City of
Ten Thousand Buddhas Academy
June 8 and 9, 2005, Ukiah, California
These three
words: Hare, Krishna and Rama are arranged in a
sixteen-word mantra. Mantra is a two-part
Sanskrit word: Man means mind, and Tra means to
deliver.
Chanting is actually an
age-old, simple process, and every religious community has some form of
chanting. The
idea is that it's a form of meditation by sound. The mind is
the center of all
sensual activities. The mind is one's best friend, and it is
one's greatest enemy as well. From the Bhagavad-gita it
is said, "For one who has learned to control
his mind, it is the
best of friends; for one who has failed to do so, his very mind is his
worst enemy." Especially in this age, our minds are always flooded
with endless
concerns, hopes, fears
and anxieties. So in order to purify the mind, calm the mind, and
eventually bring the
mind under your control, this chanting is recommended. The idea
is that it's your mind. The whole yoga process or any spiritual process
really pivots on the
ability of a person to
control his mind, because if his mind is not under control, then
his senses will not be
under control, and a person who cannot control his mind and senses is a
mad man,
a crazy person. For instance, some people cannot stop eating. They are
perpetual eaters,
continuously gorging themselves with food. Some people
can't stop working. They're workaholics. Some people can't stop
talking, some can't
stop stealing, some
can't stop gambling, some can't stop taking intoxicants. Why?
Because they do not have
their minds under control. They actually identify with the mind,
and they think, "I am my
mind", so when the mind dictates, "Have a smoke", they can't stop
themselves. The
point is that spiritual life pivots or rests on one's ability to
control the mind. "The mind is one's best friend or the worst enemy.
For one who
has learned
to control the mind, it is the best of friends, and for one who has
failed to do so,
his very mind is the worst enemy."
So this
chanting of Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna
Krishna Hare
Hare, Hare Rama
Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare is a simple process of sound
meditation. You simply
chant and hear. There's nothing to think about. You simply try to
hear the sound--that's
all, and very easily, automatically you can control your mind, and it
becomes your best friend.
Dharmaster
Heng Shun: So Jai means victory, and Haribol?
Hansadutta: Hari
means Krishna, and bol
means to speak or sing, so it means, "Say
the name of
Krishna."
So, again
thank you, Dharmaster Shun, for inviting us to
your teaching
environment. You have very nice students. They have gravity. In
fact, the Sanskrit word guru means heavy. Not heavy in the
sense of weight
or pounds,
but heavy in gravity
and knowledge, heavy in that he cannot be moved frivolously. Most
people have no
gravity, so they are very easily moved. They are very enchanted by the
external material
energy. They like to see things, touch things, smell things, and
become involved in the
flow of this material energy, or indulging in sense gratification.
I'm going to
give a very simple glimpse into the Bhagavad-gita,
which is, practically
speaking, the essence of Vedic knowledge. Veda means
knowledge,
and Vedic knowledge refers to
wisdom and the vast body of literature. In fact, the Christian
Community has
the Vatican in Rome, and the term Vatican comes from the word Vedican.
The
Vatican was the seat of Vedic Culture in the Western World. The
Vedic literatures are very vast;
there are the four Vedas, 108 Upanishads,
18 Puranas, the Srimad
Bhagavatam, the Vedanta Sutras, and then there are
the epics
like Mahabharata and the Ramayana.
Vedic knowledge is considered to be like a big tree. The idea is
that the important part of
the tree is the fruit that the tree produces. So from the tree of
Vedic knowledge,
this Bhagavad-gita is the essence.
In this book Bhagavad-gita,
5
main subjects are discussed: para-prakriti, apara-prakriti,
Krishna (the controller of both), karma (activities) and kala
(time).
The word para
means superior, like in paramedic,
paramilitary,
paratrooper, etc. The word prakriti means nature. There are two
natures. One is
called para (superior), and the other is apara, or
inferior. Apara-prakriti is the
material nature, which is made up of eight elements: earth,
water, fire,
air, ether, mind, intelligence and false ego. Krishna says, "These
eight elements
comprise my separate, inferior material nature." That means this
material body. Whether we are Chinese, American, or German, or
man, woman, cat,
dog, tree,
or bird, every body is made up of a combination of these eight
elements. In these
eight elements, five are gross. We can see them, we can touch them, and
smell them. The subtle elements we cannot see: mind, intellect and
ego.
Although you can't see my
mind, and I can't see your mind, we know that the mind is there,
because we can see the
actions of the mind in a person's behavior. For example, if a
person gets angry, we
see it on his face. The expression or the movement of one's mind
is exhibited in his gross,
material body, in the countenance on his face. If
he is happy, we can see it in
his bodily gestures and his facial expression. If he is deeply
absorbed in study or
meditation, we can see that also. So mind cannot be seen
directly, but by the various
symptoms we can tell a person's state of mind. So, earth, water,
fire, air, ether, mind, intellect
and false ego--that is the apara-prakriti, the material
nature.
