Video 36

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna read by Swami Atmajnanananda (12/11/20)

foreign your words are like nectar bringing life to squirt souls they are praised by poets and removal sin they are auspicious to hear wonderful and exalted those who spread these words throughout the world are truly giving souls welcome everyone to our class on the gospel of srama krishna we're on the chapter the master with the brahma devotees and it is date is only given as december 1882 we'll start getting the actual dates shortly after this this is the very end of the chapter page 161 for those who are following along it was afternoon the master was sitting in his room at dakshineshwar with m and one or two other devotees several marwari devotees arrived and saluted the master they requested srama krishna to give them spiritual instruction he smiled now everything has a little bit of significance we'll see a little bit later the marwari community in calcutta at that time was of course a business community and they were generally wealthy people and they came there for trade and to make money but takwa praised them very much for being real hindus he would say because they followed a lot of the the traditions and things and were good pious people but talker always felt that those who made their money uh through buying and selling in profit and everything that they had to be a little calculating and sometimes he even said if you work in an office it means you have to tell lies which sometimes it wasn't that they had to but if they wanted to be successful sometimes they had to be compromising about the truth and things like that so he's smiling a little bit because he knows that they're holding on very strongly to the world as well as trying to realize god so these marwari devotees they came they appreciated surrounding krishna and and he appreciated them but it was this thing about their making money that was always lurking in the background we'll we'll see a little bit of that here master to the marwari devotees you see the feeling of i and mine is the result of ignorance so whenever he answers a question talk where answers a question we can see what uh is lurking behind the answer because uh the answer is sometimes not very not very clear why he gives that particular answer spiritual instruction he could say repeat the name of god he could do so many things but now he's knowing he knows that he's talking to people that have a lot of money and it will have some attachment to their wealth and possessions so he's emphasizing this idea the feeling of i and mine so uh i earned so much money i have so much possession i have so many houses i have so many different things so this is the thing that he's emphasizing for them because he feels that this is probably the instruction that they need but to say oh god thou art the doer all these belong to thee is a sign of knowledge now this this i in mind business uh if if this eye is an egotistical eye and this mind is a possessive mind that i own these things they're mine they're not yours you can't have them then of course they're very harmful from a philosophical point of view it means that uh i've identified this this self with this active ego number one and number two i've identified myself with the body if i can possess something say i own a house i live in a house that means the body lives in the house so there has to be some identification with the body so from vedantic point of view this eye and mind is a bad thing from this egotistical point of view with pride it's a bad thing taku will say there's a certain point of view a certain devotional point of view where it's a good thing i'm i'm like hanuman i am a servant i can do anything at his command i can leap across the ocean this kind of thing and uh he belongs to me he's mine this so this this type of i and mine and the devotional path can be a good thing because it cuts away this other eye and mind tucker had this theory very beautiful theory that the very same attitude redirected can take care of the attitude which is an obstacle so this is that idea of the two thorns huh the very same thorn that removes the other thorn so the very same eye and mind if it's if it's directed towards god and that i am the child of god i am the servant of god proud to be proud to be a servant of god proud to be in swamiji's army a soldier in swamiji's army proud to be a devotee of taqwa and ma then this cuts away this other type of eye that's proud of having money and name and fame and all of that it's it's the remedy for it tako talks about this hinchey type of grain that other types of green leafy vegetables spinach they'll cause a bio this not only doesn't cause bile but it reduces bio it has the opposite effect it'll remove it so this is one way to remove those things the other way of course is to say everything belongs to god huh and i am nobody i am nothing i do as uh as god makes me do of course a very difficult attitude but taco will emphasize that side now but to say oh god thou art the doer all these belong to thee is a sign of knowledge we can easily say everything belongs to thee thou art the doer is a little more difficult we can at least say that everything is up to god that the the fruits of or of our work are out of our hands we try our best i think i'm the doer so i try my best but i know that everything depends upon my karma god's grace then it's out of my hands taqwa very often says this idea that i do as thou makes me do is a sign of god realization it's a very high attitude to really and we have to be perfectly pure and that the ego sense has to be gone selfishness has to be gone before we can really feel that