Hare Krsna. On a battlefield, 5,000 years ago, in the conversation that we call Bhagavad-gita, Arjuna has just asked Krsna what a person of steady wisdom is actually like. How he sits, how he speaks, how he behaves. So this verse comes in the middle of that answer. Now, this one verse is a chain with four links. And anger is the fourth, number four, in that chain. We will go through them all and ask the question, where can you break that chain? Because we understand it's going down, it's going downwards. And I can tell you right now, it's not at the end that you break the chain. All of us have been trying to do that without any success. So, words in this verse: dhyāyato means contemplation. We recognize that from the aṣṭāṅga-yoga, dhyāna, right? Dhyāna, dhyāyato. That means contemplation. You think about something, whether it's a person or a material object, your thoughts go there. Maybe a beautiful car. You see, "Oh, that's a nice car." And a little later, "Yeah, I remember I saw that car today." So the thoughts, dhyāyato, it contemplates, or dwell, dwell on that object. That object is called viṣaya. Viṣaya means sense objects. If you dwell on a sense object long enough, you would like to contact it. Maybe I go back to the shop and look at the car again, and sit in it, and feel how it feels like. So saṅga, you're in contact with that object, right? That comes from repeated dhyāyato, contemplation. And from that comes kāma. A desire develops: "I want that thing. I want that car or that person, or whatever it is." Kāma. I want that for my enjoyment, because the opposite of kāma is prema, that is unselfish love. And then, from kāma comes krodha, which means...
Q: Anger?
A (Madhava Puri d): Anger, absolutely. Which is today's topic, anger. [sound of heavy rain on the roof] I recognize this sound from this morning, because I was listening to a class from Almvik. They were also live broadcasting, so it was raining like anything in Almvik. It's fine. It's on the roof. Now, this is a shower. They generally don't last so long, but... So, it's fine. I have a question for you. If you think about the last time you were angry, not irritated, really angry, an honest question: at the moment when the anger happened, did you choose to get angry?
Q: Yes.
A (Madhava Puri d): You choose. Yeah? No, you didn't. It just came, bubbled up.
Q: Uncontrollable, uncontainable [uncontrolled emotion].
A (Madhava Puri d): Ah. Anyone else? Did you choose to get angry?
Q: No.
Q: It just came out.
A (Madhava Puri d): It just came. Almost everybody does not really choose to get angry.
Q: If things are not working the way I want...
A (Madhava Puri d): Well, now you're jumping ahead in the class. Very good. We're going to get there. Anger is one of the few things in human life that generally arrives fully formed. It's a ready package that hits you, right? And it does its damage in a very short time and leaves us to clean up afterwards, right? wondering, "Where did it come from?"
Well, there is a problem for anyone trying to live a spiritual life. Let's try this.
Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare
Okay. So we have a problem sometimes in spiritual life, and we all met the person who is peaceful in the temple, in the church, or on the meditation cushion, but impossible at home. Most of us have been that person, right? So the question today is not whether anger is bad. Everyone in this room already knows it is. The question is, why knowing that changes so little? This verse doesn't tell us that anger is bad. It tells where anger is manufactured. And it appears...
appears to be in a place where it's not very close to where it manifests. So nobody today will be told to stop being angry. That advice has been given to us many times maybe and has never worked even once. Okay. So Krishna describes four things that happens: dhyāyato, saṅga, kāma, krodha. And krodha is also part of the six problems of the conditioned living being: kāma, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, mātsarya. The other ones being greed, envy, madness, and illusion. So what Krishna mentions here, each thing is producing the next one. Dhyāyato produces saṅga, saṅga produces kāma, and kāma produces krodha. If we look at the words in the verse, it says sañjāyate, upajāyate, etcetera. That means develops. From contemplation, attachment develops. From attachment, lust develops. And from lust, anger develops. We don't really have much choice in between. One thing leads to the other once we are down the slippery slope. It grows. It simply grows. Dwelling on something, thinking about something is very innocent, really. It's very mild. Not doing anything, not even wanting anything yet. We simply let the mind run here and there. We go in a shopping center, shopping mall, Nova Lund, and we dwell on this, we dwell on that, and we look at one thing to the next. Quite innocent, right? So simply we're letting the mind run here and there when nothing much is happening: on the train, in the shops, all kinds of places. So this is the first link, and it's so harmless looking that nobody guards it. The second stage, saṅga, attachment. Once the mind has visited long enough many times, the thing suddenly starts to become mine in my own estimation. Nothing has been bought yet or promised, but a claim has been made internally, and now I have a direct interest. Third stage, kāma. There comes the wanting: I want. Now I need it. It's no longer something I would like; it has become a condition of me feeling all right. Krishna uses this word kāma a great deal, and it covers far more than the obvious. It covers also wanting to be respected, wanting to be proved right, wanting the day to go as planned. Yeah? And when these things don't happen, anger. And here is a definition really that the whole class is resting upon: anger is what wanting does when something gets in the way, it's blocking it. Maybe, "Oh, I want this beautiful woman," and then some other guy gets in the way and takes her, and then I get angry, right? Maybe I get that lovely woman, I even marry her, and then I have expectations that I want from her: she should bring my slippers every morning, cook me nice meal, come with my cigar, whatever it is. And then when the expectations and the wants are not met, I get angry, right? So this is what's blocking. And it's like this every time: there is a wanting and there is a blockage. So there's no anger anywhere that does not have a blocked desire standing directly behind it. So if you take your last episode of anger and look one single step behind it, what is behind that anger? What was it you wanted that you didn't get? Think about it for a little while. There will always be something that you wanted. And if you think about it, you'll find it. Anger feels like it is about the other person, right? "I'm angry at you." But the verse says it's not about the other person; it's about us, right? That's very fortunate, because then we can do something about it. You know how hard it is trying to change other people, right? It could be something we are holding that arrived even long before the person came. It's been there all the time. It's not a comfortable thing to discover, but finding it is very useful, because it puts the matter back in our own hands. So by the time anger appears, three things had already happened, quietly and without being stopped. This is the fourth link, and nobody manages the chain simply by grabbing the last link. Now, Krishna, he doesn't stop by anger. There's another verse after this one.