The para-prakriti,
or superior energy, is the
living force which
animates this body. That's the jiva atma. Wherever we see
birth, growth, existing for some time, producing
offspring, dwindling and then
vanishing, behind these six phenomena of material existence is the
para-prakriti, or living force. This living force is not a product
of the material energy, or material
nature. Generally in modern
science, they base all of their research and all of their technical,
biological and chemical sciences
on the premise that matter, at some earlier or primordial state,
interacts, and life or consciousness
is generated from matter. But the Vedic literature does not
support this. The Vedic literature says no, living force is perpetually
existing. There is no point of its creation, and no point of its
dissolution, and
in fact it is the
presence of living force that generates matter. For example… The
discovery of electricity by Benjamin Franklin has given rise to the
invention of so many
electrical appliances. Before his time, there were no electric
heaters, fans, lamps,
computers or anything of the sort. The electric appliances have been
created around the
discovery of the electric energy. The electric energy is not
created by the various
appliances; it is already existing, and by its presence, an engineer
will build an electrical
appliance. The touch of the electric force brings the appliance
to life. Like this
oscillating fan here… if there is no electricity, it will not move, but
if I electrify it, then the
blades begin to turn. Similarly, this body composed of earth,
water, fire, air, ether,
intellect and ego is resting on the presence of this living
force. It is called jiva atma; atma means self, and jiva
means very minute.
The jiva atma is the
superior energy, or
superior nature which is pervading this material body.
And there
is another atma called
Paramatama. That is Krishna. Para [or param] means
superior. So He is the
Supreme Living Force,
and we are the minute, or sample living force. For example, in this
electric fan here, the electric energy needed to move this fan is very,
very
minute in comparison
to the amount of
electric power in the
powerhouse. In
addition, we know that the electric spark which moves this fan is not
working
independently. It is connected via an electric power grid to the
powerhouse, which may
be located several hundred miles away. But ultimately, the electric
powerhouse is under
the personal control of the chief electrical engineer. So, similarly,
the Bhagavad-gita explains that this apara-prakriti
is
being energized by the para-prakriti, the superior energy, and
this superior energy is
actually resting on Krishna,
the Personality of Godhead. He is known as Purusha, or the
Supreme Person.
Now
generally, people will think that that is
impossible. People
generally do not believe
that there is any personal touch or personal control or involvement
behind this vast Universal Cosmic manifestation. But we know, for
example, that in all of our everyday practical dealings, in every field
there is a superior person. In a city it is the mayor, in a state
it is the governor, in a country it is the president, prime minister or
king. In this school, it is the principal. In your class, it is
Dharmaster Shun. In your family, it is your father.
So, these are
the first three items that we have discussed: para-prakriti,
the
superior energy, which means the living force; apara-prakriti,
or the material energy, which is inert at all times and cannot take
shape unless living force or para-prakriti touches it; and
Krishna.
My
harmonium cannot sound a tune unless I, the living person play on
it. A car will not move down the road unless a driver turns the
key or pushes the button. An airliner jumbo jet, although massive
and capable of holding hundreds of passengers, is being
controlled by one small pilot who pushes the buttons. The point
is: living force is superior, and it is what gives rise to material
creation. And the Supreme Living Force, Krishna, is behind the body
of the universe. The universe is like a gigantic body, and all of
the parts are working symmetrically--the sun, the moon, the tides, the
seasons. Everything is working precisely and symmetrically. The
sun is in such a precise orbit that we can say in one hundred years on
Tuesday, November 2, the sun will rise exactly at such and such a
time. This is the evidence for
understanding that behind this great cosmos, there is conscious
regulation, conscious design
and conscious purpose. Material nature is not unconscious. Although
modern
science takes it that matter is working automatically, we have no
experience of anything working automatically. Everything is the result
of some personal, conscious, deliberate, purposeful design.
Next we have karma.
We have all heard this word karma. Karma
means work or
activities. Every living entity is busy working from morning
until night. The birds and
the bees are busy gathering up food, making nests, producing offspring,
etc. Human
beings are busy building skyscraper buildings, jumbo jet airplanes,
making war, making
peace, making love, making money. They are busy, everyone
working. So this
working… these activities are called karma, and there are three
kinds of karma. There is karma, vikarma and akarma,
or
activities
that are either
allowed, forbidden or transcendental.
The final
item is called kala, or time. Now in
the
material world, we have the experience of past, present and future, but
actually time is
eternal. It does not begin, and it does not end. But that
experience is not realized by us,
because we measure time in terms of the movement and the size of
material objects. For example, the effort required to move from one
place to another is
conceived of in terms of time. The sun moves in its orbit, and we
have measured that in terms of days, hours, minutes, seconds,
etc. But transcendentally speaking, there is no such thing as
past, present and future. Everything is ever-existing and ever-present.
It is eternal. But that is not experienced by us here in the
material world in our conditional state of existence.
So that
covers the five subject matters of this book, Bhagavad-gita.
Bhagavan
means God, Bhagavat means spoken
by, and gita means
song. So Bhagavad-gita literally means
the "Song of God". It is the recording of a conversation between
Krishna and Arjuna on
a battlefield 5,000 years ago in a place called Kuruksetra. It is
a historical and
geographical place. You can go and visit it today in
India, just north of New Delhi.
