When the holy name is said to be Nama, Chintamani, Krishna, and why do we need to chant the Gayathri Mantra and why do we have a separate initiation for getting the Gayathri Mantra? We can look at it at three levels. At a devotional level, at a cultural level, and at a personal level. At a devotional level, sometimes there is a tendency to reduce the entirety of bhakti to one particular limb of bhakti based on a particular set of verses.

So, while the holy name is extremely important, at the same time, it’s ultimately about developing a relationship with Krishna. Bhagavatam says that, towards the conclusion that, And yet, for the last seven days of Parikshit Maharaj’s life, Shivdev Goswami does not say that we just chant the holy names. They discuss Krishna, which involves a significant level of philosophy and also a number of variated pastimes of various manifestations of the Lord.

Why? Because ultimately it’s a matter of fixing the mind of Krishna and developing a real and a rich relationship with Krishna. The holy name is undoubtedly an extremely important means by which we can develop that relationship. At the same time, it’s about a relationship.

And that relationship with Krishna includes various aspects in the world. If we say the holy name is everything, then why do we need to do deity worship? Why do we need to study Shastra? Why even have other limbs of bhakti at all? So in that sense, the relationship with Krishna can also include elements of the world which we can use in this service. And at an individual level, one person might find a total absorption in Krishna through the chanting of the holy names.

And yet others may not. But when we form a community, we form an institution, we form a tradition, a sampradaya, then many other factors come into play. That tradition also has to be accepted and respected in the broader community within which it belongs.

There needs to be a healthy tension where there are some points of connection and some points of difference. If there is total connection of any particular tradition with the broader culture, then it loses its street identity. If there is complete difference and no points of connection, then that tradition is seen as alien and suspicious and is constantly threatened.

So every tradition tries to create bridges with the broader culture within which it lives. And when the bhakti tradition gains its authority from bhakti texts, those texts themselves are not considered authoritative or not necessarily supremely authoritative by the entire community of Vedic followers. And therefore, every tradition needs to do certain things to gain acceptance and respectability within the broader culture and community and civilization in which it lives.

So one of the things that the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition had to do, for example, was to write a commentary on the Vedanta Sutra although Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said that there is no need for it. Why? Because the very authenticity of our tradition was questioned at the time of Vande Vidya Bhakti. And what was not necessary at one particular time, what was considered a disobedience to Mahaprabhu’s explicit words became necessary to protect and perpetuate the mission that Mahaprabhu came for.

So similarly, within the bhakti tradition, there is always an attempt to differentiate itself from the orthodox brahminical tradition that was there at the time when the Vedanta tradition started gaining prominence. And there is also an attempt to connect with and be respected by, or at least accepted by, the orthodox brahminical tradition. By orthodox, I am talking about not what is orthodox is now, but what was orthodox at that time, what was established in the institute at that time.

So, adopting some of the rituals that were considered important for people who are respected in the Vedic tradition, such as adopting the Gayatri Mantra, was something which the bhakti tradition consistently did to connect with the broader culture. And of course, even by accepting elements of the broader culture, the bhakti tradition often gives certain insights about how we can see even such aspects more devotional. So our tradition may give a more devotional understanding of the Gayatri Mantra.

This understanding may not be accepted by others, but the very fact that we have a process by which we accept people and give them the Gayatri Mantra becomes important. Just like in today’s world, we may equip devotees to answer certain scientific questions about, say, the nature of the soul and the scientific evidence for the existence of the soul or the scientific evidence for the existence of God. This was not done in the tradition and the Hare Krishna Mahamantra is fully coated.

But for one’s own conviction, for one’s capacity to get acceptance and respect, a lot of other things are required. The third point is from a personal perspective, that ultimately, we need as many resources as possible for remembering Krishna and connecting with Krishna. Rather than seeing the Gayatri Mantra as non-devotional, we see it as a part of the various gifts that Krishna has given.

And some devotees can use those gifts. Some may give more emphasis to it, some may give less emphasis to it. That’s okay.

But the idea is that we use those gifts to connect more with Krishna. That’s how we grow in our life. The Gayatri Mantra requires a certain level of Sattva Puna to be chanted in a way that is important.

And the Gayatri Mantra may not take us to Goloka Vrindavan, which is the Guru Gayatri Mantra. But that journey from the beginning of Sattva to the Brahman level, where one becomes free from material craving and anger, that journey can be accelerated by the chanting of the Gayatri Mantra. And thus, it can help us as an aid in achieving the ultimate purpose that the Bhakti tradition considers the highest, which is the real appreciation.

The post When the Hare Krishna mantra is so potent, why do we have second initiation into the Gayatri mantra? appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

So, I was trying to understand how in Lord Rama’s pastime, his Altha was to be a king, but he, his role was, I mean he was Lord himself, so his Parmartha also is like, it’s like kind of serving his own self, right? He’s the Lord. And in that context, I want to understand when Mother Sita was, when he told Lakshmana to meet Mother Sita in the ashram, when she was carrying the avankur. So, would you like to elaborate like in this context, like what was played out in his mind and it was, what was his priority, you know, in terms of his Altha and Parmartha? Would I like to elaborate? No.

Some pastimes are very difficult to understand and sometimes you cannot get, to get a satisfactory understanding of this. All that you can get is the least unsatisfactory understanding. So, I will share with you the understanding that I find least unsatisfactory.

I have written books on the Ramayana and I’m trying to write future also and this is, I have many scholars in the Ramayana, in our tradition, outside the tradition, I have talked with them, tried to read the traditional commentaries, whatever are available, but it is a very difficult pastime to go through all of it. So, we talked about it. The key point is that there is context.

Generally speaking, the principle is that if an action does not make sense, if I do good, if I am polite with you and you are rude with me, I can say that you are a terrible person or I’m a, I’m a worthless person. Or I can say maybe we have some history from behind, because of which this is happening. So, there are, that way, the world makes sense, but it doesn’t make sense in this context.

So, in the immediate context, there is no way you can make sense. If a man abandons his pregnant wife over an unproven allegation or rather an allegation that has been proven to be false, that man would not be considered even an ordinarily responsible person, what to speak of an ideal person. And if a civilization or a culture considers such a person to be ideal, that civilization should be condemned.

So, the point is that in the immediate context, there is no denying that it does not make any sense. So, if we consider only the dynamic of the husband-wife relationship, the context of the husband-wife relationship. So, then, so this is the immediate context, the husband and wife relationship.

So, in this context, it’s no sense at all. So, then sometimes we may have to put it in a bigger context. Lakshana Prabhupada says that sometimes in a family, the mother-in-law may chastise her own daughter to instruct her daughter.

So, that daughter may say, I am not doing anything wrong, but I am being chastised and she also understands, this is not meant for the daughter. So, like that, sometimes you speak one thing to one person, but somebody else is hearing. That thing is not meant for that person, that thing is meant for the other person.

But this person can become indignant. Why are you speaking this to me? I never did this. Understand, I have a purpose.

I’ll tell you later. It’s like that. So, in the context, it does not make any sense.

So, now we can broaden the context. So, there are four levels of broadening that are possible. The first level of broadening is that Lord Ram is a husband, but he’s also a king.

Now, he has a relationship with the healer. And in one sense, in that cultural context, for Lord Ram to be with his wife, who was suspected of something inappropriate, that would have reflected that he was attached to her. And he was excessively attached to her.

And because of that Rajdharma, he had to choose between Rajdharma and pati. And he chose the Rajdharma at that particular time. And that is a sacrifice.

It is. Now, if you see, so one context is Rajdharma, he has chosen as more important than the patidharma. So, it is clear that he is not rejecting her as a person.

And how do we know that? Three things. First is he does not remarry. He’s a king, he could easily remarry.

Now, he maintains her word to him. His word to him that I’ll be a king. Apart from that, not only does not he maintain his word to her, he also does not think it’s a royal duty.

When he has to perform yajna, the brahmanas say you need to have your wife with you. So, he actually creates a golden effigy of her. And he puts that golden effigy next to her.

So, now, which person do you even like? If you keep the photo of a person in your home, we keep the photo of people whom we love and respect. Now, if somebody has disgraced our family, sometimes some cultures are very reputation conscious or honor conscious. And if some person has disgraced that family, they will actually like deny the existence of that person.

They will not keep any photo in public. Even if there are albums, they will delete that person’s photo from there. Like erase that person’s existence.

Far from erasing her existence, Lord Ram actually makes an effigy of her and puts that in the yajna. Yajna is a place where he is putting that there itself is an indication that he has not rejected her. So, not only has he not rejected her, he does not even believe that accusation.

Because if he considers her impure for a pure activity like a yajna, he will not put her there. And even the brahmanas don’t object to it. So, it is not her purity that is being asked.

And the third thing is, and although the word banishment can be used, that he banished her, it’s not in the same sense in which Ram himself was banished. Because he sent her to Valmiki’s ashram. And Valmiki’s ashram was in Lord Ram’s yajna.

So, it is not that Valmiki’s ashram was being troubled by Rakshasas or being predators and she wasn’t physically there. So, in one sense, she was indirectly in his protection. So, now, what exactly about the Raja Dharma? This is where Indian culture, American culture are different.

The idea of a person renouncing his family for the sake of the larger good. That’s something in Indian culture it’s understood. The current Indian Prime Minister, he has a wife but he doesn’t, he has never spent much time with his wife.

He doesn’t have children. So, even Gandhiji was materially renounced. Some killers were not.

But in the Indian ethos, like giving up the family for the sake of a larger cause is something which is accepted, even respected. But I’ve seen in America, people just don’t understand this. Because America, they have a culture of the first lady.

That, you know, it’s like you cannot be the president unless you have a, every politician generally, especially top politicians, they have to go with their family. And often they will put, they’ll proudly say, although I am the president, my family comes first. And so that, that is a very different value system.

So, to some extent, the idea of Lord Ram sacrificing pati dharma for raja dharma, it’s understandable for Indians. For Americans, it becomes much more difficult to understand. But this, in the bigger context, now how would it have affected his being a king? It’s a very cultural, contextual thing.

So, at that particular time, there was a particular time when purity of women was considered extremely important. Anyone, even in Europe, in the European tradition, the Caesar’s wife should be above suspicion. So, that was, you could say, it’s an unfair standard of purity that is expected of a woman.

And especially in her case, she was not consenting at all. And all that is true. But every culture has its own ways of functioning.

Now, what is that in the first context? That the raja dharma is prioritized over the pati dharma. Having said this, none of the acharyas who have commented on the Ramayana, or even the tradition of the Ramayana, considers this as the behavior to be normalized and adopted by everyone. India has one of the strongest family structures.

In the West, families are falling apart. In India also, it’s happening, unfortunately. But it’s much lesser.

The family structure is very resilient. And no book has inspired the Indian mind as much as the Ramayana. So, if a core teaching of this book is that reject your wife over an unsubstantial allegation, then that culture would not have been so family-friendly, or family support would be so family-emphasizing.

So, within the tradition itself, from the story of the Ramayana, certain teachings are emphasized, certain teachings are not emphasized. And the Ramayana commentators of Sri Vaishnava tradition, they say that even Lakshman’s following Ram is not to be imitated. That Sita is going with Ram, then they are a family unit.