so he says you see the feeling of i and mine is the result of ignorance but to say oh god thou art the doer all these belong to thee is a sign of knowledge how can you say such a thing as mine the superintendent of the garden says this is my garden but if he is dismissed because of some misconduct then he does not have the courage to take away even such a worthless thing as his mango wood box whatever we own if we really do even if we really do own it we don't take it with us we don't own it for such a long time either we'll lose it or it'll it itself will will disappear so we shouldn't have pride in this ownership business this is mine everything is very temporary i remember a nice illustration that swami sadwegatan used to give he said that suppose we're on a train an india local train that means that people get off and on very quickly they'll get in one stop they'll get off the next stop but the conductor comes each time and they'll go up to somebody sitting in the seat and they'll say is this your seat and the person with yes is in my seat then this other man is watching he's he has a long journey and he says that man gets off another person gets on and the conductor says is this your seat the woman says yes it's my seat so each one says my seat but what does it mean to have it even to own a house what does it mean to own a house there's a deed there's a paper that we sign perhaps the bank really owns it we have a big mortgage and then we didn't have it before we may sell it one day so this idea of ownership and possessing things they're all very temporary and uh there's nothing very tangible tangible about it except in our own minds in our own minds it's mind you can't have it you'll have to fight me for it it belongs to me and belongs to me as i say we have to have this this conception of ourselves as physical beings uh that's that's the sense of ownership even the sense of ownership with this physical body is something false do i own this body i dwell in this body now a taqwar is giving that illustration like the maidservant in the rich man's house here he says superintendent of the garden we have the opportunity to serve and to look after things this in in the catholic church is called stewardship we're stewards of the earth that means that we get to look after it we don't own it we get to look after it and make sure things are done nicely and and in in some ethical moral way and preserving the value of the earth itself but we don't own it so the superintendent of the garden says this is my garden but if he is dismissed because of some misconduct then he does not have the courage to take away even such a worthless thing as his mango would box anger and lust cannot be destroyed okay now why is he switching over to this because in the beginning he's really talking about his pride so pride and ego so now he's going through some of the other passions and obstacles in spiritual life they cannot be destroyed turn them toward god so this is what i was saying even with pride this turned this pride away from worldly pride to this other type of pride this uh this is actually one of the teachings we find in the not a day of bhakti sutra and we all know that taqwa was not a scholar and not a pundit number one number two we know that he heard so many things he had so much contact with pundits and with sadhus and everything and number three he never forgot anything so there's every chance that he that he heard this uh there's also a reference he he mentioned somebody somebody's name i can't remember now uh who doesn't play any particular role but taco was very good at giving other people credit i heard from so and so this idea so give it twist more for you say give it twist turn it in the other direction so now he's talking about that because passions are they're natural to a human being and they're actually necessary in spiritual life they're necessary in everything and to be successful in worldly life we have to be passionate we if we if we have a lukewarm attitude we won't get anywhere we want to be a research scientist we have to be passionate about finding a cure for something so whatever we we do we have to that type of passion the if if that passion is directed towards enjoyment and worldly pleasure then it's a terrible bondage if we can direct it towards god realization then it's the highest so talk we're saying don't simply try to get rid of it even these thomasic and rajasthan elements anger and and lust what does lust mean there's a desire to enjoy have this desire to enjoy god so this was a another very great thing taco was so practical he could have simply said no you have to burn up all of the passions destroy them he knows that we can't do that these we're human beings these are in our in our genes part of our dna so he says okay then utilize it give it a different twist very very practical instructions so he says anger and lust cannot be destroyed turn them toward god if you must feel desire and temptation than desire to realize god feel tempted by him discriminate and turn the passions away from worldly objects when the elephant is about to devour a plantain tree in someone's garden the mahud strikes it with his iron tipped gold what does that mean that means that sometimes we have to be a little strong with ourselves we see the mind go in one direction and we say no you know that you're going to just get in trouble with that so remember what i told you go in the other direction you have this enjoy desire for enjoyment turn within you'll find greater enjoyment within this is also one way of understanding this is is replacing one thing with another replace the lower with something higher and then there'll be