krodhād bhavati sammohaḥ
sammohāt smṛti-vibhramaḥ
smṛti-braṁśād buddhi-nāśo
buddhi-nāśāt praṇaśyati. From anger, complete delusion arises. Means you start doing things where you lose control. From delusion comes bewilderment of memory. You may have been married for 20 good years, but then you get angry, you say things... Has anyone experienced that you can say things in 10 seconds that could take 10 years to repair? So you had 20 good years with your husband or with your wife, and then you forget them for a minute of anger, right? When memory is bewildered, intelligence is lost. And when intelligence is lost, one falls down again in a material pool. So these are the next four links in the chain:
Delusion, you see the situation not as it actually is. Memory bewildered, everything I know about this person, like 10 or 20 good years together, is simply unavailable for me for those two minutes of anger. Intelligence is lost, I do the thing that I will regret. And then the fall. So the verse is exactly describing such a situation when you're angry and you say something to another person for a few seconds that will take years to repair, if ever. Now, there's an interesting story. One king, very great devotee called King Ambarisha—you can read about him—and a very great mystic yogi named Durvasa Muni. The king had kept a long fast, and he was about to break it by the rules at a precise moment. You know, the Vedic dharma works like this, one has to be very exact. So the time had come when Ambarisha Maharaja had to break his fast. Coincidentally just now arrived Durvasa Muni with his disciples and whole entourage. And as we know from the Vedic culture, every guest should be received with the greatest respect, and, for example, one should never eat or drink before the guest had been served, right? So that was the dilemma. Durvasa went to take a bath in the river, and the time was running out for Ambarisha to break the fast. On the advice of the learned brahmanas, the king took only a sip of water to break the fast. Because sometimes water is considered to be eating or breaking, and sometimes it's not like that. So he was technically breaking the fast by drinking a little water, respectfully waiting to eat before Durvasa and his entourage was being served. But of course, Durvasa came to know about this. So he came back from his bath furious, fuming. He took it as a personal insult: "How dare he eat or drink before me?" So he tore hair from his head—oh, I have to take care—one hair he took, and created a fiery demon with it to kill the king. Can you imagine? Kill someone because they took a little water before... That's why a bhakti-yogi is different from a mystic yogi. They may be very, very spiritually advanced, but also sometimes very hard in the heart. So if you compare them, one is a mystic of enormous spiritual power, that's Durvasa Muni. The other is a householder with a kingdom, a family, and things to take care of. By every external measure, which is the spiritually advanced of the two? And then the Lord's disc, the Sudarshana chakra, burned the demon that was created instantly, and then chased Durvasa Muni for doing what he tried to do to Ambarisha. So Durvasa, he was chased by the Sudarshana all over the universe for that. He ran to Brahma, trying to seek help. What can he do? He ran to Shiva. What could he do? Finally he went to Lord Vishnu Himself. And Lord Vishnu simply told him, "I'm sorry, I am controlled by My devotees, and I cannot excuse an offense against one of them." So He sent him back to beg the king's pardon, which is what he had to do to get rid of that. Therefore, spiritual advancement does not make one immune from the effects of anger. Just because you're a spiritually advanced person doesn't mean you can do anything to others when you're angry. Durvasa had powers we cannot even imagine, but his anger cost him everything, just in one afternoon. This is precisely what this verse is describing: delusion, memory gone, intelligence gone, and falling. Meanwhile, the king, Ambarisha, he just stood there, did nothing, and he was protected. And we can see a little bit in a moment what he'd been doing with his life that made that possible. So being angry is not just a small matter of temperament. The chain runs from an idle thought all the way to losing everything a person has built, and it runs quickly. If you look at the Lord Himself, He displays two kinds of anger. When He was fighting with Hiranyaksha, the brother of Hiranyakashipu, they had a good time, because they were sporting, and they were exchanging insult. So Hiranyaksha was insulting Varahadeva, the boar, "Oh, you amphibious beast," or whatever he told him, and Varaha was insulting Hiranyaksha back. Of course, Varahadeva got angry because of being personally insulted, but when Hiranyakashipu...