That is to be imitated. Lakshman’s following Ram is glorious because Ram is God. But Lakshman’s following Ram is actually unfair for Ramayana.

So, he’ll take her with him. So, even that is not to be imitated. So, that’s why one of the key principles in understanding a text is to see how the tradition that has emerged from the text understands the text.

So, this is certainly not something to be imitated. Now, the second context you could put it in is the context of previous life. Like I said, the Lord does not have a previous life and that is true.

But there is a story given in the Ramayana itself of a case where I won’t go into the full story, but Bhrigu Muni, his wife, I think her name is Kirti. So, there is a demon who has been chased by, who has been terrorizing the universe and that demon has been chased by, finally at a particular opportune time, Lord Vishnu borders him, is about to kill him. The demon flees and takes shelter in the ashram of Bhrigu Muni, where Khyati is there.

He says, please save me. And Khyati says, I will protect you. And Vishnu says, no, this is a terrible demon, I have to kill him.

Vishnu’s Khyati says, no, he has taken shelter of me, I am not going to kill him. Lord Vishnu says that this is a terrible demon. If we don’t kill him at this time, he will continue terrorizing and destroying the universe.

I have to kill him right now, this is the only time available. He says, no, I cannot let him, he has taken shelter of me. Then he says, for the sake of the universe, I have to kill you to kill him.

He says, whatever you do, I am not going to let you. Then Lord Vishnu kills Khyati and then he comes back. He is aghast.

Lord Vishnu says, this is what happened and I can revive Khyati right now for you. He says, how could you have killed a woman, you were meant to protect her. He says, just as you have caused me to suffer separation from my wife, I curse you, that you will suffer separation from your wife.

So, now the Lord is beyond all curses, but the Lord of Greece fully accepts that curse. So, that curse later comes back. So, when a curse from previous life acts, it may seem to have no rationale in this life.

So, that is another bigger context. So, Sita herself was blameless, but it was something from the previous life that was blamed. And the third is, so that is the context of the book itself and the mood of the book or the mood of the larger leela.

See, in general, the Ramayana’s mood is the mood of sacrifice. That, you see, Ram did not have to go on exile. Ram could have rebelled against his father and father.

But Ram did not do that. So, you know, Dasharatha is not a victimizer and Ram is not a victim. Both of them are caught in a circumstance.

Now, to some extent, we can understand this circumstance, but at least even now, the idea of honoring one’s word is something which people do respect. Although I have seen young people ask the question, just clearly, why did Ram even have to go to the forest? He said, you know, Dasharatha had given a word at a particular time. He said, this is blind obedience to somebody else’s word.

So, we could say that, we could question that also. But at least it’s understandable. Now, what happens is this is seen as noble, Ram’s nobility, Ram’s selflessness.

But Ram doesn’t become bitter towards Dasharatha and Dasharatha does not, is not angry with Ram. There is no fault on Ram’s side. So, that same spirit of sacrifice that Ram and Dasharatha, when Sita goes with Ram, Sita is giving up, Sita is giving up the kingdom, Lakshman is giving up the kingdom, that mood of sacrifice is the consistent theme of the Ramayana.

And finally, what Dasharatha does to Ram, Ram has to do to Sita. So, it is not that Ram is the victimizer and Sita is the victim. Just that Dasharatha is not the victimizer and Sita is not, Ram is not the victim.

Both Ram and Sita are caught in a circumstance. That circumstance is an unfortunate circumstance. And both of them have to participate in a sacrifice.

It’s a painful sacrifice. Just that Dasharatha does not celebrate when Ram goes away. Ram does not celebrate, oh this impure woman in my life, I got rid of her.

There is absolutely no celebration. And just as Ram is not bitter towards Dasharatha, Sita is heartbroken when Ram rejects her. Ram rejects also is a strong word, but Ram abandons her, whatever you want to say.

But she understands, she is heartbroken. At a level of emotion, she is completely shattered. But I understand why he has done this.

And the test that she accepts is that she does not poison her children’s mind about her. If there is a messy divorce in which, say one person feels that the other person has betrayed me, has manipulated me, has wronged me, and quite often the children are poisoned by it. So she does not do that.

So is she pained by it? Is she heartbroken by it? Definitely. But is she bitter? Is she vindictive? Not at all. So the mood of sacrifice, of putting a larger principle above one’s personal pleasure, that is the consistent mood of Ram.

This is Jata. You could have said that, why should I fight against Raavan? He is clearly younger than me, faster than me. Sita does not fight against him.

She is like, how can I just stand by and let him be abducted? Whatever it means by that, I have to try to fight it. So it is a sacrifice. The sacrifice can come in many different forms.

The broader principle of sacrifice is what has been discussed. So these three contexts, the context of a larger dharma, the context of the previous life, and the context of the purpose of the Leela, can help us make sense of that pastime to some extent. Still, the problem comes with twofold.

One is that this pastime is often seen through the feminist lens, that Ram is a man, and he is a male authority figure, and Sita is a woman, and she is victimized. Unfortunately, there have been many instances of patriarchal abuse of power, and then that all becomes very messy. But it does not have to be seen through that lens.

So when we see through that lens, then it becomes outrageous, unacceptable and outrageous. But that is not the lens that the Ramayan is seen through. That is not the lens in which the Ramayan tradition is encouraging us to So as I said, it has never become the norm in Indian society that a woman should be abandoned or rejected because of some unsuspecting actions.

So that is one problem. And the second is that quite often there are some traditions, some commentators who say that this pastime is interpolation. Now, even there are some scholars who go in that favor, and they say it’s interpolation by some people.

Now, no one would be happier than me if this were interpolation in one sense. It would be a big relief. But it’s difficult to make that argument because the traditional Uttarkhand, sometimes people say the whole Uttarkhand is interpolation.

But our prominent Acharyas have not spoken like that. In the Srivastava tradition, they have written commentaries on this. And there are songs about Sita’s agony, Ram’s agony.

So this is definitely an inconvenient part of our tradition. But then, convenience is not necessarily the way we learn about lessons of transcendence. So if somebody wants to take that interpolation argument, I mean, it’s up to them.

But generally in the tradition, that’s not what has been taken.

The post Why did Rama reject Sita? appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

The post Dealing with insecurity Mahabharata San Diego appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

The post Prayers inspired by Bhagavad Gita – Part 2 by HG Chaitanya Charan Prabhuji appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

The post Prayers inspired by Bhagavad Gita – Part 1 by HG Chaitanya Charan Prabhuji appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

This is. This is a book that is, and it’s titled ‘Plays’ inspired by the Bhagavad Gita. For me, among all the scriptures, the Bhagavad Gita is the book which is I have connected with the most. And the Gita’s verses are not just sources of wisdom for me. They are equal friends.

I feel like I have a relationship with all the verses, some more than others. And just like if you have a friend, then you want to know more and more about the friend. And one way you know more about the friend, our friend is by meeting them in different contexts, different places. You know somebody at work, then you meet them at their home, you meet them in some recreational place, you meet them in a temple, you meet them in some high pressure situation. So we learn more.

So like that, I have been when I was writing Gita in the articles and writing books on the Gita, I tried to approach the Gita’s verses from different perspectives. Shriyakopal also said that studying scriptures, cooking lines in the reading, studying from different perspectives. So when I had read Krishna Chitrakar’s commentary on the Gita, that’s one of my favorite commentaries, he approached he shows how the Gita is filled with so much devotion for Krishna. So, I was thinking about how when we approach the Gita’s verses, if we could approach them not just in a mood of understanding, but seeing them as sources of praying. If wisdom can inspire a well informed prayer within our heart.

And then I was going through Gautama Stotra, it’s a composition by Kulusekhar Maharaj, and there I saw something which to me seemed to be a literal application of this. In 12.6seven, Krishna says Desha ma’am samuddhata viptya samsara sahkaranat says, I will lift you out of the ocean of material existence. And, Because you have promised that you will do this, O Lord! So how can we take the Gita’s verses and offer prayers based on that? That’s what I’ve been trying to explore in this book.

So basically, when we have prayers, the prayers can be generally when we sing prayers, we have scriptural or traditional prayers. That means we have mangalati, vihanarsi maati, s o m e, krishna songs. And now these have the weight of authority to them. They are great. It’s coming from scripture.

It’s coming from tradition. And when we sing these, we recite these following the tradition that connects us with the Lord. At the same time, we could offer personal prayers because we all are ultimately meant to develop our relationship with our Sheena. So when you offer personal prayers, that brings authenticity, because this is what we are feeling. We are going through certain situations, we are facing certain challenges, and in those situation challenges, how can we approach the Lord?

So I thought that if we could have prayers that were scriptural plus personal, That means we start with the scriptural words and then compose a prayer based on that that will have the weight of authority and authenticity together. And Rishi Srila Prabhupada does this in his marking in Bhagavad Dharma, the song which he composed when he was approaching America. Then he’s pouring out his own heart, vorokurpa koiye krishna adhale ra prati. But in the middle of that, what he does is, he’s bringing bhagavadam voices. So what he is praying is actually very much based on the bhavatham.

So he prays for example that that if anybody hears Bhagavatam repeatedly, they will become they will become sober. And then Prabhupada is making this statement, but then he’s quoting the Bhagavatam verses where he says Shrutam, Sugata, Krishna, and the whole series of the darajastha mohava how one becomes sober, how one becomes zero? So this is my attempt to do that over here, something similar following with, Krushikar Maharaj and Prabhupada. There are five components in each of the players. The first is that we have the first is we have a beautiful picture of Krishna over here, and then with the picture of Krishna there are different deities from different temples.

Dvds deities they are mentioned at right bottom. Then, the way I am approaching this particular prayer The way I’m approaching this prayer, or this verse of this prayer, that is summarized in one sentence. So please change the memories replaying inside me. And then I’ve taken the Gita’s verse, which which it is based, and then I have translated the verse in English poetry. So, because the Gita is a song, and then when we forget that when we approach a philosophy, we look at a poetic devotional field I have or translate it at the end, based on that there is a prayer that is inspired.

So let’s look at this now. So let’s just recite the words together Most of us know the words, so not responsibly, but let’s do it together. For sense pleasures the wise person abstains, yet the taste in the heart remains, but seeing the supreme sweet and bright even that, craving, loses its might. So, param drishta vivartate. The craving loses its might.

This is Bhavita 2.59. So I would request different devotees to read one paragraph and then we will discuss the topic about Hanumanji today. Who would like to read one paragraph? Do you have a second mic? Or does anyone have a mic in their throat?

Yeah. Here, please. My dear lord, it is impossible to live completely free from exposure to temptation in a world that is filled with temptations. Yes. That’s a basic fact of life.

We can’t really close, guys. You can go ahead. It’s valuable. Yeah, please. Even when I resolve to turn away from them so that the images playing in front of my eyes do not get imprinted in my mind, my mind simply switches gears and replaces them with images from my past, replaying them on an endless loop.

Yes. This is our predicament. We can turn away from tempting objects in the outer world, but those impressions are there inside. And those impressions keep replay. Now temptations interestingly may as early as possible pleasure, but the mind is such that it replays memories not just of pleasure but also of pain.