greater enjoyment he says you are merchants you know how to improve your business gradually this is another beautiful teaching we we think in spiritual life that we'll we'll reach the roof and abound we'll one jump and we'll get to the roof we have to go through all of the different steps we have to climb every rung of the ladder every step of the staircase if we want to get to the roof he says you know how to improve your business gradually some of you start with the castor oil factory after making some money at that you open a cloth shop in the same way one makes progress toward god it may be that you go into solitude now and then and devote more time to prayer so we have to have patience we have to be impatient and patient at the same time this impatience is this tremendous longing no i must realize god but at the same time we have to be willing to to go day after day year after year with our spiritual practice never knowing exactly when it'll bear fruit of course we we're making progress the whole time whether we know it or not but still that type of perseverance is is so necessary swamiji says the the type of perseverance that someone has who's willing to empty the ocean with a blade of grass i don't remember where he said anybody i remember reading it that means drop by drop that type of patience we know that one drop that we've done that it's that much less and we know that if we don't give up that ultimately it'll happen we don't know how long it'll take but that type of patience and perseverance so he says it may be that you go into solitude now and then and devote more time to prayer so if we're impatient then what do we do we increase we increase the amount of time we give to spiritual practice and the intensity and all of the other things keeping holy company reading holy books all of the things that that we know are helpful for us but you must remember that nothing can be achieved except in its proper time so this is where the patience comes in and this is where the faith comes in that i all we need to know is that if we continue that we'll reach the goal we we don't have to know how long it'll take are we qualified we know that as we proceed along the path we become more and more qualified we have to have certain preliminary qualifications but they're very few mostly sincerity and the desire to lead a good pure moral ethical life this is enough we don't have to be very brilliant people we don't have to be highly self-controlled people we don't have to have tremendous intellect and powers of concentration we don't even have to have much of a conception of god or or great devotion but this desire for all of these things has to be there and if we start we get closer and closer and the the qualifications become more and more until when we get to the end we're fully qualified we we don't first purify the heart and mind and then start spiritual practice you know that verse that uh swami turian did like that if you wait until all the waves stop before you take a bath in in the ocean then you'll never get to do it in the same way if you try to get everything perfectly arranged be arranged before you think of god then when will come the time the whole life will go that way so uh nothing can be achieved except in its proper time but we start we don't we don't wait and we don't say well the proper time hasn't come proper time for god realization hasn't come but the proper time for spiritual practice that's up to us and the extent that we do will depend upon our qualifications and and uh our our ability uh is sometimes it's compared to uh this this string of uh of a sitar or some some string instrument if you if you make a two tight it'll snap if it's too loose then it won't make the proper sound so we have to know just how much we can do right but we can increase there's uh this will sound like a funny example but when i was in in trebuco uh our monastery there we had a lot of outdoor work and i used to help out one of the old monks who did a lot of the plumbing we did everything ourselves and there's a an instrument called a pipe cutter it's a very crude simple thing where it just there's a sharp blade on one side and a little vise so you make it a little bit tight and then you spin it around if it's too tight you can't spin it if you make it too tight if it's too loose it won't cut a groove so you make it just tight enough so you spin it once it makes a little groove tighten it another little groove tighten it another little groove and before you know it you've gone through a thick piece of lead pipe is it remarkable so in spiritual life we have to do that we have to keep raising it up a notch if we make it too tight in the beginning we'll give up we won't be able to do anything if it's too loose in the beginning we won't make any progress so we have to know uh when the time is right to start increasing if we force it too much the mind will rebel and we may even give up everything and if we if we don't tighten it enough we won't make any progress so these these things guru of course is helpful but these things also we start to understand if we analyze our own minds to what extent am i looking forward to spiritual practice there's some people or maybe all of us at different times if we make it too hard every morning i'll sit for four hours we find that we don't look forward to it it'll be too much that uh we try to avoid it and everything if we find that uh more and more we want to increase then it's a good sign so we have to observe the mind a little bit so he says but you must remember that nothing can be achieved except in its proper time some persons must pass pass through many experiences and perform many