tortured his own son, Prahlāda Mahārāja, and tried to kill him on several occasions. Then Viṣṇu came as Nṛsiṁhadeva. And that anger was not comparable to the anger He showed to Hiraṇyākṣa when He was insulted. When His devotee was insulted, nothing could stop Him. He almost, practically, destroyed the whole universe, so angry He was. The demigods, Lord Brahmā, Lord Śiva, all the others, they didn't dare to approach Nṛsiṁhadeva, because He was so furious on Hiraṇyakaśipu for what he did to a Vaiṣṇava. So it took Prahlāda himself to approach and pacify Hiraṇyakaśipu. He personally asked Him to please forgive my father. So that was two completely different kinds of angers. And similarly for us devotees, if we get insulted ourselves, then we can react with anger. "You don't respect me. You don't listen to what I have to say." Mahāprabhu tells us:
tṛṇād api sunīcena
taror api sahiṣṇunā
amāninā mānadena
kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ
The way we should look at things is that we are more tolerant than a tree and more humble than the straw in the street that everybody is stepping on. Famous story of the Avantī brāhmaṇa in the eleventh canto, I believe, where he was just roaming here and there, was a pure devotee, and people were just mocking him, stealing whatever small things he had, a kamaṇḍalu, a little daṇḍa, everything. They were passing foul air towards him, urinating on his food. It's disgusting, but it's described in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. But he simply didn't do anything. But somebody who is still affected by false ego, "You insulted me, you insulted my car, or my this, or my that," or even, "my wife, or my child," being extensions of the ego. Of course, children and wives or husbands, if they are devotees, they can be the focus of somebody's spiritual anger. If Hiraṇyakaśipu was a devotee, and somebody was treating Prahlāda very bad, then Hiraṇyakaśipu could be very angry with that person. Now, back to the anger. To break the chain, willpower is not enough. Kṛṣṇa explains three verses earlier:
viṣayā vinivartante
nirāhārasya dehinaḥ
rasa-varjaṁ raso 'py asya
paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate
While the embodied soul can be restricted from sense gratification by willpower, the taste for sense enjoyment remains. But, ceasing such engagement by experiencing a higher taste, he is fixed in consciousness. So that is why a bhakta is much stronger than simply a yogi. A yogi rejects the world. He says, "No dhyāna, no contemplation," while the bhakta says, "Well, I can contemplate, but from the perspective: how can this be used to please Kṛṣṇa?"
There's this verse: svanuṣṭhitasya dharmasya saṁsiddhir hari-toṣaṇam. One can accept anything for the pleasure of the Lord, which means a person who looks at other people, other things, thinking, "How can I use this or encourage this person in devotional service?" has no problem contemplating. But when you contemplate thinking, "What can be used for my pleasure? What can I enjoy?" that's where the problem starts. There are people who are very averse to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. We don't bother to try to inspire them. Then there are people who are more ignorant. They don't care. They may hear kīrtana. Well, we can give them prasādam. But then you have people who have a little interest. Those are the people we give mercy and try to help and inspire in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Because people have free will. Material objects don't. Some objects are easy to engage in Kṛṣṇa's service: flowers, we can decorate the altar, just like see we have a very nice altar decoration here; rice, dāl, you can cook nice preparations and offer to the Deities. But how do you engage flesh, meat? How do you use stool in Kṛṣṇa's service? Personally, I find it very difficult. So one has to use discrimination also, just like as you discriminate between people, too. Just like there's one of the ten offenses Prabhu here was talking about last Sunday: to inform the faithless about the glories of the holy name. If they don't have any faith, if they are just ignorant or averse, it's actually an offense trying to talk about Kṛṣṇa to them, because they are not receptive. So the word rasa in this verse I just quoted, rasa-varjaṁ raso 'py asya, that means a taste. Not a taste of food, but the pull or the relish, the reason why something is attractive. You see an attractive person. I was just thinking about Śrīla Prabhupāda. He was an old man. Old men are generally not very attractive, but he had a particular rasa, flavor, attractiveness to him because he was fully surrendered to Kṛṣṇa and he was channeling Kṛṣṇa's mercy like that. So he became very attractive, although he had, externally, a body of an old man. So, similarly, we people, trying to copy Kṛṣṇa, we all want to be small Kṛṣṇas, small controllers, small enjoyers. And we want to make ourselves attractive for everybody else. "I want to have followers on Facebook. I want to have people coming up to me saying, 'Oh, you're so beautiful and well-dressed, and you're so learned,'" or "You have a lot of money," people come up to you. So we want to feel that we are attractive. It's natural for a conditioned soul. As a woman, you spend time making makeup, dressing up very nicely to attract the opposite sex most of the time, like that. And that creates...
That kind of dhyāna, that kind of contemplation which may not be so good in spiritual life. Reminds me of a story from Science of Self-Realization, "Liquid Beauty". This young man met a young girl. She was extremely beautiful. And then he wanted to have saṅga and kāma. And she said, "Yeah, I will come back." It's a little bit like Haridāsa Ṭhākura, but the opposite, right? So he came back at one point and knocked on the door, and there opened this wrinkled, thin, bad-smelling lady. And said, "Can I meet this wonderful young girl I met?" "Well, it's me," she said. "No, no, no, you can't be you. You look terrible." She was very beautiful, beautiful body features. "No, it's me. But I went on a fast and purging. I saved all my bodily liquids: vomit, stool. This is me." And she brought out the buckets to show him, bad-smelling, and he was, "Ah!"