If somebody has spoken something hurtful to us And they may have spoken it one year ago, but as soon as we see them, those memories get triggered. We start playing. And sometimes we decide, I don’t want to associate with this person also. But still, I’ll keep a distance on that person I feel those memories still stay. So for us, when technology is advancing so much, we have created so many comforts in the outer world, and we are creating more and more comforts.

But what we are terribly lacking in today’s world is the capacity to form healthy memories or the capacity to change the memories that go on ourselves. In fact, many people nowadays grow up with various kinds of trauma. And trauma means what? That some terrible thing happened in the past it may have some physical impact, but more than that, it has an emotional, mental, psychological impact. And, in many ways, the greatest cause of unhappiness in the world at a practical level is not the events that happen in the world.

Yes, there are many distressing, painful events that happen, but actually, it is the memories that are there inside. So the events can cause some unhappiness, but the memories cause far greater unhappiness. And when we say remember Krishna, this might seem just to be like a religious doctrine for those on the path of bhakti and it is true, but it is much much more than that. The process of remembering Krishna is meant to change the memories in our heart, the memories that keep playing inside us. We all seek to create happy memories.

If we go to some nice place, we take some photos. If we have some celebration, we take some photos. One keeps our memories. And those are physical memories. They’re important.

And those physical memories can trigger our internal memories. But irrespective of what triggers are present or not present there are certain memories that are playing inside us constantly. And when Krishna says Janma karmachime devyam he says he comes and performs extraordinary pastimes. One of the things that he does is through these memories, through these pastimes, and through meditating on these pastimes, we have the opportunity to form memories that lift us up, memories that purify and elevate us. So actually recognizing it’s that we have so much technological advancement, but there’s no technology to change memories.

Nothing you can put on your way back. All memories are changed. Now, you can wipe out the memory of a person. You can give them some drugs or you can give them some electric shocks, you can wipe out the memory sometimes. But then that person has become dysfunctional.

Does it change memories? Change memories for the better. Through technology, there’s so much entertainment available. Sometimes some entertainment, maybe they just consume entertainment and they forget it because they consume so much entertainment. Some entertainment may be very active, so it forms some memories.

And how do memories really better memories? So the purpose of performing leela, remembering leela, the lord is performing leela, and for our remembering the leela is to help us change the memories inside us. And among the various things, various pastimes purify us, the pastimes entertain us, the pastimes can captivate us, but through them all, in one sense the purpose of life- I’ll be doing this thing tomorrow also- if you want us from a psychological purpose- perspective It’s not a psychological perspective, no. But the purpose of life is to make our memory our treasury. Right now for many of us our memory might be our prison.

So our memory might be our prison means the memories that are plaguing inside us, they trap us in suffering. Now this person did like this to me. This happened over there, and this mistake happened. Sometimes the memories may be about what others did to us. Sometimes memories may be about what we did to ourselves also.

Mistakes we make. But we need to go beyond these memories. And Srila Prabhupada in Manaprasad Sammita Maunamato Nigra 17.16 Purport, he says the purpose to change the state of the mind is the purpose it is for changing the state of our mind that the Lord performs various pastels and we can turn towards those pastels, remember them and become purified. So with this context we’ll elaborate on this more again later but this just a couple of days ago was Hanuman Jayanti. So we’ll discuss some past tense of Hanuman, but before we go into this let’s get back to this theme of what our purpose is to change our memories.

And how do we change our memories? By finding within the pastimes something memorable. Memorable could be some point, could be some incident, could be some statement, whatever it is. And then that forms fresh impressions inside our mind. So when the lord’s past times are approached, lord’s past times, lord’s devotees past times, I talk about one philosophical thing tomorrow about the way in which you’re approaching the past tense.

But right now, I’m gonna talk about the purpose. So have any of you heard this word? What does it mean? Demigod? Devi and devuddha, yes.

Though I was at one. Actually where was I? Actually I was giving a talk at a, the English department in Cambridge, and there I used the word demigod. I said, this is a wrong using of the word. I said, what do you mean?

Then we had nice discussion on it, but it seems that now Prabhupada uses the word demigod almost in the sense of semigod. Like, somebody who is more powerful than us, but not as powerful as a supreme god. Now in the modern context, in the way the word is used, the word demigod is used in such a different sense. It’s like a demigod is a child of god plus human. That is the main video.

So for example, Arjuna would be considered to be demigod in today’s usage. So Arjuna was born of Indra and Kunti. Mhmm. So somebody who is so in that sense, is a partly god. So that is one way of using it.

So Prabhupada is using it more in the Prabhupada is using it more in the position. A person has a power greater than ours, but not as great as god’s. Now this con con current current usage is in more in terms of origin, that the person is more partly of humans and partly of partly of God. Therefore, not fully God. If a person is born fully of God, then there would be a God directly.

Right? So anyway, Hanuman, in this sense, is a demigod. Who were his parents? Bayu and? Bayu.

Anjina Devi. So now, Anjina was a human lady on the earth, and Bayu was a celestial lady. So now when he was born, there are many stories associated with his past with his past time, and I’ll focus on one particular theme. We’re gonna discuss the topic of maturity. Now children by nature are restless.

Now when she when Anjana was taking care of her child, she just kept her baby down and she went to a nearby room to do some housework. And, children, they’re naturally curious and normally if we have our home, we have a small baby, we’ll baby proof our home. Now Anjana was just sitting around. Anjana had gone next to Anuwa, and he was just lying there looking around. And he looked it up, and he saw, hey, that’s a shiny object, which, I kept by my mother for me.

Now, now, developmental psychology is a fascinating subject. Now, when children understand about things, so some children just don’t have a sense of distance. Not children, small babies. So he nodded. It’s not very far away.

He just jumped up. And he jumped up. He just jumped up and even he didn’t know how much power he had. He just kept streaking through the sky and streaking through the sky and he came closer and closer to the sun. Now this was not the blazing sun of the afternoon.

This was the gentle sun of the morning. So it looked red, but not blazing red. Yeah. It looked really red. And then, initially, when, Suriadev saw this child is coming.

First, he was worried about the for the child. This child would get born. What is the child doing? But when he saw the child kept coming and coming and coming, And the child seems to be charging right towards him. Then initially, he was worried for the child, and he was worried for himself.

You know, if we are going on a if we’re driving a car, and suddenly, you’re driving the car fast, and suddenly, there’s somebody standing in the middle of the road. Get out of the way. But then as, street lights fall, that person has a machine gun pointed at us. Then then from from that person for a hour since. So Surya Dev started increasing his race.

Kept increasing, increasing, but this child seemed unaffected by it. And then he panicked. And now there’s natural rivalry between Surya Devarindra. But in this case, Surya felt the emergency. I need help.

I need help. So he immediately went to Indra Dev. And he said, Indra, what happened? He said, ‘Hey. Look at him.’ So this child is tweeing straight even.

He was surprised. And now for Indra, Surya coming to his help, coming to ask for help was also a special thing he said. I cannot feel you. I have to show you my power. So Indra didn’t think care.

Of me. Just took his wajra and hold it at Hanuman. And Hanuman was a small baby at that time. Now Hanuman was powerful, but when we look at the stories, what happened was he was powerful. He was written on how powerful he was.

So first, this shiny object is coming and see another shiny object is coming. So he didn’t do anything. Now hit him on his face, especially in his jaw, and he reeled back. And he reeled, and he came crashing down on the ground. Now why you saw what was happening?

Like a like a father may see the child’s antics and be happy. So why was happy? Oh, what is that child doing? But then everything happened so fast. Why would it expect that Indra would throw a thunderbolt?

This is a small child. He’s mischievous. He’s not malicious. He’s not destructive. But when the thunderbolt was hit, my unit rushed forward and she softened the fall of the child.

Child fell gently on the floor. And then he became enraged. He said, what did you do with this small child? So Indira said, he was not acting like a small child. He said no, he was just a small child.

You would have stopped him anyway. He said no, this was the only way to stop him. So now what happens is that when some action is performed and that two people may have different evaluations of the nature of that action. Sometimes it’s very dangerous, sometimes it’s not all dangerous, it’s just fun. So Indra felt it was dangerous and why you felt it was outrageous or excessive use of power?

Sometimes it happens here in America, people have guns and there’s a small some stranger comes and somebody takes a machine gun and shoots the stranger. He says, no. Who knows the stranger might have a machine gun that should be? But sometimes the stranger might just be like a a harmless elderly person who is lost and doesn’t know and looking to find the way. So there’s always danger of excessive use of power.

So Indra used power excessively. Why you were then deranged? Why you said? You did this to my child. I’ll punish all of you.

And he suddenly stopped flowing. Now you stopped flowing. Everybody’s very suffocating. When everybody’s very suffocating, then the became allowed. And then they realized this is very serious.

But they all came to pacify you. And they realized the way to pacify you is to profusely bless you. You. And Hanuman seemed to be as if as if lifeless. But by the blessings of the deyotas, we all came back to life.

He came back to life. And of course, the blow that had retreated to my face, it slightly shifted the anatomy of his face. That’s how he got the name Hanuman. His name was Maruti. Now the biggest diktas blessed him.

And now when they blessed him he could do extraordinary things. Even without blessings he could do extraordinary things and now with blessings he became extraordinarily extraordinary and that is not a compliment. What happened is that. We’ll be discussing this broad theme in present world session. There is ability and there is maturity.

And maturity means the ability to use ability wisely. So, now, if you consider four quadrants over here, we have ability and maturity. So we could have ability but no maturity, no ability, no maturity, maturity but no ability, maturity and ability both. Now, which of these is the situation in which Hanuman was now? Sorry?

So which quadrant? Quadrant, yes. So now baby Hanuman was or maybe a child Hanuman was in this quadrant. Now as he grew up he had his extraordinary powers and he started doing mischievous things. So, Vivekanumar, he was mischievous.

But, that mischievous was no longer fun. It was dangerous. It is not dangerous for him, it is dangerous for everyone else. And then that became a problem. Now of course, for many people, if they have ability without maturity, they may go far beyond being mischievous.

They may become malicious. Malicious means they may use that power deliberately to hurt others. And they may not be hateful people, but at that time, a surge of anger, a surge of negative emotion comes and they may do something which they may themselves separate afterwards. So what we will be discussing in the program tomorrow’s session is this journey. So we have from baby Hanuman, the adult Hanuman that we see in the Sundarkandir and especially the Hanuman who goes to Lanka.

Now we could see these are transcendental characters and they’re always all perfect and that is true. But for as far as our learning lessons, we can see how the journey toward maturity happens. The best situation is where a person has ability and ability to use the ability wisely. That is where so we could say ability plus maturity, this is the person who is who is powerful and helpful. Their ability, they know how to use their ability.

Here what happens is, they’re powerful and helpful. Here they become powerful plus maybe helpful, maybe harmful. So we don’t know. Kaleidiasis would have a maturity. They’re powerful plus unpredictable.

Now some people are unpredictable and some people at this level may actually not be they may be predictable but they will predictably distort. That’s also not a good. Now if we have somebody who has no ability and no power, no no ability, no maturity, what happens? They are basically powerless. They may want to harm others, but they are powerless to actually harm others because they don’t have much ability.