worldly duties before they can turn their attention to god so they have to wait a long time now some of these maruaris were really worldly people and they were really just interested in making a lot of money for some people they have to have some bad experience in this world there's two types of people those who are clever and can observe others and say oh this person was only interested in making a lot of money and now i see how they're suffering they were only interested and and being beautiful and and strong and healthy and now i see in their old age they've lost all of that i won't fall into that trap these are clever people there are other people who have to make the mistake themselves they have to stick their finger in the fire and get burnt others can can observe so he's telling them that for some of them that they'll have to have these experiences that they'll have to try to make as much money as they can and then see that that doesn't bring them ultimate happiness so [Music] he says some persons must pass through many experiences and perform many worldly duties before they can turn their attention to god so they have to wait a long time if an abscess is lanced before it is soft the result is not good the surgeon makes the opening when it is soft and it's come to a head now tako uses these illustrations also with regard to what he calls bhakti and anurag or uses different terms for it that he'll say if you you get a scrape on your hand and it forms a scab and he says if you try to pull that scab off before it's healed underneath it'll bleed again and form another scab if you wait until it's healed underneath the scab will fall off on its own so when it comes to when do we reach that state where we don't have to do all of our spiritual practices that well we're in some high ecstatic state we don't decide it'll happen on its own when the time is right uh for most of us this is a very final rung of the ladder this anurag it's the very last stage so we shouldn't think that we're at the end of our life that we've practiced so long that now it's not necessary to keep track of the number of joppa it may be i'm not saying that it's not possible it may be and at the end of life these things aren't as important anyhow uh takwa says at that stage then it's more important to practice uh constant recollection because we're not capable of doing sitting for long hours in meditation the body doesn't uh hell both the the the body will will rebel against it and the mind will rebel against it and everything uh so the time has to be right for these things and and we have to that's why we have to be patient and we have to observe the mind once a child said to its mother mother i'm going to sleep now please wake me when i feel the call of nature my child said the mother when it is time for that you will wake up yourself i shan't have to wake you the marwari devotees generally brought offerings of fruit candy and other sweets for the master they were very generous they made a lot of money and they were generous srama krishna could hardly eat them he would say they earned their money by falsehood now we shouldn't be too hard on these minority devotees for taco or even this idea that you buy something a little bit cheap and you sell a little bit expensive making profit this is what people do in in business there's a little bit of falsehood to that he's not accusing them of doing illegal things or anything but this is maybe profiteering you might say or a little hoarding and things go into it not that they're bad people but he's saying they earn their money by falsehood i can't eat their offerings he would not allow even the devotees to eat any of the things that were given he would say you save them till not in comes this this is how much of a high opinion sri ramakrishna had of narendra something and his ability to digest anything not in a physical digestion but whatever whatever was there that could have some adverse effect on anyone swamiji had that burning fire of knowledge that could burn up everything and tucker felt that he won't be affected by anything so he would save these things for narendra he would take these things it wouldn't affect him now we also have to understand that these were great souls and very sensitive people for us if we start analyzing it each and every time that i'm going to a restaurant this waiter has given me this food this chef has given me this has cooked this food are they bad people will it have some negative effect on me then we'll we'll go crazy and we're not at that level of yogis that we can be affected by these things this is a very high state swamiji says in one place there are three defects of food this isn't just his idea three defects i probably won't remember all of them one is the natural defect that the food is not well cooked something like that and one is who cooked it and then who touched it different things like that he said we worry so much about the other things that who has cooked it who has touched it all of this and we don't pay any attention to whether it's healthy food or not he said for ordinary people that's more important so we shouldn't be fanatics about this at the same time that it's not a bad idea to to uh cook for ourselves or or or have our loved ones cooked for us those who we know are doing with devotion and love there can i'm not saying there's no effect for these things uh people who are constantly just eating out in restaurants and everything uh the probably the the value of that food is not the same as something cooked with with devotion the best thing of course is food that's been offered then we know there's something sacred about that he said to the marwaris