego on the defence. Nothing can destroy.

So, if while taking feedback we go on the defensive, then nobody can help us. So, we are solo players in the game of life, but we perform best when we work in a team, and working in the team means that our ego should not be on the defensive. That we are ready to take feedback from others.

So, say in cricket a bowler may be bowling in a particular way, and then another bowler may say that, ‘I can bowl like this. I know how to bowl.’ It’s possible that the bowler knows how to bowl, but it is also possible that somebody else knows to bowl better. So, rather than taking any suggestion or any feedback personally, it is better to take it objectively. That means that they are not criticizing me, they are not correcting me, they are just responding to this particular action.

So, differentiating between our actions and our own selves helps us to improve our actions. Identifying with our actions makes us want to defend them, and when we defend them, we cannot correct them, because our energy is dissipated in defending.

So, I started this talk by talking about determination in the mode of ignorance where we hold on to something which is undesirable. So, that is actually… when we are working in life, we work in different teams, and within the… by working in teams also…. Now some players are very much team players. Even in a team sports, some players are just individual star performers. They will perform very well, but they just can’t work too well in a team, but still if somebody is playing cricket then what happens is… it is from both ways. In England, one very good batsman, he just couldn’t play in the team… play as a team. So, finally the captain, the coach, they all said that, ‘we don’t want him.’ Although he was the best batsman in England at that time, they said, ‘We just don’t want him in our team.’, and he was dropped. He was young, he was playing well, but he didn’t have the team spirit. So, at that time, lot of people said, ‘Who is to be blamed? Was he such a bad player? But he had so much talent. Was it his problem or was it the captain’s problem?’

So, there are basically… normally speaking there are geniuses. There are very good players but they live in their own world. They just can’t perform so well… they can’t gel with the team, because they are living in a different level. So, if you consider human psychology, there are people who are introverts, and there are people who are extroverts. So, extrovert people, they love to meet the other, and they gain strength by meeting others. They gain strength by working with others. You know, if they go to a party, go to a program, the more people they meet, the more people they talk, their smile becomes bigger and bigger, they feel like, ‘Oh, this is such a big community!’ On the other hand there are introverts. You know, for them going to a get together is like hell. It’s not that they hate people, but it is just that their social stamina is limited. So, after they meet a certain number of people, they just can’t think, they stop, they will suddenly become snappy, they will suddenly become irritable, just closed up. So, what happens is that in such a situation, if a person is more of a solo player than a team player, but they are in team sports. Then it is both for that player and the team managers- the captain, the coach… both of them have to manage it properly. The player has to know that, ‘Yes, I am a team player, I am in a team sports, so I will have to work with the team.’, and that person should be ready to go a little bit against one’s nature. At the same time, the coach should also know that this person needs little more space, and I can tell everyone, ‘do this, do this, but while telling this person I will have to be little bit more careful.’ So, in that way, we all have different natures, and to work with those natures, we may all need to accommodate.

So, some people may think you know, ‘Let me tell you. I want my private time.’ So, for some people private time means time with their family, but for some people means private time means, ‘I don’t want my family also. Private time means, I want to be alone.’ So, now what happens in this situation… both have to adjust… So, if somebody is more of an introvert, then other family members also have to understand, ‘this person may need some time.’ But then, the introvert person also understands that, ‘I have relationship, I have a family. So, I cannot expect to be alone all the time.