Now if somebody has maturity plus no ability, what will happen? They they can do good, but they don’t have much ability to do good. So here, if you want to describe all of these in one word, this will be this person will be under effective because they don’t have some say, suppose a batsman has a very cool head, but the batsman doesn’t have a very good batting talent. So they they do not get hot headed, do not make a rash shot and get out, but the batsman can’t hit very very extraordinary exercise or anything like that. So that password is under effective.

Here it is effective. Here it will be ineffective. And the last will be it is destructive. Destructive in small or big ways. So when Hanuman was growing up, he was mischievous.

And initially his mother tried to restrain him, but soon he outgrew her in strength, in capacity yeah? So as he was growing up, afterwards now children often don’t have a sense of, sense of time place circumstance. You know what to speak when, how to what to do when. So it’s okay to be mischievous with other kids, but thou Hanuman was just mischievous in the forest, and in the forest there were sages. And sages are known for their ages.

Sometimes they get angry. If they get angry, they can be cursed. In the very context, being cursed by a sage is considered one of the most dangerous things. But Hanuman is carefree. Sometimes the sages would go out of their hermitage for some work and he would lock the hermitage.

I mean, they would be inside and he would lock them inside. Sometimes he would just they would be doing the sacrificial, sacrifices and they have to do a pile of wood which would be there for killing the doing the sacrifice and then you just take the whole pile of wood and go somewhere and then we again There’s no hope he left over here. So now he was not malicious, but he was displeased with us. And then the sages decided to what did they do? -Curse him.

-Now the word curse is a little harsh word. So, were they angry with him? Well, yes, they were displeased with him. But they didn’t really want to harm him. So they thought it was a very curious curse.

What was the curse that they gave him? He’ll forget his powers. Not that he will lose his powers. He will forget his powers. And for how long?

That seems very strange. You know? They they they curse someone, they curse him, and then they will have a response for it to rise him. And all the curses gone no longer affected. But the idea was the curse here, the point was that they wanted that Hanuman become mature.

That, so when he was reminded, it is. Somebody has to remind him that reminder has to come at the right time. So, a reminder has to come at a time when the world actually needed this power and needed it very acutely, where it was something which was vital. So normally when you think of the word ‘curse’ -curse it can have two different meanings: curse can refer to external, curse can refer to internal. Normally we think of curses as externs, you know, that if somebody suddenly loses their distance, somebody still gets a sudden sickness, you know, we feel it’s like a curse situation of a curse.

So we have curses where people’s external situation changes in one moment. So Nalukkor and Mani grew very powerful. You know what happened? One curse went just became like trees. Everything was lost.

So curse can be extraneous. So there can be an external loss that can be for the curse. But quite often when there is an internal loss, that can also seem like a curse. I started by talking about memories. Sometimes, if a negative memory just keeps replaying inside us again and again and again, we feel as if I’m cursed.

Something terrible somebody has done something terrible to us. We may go to a beautiful scenic place also. But even at that place, we feel as if that memory if the memory keeps playing inside us, then we think, oh, what happened over here? Why am I remembering this so much? We sometimes feel as if I’m cursed.

We want to sometimes we want to forget something, we want to forgive someone. But it just doesn’t happen. So, in one sense, if you consider memory, many of us think that the loss of memory is a curse. As soon as we are studying for exam, and we forget at the time something, we feel it’s a curse. We meet someone, and that person remembers us and we don’t remember that person.

And it happens very often. It just feels like a curse. And now some people have the they may have an innocent habit but it’s they they may be like, do you remember me? They were just actually anxious. So that’s understandable.

But when that happens, what happens is you feel as if the loss of memories occurs. But sometimes the presence of memory can also be a curse. That if I want to forget something, I just can’t forget it. So conversely, the loss can be a blessing. To it.

And the presence that can also be a blessing. So far, are we getting this? Sometimes we we lose memory of something unpleasant, something unpalatable. That’s a blessing. I was talking with one devotee.

He said he met some devotee recently and that devotee had terribly hurt him. So I told him how was it interesting? He said, it was quite nice. And then no one, nothing unpleasant. He said, no, it’d be nice.

And I said, it’s bumpy. I had forgotten it. So, I said, when he had told this to me, he was very hurt and he needed some counseling. I tried to pacify him. So I said, you know, I don’t know whether to appreciate your forgetfulness or to curse my remembrance.

-So, sometimes loss of memory can also be a blessing. And sometimes the presence of memory can of course be a blessing, that we understand that. So in that sense, memory is a funny thing. So now if we consider that when Hanuman was cursed to lose, you could say there is memory, memory is present, and memory is absent. And it’s a blessing or it’s a curse.

So now, at one level, Hanuman forgetting his power it was a curse. But was it really a curse? No, he was mischievous and his children were mischievous, but in that, that mischievousness, it was no longer having that power by which he would have explored any things. And in that sense his loss of memory Hanuman’s loss was it a curse or was it a blessing? How many of you think it is a loss?

How many of you think it is a blessing? How many of you think it is a blessing? How many of you think how many of you are lost to know whether it is a blessing? -Yeah. -So the point is that sometimes we cannot know in the situation what something is.

And that situation may feel something terrible, but it may not be. So, one aspect of humility, humility especially in bhakti, When something terrible is happening in our life, we feel, you know, why is Krishna letting this happen? Why is Krishna not doing anything to stop this from happening? So humility in bhakti, one way of understanding it is that understand that my finite vision is not the final vision. Humility means that I understand that a finite vision of a situation is not the final vision of the situation.

In my finite vision, this can seem terrible. And, yes, at that level, it may be terrible, but is that the final vision of the situation? Maybe, maybe not. So when Hanuman was cursed to lose something, in that process of losing something, he would end up getting something. So that loss of ability actually fostered his maturity.

It enabled him to grow further. Many of you know that I have polio that I need crutches for walking. So when I was one, my mother had taken me to a physician to get a polio vaccine, and I was very I don’t remember any of this. And we were staying in a small town in Maharashtra, and, unknown to our parents, my mother my father-in-law was stationed at that time, that particular clinic where the poly vaccine must be administered had a power outage the previous night and because of that the fridge temperature had risen and because of the rising temperature the germs in the vaccine had multiplied and then the attendant gave that particular vaccine to the doctor and doctor gave that vaccine And the vaccine, instead of preventing polio, ended up causing polio. Now I don’t remember any of it.

I was just learning to walk and I fell and I could I could never walk normally. But my first memory is about when I was two and a half or three, And at that time a distant relative had come to our place and she was consoling my mother. She said, oh, it’s so sad. Your son got polio.’ And I remember my mother’s voice calm, clear, confident. He said, whatever he lacks physically, God will provide him intellectually.

Now I don’t know why my mother said that. At two and a half or three, what intellectual signs I had see shown. I don’t know. But somehow that stayed with me. Not the God part, the intellectually part.

At least initially, the intellectually part. And as I grew up, I couldn’t play outdoor games like other kids could play. So part of it was part of it felt this is unfair. But then as I started studying, going to school, or even reading books, I found that I could read quickly, I could remember things well, I could articulate things clearly, and then a part of me said maybe I didn’t articulate it like that, but a part of me said that I could say that I didn’t do anything to deserve this physical disability and that is unfair. But then I didn’t do anything to deserve this intellectual ability also.

So sometimes we get less than what we deserve, sometimes we get more than what we deserve. In the big picture, life is fairly unfair. It is unfair, but it is. Sometimes we get more, sometimes we get less. And that’s why at that point, at a particular time, a particular thing might seem to be a curse.

But our finite vision is not the final vision of x. So I’m very grateful to my mother that she expanded my vision at that time. So so now Hanuman has been cursed, but his very curse or rather the loss of his powers whether you want to call it a curse or a blessing the loss of his powers will actually lead him to the development of his character. That when he doesn’t have any extraordinary powers to use, then what happens? Then one has to actually become mature!

To make two points, an actual journey towards maturity we’ll discuss in tomorrow’s session. So now sometime when I started this story, sometime and we talked about Suryadev when a child jumping up to the sun and catching the sun, and we say, oh, this is stupid. This is not unbelievable. These are kids’ stories. Unbelievable stories.

Now, yes, that’s one way of looking at it, and I’ll discuss this more tomorrow, but if you look at these scriptural stories, there are two ways in which you can see them. There are one way, some ways in which they are dissimilar to us. Dissimilar to our situations. And they are primarily in two ways. In the abilities that characters have.

For a kid to jump up to the sky, for somebody to have 10 heads. So all these abilities are extraordinary. And the arenas. Arenas means the places where these things happen. There is heavens, and there is this place, and that place.

We don’t experience those kind of places in today’s world. But there are very important means in which they are similar. And how are they similar? It is similar in that all the characters they have limitations. Every character has nobody they may have extraordinary abilities, but nobody has supreme power.

Now, of course, the god has supreme power, and that’s true. But even when god comes in this world to perform leaders, is it always described as is it always manifest? It’s omnipotence all the time. So just as we have limitations, our particular limitation may be different. So Hanuman, he could go right up to the sun, but he couldn’t counter the wajra of Indra.

So we all have limitations and and the characters in scriptures also have limitations. And the second is that everybody has accountability. Accountability means the actions that they make have consequence. So now the specific actions that they do and the specific consequences they have, they will be different. But these two principles that everybody has to deal with limitations, and everybody will make choices that will have consequences, and they have to deal with those consequences, they have to live with those consequences.

And it is this when you look at this, we can get some entertainment if we wanted, or explore the power someone has, or explore the domains people exist in. But this is where we actually get elevation, we get education, we get understanding of how to live in our life. Now, Rawan had the capacity to change his form and take on the form of a sage and whatever else he could do. But he still could not do everything. He had limitations.

He had wounds, but still he was vulnerable to humans. He was vulnerable to monkeys. And he made certain choices, and those choices had consequences. So you probably know this character Superman. Now, Superman, nowadays, this is the whole movie movie is about superheroes.

Superman was the first superhero. He. There’s some movie some character. Some author who developed in 1929. When America was in a deep depression, they wanted some character who would lift up the spirits of Americans.

And since then, it’s been going on. But around 1950s, something very curious happened. That as these characters are not created by only one person, you know, one person creates another, makes some more comics, and then it goes on and on. So what happened that as time passed, they started making Hanuman not Hanuman, Superman. Okay.

So as time passed, they started making Superman more and more powerful. Mhmm. His power started increasing. At one time, in some of the stories, Anuman Okay. But, you know, at one time, he could just look with his eye, his superman, and just blow up satellites.

He got enormous amount of powers. And what they found curiously, as his power increased, his popularity decreased. Why? Because generally in any story, if there is no tension, then there is no attention. That if if we write from the beginning only no this person is so powerful is going to win now we may know that he was going to win over the period but still we want to know how he’s going to win but if there’s everything is so predictive if superman is so powerful that any nobody can even touch him.

Then what happens is there’s no excitement. There’s no suspense. So when the when the power is enormous, then there’s no attraction left because you can just do anything. So then the hero then the comic creators, they created this whole concept of what is that? Kryptonite.