you see one can't strictly adhere to truth in business so this was his point not that they were the only ones who were raising the profit and telling lies but they were business people there are ups and downs in business nanak once said i was about to eat the food of unholy people when i found it stained with blood okay now again this is guru nanak he was a great soul so we we shouldn't we shouldn't be so particular about these things a man should offer only pure things to holy men and now he's telling them directly you want to come and offer food here then make sure that it's not earned by unethical means and make sure that there are no hidden desires behind it that you're not doing it so that you'll earn more money in business and everything you remember ishaan astronomy christian to pray to the divine mother that he'll get this big position huh and takur he said what a mean-minded thing that is to pray to the mother for something like that at least he was he was honest and asked for a christian not that he bought something and gave it to him with that desire behind it he was honest and everything but anything or offered to to a temple or to a holy person should have no strings attached it should be done out of love a man should offer only pure things to holy men he shouldn't give them food earned by dishonest means god is realized by following the path of truth one should always chant his name now we're getting to a spiritual practice before this it was all about you watch what type of life you're leading let it be a good pure ethical type of life as far as possible you're business people it's not possible to just give things away without earning money without making a profit but at least pay some attention to these things and don't give anything with the hidden desire behind it now one should always chan his name this was always the simplest advice that talkwork could give and it wasn't that uh he felt that they weren't capable of understanding anything higher he really believed that this was really in this in kali yuga for most people the most efficacious means of making spiritual spiritual progress even while one is performing one's duties the mind should be left with god a small portion of the mind sometimes doctor says 25 if that is given to the work with some type of concentration and 75 of the mind is given to god we can be more efficient in the world than most people who think they're giving 100 of the mind to work because their mind is scattered a small portion of the mind if it's concentrated on the work can do it the rest of the mind not in the sense that we're thinking or even repeating the name of god all the time sometimes it's not possible but deep down within the heart that feeling is there that connectedness is there that there's some presence of in the mind of this divine connection that that's enough swami today and i think gives another nice example he said repeat the name of god do it jump internally and when the time comes when you have to do something else if working with your hands you can continue doing it if you have to answer the phone you have to talk to somebody you have to add up some numbers then the jumper will it'll go underneath the surface but continue it'll go beneath the surface then it'll come back up again at least it'll remain within the mind it won't always be in the forefront of the mind because sometimes our work doesn't allow that if we do manual work physical work this is why many monasteries in the west they'll they'll have the monks do something like that they'll they'll have some work in in the fields in the garden uh even even make something they'll make fudge or different things like that the hands are busy the mind is free to think of god it's a very nice nice way to to do work even while one is performing one's duties the mind should be left with god suppose i have a carbuncle on my back i perform my duties but the mine is drawn to the carbuncle it is good to repeat the name of rama then this quoting the same rama who was the son of king has created this world again as spirit he pervades all beings he is very near to us he is both within and without so even this seemingly dualistic type of devotion to the avatar to srirama sri krishna should carry a little bit of this uh philosophical understanding that this rama that we worship is the antaryamin is this the self within so is it got me got me there's some hindi verse that he's quoting here to probably tulsidas something like that that this rama is to be seen dwelling within all beings tako used to say i see within every man is rama with every woman i see sita there so it's not simply we're worshiping this is a avatar who enacted his play some yugas ago uh with with the sita and lakshmana and everything that this is the divine present within okay this is the end of chapter six now we begin chapter seven the master and vijay goswami vijay krishna goswami we've been introduced to him earlier he showed up several times he popped up on the boat trip with with the k-shock before so we know his story a little bit i'll start reading because we get a little bit more about him here this is thursday december 14th so am has again started with with the actual date and i believe it'll continue to the very end december 14 1882 it was afternoon now thursday is not usually a day that any of the householder devotees will come em is there for some reason on that day we don't know why uh if the christmas holidays had begun already i doubt it and you know he's there that day tsunami krishna was sitting on his bed after a short noonday visit vijay balarama oh another householder deputy of course the balaram didn't work he had a lot of