So this was just external. We have a thin layer of skin. But if you rip it off, it's not very attractive, like this. So that is the kind of contemplation that can be problematic. If you simply suppress anger, try to control it, first of all, you will not be able to do that. But it leaves the kāma which is behind it untouched. So that's why you can get back that anger sideways as coldness, as sarcasm, as explosion. Three weeks later you build up and build up, and finally if you try to suppress anger. So that is not the solution. Even modern psychology says that it's—no, we don't need it maybe—even modern psychology says that it's unhealthy to suppress anger. "You should express it," they say. Okay, well, give it its due, then be precise. Expressing or suppressing it, both operate on level four, where the damage is already done. Because expressing discharges the anger against another person. You express the anger. If you suppress the anger, you discharge anger against yourself. And that's also very unhealthy. You can actually become physically sick by suppressing anger, directing it to yourself. Neither of them touches the wanting, as you said earlier, like this. So Kṛṣṇa suggests where to work instead. He's already giving the remedy. One who restrains his senses, keeping them under full control, and fixes his consciousness upon Me, He says, he's known as a man of steady intelligence. So rejecting the objects of senses is not the solution, but looking at them from the perspective how they can be used for Kṛṣṇa's pleasure. Looking at family members, not as mine—my wife, my husband, my children—but Kṛṣṇa's instead. These are Kṛṣṇa's beings, and I've just been here, given the responsibility to care for them for a limited time period. So this is what the king did. Ambarīṣa was not a monk. He didn't shut his senses down. He gave each sense a job: his mind on Kṛṣṇa's lotus feet, his words describing Kṛṣṇa's qualities, his hands were cleaning the temple, his ears were hearing about Kṛṣṇa, his eyes were fixed on the deity's beautiful form, his nose on the fragrance to flowers offered to Kṛṣṇa, and his tongue was engaged in tasting Kṛṣṇa prasāda, his legs were walking to holy places, his head was engaged in bowing down. So this is yukta-vairāgya, real renunciation. Not that you just simply reject, "This is material." No, you use it for Kṛṣṇa's service. Like I can drink some because maybe my voice will be better, I can speak more about Kṛṣṇa. So you have to give your senses a job which doesn't lead to anger when there's an egoistic want behind it. "I want my husband to take me seriously, listen to me. I want my wife to do more service and chant her rounds properly. I want my children to come to the program, get up in the morning, take cold shower, and then do 16," or whatever. This is my—it's a good want, in one sense. But this is not the way you inspire people with free will. You inspire them by just being a good example and caring. Not one single of our senses were shut down. Everyone was redirected. And a sense that is occupied with something is not available for something else. You want to go downtown and look for a flower shop to buy flowers for the altar. You look, "Where is flower shop? Where is flower shop?" You don't look, "Oh, this is a nice dress for me. Oh, here they sell wine." No, the sense is occupied finding a flower shop for Kṛṣṇa, right? So that is the first link of this chain. That's where we really have a choice. As soon as the contemplation has turned into "I want to be contacting this person or sense object," then it can be too late. Most often it is. And then it leads to, "Oh, I want this." And when you don't get it, or whatever, you get angry. So there is a want behind. Nobody here is being asked to leave their job, or their family, or their house. You are just being asked to hold the same relation in a different perspective: yathārham, as much as is needed, and kṛṣṇa-sambandhe, in connection with Kṛṣṇa. There is a whole difference between a renunciation that dries a person out, becomes dry in the heart, or the one that just deals with the first chain of this, first link of this chain. This is not a permission to
be angry at any situation. So one should think of oneself to be more humble than a straw on the street, more tolerant than a tree. And there are examples of different kinds of anger. You have Jagai and Madhai, two brothers. Lord Chaitanya was very angry, was prepared to kill them, because what they did to Lord Nityananda. So it was just because of Lord Nityananda's limitless mercy that he gave them mercy, so that instead of killing their bodies, Mahaprabhu and Nityananda killed their demonic mentality. You have the example of Hanuman. He was very, very angry because the demon Ravana kidnapped the wife of his master, Lord Ramachandra. So he went to Lanka and he burned down the whole city with the fire of his tail. That's also justified anger. And finally Arjuna, he kind of first was a soft-hearted, a little bit like this, but then Kṛṣṇa was pushing him, because you can't fight a war if you're not angry. So he just inspired Kṛṣṇa to get angry, to defeat the bad guys, like that. Also rightful cause. So Durvasa Muni's anger and Hanuman's anger, they are the same energy. But Durvasa's was aimed at an insult to himself, and destroyed him in just one single afternoon. Hanuman's was aimed at the Lord's service, and he was worshipped for it. Nothing distinguishes them except what the anger was serving, right? So, now the test here, I think almost nobody in this room has a problem with anger of strangers. The problem is at home, with people you know. And family anger has a particular cause, which means it has a particular remedy. Anger at a stranger, somebody you hit on traffic, it comes and it goes, never to come back again. Now, the hidden wanting, because the anger in family is almost the same, the famous verse:
puṁsaḥ striyā mithunī-bhāvam etam
tayor mitho hṛdaya-granthim āhuḥ
ato gṛha-kṣetra-sutāpta-vittair
janasya moho 'yam ahaṁ mameti
When man and woman come together, there are great expectations: "We want this together, we want that. We want travel, nice big house, we want gṛha, kṣetra, suta, nice children, āpta, we want a lot of wealth." But we may not get exactly that, and then in our frustration we may start to blame one another for that. "I wanted this. I wanted to live in a palace, big, like a princess. And now you quit your job. We don't make any money anymore. What, are you useless?" Or husband, "I wanted, I would get somebody who would make me happy all the time, serve me and give me good time in bed at night, and cook nice meals, and like this, but you don't even clean the house. You're just a slob." This is my want. This is the want which is wrong. When we want these things, we get angry. So if you lower the bar to the necessity—yeah, simple, clean home, simple, nice-tasting food offered to the Lord, we make enough money to be able to pay the rent, we bring up our children becoming attached to Kṛṣṇa, like this—then things will work out. Our desires, our wanting is of the right kind. We want to please Kṛṣṇa, saṁsiddhir hari-toṣaṇam. So here is the diagnosis of family anger, and you can run the test on yourself. Family anger is almost never about the behavior. It's about the claim: "You are mine, therefore you should. You are mine. You are my child, therefore you should. You are my husband, you are my wife." It's a claim. But it's not. It's not yours, really. Kṛṣṇa put you together. We should help one another, contemplate the right things. So I think there is basically what I have to say today. The most direct way to occupy the senses and prevent them from distractions in your contemplation is to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. We do japa. For those of us who are given a promise to chant sixteen rounds means that at least two hours, hopefully, we will not be contemplating things which are not good for us. We will absorb ourselves in his holy name. If the ear hears it, the mind will follow. Start with one round, then make it two, make it four, and you will experience actually you will become happy, because contemplating the sense objects doesn't make one happy, it makes one angry. Maybe next week when you get angry, take a step back and ask yourself, "What's behind it?" Not "Who was wrong?" but "What did I want that I didn't get?" Who was wrong, but what did I want which I didn't get? You can try to offer your food, it's always very nice, it becomes spiritualized. And for those who want to inspire the other family members, offer the food, ring the bell, sit down for a moment, chant. The other family members will ask, "What's he doing? What's happening?" As Prabhupada was saying, every morning he heard the tinkling of the bells of his father, Gour Mohan De. It attracted him. So this is the way to attract other family members to Kṛṣṇa consciousness: by your own example, by inspiring them, encouraging them, not by force, right? And try to give one of your senses a good job. Pick one thing from the king's list that will fit your actual life. The ears on the way to work—now we have this Kṛṣṇa radio, you can always listen to, the classes of Prabhupada, his bhajanas, and more. Maybe you use your hands for Kṛṣṇa for an hour or so, every Sunday, Saturday. Offer the food before it's eaten. One sense given an occupation, that's a real beginning. So we began with anger, arriving unchosen and leaving damage behind. Kṛṣṇa showed us it is the fourth link of a chain that starts somewhere completely innocent: a mind dwelling on something while nothing much is happening. He showed us what the chain cost us, and what it cost two men on one day: a great mystic who lost everything to anger...
...over his own honor, and the king who had simply kept every sense employed and was protected. Kṛṣṇa showed us as willpower fails because the taste for contacting the sense objects, contemplating on them, stays. So the chain has to be broken in the beginning, very, very beginning, nip it in its bud by giving the mind something else, something better, something higher to dwell on. And Kṛṣṇa showed us through Hanumān and Arjuna that the energy itself is not to be destroyed, because it cannot, but handed over for some higher purpose. He showed us where this is really decided, which is not in traffic, not at work, but at our own table, where the wanting behind the anger usually turns out to be the claim of ownership over people who were never ours in the first place. We were just giving them as a gift temporarily from Kṛṣṇa. Anger is not your enemy, and it is not your character. It is only the sound that wanting makes when something gets in the way. So the anger that comes from your own blocked wanting will quietly dry up on the day you want something greater. And whatever strength is left in you belongs to Kṛṣṇa to use. Kṛṣṇa is not asking you to become a person with no feelings. He's offering you something better to feel, somewhere better to put everything you already feel, and He has made the way—the way in—cost nothing more than a few minutes and a little of your voice. Hare Kṛṣṇa. I think I went overtime a little bit. Any reflections or thoughts about anger in spiritual life? Yes, sir.
Q: I am thinking of these three monkeys. One monkey keeps his hands on his eyes, one monkey keeps on his mouth, and one on his ears. They are like this, they are protecting themselves from all information. I mean, can they come in in this story somewhere?
A: They already did.
Q: What?
A: They already did.
Q: From under the tree?