So, the person who has a solo nature, they have to accommodate, and the person who is a part of the team, they also have to accommodate. So, here again like yesterday I talked about how we all are on different pitches, so people have different natures, and we have to accommodate that. So, if we find that we gain strength by being alone… Now, usually it said that we should always be in the association of the devotees. Yes, that is true, but association is not just physical proximity. Association is primarily emotional alignment. Association means transfer of desires. So, sometimes when I hear a class I get inspired. ‘Oh yes, that is what I want to do.’, but some people need some time to process things, but there are some people who can think on their feet. Think on their feet is as soon as they hear they can understand that I can apply this and I can apply this. Some people, they have to think on their backs, and then process and decide. So, when different people are different, we have to apply one standard on everyone. So, for example it is said that the shoe that fits one leg bites another. The shoe’s are of different sizes. So, like that something may work very nicely for me. For another person it is different. Why are you like this? ‘It works so well, I am different, you are different.’ So, we all have different natures and it’s like… suppose, I don’t have… I have some deficiency in my eyes, and say prabhu also needs spectacles. So, now I have a particular number. When I put this spectacle I can see very nicely, and suppose somebody has lost the specs. If we say, ‘ Take this specs.’… He says, ‘I can’t see anything.’… ‘Are, I can see properly, why can’t you see?’, ‘No, I can’t see.’, ‘You are not sincere, you should be able to see.’ (laughter) It is not like that. Their eye numbers are different. So, they need a different specs…. The purpose is the same. We want to see, but my specs will not fit for them. So, similarly… actually what adjustments we make, what facilities we need, what circumstances we need for functionally nicely, others may need something different. So, when we try to impose what we are doing on others, then that creates unnecessary friction. So, we are in the team and we both need to adjust, but the adjustment begins from both sides. It’s not that we expect one person to adjust infinitely. The other person also has to adjust, and going forward…

We are on a solo match, but we are playing in teams. We are solo players, but we are playing in teams. So, in a team we all have different players and different roles. Say in cricket, somebody is an opening batsman. Somebody is a middle order batsman. The opening batsman… depending on… if it is a one day match, he can come out and attacking right away. If it is a test match, basically manage it through the beginning phase, don’t lose wickets. Initially the bowlers may be very aggressive. Just endure that. Then there are the middle order batsman. So… then there are all-rounders. Then there are tail-enders. So, now different players, in the batting line up have different roles. So, some batsman, they may be finishing specialists. Just come and hit a lot of runs and then they are able finish the match. So, there are different players who have different roles, and the expertise of the manager of the coach or the captain is to find out where, which player can fit the best, and a batsman doesn’t have to compare with a bowler. If a batsman starts thinking that, ‘Actually you know, all these bowlers..”, and the bowlers start thinking, ‘This batsman has scored century. People praise him so much. Next time I will also score century.’, that desire is good, but for a bowler who comes down at 9,10 or 11 to bat, where is he going to get the opportunity to score the century? So, if the bowler starts comparing with the batsman, it is just not going to work.

One devotee told me that Sachin Tendulkar, initially he was thinking of becoming a bowler, and then he came to the coaching academy and then the bowler told him… he wanted to be a fast bowler, and the bowler told him, ‘You try something else.’, he was very discouraged. He was batting also, but he wanted to be more like a all rounder. He said, ‘You just don’t have the frame to be a fast bowler.’, and he said, ‘You have talented batting. Just focus on batting.’, and then later on he said that, that was the best advice I got at that time. Because some people can be all-rounder’s, but some people will be specialist in one field. So, some people may be just batsman, and once in a while they can bowl, and when the bowl they make use, not because they take wickets but because they bowl so rarely. So, then the 10^th, 11^th batsman, they can also bat occasionally, but that is not what they need to focus on.

So, all of us have our strengths, and all of us have our limitations. In life, we need to focus on our strengths, and we have to manage our limitations. So, if we focus on our limitations, then we will always feel inferior. If somebody, who can be a good batsman is always thinking, ‘Oh, I can’t be a good bowler.’ that will prevent them from doing what they can do well. So, it’s important that we find our primarily what our strengths are, and we focus on those strengths. So, all of us, we have different interests, difficult abilities, and unfortunately society glamorizes certain things. Say, for example in the society, maybe certain careers are glamorized. May be somebody becomes an engineer, somebody becomes a doctor, and that’s when it is said that one is very successful. Somebody becomes a lawyer, somebody becomes a CA, that’s like a second level. Somebody says, ‘I want to become a painter, I want to become a writer, I want to become an artist.’ … ‘What are you doing?’ That is very much disapproved.