spare time they were they were wealthy people with the land holders zamindars and everything and and he was given a small parcel of land that people lived on and got some money rent from that so he didn't really have to work so he was a little bit free so vijay balaram m and a few other devotees were sitting on the floor with their faces toward the master they could see the sacred river ganges through the door since it was winter all were wrapped up in warm clothes vijay had been suffering from colic and it brought some medicine with him vijay was a paid preacher in the sadharan brahmos samaj this was the branch that separated after the so-called scandal regarding keshav in the marriage of his daughter so when they split he was also upset with the keshav to a certain extent and he was hired it was a paid position which paid very little so he didn't earn too much money he was a family man at that time so he was a paid preacher and the saddharan brahma sometimes they called the general brahma-samad but there were many things about which he could not agree with the samaj authorities so he couldn't agree with keshav's side because some principle there was a principle involved that they had decided on the marriageable age of girls and that keshav had married his daughter when she was a little bit too young so there was a principle involved there's a other dispute it's not really a dispute it was a temperamental thing this uh idea that they weren't allowed to to go to any temple that had uh an image they they thought of it as idol worship in bow down and do some things which were very standard hindu things so uh he didn't really quarrel with them over that but there was a little something in in the back of his mind he didn't feel quite right about it so it says he could not agree with the samaj authorities he came from a very noble family of bengal noted for its piety and other spiritual qualities he was a goswami the goswamis all traced their ancestry back to uh one of the companions of caitanya deva this is the tradition generally to advaita goswami that's what he came from that family saw me even to vishnu prayers family and others also i don't know all the details with these things but many of them will be that i asked swami swan and he wants because he also came from a ghost farming family and he said ah we don't know these things maybe a dwight deutsche so because it's many centuries earlier but in this case he seemed to have known he came from a very noble family of bengal noted for its piety and other spiritual qualities eduardo swami was one of his remote ancestors so there'll be thousands because after so many uh centuries that the tree keeps spreading out so all of the goswamis and because they're descendants of the original companions of caitanya deva they are all considered qualified to be gurus and they are the gurus of the this vaisnava tradition so one of the remote ancestors had been an intimate companion of sri chaitanya thus the blood of the great lover of god flowed in vijay's veins now tucker always felt that this wasn't just a hereditary thing it was a some scottish thing that meant that uh the samskara of devotee was there bhakta and uh that meant worshipping god through the image with with the kirtan or all of the things that go along with that taco thought of the the brahmos as devotees also but not in this in the same sense they were very highly intellectual types of devotees thus the blood of a great lover of god flowed in vijay's veins as an adherent of the brahma-samaj vijay no doubt meditated on the formless in brahmin this was their attitude in their teaching but his innate love of god inherited from his distinguished ancestors had merely been waiting for the proper time to manifest itself in all its sweetness how did it get awakened krishna not that tucker did anything especially but just being in his company seeing that ecstatic love of god that kirtan and the dancing and and ecstasy and all of that this awakened something in him thus vijay was irresistibly attracted by the god-intoxicated state of srama and often sought his company of all of the brahmos vijay and keshav of course loved him and appreciated him but didn't really change too much a little bit he he was appreciative of of these different types of spiritual practices that takara under one but vijay he really could fully accept shiramakrishna without being restricted as so so that he'll be an inner circle or uh this nishita would only be a devoted that is nishita is the devotion would go back to this evasion of the tradition and this krishna himself he became known as the great division of a saint in later days many books are written about him many disciples and everything he would listen to the master's words with great respect and they would dance together in an ecstasy of divine love shortly after this i don't know when exactly but vijay actually renounced that he gave up the brahma so much he gave up family life he showed up wearing his gorilla cloth and became fully a sanyasi it was a weekday generally devotees came to the master in large numbers on sundays hence those who wanted to have intimate talks with him visited him on the weekdays a boy named vishnu living in aliyadha had recently committed suicide by cutting his throat with a razor the talk turned to him master i felt very badly when i heard of the boys passing away he was a pupil in a school and he used to come here he would often say to me that he couldn't enjoy worldly life he had lived with some relatives in the western provinces and at that time used to meditate in solitude in the meadows hills and forests he told me he had visions of many divine forms perhaps