So Kryptonite by which Superman would become Muslim. And all his enemies would use that. And then that’s where the character’s popularity centralized him once again. So the point is that everybody, when they face limitations, that’s when in those limitations, how they act, how they grow, how they face those limitations, and how they grow beyond the limitations. That’s what makes the character’s story interesting.

So Hanuman had enormous power and his power will come back to him eventually. But when the ability is lost, that’s the time he takes to develop maturity. With limited ability, what can I do? How can I do it?’ And we’ll see in tomorrow’s session how Hanuman is developed through the choices he makes? And then finally, when Jam Bawand reminds him of his power, that’s the time his abilities come back, but he has developed great maturity by that time.

I was, giving a talk a couple of months ago, I was in The Middle East and, and as you know, I was telling a story about how Sita was abducted. And most of us know that story, how Maricha is finally shot by Ram, then he called out exactly in Ram’s voice, say. Lakshman! Sita! And that’s when Lakshman was told and Sita forced Lakshman to go to help Ram.

So one boy asked me this question that I. When Maricha called out. Lakshman, Sita, why did Ram call out? That’s not me. That’s Maricha.

The whole problem could have been avoided. So so I told him that Actually, Lord Ram is all powerful. But although Lord Ram is all powerful, if he simply were all powerful and that’s what he were doing, and he didn’t have to change the deal also, he couldn’t just have been there armed long and caught them here. So men, although the Lord is all powerful, this is the Lord, when he comes to the earthly level, he it’s said that he does naraleela. When he comes to this earth, he acts like a human being.

Now above the humans are the gods, and below the humans are the demons. Now this above and below is in terms of morality. Devatas are supposed to be better than humans, and the asuras are supposed to be worse than humans. But actually both the devatas and the asuras are physically stronger than the humans. And because of that, Marich because Marichya was an asura, his voice was much stronger.

And Rama’s being being, helped play because Rama was playing a human role, at that time his voice was not strong enough. And that’s why he ran back. So the point is even the Lord’s pastimes, they they become suspenseful, they become interesting when the Lord also acts within limitations and within the limitations the Lord does extraordinary things. Now of course the Lord’s limitations are not imposed on him by anyone The Lord is not cursed for anyone. He chooses when he’ll come out there.

Sometimes he acts like a finite being. And sometimes he will show extraordinary power. But when the power is lost at that time, that is when the character is seen. That what does the person do when power is lost? That person just becomes hateful, that person feels sorry for themselves, and they just become bitter.

Understandably, some does that. But it’s not very helpful. So Hanuman will see what he does in tomorrow’s session. The last one, I mean, you know what? Let’s see.

For all of us, if we have power and if we have character, the same one is ability and maturity. And I’ll just focus on something different over here. See, if there’s no power but no character, then the person becomes prideful. Now prideful is the least of the problems. From there, they can become hateful.

They can become vengeful. Because the power, they can use it for bad purposes. Now if somebody has no power and no character, then what happens? They become resentful. Resentful means why does anyone else have power?

Why is this person so good? Why is this person so good? Why is that person so good? It’s, this some people their whole lives are just filled with resentment. When communism started it promised that there’ll be wealth will be distributed, everybody will have equal wealth.

But what happened was that it’s not that everybody became wealthy, It is that communism was actually driven in real life not by compassion for the poor, but envy towards the wealthy. And then there’s some people who said, we will we’ll steward wealth equally. But then they had the power to decide whom to distribute wealth with. And so there’s a social commentator. He said that in communism, all people are equal, but some are more equal than others.

So basically, there’s a lot of worldview that is driven by resentment, and resentment does not do anything good. It just hates those who are doing something good. Those who have something good, those who do something good. That’s not very helpful. Now, if somebody has power and somebody has character, then they are grateful.

They are grateful. Hanuman will say, when he gains power, he never becomes proud, he never becomes arrogant. Hanman is grateful. Now somebody has character and even if they lose power, then they remain graceful. They don’t become resentful.

Yes? It is Krishna, give me power. Krishna took my powers away from me. It doesn’t matter. So, now, among these, if you consider having power without character, Both are harmful.

Being prideful and being resentful, both are harmful. And if we have character, whether we have power or we don’t have power, you know, it is always positive. So sometimes we may feel that some power has been taken away from us. The power could be the power of wealth. The power could be the power of some position.

The power could be the power of, good reputation. I mean, some people may just spread some rumors about us. That power going away is a painful thing. But we can see that power going away as an opportunity to develop our character, to grow in maturity. And that’s what will happen to Hanuman, and that’s what we’ll discuss in tomorrow’s session.

I’ll summarize what we’ll discuss today. Mainly discussed four points. I started to read out how life in one sense is defined not so much by wealth or power or things it is defined much more by memories. The greatest source of unhappiness for most people is not the events that happen in their life, but the memories that keep playing in their life. So, successful life is all about creating positive memories.

That is what the leaders to happiness. And bhakti is what enables us. And bhakti, the remembrance of the real law of the Lord. That is what is meant to help us create these healthy and happy memories. Within that, we discussed Hanuman’s story, and in Anuman’s story we discussed very three stages.

First was his being his his childish attack is okay, let’s put him on this way his infancy. In infancy what happened was, he had as a terror he had great blessings, and those great blessings became mischievous he was hit, and he was blessed further. So he had powers, and from the powers, he became almost lifeless. And after that, he became even more powerful. And that was, in verses, glorious what happened.

And then after that, we discussed about how he, with his ability what he started doing was his ability, and that is maturity. So was he cursed? Well, you could say the journey of Anubhana is from having ability without maturity to having both ability and maturity. It’s the journey we are going to discuss. And then we discuss about the forgetfulness.

Anyways, the series cursed him. So loss of not power, but loss of the memory of its power. So that, was it a curse or is it a blessing? It depends we discussed it. It could mean we have, we remember, and we forget.

And that could be a blessing, that could be a curse. So for us, whenever we look at life situations, we have a finite vision. And that finite vision should probably be seen as the final vision. What is a blessing? What is a curse?

We really told that at our stage that sometimes what seems like a curse could turn out to be a blessing, and what turns out seems to be like a blessing may turn out to be a curse. And then lastly, we discuss how when something something bad happens to us, how do we respond to it? So, Hanuman’s I talk about when you look at these stories, you see how how these stories are dissimilar and how these stories are similar. So dissimilar in terms of the abilities that they have and the arenas, the places that they do it, but similar in the sense that they all face limitations, and within the limitations they are all accountable. Accountable.

You do actions and those have consequences. So Hanuman also faced a limitation he says that his power suddenly went away. And then he was held it was not really cursed but he was held accountable. What you do at that time. So we discussed this journey, we may have power, and we have character.

So if there is power but no character, then what happens? Can you remember? Prideful. And that could be a waste of the problems. It can be much worse.

Is it that power now, character? Presentfulness. Presentfulness. Why should anyone have anything good in their lives? It’s very bitter.

There’s power and character? Then they’re grateful. Of course, they’re powerful naturally they have power, but they’re grateful for the power. Then some of the power goes away, then they are graceful. So in many ways we see that Hanuman’s geodomy will be where he will gain power.

So either way, having power without character is unhealthy and having character with or without power is healthy. But we all would like to go where we have power and character. That’s where Hanuman will, and that’s where how we can go through our life journey, that’s what we’ll discuss in our future session tomorrow. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.

Is there any question or comment? Yes, sir. Thank you for the very nice presentation. I have two questions. The aspect of, not seeing the finite vision or sorry.

Not, taking the finite vision as the final vision. Where does where does that view our individual actions in the sense that in terms of changing or making events? Like, let’s say, whether it’s, to see the blessing or as it occurs. If you just say, okay, this is just a finite thing. I have not seen the final vision, so let me not do anything.

Would it lead to, like, a complacent attitude like that? Yeah. Definitely. See, there are two different things over here. When he says don’t see the finite vision as the as the final vision, that does not mean that the finite vision is always a wrong vision.

It’s just not the complete vision. So just yesterday, I was in my tomorrow, I had a whole class on this topic about how when some problem comes in our life, how do we see the cause of the problem? If right now I’m speaking, this mic stopped working, then should I think that, okay, why does the mic stop working? Maybe I did some Bhaskar mind in a previous life. No.

Generally, whenever we try to look at causality, say, if somebody eats on a cold night a dozen ice creams, At night they were saying ice cream ice cream I want more ice cream. The next morning they have a terrible throat and they say ice cream. Now now their throat is terrible. Is it because of past karma? Yes.

Well, yes. But it is not past life’s karma. It is past night’s karma. So generally, in Vedic logic, it’s called Nyaya. Whenever we are looking for the cause of something, causality is the principle of looking for causes.

So first we start with visible causes. Then we go toward invisible causes. And within invisible also, first we look at invisible material causes, then we look at invisible spiritual causes. That means that if the finite by the finite vision there is some explanation, then we should look for an explanation. And we should try to fix that.

But if by the finite vision there’s nothing that can be done, then move forward to something bigger. So the point is not so much what, how we look at our finite vision. It is more that how do we respond to it, in the sense that for all of us, it is our dharma, the right thing to do. That is the most important thing. Sometimes the right thing that I do will have an effect and sometimes the right thing that I do may or not have the effect.

So then I may say that okay my finite vision is limited over here but we should not use that as an excuse for not doing the right thing. Say, if we have cooked some food and say the it’s sweet rice but there’s no sweet in the rice Zombie rice. You shouldn’t tell somebody that there’s no sweetness. That’s your finite medium. That’s your finite perception?

No. Fix it right now. When it can be fixed, it should be fixed. But some so when, Ram is exactly the forest, at that time, Kaike, Lakshman is very enbreached by all that’s happening. And he wants to first, he’s angry with Ashwath, then he becomes angry with Kaikeyi.

And at that time, he says that his wife’s speaking very harshly about Kaikeyi, and Ram says, you know how much Kaikeyi loved me.’ Her love was like the flow of the river Dhunba incessant and pure. So that Lakshman is not done, he says. That’s what I can’t understand. How did the Ganga dry up in one night? And then Ram says, that’s why when I heard her speak those words, I understood this is the will of destiny.

When somebody’s behavior has no explanation as far as we can see it, then we can say my final conclusion isn’t complete. There’s something more going on over here. But if I have spoken so hurtfully to someone and then that person is cold with me, and I’m just, you know, this is for the past karma. No, this is not past karma. You did something right, doctor.

So we need to see what is the right thing for us to do, and our vision should be such that it encourages us to do the right thing, not that it justifies not doing the right thing. If a person is if some some person is very sick then if we can help them we should help them at that time. Take them to doctor, give them some treatment. But sometimes despite giving the best treatment, the person will not get cured. That’s when you understand a finite vision is not the final question.

Okay? I have a another question. This is more of a clarification. So Hanuman forgetting his abilities, out of that curse. So if somebody reminds him, is that a one time thing or and then all the memories come back and it will not go away or maybe require frequent reminders.

See generally the exact ways in which curses work and how curses are revoked – that particular mechanism is not talked about much in scripture. There is a mystical element to the curses, to how they act and how they are revoked. So now my understanding is here that the sages had a particular purpose. It was not to punish a numa, not to hurt a numa, not to deprive him. It was to help him grow.