A: Well, viṣayā vinivartante nirāhārasya dehinaḥ. By willpower, one can separate oneself from the objects of the senses. But it's not steady. It's not steady. Māyā finds ways to leak in. If you close your eyes, it will come through your ears. If you close your ears, it will come through your eyes, whatever. So it's only when your consciousness is steady, fixed on the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Bhagavān Śrī Kṛṣṇa, then the mind and the senses have higher things to absorb themselves in. That's the three monkeys. They are not absorbed in Kṛṣṇa. They're just artificially trying to... This is the neti neti, "not this, not this, not this, not that." No, no, no. Like some sannyāsī was saying many years ago in ISKCON that to the brahmacārīs—the brahmacārīs were the young boys whose contemplation should be on learning the śāstras and learning preaching. Later, they can contemplate wife and family. So he told them that for a brahmacārī to say "no woman, no woman, no woman, no," you simply meditate on woman, but a little "no" in front of the word, right? So this is the thing. You have to redirect it entirely, absorb... It's like King Ambarīṣa: absorb your senses. Find your favorite sevā. Some of you really like to read, then read 24/7. Some like japa, some like cooking for Kṛṣṇa, some like this and that. So find your thing and expand it like this. Yes, sir? Okay, I didn't see. Who is first?
Q: So I was just thinking about more practical, like okay, we understand that from Bhagavad-gītā when we have a higher taste, of course, we are more in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then definitely this saṅgāt sañjāyate kāmaḥ, so this kāma will not affect us. But being practical, here in the material society, living here in this material world, we are not really 24 hours in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So when let's say we go to work, or if I go outside, and there are always advertisements, and so even there is a taste on that, as Bhagavad-gītā says, although that taste is lower, but still there's a taste on that. So does it bring the point of varṇāśrama somehow that if you really want to be completely aloof of this kind of where you cannot even contemplate of anything, then does it bring somehow relates to varṇāśrama, that when we re-establish varṇāśrama society then, of course, there might be still a chance, but it will be much, much lower, the chances of saṅgāt sañjāyate kāmaḥ? So there'll be less of the contemplation on those unwanted sensory things. So I was just thinking how can we practically... Does it that we also have to, like Prabhupāda says that we need to also think about that and on a long run think about the varṇāśrama farm community also in order to just get away of this? Because we know this practically, but this theory, but when we try to apply, still we could not be in Kṛṣṇa consciousness the whole day or somehow.
A: Absolutely correct. Varṇāśrama is there to create the framework for the peaceful practice of spiritual life because we are all conditioned. And the goal of varṇāśrama—I'm just quoting the verse, saṁsiddhir hari-toṣaṇam—the goal of the varṇāśrama society is to bring as much pleasure as possible to the Lord. But the goal doesn't mean that we are there, but we should be on the trajectory. So as long as you are on the proper trajectory, meaning that your compass needle is pointing towards Kṛṣṇa, then you're safe. Kṛṣṇa says in the Ninth Chapter, even if you make some really terrible mistake, a fall down, as long as you're situated on the right path, then you have to be considered a saintly person. But the difference is when some people start using that verse as an excuse to systematically perform sinful activity. What we're talking about, what Prabhupāda says in the purport to 9.31, is incidentally, temporary, just happens by accident. Because Arjuna asks Kṛṣṇa, how come is it that a man can be forced to commit sinful activity as if he were pushed from the outside, somebody standing behind you and like this? And that's the famous answer by Kṛṣṇa: kāma eṣa krodha eṣa, two words we are familiar with by now, rajo-guṇa-samudbhavaḥ. Lust and anger are born by contact of passion, rajo-guṇa. So when you're at work, for example, some people have to work, we have jana-saṅga, that's one of the things we should avoid according to Rūpa Gosvāmī, association with materialistic people. But if you go to work, you may be forced to be at least be with them. You can be in the same room, but you may not eat from the same plate, if you understand what I mean. You don't accept their proposals and their philosophy and their materialistic scheme. But you can sit in the same bus, stand in the same line in ICA as even a demon, because there's no association like this, right? So Kṛṣṇa, He's called bhāva-grāhī janārdana, He sees your mentality. Where are you heading? And He knows it's a struggle.
And you try your best, and as long as you try your best—and varṇāśrama is one way that we collectively can try our best by being engaged, properly situated, even in the material position according to the temporary dharma that we have, either we are brahmanically inclined or kṣatriya or vaiśya, śūdra. So if we got a proper engagement, even materially, means that we don't have to let the mind fly all over the place to get some other material situation. We're already situated in a marriage, which are partly spiritual, partly material. We try to make it as spiritual as possible by that. But then at one point you think, "Well, I don't like my wife so I kick her out and I get another one." That's completely material, and that doesn't change anything. So try to situate yourself in a proper family life, with a proper job that makes it possible for you to do as much devotional service as possible, and then you kind of have your own little varṇāśrama system, so to speak. So we try to arrange farm projects as well, because to save time. Living in a city has its perks, but it's also a lot of distractions and problems going on. Living in the countryside, you get your simple needs, your simple bodily needs met, and Śrīla Prabhupāda said it leaves a lot of time left to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Because living in a city you have high, high rents, so much complication, you have to work so much to get even the necessities of life. So that's why varṇāśrama projects in the countryside are very good for ISKCON, because it allows people to settle properly. And those brave souls who live in the city and still preach, all obeisances unto you. It's not the easiest task. We have to support one another if you have that situation. Takes a lot, yeah.