this was his last birth he must have finished most of his duties in his previous birth the little that had been left undone was perhaps finished in this one one must admit the existence of tendencies inherited from previous births there's a story about a man who practiced the shavasana this is a type of tantric practice where you actually sit on the corpse and you do your meditation and other things there he worshipped the divine mother in a deep forest first he saw many terrible visions finally a tiger attacked and killed him another man happening to pass and seeing the approach of the tiger had climbed a tree afterwards he got down and found all the arrangements for worship at hand he performed some purifying ceremonies and seated himself on the corpse no sooner had he done a little japa then the divine mother appeared before him and said my child i am very much pleased with you except a boon from me he bowed low at the lotus feet of the goddess and said may i ask you one question mother i am speechless with amazement at your action the other man worked so hard to get the ingredients for your worship and tried to propitiate you for such a long time but you didn't condescend to show him your favor and i who don't know anything of worship who have done nothing but of neither who have neither devotion nor knowledge nor love and who haven't practiced any austerities and receiving so much of your grace the divine mother said with the laugh my child you don't remember your previous births for many births you tried to propitiate me through austerities as a result of those austerities all these things have come to hand and you have been blessed with my vision now ask me your boon then the devotee says i'm frightened to hear of the suicide i wanted to address just a little bit on this question of suicide for for a number of reasons one is that uh probably almost all of us know of at least some one person who has either committed suicide or tried to commit suicide and we we read very often tucker will refer to it that this is a sinful thing or if not a sinful thing that the the soul has no place to go that it can be a torturous type of thing now here takua is saying that there may be cases where there was only a little karma left this is not to be considered real suicide so i wanted to just address it a little bit because it's a very complex issue it's very complex and very sensitive issue i i have no expertise in any of this i'm giving my own personal feeling having thought about it quite a bit and having seen people who have to live with the suicide of a loved one and as i say it's extremely complex because all different types of emotions come first the feeling of loss terrible feeling of loss when someone commits suicide second a little element of guilt is there something that we could have done that would have kept this person from doing it third a little bit of fear and anxiety what will happen to the soul of this person all of these things are there together and uh then we have a other issues that if we say that suicide is a terrible thing we should do everything we can to prevent someone from committing suicide some people have tremendous suffering it may be physical in some cases it may be mental in most cases it's mental now is the goal to prevent people from committing suicide and suffer the rest of their lives if it's possible of course the goal is to is to help people find some joy in life whatever whatever the cause of that misery that leads to suicide whatever that cause is to find some way to help eliminate that it's not always possible now i don't i want to make sure that nobody takes away from this this idea that okay in some cases that suicide is the best thing to do that's why i say it's a very sensitive issue i well we don't want to encourage anybody to commit suicide they have to be very clear about this at the same time we have to be sympathetic and understand that for some people they feel this is their only option and other times people may say it was very selfish that how they're making other people suffer we all have to put up with things we don't like but we don't know the degree of their suffering so it's a very very complex issue and there may be cases of older people who have some incurable disease and then this question of euthanasia comes up is that suicide so they have the right to put an end to their life if they know that they only have a certain number of months left to live and they're in terrible pain these are highly uh debatable ethical questions and there are many advanced countries uh some in europe places switzerland other places where there'll be very nice facilities for older people or people with some incurable disease there has to be a good reason for it who can go and in very nice very nice environment can have some very uh painless type of of death is there something ethically wrong with that these these are questions that we don't know how much of it is is these some scottish how much is very difficult things to answer very complex type of things so each case is a little bit different the main thing is to try to help people who have this this tendency not to just prevent it from them from committing suicide but find out why sometimes it's tremendous peer pressure many countries especially asian countries japan korea like that india to a certain extent uh there's tremendous peer pressure pressure for kids to uh to excel in school and everything if they don't get in so many places they don't get into the highest university or something they'll commit suicide there was one film what was that film three idiots about so much pressure that not uncommon for those who didn't make the cut