Like sometimes, you know, some kids may just have phenomenal talents. Some kids maybe a three, four year old kid can pick up a musical instrument and be like a genius. Now, on one side, if some parents are gifted with such a child, they say gifted they’re gifted child, then it’s important for the parents to develop the gift of that child. But at the same time, it’s also important while the child is extraordinary and an extraordinary talent has to be developed, it’s just as important for the parents, the child also have a normal childhood. The child will naturally have that talent and will that talent is nourished but that is still a child.

The child’s normal growth also has to happen. Isn’t it so? Now both sides are there the extra the extra the extraverted side has to develop, but that is not if the child is defined only by the talent, then what will happen is that it can have many different psychological effects. The child will just think I am so special and everybody nobody has of any value. Child can become very proud and that’s not very good for that person to know.

All the child is are thinking that you know, I have no value without this dialect. So I was, I was trying to devote his home, and they have this this kid, you know, he was like, he at the year four he started playing chess. His father was playing chess with a friend and he said, ‘Daddy, I want lunch he says no, medium role in Lourdes, I’ll teach you’ he said don’t teach me now’ and he taught us his father taught him the first game as his father repeated all the way the second game he defeated his father And and I went to the eight and a half night and he was like the he was the Canadian under ten champion. He’s a brilliant boy. So I was staying at the home, I was talking with him.

So I my childhood, I also like chess quite a bit, so we were talking about it. So then he told me that out of all my little, I like my grandmother very much. This grandmother has no understanding of chess. So why do you know this? See, she loved me before I was special.

Now, this child is so insightful. So my point here is that sometimes we have to make sure that it’s a holistic growth. Singhs are not really cursing him. His powers were there with him. But he wanted to ensure that it was a holistic growth of the person.

Not we are not just performers, you know, we are persons. And we need to if we have we can perform, that’s wonderful. But we don’t want realignational growth. Thank you so much. And last question or any comment?

Okay. Two questions. That’s good. Okay. That’s good.

Well, thank you, Babaji. Very nice lecture. In the previous slide, you said with limitation, you can go you can get a elevation. Right? How is that possible?

With limitations, we get elevation. Yeah. In previous slide, like, couple of slides. No. I was here with limited how it’s Okay.

I’m saying with limitation and elevation. I was saying that studying scripture and looking at how even there the characters have limitations, and how within those limitations they act wisely. From that we can learn and can grow. Now if the only thing special about Anuman is that he could leap across the river and leap across the ocean, There’s nothing for us to learn from Anima. Because we can’t do that.

If somebody thinks the only thing I have to learn from Anima is one day I have to leap across the ocean. Then that character will become, okay, it’s a superhero character, nothing to learn from us. But even these characters have limitations some way or other. And within those limitations, or because of these limitations, sometimes they also feel they make such choices and they have consequences for the children. They are held accountable.

But in spite of that, they could. So the elevation happens not because of limitations. Elevation happens by focusing on this principle that how these great characters also act wisely. And similarly, we can also learn to act wisely. Okay?

Okay. Yes, please. Can you pass the mic Thank you so much for your wonderful class always. I have a question on the ability to maturity transformations. One of the point you mentioned that ability kind of converted into the powerful and if you do not have maturity, it is unpredictable, Right.

So Hanuman, he when he was an infant, he had the power but he was unpredictable. But in the same past time, if you see Indra and Vayu, right, you can also come to a conclusion that he was powerful, yet unpredictable when he threw the Vayu. Same thing with Vayu. He was powerful, but unpredictable by stopping the flow of the wind, right. Was there any transition for those act between innovative and good question.

YU you move from ability to the materialist? See, within the Vedic tradition, the devtas have a very curious position. Devtas are often objects of worship, but very rarely are the devtas considered to be role models. That often the sijis are considered to be role models. The wise people, the brahmanas, they are considered to be individual.

The kings are said to be the darshayati sreshtas. But often the devtas, they have this curious position within the universe that they are above us humans but they’re not they’re not in the spiritual world. So while they quite often the way they act often shows how even good people may misuse power, may get may get allured by pleasure, may get tempted, may get intoxicated. So, the Detshwar dhyutas, they are worshipped because they can use some blessings, but they are not considered as a whole mortals. And, other dhyutas held accountable for their actions?

Well, there are times when that also happens. It may not happen exactly exactly the same way it happens on Earth. See, one of the things that happens because of karma is that always action will have result. But if somebody has good karma, for example, then what will happen is the action will lead to a result after a very long time. How is that?

It depends. Like somebody is born if somebody wastes money, they’ll become a popper. But if somebody is born in a fabulously wealthy family, and they waste money, they will also become a pauper. They will also become poor. But that may take a long time.

So sometimes, karma can create an intuition between the action and the manifestation of its result. And devatas are beings who have gone to the heavenly domains because of past punya. And because of that past punya, their actions often don’t seem to lead to consequences. The consequences are there, but they take a lot some amount of time to manifest. So sometimes in the Vedic literature it is said that the law of karma doesn’t apply to the dildas.

It’s not that simple. It is the dildas are also held accountable in particular they offend the sages and they are held responsible. They have become reckless and attacked by the asuras. But because of the past phobia, they may not be held accountable immediately for their actions. But the principle of we having agency and we being responsible for our actions is a universal principle.

The exact way when it will manifest, that’ll be very. Say, you know, if to make a comment on the current political situation, somebody may gain power, and they can use that power as much as they want. They may think they’re using it for good, they may be using it for bad. Different people can have different opinions about it. Whatever it is.

But nobody has absolute power. While they have power, they can they can do good, they can do heroic. But then that power is going to end. Maybe the next elections comes up, the next the tenure ends, maybe whatever happens. So during that time, when a person has power, they can do a lot of things without any seeming consequences.

The consequences will be there, but sometimes the power can insulate one from the consequences for some time. So thank you very much.

The post Hanuman’s Journey to Maturity, Part 2 – 4 Characteristics of Maturity – HG Chaitanya Charan Das appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

How many of you were there yesterday? Okay. How many of you were not there yesterday? Okay. How many of you are not there today?

Alright. Okay. So We’re discussing on the topic of Hanuman’s journey to maturity, not a physical place. But we are going to talk about how we can grow toward maturity by learning from Hanuman’s example. Yesterday, we had played a game.

Can you also raise your hands how many were there yesterday? Okay. More than 50%. Thank you. 70%.

But this game will be for those who were there yesterday already. So I’ll give you a yesterday we had played a game where I give a word and then you construct a sentence based on the Ramayana or Mahabharata using that word. Today’s game will be a little different. A little difficult, a little easier. Both ways.

I’ll give you a word, and through a series of words that I give, we will construct a summary of yesterday’s class. So I’ll give you a word, and you can think of in what context that word can be used to connect with a point or especially a pastime, an incident that was described yesterday. Okay? Mischievous. Mhmm.

Yes? Lord Hanuman, he wanted to, he he had he thought that the sun god is fruit, so he wanted to go and grab. So that shows the mischievousness of the child. Yeah. So Hanuman was as a child, he was mischievous demigod.

Yeah. You said there are two connotations to that. You’re a semi god, what profile uses. But the other connotation is that it’s a child of a celestial being and a human. So Yes.

Hanuman ji falls in that category. Yeah. Actually, later I thought about Hanuman falls in both categories versus He’s also a great devotee. He’s a celestial being himself. He’s a devotee, so he’s not officially having a position of a devta.

So the second meaning is more appropriate. Good. So then, panic. Panic? Yes?

Moment while they stop the air, after seeing Hanuman in a, in a very, hurtful state, the Arduyutas go to panic mode. Yes. So when they saw Hanuman in a which state? Hurtful state. Hurtful.

Okay. In a lifeless state, you can say. Hurt state. Yeah. That’s true.

They they get panicking, then they shower blessings on him. Very good. Thank you. Oh, God. He’s moving forward nicely.

Now. Blessing and curse. Yes? Whatever, Hanuman got blessings from all the devatas because Voirideva was angry with the Correct. Yeah.

Some god. Yeah. It’s excellent. So you blessings twice and curse once. That’s good.

That’s good to very nice. Yesterday, we’re discussing that there is ability or power, and there is maturity. Okay. See, I don’t have much maturity losing this. Okay.

So we have so child Hanuman to adult Hanuman is this journey. Edibility, but not maturity. And we’ll today see how he went on this journey. And so when he was cursed, that curse was not out of hatred. That curse was also not so much out of anger.

It was more for protection. And then, we discussed later about graceful and grateful. Do you remember those two words? Yes, two? When, there is maturity, but power is there, then one is grateful.

But when power is not there, but maturity is there, one is grateful. Yes. Yes. I just use I use I try to use rhyming words. So ability and maturity are used, and later power with Character.

Character. Yeah. So if you have character, character and maturity are somewhat similar. They’re different, but we’ll explore that here. It is the same same point.

So if we can be grateful so there’s a there’s a four patterns that is called second pattern because so what are the four words over here? If we have power sorry. If I have power, if we have character. So we have both, then we are? Grateful.

If we have character and lack power, then we’ll be still? Graceful. Yes, Krishna. I accept gracefully whatever happens. If we have power but no character?

Yes, we become arrogant, prideful. And it means that? Resentful. This is where why is this happening? From resentful, we can also become hateful, you can become vengeful.

Why should anyone else have anything good in life? And then, Okay. So now I’ll be talking about Hanuman’s journey towards gratitude. And so not gratitude, towards maturity. So here also we will have the same word game, but in a slightly different way.

I’ll be talking about four incidents broadly, which indicates Hanma’s maturity. And after each incident, I’ll describe each feature I’ll describe. So I’ll stop and I will use a word which I have used in the previous section. That means, in that section, I have used the word. You can try to spot where I use that word.

Okay? So I’ll be using an acronym CARE. That mature when we have maturity, then we truly care. We care for the things that matter for us. Now if you see, one of the characteristics of maturity is commitment An immature person, somebody says when the going gets tough, what happens?

Tough. The tough get going. But there are other people, they get going away. They’re not so tough. They go away from there.

They don’t get going. So now the test comes. See, Hanuman’s right entry itself. When we have baby Hanuman. Actually this is described later now.

When we in the Ramayana’s natural narrative when Hanuman enters where is he? Where is the in which kanda does the entry happen? Yes. In the kishkin, the kanda. And then after that, in the he like sometimes, you know, sometimes in a movie or a TV series, there is some character that character comes in and then that character becomes the show stealer.

Mhmm. That character is so attractive that everybody is talking about that character only. So it is Ramayan but in Sundarkand, Rama is absent. And like Hanuman steals the show from Rama. He doesn’t steal the show, of course.

He is serving Lord Rama. But then his character is so captivating and endearing. So he enters into into the Ramayana in the section before that. So we have various kandas in the Ramayana. So what is the first kanda?

Palakanda. Palakanda. That is where Lord Ram’s Then? Ishkindakanda. Then?

Sundar Kanda. Then after that? Indakanda. Indakanda. And after that?