Five thousand
years ago, the Kurus (the ruling family)
ruled an
entire world Vedic civilization which existed all over the earth, and
there was one emperor. There was a dispute over who should rule
the planet, and it resulted in the Mahabharata war. Maha means
great, and bharata means this planet Earth. In the Vedic time,
the
entire Earth was under one political rule, one cultural rule, one
economic rule. To this day, the vestiges of Vedic culture can still
be found in every place, even China. In places like the
Philippines, you can observe that their language consists of 25 percent
Sanskrit words. It is known that the priest of the Pandavas came
from China. All of these countries were interlinked by commerce,
culture, religion and language.
So those are
the five subject
matters of the Bhagavad-gita.
<>
Now we will move on to the word dharma. When translated into
English, dharma is
almost always interpreted as religion. But religion means a kind
of belief or faith, whereas the
actual Sanskrit meaning of the word dharma is not to believe
something,
as in to be a
Hindu, to be a Buddhist, to be a Muslim, a Christian, a Jew, etc.
That is a religious
belief, and it may be correct or it may be incorrect, but this is not
the real meaning of dharma. Dharma really means
characteristic,
the characteristic of
the living being.
What
is the essential characteristic of the spirit soul when everything else
is stripped away? What remains? The example is given with sugar: the
essential
characteristic or nature of
sugar is sweet. Sweetness is the dharma of sugar. Water is
by nature liquid--that is its dharma. Fire is by nature hot--
that is its dharma. Dharma is a characteristic that
cannot be removed from a substance. If I taste something and I'm
told that it is sugar, yet
it's not sweet, then I know that it's not sugar. So, what is the dharma
of all living beings? That is the
question. The dharma of all
living beings is service. Every living thing exists by
serving. You cannot live without
service.
So in that sense of service, we come to the point where
we again encounter these
two words: para and apara. There are two kinds of dharma:
one is
permanent, and one is
temporary. One is spiritual, and one is material. My
material dharma is that I have to
satisfy father, I have to satisfy my government by paying my taxes, I
have to satisfy my
teachers or professors in the school by doing my homework, I have to
obey all of the laws
of my state; otherwise a policeman will give me a ticket. So,
there two kinds of dharma,
and this apara-dharma is in relationship to my material
existence, or my
material environment. But there is a higher dharma which
pertains not to
this temporary
material body, but to the living force, the spirit soul. That is
called para-dharma, and
this is the point I wanted to make today and which is very important,
that there is really
only one dharma for everyone in varying degrees of development,
or
spiritual evolution.
People often
ask, "Why are there so many religions?" And the
answer to that question is
that there are not many religions. There is in fact only one dharma,
and that is service to
the Supreme Personality of Godhead. That is the dharma for
everyone. No matter what
race they may be, or in what economic, social or political position
they find themselves
in, the dharma is the same: it is to serve the Supreme Being,
the
Supreme Living Force,
of which I am only a small particle, or an infinitesimal sample.
We can understand with
this analogy of my body. In my body there are many parts--there
is the head, there are
hands, fingers, legs, ears, eyes, nose, etc. But every part of my
body has one thing to do,
and that is to serve the whole body. If there is an itch, my hand
scratches it. If there is
danger, immediately my hands come up to protect me. If there is
hunger, my hand brings
some food. Now, how does the hand see the food? The hand
can't see the food, but
the eyes see the food, and in cooperation with the hand, there is
guidance from my brain,
interaction and a co-operative effort. The legs carry my whole
body, but the legs also
cannot see which way to go--left or right, stop, go, jump. It is again
a cooperative
endeavor on the part of the eyes, the ears and the legs to work in
harmony. So in the same exact way, the living entity, the spirit soul,
or the
life force is part of the
Supreme Living Force. Sanatan dharma, or eternal dharma
means
my perpetual,
eternal duty is to serve and cooperate with the Supreme, and this is
the one religion which
is common to everyone. It doesn't matter if someone follows Lord
Buddha, or if he
follows Lord Krishna, or if he follows Lord Jesus, or Mohammed.
When we examine
their teachings, and strip away all of the things that have over time
been artificially added
or deleted, or have been adulterated, we will find that what is left is
this sanatan dharma. My business is to first of all find out
and connect with the Supreme,
and then my duty or
my activities are to satisfy Him. That is the meaning of real
religion.
Still people will
say, Then why are some people Buddhists? Some people Christians? Why
some
people are following Krishna, and some people are following Mohammed?"
The
answer is: the educational system is one thing, although there
are many
schools. There are
schools in China, there are schools in America, there are schools in
India, there are
schools in Alaska, there are schools in Africa. But the subject
matter is the same, even
though the language and the technique for teaching may be
different. 2 plus 2 equals
4 is the same conclusion in every school of the world. It's
not that there are two kinds of education; there is really only one
education, materially
speaking. So similarly, there is only one dharma, sanatana
dharma, or one eternal
religion: to serve the Supreme Person. Now, there may be
higher or lower levels of spiritual life; thus we have Buddhism,
Christianism, Mohammedanism, Hinduism, etc. But the purpose of
all the isms is to find out the Supreme Person, God, and love
Him by
devotional service, just as education has one purpose; to make a
gentleman out of a crude man. There are levels of education,
beginning with pre-school, kindergarten, elementary school, grammar
school, junior high school, high school, college, university,
post-graduate school, etc. So what we see in the world as
different religions may be seen as higher or lower levels of spiritual
evolution or spiritual realization, but that is not different
religions; that is one religion being practiced on higher or lower
levels, just as education has higher and lower levels. Elementary
school and the university are not on the same level, but both of them,
and all the levels in between, are part of the same system of
education, even though taught in all countries and languages of the
world in slightly different ways. The conclusions are always
the same, regardless of language or culture. Therefore, there is
only one religion, sanatana dharma, but it is practiced and
realized on different levels of evolution, the highest platform being
unmotivated and unalloyed pure love of God, loving devotional service
to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Sri Krishna.