So now, actually speaking the parents have a natural concern, ‘Ok, how will you earn a living? How will you…if you take up a career which is not very lucrative, where things are not so certain. How will you be able to survive?’ you need to …25.33.(inaudible).. Parents concern is genuine. At the same time, there is earning a living and there is making life worth living. These two are different things. You may earn a living, but if we are doing something which we are not just suited to, we may always feel unfulfilled. People talk about, ‘I don’t have job satisfaction.’ So, why does that happen? Because, though they are earning a living, that job is just not compatible for them.  So, the Bhagavat Gita talks about our swabhava, our innate nature, and the whole principle of varnasrama is not so much dividing people into different castes. This is basically engaging people according to their talents, according to their interests. So, when a player starts playing cricket, it is not that they have to think, ‘I have to become like this batsman, or I have to become like that bowler.’ That’s good to have an inspiration like that, but we have to see what is my interest, what is my talent, and even a bowler also needs to know a little talent. For a batsman they need to know a little to bowl, but their focus should… our focus should never be on our limitations. We have to be aware of our limitations, and we need to know how to manage them, but our focus needs to be on our strengths. While focussing on our strengths we can contribute effectively. By focussing too much or by worrying too much our limitations, we discourage ourselves. So especially when we are in the society which glamorises certain talents, which glamorizes certain abilities… So for example, today’s education system… the ability to memorize, that comes at a premium. Somebody who can memorize, they can do very well in their studies, and they can actually achieve a lot. So, if that’s the way education is, then we have to also learn to memorize. We may learn some scales, some memory tricks, some tips for improving our memory, but then we needn’t feel inferior, ‘Oh, this person has got such a great memory, I have a poor memory.’ Ok, I will have to manage with limitation. At the same time, we have to look at what my strengths are?

And.. so, how do we? How do we actually learn what our strengths are? So, there are two broad points I will talk about. First is that, actually while going through life, we can observe things which we are comfortable doing, and things which are competent doing. So, Krishna talks about guna, karma, vibhagasa. The varnasrama is according to guna and karma. So, guna refers to what we are internally comfortable with, and karma refers to what we are externally competent. So, some people, first time pick up kartal, they are playing wonderfully. How is that? They did know any taal. They just start playing it. That is because they have musical talent, maybe coming from their genes or their past lives, whatever. So, what we are competent doing, and what we are comfortable doing. We find these two things. That is a fair indicator that, that is where our talent lies. And secondly, whenever we are doing… see, in life we don’t always have choices. Say for example, if in a team there might be a player who has to be a opener, but the only slot is in the middle order. The player may have to start international career in the middle order, and they play as well as they can, but while playing the player observes, ‘Ok, as an opener I can perform better.’, and then if the opener gets injured, the opportunity comes and the player may volunteer, ‘Let me go and do that.’ So, Sachin Tendulkar was a middle order batsman in one day cricket, but then once he begged to the coach, ‘I want to open.’ The coach said, ‘No, no, you are very good middle order batsman. You are like the foundation of our middle order. We don’t want to shift.’, He said, ‘No, you give me one chance. I want to open.’ So, he opened and that time he scored a century, and then after that he was already an opener. So, what happened is, he fit into the team wherever it worked, but he based on his own experience, and his own feelings he felt, ‘this is where I fit in.’