Utter command. Yes. So now Hanuman enters over here. Because Hanuman enters over here and then he becomes the central character over here. He becomes the guy as a show stealer over here.

So interestingly when he enters, he is it’s who is he with? He is with Sugri. Now, if you consider there has been a tragic misunderstanding between Sugri and Vali. And if we consider what happened, that Vali misunderstood Sugri first, and And so, he misunderstood that Wali is dead. And Wali misunderstood that, ‘Suguri tried to kill me so that he could take over the power.’ So now, Wali attacked Sugri, and Sugri had to flee to save his life.

Now, at that time, Hanuman had no obligation to go. Hanuman was not a blood relative. Hanuman was one manara in the Manara Kingdom. He was powerful in his own right. But he did not have to go with Sugriva.

And going with Sugriva meant that Hanuman lost everything. He himself said, Sugriva could not go back to Kishkirta. And Lakshman followed him. Now Lakshman is also nobody was obligated to do go. Sentence was only for Ram.

Sita insisted that she will go because she’s his wife. But when, Lakshman went, we could say that he’s his younger brother and so he went. And it’s not a it’s not an obligation, but he felt that I am duty bound because I’m the younger brother. But when Sugriva went to the forest, there is a brother’s wand over here. But when Sugriva was sent to the forest, Hanuman went with him.

And that is actually simply friends. And if you see, overall, it is not even friends. It is one of the servants born. The relationship between Wali, sorry, Sugriv and Hanuman is not exactly friendship. They’re always conscious that actually, Sugriv is the king, or Sugriv is a member of the royal family.

So Hanuman, the very fact that he left it all to be with Sugriv shows that he was a person of principles. He could have chosen you, this is not my fight, they are their misunderstanding, they resolve it all. But he did not do that. He stuck with Sugriyu. This also shows to some extent.

Sometimes Sugriyu has seen him, Sugriyu forgets his promise and other things. But and sometimes Sugriyu may not be seen as someone such a stellar character. Good character. But the fact that Sugriyoo would attract friends like this, that also shows his character. So Hanuman and Jamaran both came with him.

We’ll focus here on Nooman. And in general, what is the opposite of commitment? Abandonment. Okay. One is abandonment.

Let’s see. Abandonment. Sorry, in? Irresponsible. Irresponsible.

If committed, it’s irresponsible. Right? Indifference. Indifference, apathy. Not?

Not committal. -Non committal? Okay. That’s a synonym. That’s an antonym, basically, from the words itself.

But how will non committal be seen in terms of actions? -Um, it’s wishy washy. -Yes. Wishy washy, we could say. Some people are like a chameleon.

With whatever people you are, you take that form. And it’s basically somebody who does not have commitment for their primary criteria would be convenience. Whatever is convenient, whatever is ex the English word on the news is expedient. Expedient is whatever is the easiest thing to do. So some politicians, they just, they will blow whichever way the wind blows whatever position the voters want to hear they’ll speak those words and by that they say it is said about politicians before the election they shake your hands after that they shake your feet so what happened is sometimes people just they’re expedient so it could have been expedient for Hanuman.

I don’t want to get involved in this. But the fact that he was with Sugriha, that itself shows his commitment. And commitment is a sign of maturity. Maturity has many different meanings to it. One aspect of maturity.

Now, how is maturity related with commitment? It requires maturity to understand that good things they take time. They cost effort pain. Good things in life don’t come easy. That is commitment.

It can arise only when we understand it. So this is the aspect of maturity. A baby who is immature now, babies are immature not intentionally, but they’re just immature. Or a baby, they feel hungry, start crying. They expect that somebody else has to come and feed them.

That’s understandable. They can’t feed themselves at that particular point. But an adult person understands, okay, I cannot just depend on others to feed me. I have to make some arrangement. So for that, maybe I have to learn cooking, I have to earn money so I can employ someone who will cook for me, or I’ll go out and make some arrangements by getting at some food.

So that when somebody is immature, they just go by the path of least resistance. And the fact that Salman has chosen this particular option of being with Sugreen itself shows his great maturity. And that’s one aspect of maturity. And sometimes when we are criticized or we are unfairly accused or something that accusation itself hurts but there are people who we may not want enemies, but we all have people who are opposed to us in some way or the other. Now the harsh words of our opponents, it hurts us.

But what hurts even more is the silence of our friends. And at that time, those whom we thought we could count on, they don’t come and support us. And that feels very painful. We feel abandoned, we feel rejected. So that commitment, that’s where- that’s why sometimes it’s called fair weather of friends.

Now as long as the weather is good, then I’m afraid. As soon as the weather becomes bad, then goodbye. So those kind of friends are not not the kind of friends that we can count on. So commitment is whether it’s friendship or servitorship, servitorship in the mood of friendship, friendship in the mood of servutorship whatever is the particular flavor of the relationship that is there Hanuman shows his commitment. And to some extent, one’s maturity is seen by how one sticks through the tough times.

One of the truths that only a mature person understands is about happiness in the moda buddhi. What Krishna says in 1837, All the good things in life, they take time. So the mature person is able to see and push through the poison till they get to the doctor. This is a mature person. Now when there’s somebody immature, they look at the poison and they say, bye bye.

It’s too much. I can’t push through this. So sometimes it happens in youth. Sometimes, students want to choose a career. I was in Stanford a couple of years ago.

There was one young woman, young, girl and her mother had come, and they’re telling that this girl, obviously she’s in Stanford, she’s brilliant, but she this was her sixth year in the first year. So what happened? She’s been changing her major for six years. And I said, I wanna find my passion in my life. Well, there’s your whole life to find your passion.

First, get a degree. And sometimes people nowadays, this whole idea is that if you can’t find your passion, your life has no meaning. No. It’s not that you have to find our passion. Sometimes we have to create meaning in our life.

So uncommitted means that I’m not criticizing her in that sense, but it is you can’t be so fickle. You can’t just keep changing your ego from one year to the next year, second year. Commit to one thing. Sometimes this may not be the best thing for us, but but let’s do it, let’s learn, let’s grow in character, let’s grow in commitment, and then we can explore other things later. So commitment means that sometimes what happens is we ask a question.

We are all determined to a large extent by the question that we are asking. So when it is said that the the animals are always asking questions, where is food? Where is sex? Where is where is strength? Where is shelter?

That kind of things. So we humans can ask bigger questions. The question will be: what is the meaning of life? What is the purpose of life? But even then, commitment means that we could ask two questions: what is the meaning of life?

That’s a very important question. Now, that question is a philosophical question, and that takes time to find an answer to it. But we can ask a much more practical question: what can I do right now to increase the meaning in my life? What can I do right now to increase the meaning in my life? What does this mean?

Now we may say the meaning of life is you want to go back to Krishna. Okay, that seems we’re a long way away and we have a whole lifetime before that. What do I do in that lifetime? Okay, is there one service I’m meant to do? How will I find that service?

Well, maybe it’ll take time. Right now, what can I do? See, all of you, you know, you could have stayed home and watched TV. You could have done so many things just to come here. You hope to learn something meaningful.

Oh, I could have been in India. I’m traveling here because I feel that sharing the message of the Gita adds meaning to my message of Shastra that adds meaning to my life. Hopefully, it adds meaning to somebody else’s life. So it is it is this question, how can I add meaning to my life right now? What can I do right now?

Maybe I can speak one kind word, maybe I can learn this particular skill, maybe I can push through this project and complete it just so that I can learn the ethos of responsibility discipline. So commitment is a sign of maturity and Hanuman exhibits that. Children can be very fickle and that’s why parents have to push children at times. Parents. Children do not feel like studying but you have to study.

So his commitment shows his maturity. So this is the first part where anyone’s very entry is itself a sign of his maturity. That where he is. Okay, so the word here is? Okay.

Commitment. That’s not the word for a second. That will be too obvious. So. Misunderstanding.

Misunderstand? Where was that word used just now? In what was described? Yeah. Can you make a sentence good?

Mhmm. Duty bound. Thank you. Duty bound. Who was duty bound?

Yeah? Hanuman ji. He he he was no. Lakshman ji. He was duty bound to Savuddha Ram, and he also followed around to the forest.

Yes, very. As contrasted with. You’re on the right track. I did the beginning. Yeah.

Hanuman. Yeah. So you could say that, Hanuman was not duty bound because he was not a blood relative. But still Hanuman went and that shows his character. Okay?

So now after that Hanuman sometimes, if you consider a movie analogy I don’t want to remind you of movies. There are two ways you become Krishna conscious. One is, you bring Krishna into your consciousness. So, you bring Krishna into our consciousness. That means, we hear Krishna’s pastimes.

We chant Krishna’s name. We behold Krishna’s little pictures. The other is, we bring what is in our consciousness to Krishna. That means whatever things naturally interest us, we try to connect them with Krishna. So now if you consider movies.

Most of us have probably watched movies and we we live in a world which is. The culture is shaped by movies. So often the entry of a character is quite dramatic or it signifies how the character is going to be. So Hanuman’s entry seems to be a bit undramatic over here. Yes.

When the one when Rama and Lakshman are entering into Kishkinda, Rama is in agony, in pain, crying out, where is it, Dabi? Is she safe? Is she not safe? We see this? Sugriva, he’s out on top of the mountain, and from there he sees he gets, Ram, who are these people?

So when we see someone, we want to put people into some identifiable categories. If somebody comes in and, you know, is this person Indian? Is this person American? Is this person Indian, South Indian? Now, somebody looks like an Indian, but they have x, they have they have very much American accent.

I mean, it’s an American Indian, or Indian American, or whatever category you want to put it. Sometimes we can’t put in categories. Then there’s a little bit of a concern. So if we see somebody coming at night, that person looks like a relative. Okay?

This person’s a relative. But then we see they have come. Okay, this was an impossibility of my relative, is it? So when Suguru sees, he sees, oh, these people are dressed like sages, but then they are carrying weapons. Who are they?

He becomes alarmed. Are these people sent by Bali to assassinate me? The way Sugriev is living is a very fearful state. He’s constantly worried whether Vali is going to get him. And for Vali, it’s very frustrating.

It’s that Sugriv wants to punish him, wants to kill him, and Sugriv is right next to him. But he just cannot go there. Why? Because of her curse. So when I was in Singapore, I was giving this class and I said that you know, Vali felt about Kishkindh.

Sorry, Vali felt about this, Prischemak Mountain and that area where Sugri was there. Vali felt the way China feels about Taiwan. So he just couldn’t get there. But then, Taipei also, China will get back in some other way. So then, while Sukhuri went to Anima, he says, you find out who are they.

So then Anima went there. And now Lord Rama is in agony, and the first thing that happens is that as Hanuman approaches them and Mahan speaks that his words are so sweet, so soothing, that Hanuman speaks a few words, introducing himself, asking who they are. He doesn’t tell his identity, but just speaks very sweetly. And Ram turns to his animal, so it’s Lakshman, and he says, ‘Who is this person? This person must be learned in all the Vedas.

This person must be brought up by wonderful parents, this person must have created some scars from previous life. Just by those words he praises Hanuman so much. And this is where actually if we consider, he talks about two things, and the gopis also talk about the same two things when they talk about Krishna. So madhuraya gira is that they have Krishna has a sweet voice, and valguakyeya. Valguakyeya means pleasing, touching, loving words.