The language
in which a professor or teacher may
present, or the
technique in which he delivers the lesson may be different. Yet
education is
one thing. No one says, "Why are there so many different kinds of
education?" No, we
don't say that. Why? Because we know that 2 plus 2 is equal to 4, and
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and so
forth--this is the
same everywhere. But there are different levels of
education. Some students are sitting in the class making mud pies, and
the teacher
is saying, "This is
very good, you have done it very nicely." But if you were to come
here and make mud pies, Dharmaster Heng Shun might get very
upset,
because you are on a different level of educational evolution or
material progress. You
have come to the high school grade. But there is a grade where
the students are pleasing the teacher by making mud pies, or by
stacking up blocks of wood, or by cutting out things and pasting them
to paper. Now, the students in the kindergarten class cannot
understand what the students at the junior high or high school level
are doing. Even those who have come to the grammar school
level, when they see their brothers or sisters doing algebra, they're
bewildered. It is
incomprehensible. Yet, we know that in the process of learning
mathematics there is a
stage that is way beyond 2 plus 2 equals 4. There are things that
appear contradictory to
the elementary student. So in exactly in the same way as education is a
progressive system,
where the students
start out in preschool, then on to kindergarten, where they learn to
tie their shoes, and
how to get along with one another, and to stack blocks and cut things
out, and sing songs, and then go on to grammar school, where they learn
the alphabet and
adding and
subtracting, then on to junior high, high school, then
college, then post graduate
work, and even after a person gets a degree, there are still more
advanced levels of
instruction and training with periodic evaluations, reviews, upgrades
and certifications… in the same way as our material education is staged
and develops in a
progressive way,
similarly, religious… or dharmic (I don't like to use the word
religion,
because it is very
misleading) education, the subject matter or the science of
dharma, or the spiritual
science progresses (another word for dharma is yoga--yoga
means linking, as when I link up the plug
of this fan into the wall socket, then the fan does its dharma,
and it
starts to spin).
So there are
two fields of education. One is primarily
concerned with
how to maintain this
material body and the things connected with it, like family, or love,
friendship and
society. There are these three things, love, friendship and
society. Why are we going to
school? To get a degree. Why? So we can get a
job. Why? So we can make some
money. Why? So we can pay the rent, we can buy food, pay
insurance, and have all the
things that are necessary to have a comfortable, bodily, material
existence. But over and above that, there is the education of the soul,
or the
living force which is
within this body. Unfortunately today in most places of the
world, this side of education
has been completely ignored. They simply disregard it.
Here
in the City of Ten
Thousand Buddhas, fortunately there is a great stress placed on having
a balance or a
synthesis of both needs. I need to learn how earn a living and
take care of myself and my
family, but I also need to learn what I am. The whole story of
Lord Buddha is instructive
because it illustrates the absolute necessity of becoming awakened to
our actual positions
as eternal spirit soul. No matter how highly placed a person may
be in society, Lord
Buddha's life illustrates how important it is to be educated
spiritually, to have a para-dharma education. You all know this
story, but I will just repeat
it briefly. The Buddha
leaves the palace one day and sees an old man, and he asked his
servant, "What is this?",
and the servant replies, "This is an old man, everyone one becomes
old." Buddha asks, "I
also will become old?" Very puzzled. The next day he sees a
diseased person, and the
same inquiry, "What is this?" "Disease, everyone becomes
diseased." In this way he is confronted with the
four evils of material existence: birth, old age, disease
and ultimately death. Now, you are all students of Lord Buddha,
so what does he do? Yes, he is so bewildered at not having been told of
these four problems
that he feels he
cannot continue to live his life in a conventional way until he
uncovers the mystery of material existence and its miseries and human
suffering. He decides that he must solve this problem, so he
retires to a life of contemplation, seeking enlightenment.
<>Again
today, unfortunately, our political, educational,
financial,
military and
entertainment leaders--none of them are propagating this
information. None of them are
thinking, "I also will become old, diseased and die? What is the
meaning of life? Why
am I here? How did I get here? Where am I going after
death?" They don't ask these
questions, they simply disregard the entire matter. That is
called ignorance. We hear
again and again this word ignorance. Ignorance does not mean that
one does not know
these problems exist; it means we know, but we ignore them.
Just as a driver in a car
sees a red light, and he knows he should stop, but if he looks to see
if anyone is
watching, and he doesn't see anyone, he'll go through the red
light. That is ignorance,
doing something that he knows is wrong or illegal, but he does it
anyway,
thinking "No one is
watching." Ignoring what I know to be right is ignorance. So people in
general, but especially our leaders, who are supposed to
teach us,
simply ignore these four problems, and they are encouraging us, "Oh no,
you simply
work hard and earn your degree, so you can get a good job,
attract a nice wife,
have children and enjoy life. Never mind about these things,
because when life is over,
you'll simply evaporate and become zero." Or the Christians believe,
"Just accept Jesus
into your heart and you'll go to heaven." No. This is called
ignorance.