Q: Yes, of course, not immediate, but at least a desire.
A: Very good. Did you have something, mātājī?
Q: Yeah, I wanted to tell you about the demons that moved into my home. I had this one neighbor next door to me. He played this horrible music, really dunk-a-dunk-a, ten hours a day. And I couldn't find any peace in my home. I was chanting and I did everything, but he was disturbing me so much, going crazy. Still, when I think about it, this was whole last year, and it ended up with murders and prisons and everything in their house. So, okay, but how can you stay in your home when somebody is annoying and disturbing so much? I just prayed and prayed and I was chanting and everything, and somehow Kṛṣṇa fixed it.
A: He fixed the murder.
Q: They killed each other, and they went to prison. But this one person, he's still there. He lived beside me on the first floor, now he's on the fifth floor, so I don't hear him anymore.
A: He probably still plays the same music.
Q: Probably, but I don't hear it so much. How can you just not react? One day I just took one big stick and banged on his door, because I was so angry. And he opened, and he said, "Okay, well, nice, we can finally meet." And he was really a criminal.
A: Yeah, that was very brave of you. You could have been murdered.
Q: Yeah, I know, I know, but I had to do something.
A: This Kṛṣṇa is speaking about in the Gītā too, that it's important to seek peace, because without peace, how can there be happiness? Without peace, how can you chant properly, right? So create a peaceful, not contacting things in the mode of passion and ignorance, but try to elevate yourself to the mode of goodness. That's the mode of peace. So you have that, then you can be more peaceful.
Q: How can people be so selfish and not caring about others? I don't understand.
A: Well, believe me, there are people much worse than that in this world. You can't imagine what they do. Kill babies, drink their blood.
Q: Drink their blood?
A: Drink the blood of babies. They're demons, Satan worshippers. There are incredibly evil people in this world. We shouldn't be naive. And they're spreading their energies. One should be very careful. Take shelter of Vaiṣṇavas, take shelter of Kṛṣṇa in this form of His holy name, take shelter of Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva, you will be protected. And let Him do the anger for you.
Q: Give him prasādam.
A: Yeah. Okay.
Q: Yes. This was a very practical class. It's very nice to know where we can control. But in our day-to-day life, we see that even if I try, but it does not happen, I cannot control my anger. If it goes to that, then it's very terrible. Is there a way, once you get into the anger mode, what is the right way—definitely if we control from beforehand itself, it is much better, but if one goes into anger already, then what is the best way to come out of that?
A: We were touching that. You pull the brakes. You don't start expressing your anger towards the person. Instead of saying "What's wrong with you?", you ask yourself "What is it I wanted that I didn't get?"
I got two children and I really wanted them to be full-time devotees in ISKCON, but they wanted something else. At least they're vegetarians, very nice people. But at one point I could be really frustrated, "Why don't you—you should start chanting." And I know I tried to give them a bead bag each, and "Thank you, Dad", and they just ended up on a shelf somewhere. This is, if demons can give birth to devotees, devotees can give birth to different people. You just have to accept, you do whatever we can, like that, because you're not pure. So pull the brakes, and don't ask "What's wrong with you? It's your fault. I'm angry at you." Ask "What is it that I don't get? What is it I wanted which is blocked?" Try to analyze, because I know you've been working with computers, so you can be analytical, right? So use your analytical strength on not saying something hurtful to family members, wife, children, whatever, but just ask yourself "Why am I angry? What is it that I wanted which I didn't get? What is it?"
So the thing is, your want may be blocked for the rest of your life. But isn't it easy to give up the want? "I want to be the president of the United States, but they didn't elect me, then I'm so angry." Well, give up. Why should I be the president of the United States? And peacefully walk away.
Q: Yeah, just a small question on that one. To want to become a president of the US, it's a very big dream. But to want to become like "My children should obey", so these are some small things that one expects. This expectation is there. Should we leave all the expectations?
A: Yeah.