So, in life we don’t always have freedom. So, we have to learn to fit in, in whatever situation we are in, but at the same time we keep looking for opportunities to come to a position where we are comfortable and competent. So, even within… if we are having a particular job, we are having a particular role, within that also if we like something… say, somebody may be a teacher or a professor. Within that also one might find that, ‘My interest is more in research.’, Then they may do more paper writing, more presentation. That also contributes to institutions prestige. Somebody may have more of a knack for management. So, within academics, they may become head of department, they may become principle or they may take managerial roles. Some may just love to be with students and they may like to teach. So, they may focus on teaching. So, it is not that a teacher has to change their career entirely. It’s just that within whatever we are, we can try to gravitate towards that role which we are more comfortable. So, that way we are all in the team, and within the team we need to be given a particular role at a particular time, and we have to accept that. This is my role, but while playing along that role, we also stay open to opportunities for playing the roles that we would like to play, and that way we can gradually we can more towards what we are competent at, what we are comfortable at, and sometimes some other’s may also be able to observe.

So, the first point is, we try to observe ourselves, and understand what is comfortable and competent. The other point is, that sometimes others may observe, and say, ‘Hey you know you can do this well, and you try that.’ So, what happens, if you consider like a window… our personality can have four windows… There are some talents which are known to us and known to others. Some talents are known to us, but not known to others. Some talents are known to others, but not known to us, and some talents are neither known to us, nor known to others. So, talents are known to us, and known to others, that’s where we perform, but then we feel, ‘No, I can do this.’, others say, ‘No, not right now.’, then we try to… as I said in second quadrant, that whenever we get opportunity we go there and try to do that and then we might be able to do that more, but there is third quadrant also, where there is something known to others but not known to us, and so if we have good friends, somebody who knows us well, over a period of time they can observe, ‘You know, you can do this well.’, … ‘I never thought about this. I can do that.’ So, that way if we keep observing ourselves, then we can learn.

So, you know, when I joined as a brahmachari… most of the brahmacharis would become preachers, and I also thought that I will become a preacher, but one day, our deputy President, Radheshyam Prabhu gave me something to proof-read, and I just started trying to proof-reading that. He said, ‘Hey you have done such a good job. You know you can do this service more.’, and then once he gav me some assignments to write something for a newspaper. I wrote that, and he was very happy, ‘You can write very well also.’, so it is just by… so, he said, ‘In the future you can take up this service of writing.’…I knew at the back of my mind that I was good at English, but I never thought that I could take up writing as a service, because that was not that everyone was doing. Most devotees were just speaking. I thought that maybe that is what my role was going to be, but then I found that writing is what is my home territory. So, somebody else who discovered that talent. So, there maybe something’s which are in that quadrant where something is known to us… not known to us, but known to others. So, if we have well wishing friends, well wishing guides, and if they tell us, you should do this, you say, ‘No, I can’t do it.’, No, you should do this.

Sometimes some devotees are very shy to teach. Others may say, you know you should preach, you should give classes, you should have your own group, he says ‘No, no, I can’t do it.’ If some senior devotees are seeing something in us, and they are telling us to do we should do it. Why? Because they may be seeing something which we may not be able to see. So, we just start doing it, if we are comfortable we can continue, if we are not very comfortable we can tell that we cannot do. By being open to others suggestions, especially constructive suggestions of what we can try, we will be able to discover the talent that we have.

So, the disadvantage of being in a team is that, sometimes we may have to do things which we don’t like to do, but the advantage of being in a team is that sometimes by being pushed to do some things, we may discover that we are good at this also, and therefore we may discover a side of ourselves which we otherwise would not have discovered.

So, the process of bhakti is definitely a team sport. We are all individuals, but we are all together in this, and … some days, like a batsman may not bat well, but other team players cover up for that. So, like that we are in a team. Some days we may be a little down, but other devotees come and encourage us to move on. So, in the association of devotees sometimes we may slip, sometimes we may fall, but we can all rise and we can move onwards in our spiritual life, knowing that this association actually helps us.

Now, in the Caitanya Caritamrita, Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami compares association with a walking stick. Now I use crutches, when I was five or ten years old I used to use a walking stick. So, initially when I heard this example, I thought, ‘Walking stick is nothing very glorious. Now how can we compare association with walking stick?”