From the Vedic
perspective, this type of behavior is considered to be animal life,
because the animals are
also simply eating, sleeping, mating and defending. If human
beings only pursue the
activities of eating, sleeping, mating and defending--however advanced
and sophisticated--it is simply animal life. And if a person does not
come to the point of having to resolve these
problems of birth, old
age, disease and death, then no matter what he achieves in life is
useless, it will all be
taken away at death, and he will have made no progress is his spiritual
evolution. That is
like saying, "Here is a beautiful young damsel, and you may enjoy with
her, but as soon
as you are finished, we are going to shoot you." That wouldn't be
very attractive would
it? But actually that's our position. We are all condemned
to die, either today, tomorrow
or after a hundred years.
No one can surpass these four problems: janma, mrtyu, jara, vyadi,
these terms are described
in the Bhagavad-gita. Janma means birth, mrtyu
means death, jara means old age, and vyadi means
disease. You cannot solve these four problems by science, by politics,
by earning
money, by becoming famous, etc. The solution for these problems is
found in para-dharma. That is why para-dharma is
important, that is why religion is important. And when I
say religion, I mean
to say that it is not enough to wave a flag or some incense, or light a
candle and say "I'm a
Christian, I'm a Muslim, I'm a Jew", etc. That is useless. There
must be actual scientific
understanding of what I am, what is the difference between this
body and my self. The first day when I came I had Aldar come up, and I
asked him "What is
this?" and he
said "My hand, my nose, my leg, my ear", etc. Then I asked him, "Where
are you?" And the answer is "We don't know." Someone dies and we say,
"He's
gone", but
everything is there on the hospital bed-- the head, the arms, the legs,
everything. All the
ingredients are there. The scientists will say, "Oh, some chemical is
missing." So we say
bring the chemical, inject it and bring him back. <>
So this is really the difference between an animal and a human
being. If we bring some
cats and dogs into the room, they cannot sit attentively and hear this
subject matter. They
cannot think about it and pose a question. They are cats and
dogs, simply following their
noses. You have seen a dog, just sniffing around, simply following his
nose. The human
being is distinguished from the animals only when he asks these
questions: "What am I? Where do I come from? Why do I have to die? Why
do I have
to become old?"
We have a girl who has lived with us for many years, and she is
studying to become a
nurse, so I always joke with her, "Nurse, nurse, I think I'm
getting old, do you
have pill to stop aging? I don't want to be old." She
replies, "Oh no, there is no
medicine for that." And I ask, "Then why didn't someone tell
me? Do you mean that I
spent so much time, working away, and there's no medicine for getting
old and diseased? And I may die--I've heard also. Why wasn't I informed
of this
situation?" So this really is our situation. For the most part,
everything in our
society is designed in
such a way that a student will never ask, "What is the use of this? I'm
going to get old,
become diseased and then I'll die. Why am I being pushed into an
environment or into a
situation where I'm just working like cats and dogs?" But this IS
the question that has to
be asked. Not only asked, but we need to have a real answer, and
we need to have a
life style that will help us get free from these four perpetual
problems: birth, old age,
disease and death.
The Bhagavad-gita is that simple book in
the Vedic culture which
gives us a very specific format for how to lead our life, or how to
practice living so that
when this life is finished, we will not again be forced into the
painful
cycle of birth and
death. That is the meaning and the purpose of yoga. Yoga
is
not for improving my sex
life, or my complexion, or my digestion, or the sheen of my hair, or to
get the pimples off
my face. No! Yoga is for getting out of the cycle of birth and
death. There are actually
many kinds of yoga: there's karma-yoga, astanga-yoga,
hatha-yoga,
raja-yoga, sankhya-yoga, buddhi-yoga, and bhakti-yoga. Bhakti-yoga
is also called buddhi-yoga, the yoga of
intelligence. We must be intelligent--not that we simply wave a
flag; that is useless. We
must actually have a systematic, scientific understanding, and we must
have an effective
lifestyle that carries us progressively. Just as the student is
being trained systematically
to come along in his education all the way from preschool and
kindergarten all the way
up to post-graduate study, to where he may become an Einstein if he so
chooses, but he must
submit and do the work. It is not enough to say, "Yes, I believe
in college, college is
very nice." No, you have to submit your application, then enroll,
and serve the professor,
and in this way, gradually your intelligence, your understanding, your
expertise expands. It is exactly the same as if you want to be an
expert basketball player. You have to play
every day, day and night. That's all they do.