Makes you mostly happy. Doesn't mean you don't care. The only thing you can really give to your children is love and care. Tell them "Whatever happens to you in life, I'm going to be there and support you and help you", like this. And then go up early in the morning, ring your little bells, offer your little food, one day they will ask "What are you doing, Dad? Can I learn the Nrsimha prayer also? Can you teach me?" Then you start building on that. Because when we used to sell books to some Christians, the best people to depopularize religion—means making it less popular—are the Christians themselves. Because they go there, pound the Bible, "You sinner, you're going to burn in hell", and people "Ah, come on..." Nobody's listening. You can't force somebody to become attracted to Krsna or to love Him. But you can show them your example, and pray for them, give them love and affection and care. Life is like a card game, you've been dealt a hand, you do the best with it, what you got. You cannot pretend you have three aces when they dealt three 4s or 5s, this is how it is. Destiny. And you will feel so liberated. Like this. I'll give you a very practical example. I had an ex brother-in-law who wanted to get a work done. So I recommended my friend, who is a craftsman, "You can engage him." So he did his work, but the person wasn't very happy. So he didn't pay him for the work. And it was actually, he did a good job, but the customer was an idiot. So I felt bad about it. I think it was about 4,000 crowns or whatever. Now one can spend a whole life being angry, "You owe me 4,000", if it's your brother or your sister... So I just kind of forgiven the whole thing, I paid the 4,000 to my friend from my own pocket just to get out of the situation. And that was such a relief. So forgiveness for not matching my expectations is the greatest gift you can give, not to the person, but to yourself. Because that frees yourself. You are the one with expectations. "I expect my sons to chant 16 rounds every day. Oh, why didn't...?" I get so angry. "Now you have to get up, it's Sunday!" And "Oh, come on, Dad, take a hike." Then you skip the expectation, then you free yourself. And the atmosphere will be much better also in the family. Like this. "Hey, what's going on? I have a new dad! He's not making me feel guilty anymore and pushing me and I have to spend hours in my room crying." Yes, then you will not be angry anymore. Everything is in the hands of the Lord, not even a blade of grass moves without His sanction. So you may have your expectations. You are entitled to do your work as good as you can, but you're never entitled to the result. That includes being a father. That's your job. So you do that, try your best, give love, give instruction, give good example, and then it's up to the Lord what kind of result you will have. If your children are going to become saints or, more or less, normal teenagers, it's between them and Krsna. You did your job.
Q: Yes, my son, I tried to force him all the time every day. Now he's 52 years old. But I'm really proud, for 16 he was, until 20 he was okay. But now I am proud of him. He has his family, I have two grandchildren, and he has a good job and everything is good. They live a good life. So I didn't succeed with forcing him to stay with chanting. But I think it's all okay anyway.
A: At least he didn't end up in prison.
Q: What?
A: He didn't end up in prison or be a murderer.
Q: No.
A: I think he's living a good part of your good karma, so...
Q: Yeah, hope so, maybe, I don't know.
A: If you become a devotee, you liberate seven generations backwards and forwards, so you should focus on yourself. You compare not with others, but you compare "Am I a better devotee today than I was yesterday? Am I a more loving father today than I was yesterday?" So you become the focus. It's in your hands. It's your jayato. It's nobody else's jayato. Yeah? And from that develops compassion, because you understand in a marriage relationship, in a family, everybody is fighting the same struggle. You're not alone. They also have expectations, they also have disappointments, they also have frustrations and anger. Welcome to the material world. So we all have to take shelter of Krsna and encourage one another to detach ourselves from material desires of fame, respect, and whatever it is. Yeah? I think there was a very important topic somebody suggested to me I should talk about: anger in spiritual life. Because this is something we share, and there are different types of anger, so it's good to look at it from an analytical point, so we don't let anger destroy in an afternoon what we try to build for years. Right? Okay. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
Q: You had one more question?
A: No.
Q: Mostly, the center of, let's say that we have a Sunday Feast program, and I have a thing planned in my mind that, okay, by this time I will do this, this time I will do this, by this time things will be ready. But then it does not work that way. I get stressed, and then whoever comes in front of me, it's like I start... It's like I literally, I don't know, it's like anger, it comes, and I start saying whatever comes in my mind, and it hurts them. After that saying, I feel guilty also, that I shouldn't have done that. But the thing is the center is to serve Krsna and to serve devotees, still I get that feeling, I get stressed. That time, then normally we say that whatever we do, we do to please Krsna and devotees, and that is the center point. Still I get angry. How...
A: Honestly, is that true what you said? Yeah, tell me the truth.
Q: She's the one I feel I myself have lots of problems, so I don't...
A: You are also like that, huh?
Q: No, see, thinks she hurts me, but I told her it's nothing like that, I understand. So it's not only her, like sometimes my Prabhuji, kids, they also become part of it, that why am I getting angry for that thing? It's okay if we normally do it, and she's calm and quiet, why today she's angry?
A: It's one important thing when it comes to other people. One should not become a fault-finder, like finding faults. Because if somebody's really trying her best or his best and may not succeed up to your expectation, at least you understand that they try their best. But if you can become a fact-finder, if you see that somebody's doing a sloppy work and just not paying good attention or something, you can point it out in a respectful and polite way. Neither of those cases would have to make you angry. Because we plan, most of the time it's something wrong with our planning. We have to leave space and set... Two, three ladies may come in the room with "Oh, are you here? I didn't expect." Then you can engage them in doing flower decorations, things which you and somebody else were planning to do, and take stress from you. Sometimes somebody doesn't come. "Oh, you were supposed to cook the rice, now I have to do it." This is life. This is life. It's just you can work on yourself, on your reaction to the needful. "Okay, Krsna, even if You crush me with Your embrace, I'm still going to be Yours. I'll try my best to do whatever happens. I leave the result to You." Okay. I think it's high time we should stop now, right? Something to think about for next week. Srila Prabhupada ki jaya! Bhagavad-gita As It Is ki jaya! Gaura premanande, ki jaya.