who couldn't get into the school they wanted to to commit suicide and a little bit i i won't say that it was looked up upon but a little bit of saving face and some something slightly admirable huh a little bit to this type of suicide in some countries japan especially it can be something that people will look upon with a little bit of of respect i read recently i don't know what the exact statistic was but recently maybe the past month or something more people died of suicide in japan than from the from covet 19. so it's a big problem and depression itself is a big problem these things we have to deal with these things very rationally take professional help whenever possible try to look at it from a spiritual point of view and try to look at it with tremendous compassion that we shouldn't blame the people who commit suicide because we don't know the extent to which they're suffering and uh when it's so great then these other considerations will other people suffer because of it they become helpless to even think of these things so i just i don't want to belabor the point but we we have to be a little cautious every suicide is not is not meaning that so we'll be in some torture state we don't know that we don't have to think of everything as a great sin mahapap we we don't know that we don't want to admire it too much that this is a saving face for the family this and that is a very complex thing we have to understand that uh the human life is very difficult and for some people it becomes unbearable and we have to have compassion on them we have to have compassion on ourselves this this feeling of guilt what did i do wrong for parents for siblings whatever what could i have done to prevent it that i didn't do uh these these there are some scottish here there are things behind us that we don't know and that uh perhaps this this is in somebody's karma even we don't know these things so uh to the extent to which we can free ourselves from from guilt freeing ourselves from the sense of loss is much more difficult that's usually a lifetime thing and not just suicide because many of these same issues come from this idea of people who die a violent death or an accidental death that they also become disembodied beings and ghosts and all of that we don't know what happens and why these things happen so we just have to we have to just accept things and and move on a little bit so the devotee says i'm frightened to hear of the suicide master suicide is a heinous sin undoubtedly this is part of the culture also this is part of the culture this is considered one of the great sins a man who kills himself must return again and again to this world and suffer its agony we can we can accept this we cannot accept this we don't have to because we don't know we really don't know what's behind all of these things but i don't call it suicide this is the important thing if a person leaves his body after having the vision of god now how many people have the vision of god we don't know but [Music] the other thing is that in those days committing suicide what did it mean you cut your throat with a knife you hang yourself it wasn't simply you can take a bunch of pills and die peacefully so that is also comes into the equation does that make a difference is it is it the violent nature of the death with suicide or is it just the fact that one takes one's own life that it's a type of murder we don't know these things after attaining knowledge some people give up their bodies after the gold image has been cast in the clay mold you may either preserve the mold or break it many years ago a young man of about 20 used to come to the temple garden from baranagur his name was gopassen in my presence he used to experience such intense ecstasy that ifridae had to support him for fear he might fall to the ground and break his limbs that young man touched my feet one day and said sir i shall not be able to see you anymore let me bid you goodbye few days later i learned that he had given up his body okay now we get into a slightly different uh discussion here about different types of human beings i think i'll stop here and yeah so this idea of suicide we don't like to think about it but in in our society with so much pressure and now so much increased pressure with this kovid 19 and with the isolation that people feel that this will become a bigger issue nowadays loneliness and everything there are different causes for it and what can we do we can reach out and and show our love and and support for those who are feeling that type of depression but some things are beyond our control some scholars are there and and the karma is there and everything so we also have to learn to accept things that come okay so sorry to end on not such a high note but these things are important to think about especially as i say during this period when uh there is so much more suffering this isolation and loneliness and then also watching other people suffer how how these doctors and nurses and and hospital workers and everything go in day after day and observe this what it must do to their psyche to have to constantly be with people suffering and dying we owe them a great debt of gratitude for the work that they do okay let us close [Music] [Music] we is our heads before srama krishna who was stainless of infinite nature whose heart melts in sympathy for his devotees who is an embodiment of the divine and the supreme lord and every worthy ever worthy of our worship om shanti shanti shanti peace peace peace one final thing if anybody does feel this loneliness and isolation reach out to someone there are always people willing willing to help okay thank you all and see you next time