In every field, the
system is the same, it
begins with accepting a master of whatever you're trying to perfect--in
this case a master sportsman, or a master businessman, a master
filmmaker, etc. In our case, we are talking
about a Dharmaster, a person who has mastered the dharma, and
who is
situated in
transcendence. In the Bhagavad-gita (4.34) it is said, tad
viddhi,
pranipatena, pariprasnena
sevaya upadeksyanti te jnanam jnaninas tattva-darsinah. This is
a
very important
verse, and it denotes the beginning of spiritual life. When you
translate into English from
the Sanskrit it says, "Just try to learn the truth by approaching a
spiritual master. Inquire from him submissively and render service unto
him. The
self-realized soul can impart
knowledge unto you because he has seen the truth." So the
three
things are inquiry,
submission and service, and the spiritual master's qualifications are tattvah
darsinah, he
has seen the truth. Therefore he can impart knowledge unto you,
just a doctor gives you
an injection of penicillin.
Dharmaster
Heng Shun: We should have
some time for
questions.
Hansadutta:
Yes, we're almost over! Inquiry, submission
and
service. A student or a
disciple… every person must be inquisitive. He must want to know
what is the truth. He
must be very submissive, not challenging. And he must be prepared
to do the service that
the master offers him. And the master must be qualified, he must
actually have seen the
truth. Exactly like Donald Trump can give you a million
dollars if he likes! Why? Because he has a million dollars. But a poor
man cannot.
Similarly, the spiritual master must actually have seen the truth, and
by serving him and
satisfying him by inquiry, submission and service, he can impart that
knowledge unto
you, because he has it.
So this is
the beginning of Vedic knowledge, and the
same principle is
there in material
life. It is not that this is particularly applicable only to spiritual
matters, but if you want a
job with a high-powered company, you have to go there very
submissively, and turn over
your resume, and you have to give the impression that you are ready to
do anything and
everything that they expect of you. When you satisfy them, you go
up, you get promoted. But if you work belligerently and
begrudgingly--"Ah, they're asking me
to stay overtime,
those bums"--then no, you'll never get promoted. Spiritual
life is really the apex. It is
on principle the archetype setup that applies to everything. If
you want to be part of a
great sports team, then you have to prove and show that you are ready
to do anything and
everything, and practice day and night, and not be a showoff or a
hotshot or be a
quarrelsome person.
So to
conclude, allow me to go over it again very
quickly. We
have covered the five subject
matters of the Bhagavad-gita: para-prakriti (the
superior, spiritual nature), apara-prakriti (the inferior,
material nature), para-ishvara (Krishna, the controller of
both), karma (activities) and kala (time).
Then we have
made the point
that there are two
kinds of dharma. One is material--which is that you need to
learn how to
take care of your
material body--and the other one is superior. When this body is
worn out and I'm
finished… (we say dead, but we're never finished; we are eternal.
The living force, once
having been, never ceases to be.) Para-dharma means that when
I am finished with my
term of material encagement, I can be released, and not have to repeat
this.
<>Would
you
want to repeat all of this schooling? Grade school, junior high, high
school, again? Yes,
that's what it means to take birth again in the material world. It
means
you start again as a
little lump of matter coming out of your mother's womb, and you're
struggling to get
something to eat, and to crawl around on the floor, and to learn to
walk,
and then you have to
learn to talk, and they take you to school, A, B, C, D, E, F, G all
over
again, on and on and
on. No! We do not want to do this. I can still remember when I first
started going to school in Germany. It was really
laborious. I just didn't want to go. But everyone has to go. So
we were learning A, B, C
and I thought, "Well, I can do this", and I thought that once we did
the ABCs, that was
IT, and we were going to be finished. But then after the ABCs,
there was another thing we
had to figure out: we had to put the letters together to form words. So
I thought, "OK, we
can do that." But then there was something still more: we had to
make sentences--"The
cow jumped over the moon." I was starting to get a little worried.
[Laughter] Then, there
was even MORE. There were paragraphs to be done, and stories to be
written, and at one
point I finally realized that there is no end to this. I became
very rebellious, so by the
time I came to America (I was about 10 years old), I just decided "I'm
not going to do
this anymore." Then I became a very mischievous child.
Fortunately, years later I met
Prabhupada and I got the para-dharma, and in this way was
rescued. We were talking the
other day with my children Hansa Kumar and Govinda, and Govinda was
saying [about Hansa Kumar], "Yes, he's
going to skip a class", and I said, "I skipped all the classes!"
[Laughter] So, I'm not
encouraging you to do that, [still more laughter] but the important
thing is the para-dharma. That is the really important thing,
because even if we are not
up to snuff
materially speaking, ultimately the important thing is we must address
these four
problems: birth, old age, disease and death, and we must lead a
life in such a way that
when we are finished here, for better or for worse, we won't have to
come
and repeat again.
So, now we'll
have some questions, because I'll just go
on and
on.
Student:
"Which--out of the two, para-prakriti
and apara-prakriti--which one are we?
Hansadutta:
We are both. Material life is a combination
of both.
The material body is
made up of earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intellect and ego, and
behind this or within
this combination there is a spark of para-prakriti. So we are a
combination of matter and spirit, or living force and inert matter, and
therein lies our dilemma. We are being
hampered by this material body, because it is actually unnatural, it is
foreign to the soul. It would be like… you have seen the pictures of
those deep-sea
divers? They put on those
big helmets and… right? So it is a very awkward setup. It is
unnatural. He is covered with
something that is very restrictive. Similarly, the soul is by
nature free, without birth,
without old age, without disease, without death. But we have been
covered in this deep-sea diver's suit, so to speak. For example, what
can we
see? We can only see through
these little holes. I can't see anything through my ears, or through my
anus, or through
my feet, or through my hands. I'm only seeing through these little
eyes. And the only
thing I can hear is through these two little ears. In this way, we are
covered. The material
body is a type of restriction. Like in the prison they put an inmate
into a straightjacket so
that he can't damage others. So we have been restricted. Material life
is a restriction, and
we want freedom from that.