So, one time I was coming from Pune to Mumbai, to give a class, and I had kept the walking stick under the train seat, and somebody stole the walking stick. So, then I had to walk without the walking stick, and then at that it struck me… at that time I was much healthier, so I could walk. I can walk without a walking stick also, but it is slower and it is risky. I have to walk slowly, and then at any moment there is fear that I may fall. So, like that we can also practice bhakti without association, but it’s slower and it is risky. Everything that we have to do…. it’s just slow down. If you want to chant… in association you chant very enthusiastically. When we are alone, we look at this, we look at that, let’s do that. Even if it takes the same amount of time, it seems to take so much longer time, and not only slower it is riskier. If we are with some devotees, even if some phone comes along, we may just put it aside… or we may look at it, attend it for a moment or two and then go back, but if we are all alone, we may look at this or look at that, and then find that Oh, 20 minutes have gone, what is this? … so it is risky. So, if we can practice bhakti in association, it is much, much easier to practice bhakti. We will practice it more easily and we will progress more swiftly.

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Summary :

So, we continued the theme about what cricket can teach us about life. We focussed mainly on team sports and individual sports. We started with determination in the mode of ignorance. That means if we hold that all of us have determination. It just may be that, we may not be holding on to the right thing. So, holding on to the wrong thing is also determination, but because it is negative it is called obstinacy, like Dhritarastra and Duryodhana are there attached to the kingdom.

In a solo sport, in a individual sport, glory goes to the player, and the infamy also goes to the player. The player alone is responsible, whereas in a team sports the players shortcomings can also be covered, and the player can excel and still the result may not come off. So, life is like a solo sport played in teams. So, our own performance does matter, but it may not matter immediately. If we are in a particular team, it may not matter so much, but our performance is like our karma account, and that’s what is going to matter eventually, but we have to work in teams, and by working in teams… I discussed about how the advantage is that even if we don’t do well sometimes, still others can cover up for us, and the disadvantages is, sometimes we may do very well but still we will not get the result if others are not working so well. So, we have to accept that, that now I alone will determine everything, that brings some humility.

If we are working in a team also, there are some players who are more individual geniuses, and there are others who are team players. So, if somebody is more of individual player in a team sports, the adjustment has to come from both sides. That player also need to know, ‘I am in team sports. So, I have to accommodate, and the coach also of this person need to leave more room for him. So, like that we are practicing bhakti which is primarily a social activity, communal activity, community driven activity, but some of us may be introverts and some of us may be extroverts. So, if we are introverts, we gain strength when we are alone. So, then the others who are around us will also recognize us, ‘This person needs a little more privacy than what I need.’, and on the other hand we should also recognize that I cannot just expect to be alone all the time. I should also stretch myself a little. So, both parties can be understanding, and by being understanding we can cooperate. And then in a team sport, I discussed about how we… a batsman doesn’t have to compare with a bowler. So, the batsman has to excel primarily as a batsman. So, we have to focus on our strengths, and we manage our limitations.

So, in a team we especially in… so, varnasrama basically was to give us engagements according to our talents, and according to our abilities, and in that connection how do we discover our abilities ? First is by looking at what we are comfortable, and competent to do, and by observing ourselves by doing various things we can figure out, ‘this is what I can do.’ So, we may naturally get that role, but if we don’t get that role, then we have to fit in, in whatever role we are getting, but while doing whatever role we are given, we can be looking for opportunities to do something, which we feel we are good at, and in that way we can gravitate towards that, and also some of us may have some talents which we may not be aware of. So, sometimes the coach spots a particular talent in the players. So, like that if others tell us, ‘You should do this.’, then we may feel shy, we may feel reluctant, but it may be that we may have that talent, we just have to try it out, put aside the prejudice and try it out.. and then, we may find that a whole new 41.00-04 (inaudible)  is discovered by that, and lastly I concluded about bhakti as a team sport, and that means that we can practice spiritual  life alone, but when we are  practicing alone it is slower and it is risky, like walking without a walking stick, but when we walk together, as a team we can move forward, joyfully and attain Krishna.