Student: Then
how did the soul become entrapped in this
material
body?
Hansadutta:
All citizens are born free. So how does a
free
citizen get trapped in the jail,
prison, or penitentiary? Because he rebels against the authority
of the government or
the king. This rebelliousness is the cause of our entrapment. We are
being restricted by
higher authority.
Student: So
what is this higher authority?
Hansadutta:
This authority is the Supreme Personality of
Godhead,
Krishna. Now
someone will say, "I don't believe in Krishna, I don‚t believe in
God." That's all right,
but we will find that no one, even up to President Bush, is free from
having to submit to a
higher authority. Once
Prabhupada was in Moscow talking with a big professor, so he said to
him, "What is the
difference between your philosophy and our philosophy? You say
there is no God, but
you have to submit to Lenin or Marx, and we have accepted
Krishna. Now, it is simply a
question of who is actually superior. But, everyone is under
control; no one is at any
point independent." Although, this IS the material conception of
life, that "I am
independent, and I can do whatever I like", actually no one
is independent, and no
one can do what he or she likes. Everyone is at all times under
one or more authorities.
Now, the
question is, Who is the supreme authority? An
intelligent person will research
this point, and find out who is actually the supreme, ultimate
authority, who has no equal
or better. That is the actual meaning of God. Again,
someone will say, "I don't believe
there's a supreme God", and that's OK. But you are nevertheless
subjected to birth, old
age, disease and death. So for you, death is God, or the
government is God, or your wife
is God, or your father is God, or the policeman who checks you and
gives you a ticket is
God, but you are not independent. No one is. Even Napoleon… he
was so powerful,
conquering all of Europe from all sides, but when he was finally
arrested, they made him
drink horse urine. Despite being so powerful, at one point he was
simply humiliated by
his superior captors or foes.
<>So the
intelligent person… and this
again is the example of
Lord Buddha's life… he decided, "I have to find out who is
imposing this on me. I
don't want old age, disease or death." No one wants it. Even a
small mosquito or
cockroach, if he feels danger, he will struggle to live.
Everyone is struggling in this
material existence to avoid four things: birth, old age, disease
and death. It's undeniable. Now, modern science says we will solve
everything by science.
But, that is absurd,
because these four things cannot be overcome by any material
adjustment. Not by
science, not by economics, not by military force. Otherwise, Einstein
would have done it,
or some big powerful military man would have done it. Why have
they not done it? Because the soul, the living force actually a
categorically separate
entity, distinct from
matter. There is no example in history or in science where a
dead man has been brought
back to life. There is no example. Why? This is the important
question. This is what
meditation is: to think on this subject. Religion is not to just
blindly accept something
because I have said it, no. It is to become thoughtful,
introspective, to ponder, "Why did
I come here? Where did I come from? Why do I have to
die? What am I supposed to be
doing while I'm here? What is my responsibility? What is my
duty, what is my dharma?
What is my real nature? After everything is stripped away, what
am I? Am I this body?
Am I the mind? Am I the intellect? What am I? Until I
know what I am‚ then what do I
know? Just like when the policeman stops you and asks for your
license, and you say "I
don't have one", then "Who are you? Let's see some I.D." You
have to show your I.D. The first thing that happens when you encounter
any authority… you want to go traveling,
you want to enter Hong Kong: "Let's see some I.D. We've all seen
these movies where
the man gets amnesia, and he can't remember, he doesn't know who he is.
It's a big
problem. So that is a material example, but spiritually speaking, we do
not know what we are.
Student: How
do you actually end birth and death?
Hansadutta:
Yes. How do you end it? When you become
conscious, and understand your
nature as spirit soul, distinct from matter. Just as you are
different from that shirt you're
wearing, right? You're wearing the shirt, and the shirt is moving. Why?
Because you are within
the shirt. Similarly, you
are the living
force within the body. That living force is
what you are, and when this body is dissolved, disintegrated or
destroyed, that living
force continues. In the Bhagavad-gita there is a verse:
Whatever
state of being one
remembers when he quits this body, that nature one attains without
fail. The living entity carries his different conceptions of life from
one body to another as
the air carries aromas.
Student: So karma
really doesn't play a role in
rebirth?
Hansadutta:
Yes, it does. It is exactly the karma
that
determines what situation you will
have to appear in next.
Heng Shun: If
a person leads a life of crime, and at the
end of
his life turns his faith
towards Krishna or God, and he has all of this karma from his
crimes?
Hansadutta: A
person whose life is full of sinful
activity
cannot, at the last moment
become a pious, qualified person. That's not possible. Even in
ordinary law, the man is a
criminal, and one day he decides that he has been doing the wrong
thing, and he wants to
repent, so he walks in to the police and surrenders. That's fine,
[but] they arrest him, sentence
him and put him in jail. It's not that since he finally repented
that he is released from all
of his reactions. Just like your students here in the class… say
one doesn't do any
homework, he never comes to class, doesn't participate, etc, and
at the end of the term
he comes in and says, "Oh, Dharmaster Shun, I'm really sorry, I really
like you, and I like
school, and I know I did the wrong thing." Now, are you going to
give him a good
grade? No, you're not.
Heng Shun:
OK, let's take a less extreme example. Let's
say
a person lived half of his
life good, and half of it bad, so he has a lot of good karma
and a lot
of bad karma, and
let's say that at the end of his life his thoughts are good. In
your beliefs, does a person
still have to in a future life make reparations and pay for the bad karma
that he has
induced, or is it mitigated because he tried?
Hansadutta:
It's a good question, because people have
this idea
that in the last few
moments they'll just think good thoughts and everything will be
fine. But it is not
possible for a person who is habituated to a life of crime and sinful
activities to have such
a thought. It's not possible.
Heng Shun:
What if they had both, my question is--
Hansadutta:
You will get the result of both. For
example,
you are using a calculator for a
math equation, OK? So half of the inputs are subtraction, and
half are addition. What answer
are you going to get? You are going to get the result. You are
going to get the synthesis
of that calculation. That's what a computer does. You're not
going to get everything
positive, and the negative has simply been erased--no. The beauty
of having this kind of
attitude--if one can have it--is that "Oh, this is a sinful life, I
shouldn't be doing this." Yes, that gives one a great impetus to
embrace a dharmic lifestyle, and
therefore become
purified. But it is not a mechanical thing where someone simply
gestures. As I said, in
the law court, if a criminal is apprehended and he comes before the
judge and he's being
tried, and he has an epiphany, and really apologizes, that doesn't mean
that he is not
going to be held accountable for all of his crimes, and be sentenced in
terms of his
behavior, but it does mean that there may be some leniency towards him,
as opposed to
someone who has no such remorse. Any more questions? Aldar,
no questions? Yes.
Japanese
Teacher: When the shaka-muni Buddha was
thinking about
these things, he
might have that he must come from this Vedas philosophy, what would
the Buddha say
about these ideas from which he was brought up?
Hansadutta:
Yes, actually Lord Buddha was a prince. That
means he
was in a ruling
family, kshatriya family, and they were traditionally taught
Vedic
Philosophy, because
they were responsible administrators ruling over the people. So
certainly Lord Buddha
knew Vedic Literature, especially Bhagavad-gita because
it is
especially meant for the
ruling class. I am not an expert in Buddhist philosophy or
teachings, but I do know from
the little that I have read and talked with Dharmaster Heng Shun that
more or less
Buddhist philosophy is just like Bhagavad-gita. There's
no difference,
really. The one
striking difference that is obvious is that Lord Buddha did not teach
about a Supreme
Being or the existence of the jiva atma, the spirit soul. I
don't
know if he ever taught
against it, but as I have been told, he simply didn't teach it.
Heng Shun: He
taught un-atman, which means in all
of existence,
in samsara, there
isn't any atman, there is no atman. You can't find any atman
in samsara, and that is a
fundamental teaching, a very fundamental teaching. It's supposed
to be that only when
the Buddha appears in the world does that teaching exist, according to
Buddhist
scriptures.
Hansadutta: I
wanted to mention this, that in the Bhagavat
Purana, or the Srimad
Bhagavatam, the appearance of Lord Buddha was foretold, that he
would
appear in Kali
Yuga, and it also gave his purpose for coming. Of course there
will be some
contention over these things, but as I said in my original class here,
instead of
examining dharmic teaching from a differential point of view, if we
study their
symmetry, or where they are in agreement, we will see that birth, old
age disease and
death, they agree. To end samsara, they agree. To lead a
dharmic lifestyle of
truthfulness, cleanliness, austerity, right thought, right action,
right association, right
livelihood, they agree. Practically everything is in
agreement. Now, and I put it like this last time: we are
all here in the material world now, but everyone, even those who
are atheistic, and do not adhere to any religious teachings, they have
to agree that
everyone is going to leave this place. Now, it is simply a
question of where are we going
after we leave here. It's not a question of "Will we
leave?" Yes, we ALL will! So,
either we will go to that place where the Buddha instructed, or where
Krishna, or Jesus,
meaning you'll go to heaven, or you'll go to hell, or you'll go back to
samsara, and
repeat. But everyone is leaving--that's for sure. No one can say, "I'm
not leaving, and so
I don't have to follow anyone, because I'm going to stay here for all
time. No. So on the
basic most fundamental siddhantas, conclusions, there can't be
any
disagreement.
In a
court of law they call it summary adjudication. Where there is a big
case, then one side
will say, "Let's just present, or let's ask the judge to make a ruling
on the points on which
no one can contend, on those points that our side can't contend,
and their side also,
because they have already admitted it, and therefore, our case is made.
That's called
summary adjudication.
Heng Shun:
Excuse me, but we're going to have to go…
it's already past
four o'clock!
Hansadutta:
Right, so the summary adjudication
is that we must all go!
Heng Shun:
"So, tomorrow we'll continue, and maybe we'll
make
more time for
questions!