So the most effective speech is where a person has a sweet voice and speaks very pleasing words. Now, all comedies some people may have very sweet voice. And somebody may have a great singer. And because they have a sweet voice. But if you meet them backstage, one devoted friend he had before he came to Bhakti was big into music.

So he told me he was a big fan of a prominent Indian musician, and he had a voice which is, like, pure gold. So he finally got in that studio, and he went on the backstage. He wanted to be there. And that same person, he when he went on backstage, and that person with that same golden voice was literally hurling obscenities at all the studio stuff. Like you might hear on the streets of some of the more violent areas in his cry.

All kinds of obscenities, he said. It was just the biggest disappointment of my life at that time. Some people may have sweet voice, and they sweetly speak hurtful words. So Now so it’s good to have a sweet voice. Now some people just they can’t be help.

They have a they just have a raspy voice. Their voice is maybe because of some speech deformity or whatever, throat problem, whatever. We all have an actual voice from birth. We can’t control how sweet our voices, but we can try to please speak in a way that is pleasing. So Krishna says, ‘anutvega karam vakya’ He says in 1715 that the character and the austerity of speech doesn’t say speak sweetly.

That’s not in our control, in the sense that our voice is not sweet. We can try to speak sweetly in this and that. We can speak words that are pleasing, that are encouraging, that are appreciative. So Hanuman, hate, falls in this category. He has sweet voice, and he’s speaking pleasing words.

And life is tough. We all can find faults with each other, and there are many faults to find with each other also. But if we can just appreciate and encourage each other, one encouragement will just change the spirit of a person. Sometimes, you know, you speak some words of appreciation and the other person says, you made my day today.’ It will cause one heartfelt appreciation. You can mow a person for a whole day.

You sometimes You can mower a person for weeks. So Hanuman exhibits this ability that he is he at this particular point is a character. So interestingly, Haruman was earlier known for power. But now, he’s not his power is not seen only. He is subordinate to Sugriv also.

And Sugriva himself is not the most powerful monkey. Sugriva is being persecuted by Vali. So that same man who had such extraordinary blessings in his childhood, first we show his commitment. See his commitment. And then we see that he’s praised for his sweet speech.

And then what Hanuman does is, he ensures that there is an alliance formed between Ram and Sugriva. So what is the economy we are discussing? Care. So I’m right now discussing about alertness. Now one aspect of a mature person is they are they’re not just caught in their own head and their own thoughts.

They’re alert. Okay. This is the purpose I’m here for. And as a purpose that you are supposed to do. Do sometimes we send somebody to okay you go and inform them and get this from that place and they go there and they start talking with that person and they get so caught in talking and they come back oh did you get that why forgot you know they become yoga blessed when Sugri offers a seat to Ram, Sugri neglects Lakshman.

But you know Hanuman and Lakshman have a have a special bond. It’s because they are both in similar situations that Hanuman is there in the forest not because of any any target on him. So Lakshman is on the forest not because of any target. Right? So he offers a sleep to Lakshman.

And then later on, when Sugriva gives the kingdom back, then what happens? Sugriv has been, for years, in an area with no Wi Fi. And he comes to an area with full Wi Fi. And he goes on a four month Netflix binge. So he just forgets everything.

So now as these four winds go forward, what come to the end, then it is that Hanuman. Hanuman alerts him. So three people alert him. First is Hanuman alerts him. Then Tara alerts him.

And then after that, Lakshman. Lakshman just alerts him. Lakshman agitated him. Lakshman agitated and he educates him. But either way, at that particular time, true friendship is okay that when the friend is in trouble, you stand by the friend when they’re in trouble.

But true friendship also is when the friend is getting oneself into trouble, we don’t stand and go with them into trouble. We try to stop them. We try to warn them. That is also friendship. So his his alertness is seen and I am talking about alertness primarily in terms of his relation his so first, you know, when he enters, at this particular point, he doesn’t have a relationship with Ram.

So it is our cap. Generally a person’s character, a person’s maturity, a person’s virtues they are seen in relationships. It’s in isolation. I can be very humble when there’s no one with me. Isn’t it?

What does it require? As the American comedian said. I love humanity. It’s only human beings I can’t get along with. So most of our virtues are seen in relationships.

So here, first, he shows his commitment. His alertness is in forging an alliance for Sukhin. And then after that, in war mink. So both of these, he does. And in this way, again, mature person, one of the characteristics is that they’re alert.

They’re not just caught in their head. For many people, there’s so much drama going on inside their head only that they’re not even aware of what’s going on in the world or to speak of having an opportunity or noticing an opportunity and tapping an opportunity. So he’s alert over there. So so here so this is the second part. I’m going to the last two parts now.

But with respect to alertness, this particular incident, agony. Agony? I’ll be in agony if you don’t remember the word agony. Who was in agony? Yes?

When, when when Hanma was sent by Sugreev to, to find who these two persons were, Lord Rama was in agony in separation of the temple. Yes. True. Good. Good.

So category. Okay. Maybe category is a little complicated word over here. Just simple. What would you put in this context is?

Yes? Abhijit, Lakshman and Hanuman ji wearing the same Excellent. They’re the same category. Actually, I didn’t think of that side, but that didn’t translate to the mind. And we tried to put people into categories and we observed them.

So Sugri was alarmed because he could not put Ram and Lakshman in the category. Are they sages? Are they warriors? They’re sages, but they have weapons like warriors. He just couldn’t make sense, but that’s a brilliant sentence.

Thank you. So now, the third part we’ll discuss is responsible. Now if you see, after this what happens is that they decide to go on a search for Sita. And this is where Hanuman starts coming into his own that there is this whole concept of, like, leadership without position. Leadership position without position or influence without authority.

Sometimes somebody may get a position of being a leader. Now when the Vandaras start searching for Sita, the group that goes south who is the leader of that group? -Jamal. -Angat. So now it’s interesting that Sugriv and Angad have a bit of a tense relationship.

Although, Vali had tried to pacify things, Vali had told Angad, Don’t hold Sugriv responsible for my death. It’s my own karma that is guilty. And he tells Sugri, please, whatever I I persecuted you, but neither Anwar nor Tara had anything to do with it. Please don’t get back at them for what I did. So he tries to create reconciliation.

And yet for Angad, one day his father is the king and the next day not only is his father dead, but the person who was directly or entirely responsible for his father’s death is now the king and he has to serve that person. It’s not an easy situation for him to be in. And because Sugriv also wants to bond with Angad, So Sugriv goes out of his way to respect and accommodate him. That’s why he makes Angad the leader of the group. And this is the most important group because the Vanaras have seen Raoul going southwards.

And they also heard that Raoul is in the South. Whether he has gone to his abode or he’s gone somewhere else, we sit down, we don’t know. But that’s the most that’s the most clue that they have, and that’s why that’s the direction they are likely to find. So, Sugriva entrusts a big response into Angad. And that’s how he wants to have a relationship with him also.

Now interestingly, Lord Rama, whom does he entrust this particular task of finding Sita? Hanuman. He calls Hanuman, and he gives his own signal. He gives a, memento by which Sita will be able to identify and remember him. Hanuman could have said, ‘You’re tasking me with this responsibility.

You make me the leader of the group. You make me the official leader.’ See, many people, when responsibility is given, or when responsibility is available, they wait first for the position. Let me take the position. So, this is this book which I have written about ‘Mita for the CEO’ where I talk about these two things in leadership. There is the position of a leader, and there is the disposition of a leader.

Now, if we see Krishna himself never becomes the official king of Dwarka. Of course he’s glorified as Dwarka Dheesh, he’s the king of all kings, but he in the Dwarka’s hierarchy he remains the servant of Ukarsi, who is the actual king. So Krishna doesn’t take the position of leadership officially, but still he is the protector of Dwarka. So many of us, we feel, ‘Yes, I want to do a lot, but I just don’t have the resources, I just don’t have the position. Once I have that, then I do it.

So now the real test is that if we now we could say if we have position and disposition, we can be maximum effective. It’s true, but sometimes we don’t have that. So Hanuman, he earns the position of leadership and that is a remarkable journey. How he does that? So, being responsible.

Now, we could say, sometimes if we are responsible, we could be responsible in either of these categories. That we have the position and we use the position. But even if we don’t have the position, we can be responsible. And now he is given this special task, the bandra’s start off. And as they’re going south, they’re trying to search and search.

Initially, they have huge enthusiasm that they’re going to find Sita. But then as they keep searching and searching, there’s no clue of Sita anywhere. And then they start getting discouraged. And they go into the into a deserted area. Or it is an area where they can’t even find any water.

And they started getting out. What do you mean words today? So this is where Hanuman is observing. When Jamban is there, Jamban has become a little old. Hanuman is there, Hanuman is there.

So Hanuman is there, Harnaman is there. So Harnaman objects. Harnaman objects. There’s a cave, and there’s a bird coming out of the cave. And the bird is dripping water.

So, okay, Harnaman points to the other one, and the cave seems to be huge. They can’t see anything inside. And now Angad, he’s young, he’s born in royalty, and they respect him because he is the prince. But still, when Bali was the king, Bali was so powerful that nobody was there to threaten Kishkindha. That’s why Angkad does not have much experience of the real world war.

He is very powerful. He is a hero. And he has not let anyone experience any of that experience. He just doesn’t know how to do it. So Hanuman, without sidelining and without, minimizing his position, Jaindl suggests that all hold each other’s hands and go inside so that nobody gets lost in the cave, and they all start going inside.

They go in and in and in. For a long distance, they point to their cave, and finally, they see a light over there. And as they come closer, okay, where’s this light? And they see that there’s lush greenery, and there are fruits, and there’s a lake, and there’s wonderful water over there. And the vanara starts running to try to eat and drink.

And once he says, wait. Wait. Wait. They start to find out what this place is. And he keeps everyone to wait, and they look around and they see that there’s a yogini sitting over there.

He’s sitting, the effulgence coming from her body. And she looks very silly, Hanuman goes there and offers her respect his respects to her. Who is your meaning? Mata Anasuya. Sorry?

Mata Anasuya. Okay. Anasuya is whom? Ram and Ramakshmasita meet earlier. Yes.

This is Swayamprabha. Swayamprabha is a celestial male. She said that. She has been Indira long ago had an apsara whom for whom he had created a replica of heaven on the earth. And then later on, that apsara went with him to heaven, and she wanted to have this as a retreat center.

No. She said she had entrusted Svayun Prabha as the person to take care of it. And she is just, she explained all this. She says, you have come here, the servants of Brahma, you can have whatever you want. Vayampraha has mystical power, she’s aware, she recognizes who there.

And then the Vanalas eat and they eat, and they eat tree water, and they get rejuvenated. And then anger turns. It’s been a long long way inside. How do we go back from here? Can you tell us the way?

As Swami Prabha says, Indra has arranged so that anybody who comes in here will never be able to go back. So you’re telling this to us now. That anybody who comes in here will never be able to go out. Now Angad gets angry. Tell us how to go out, otherwise No one says, come down.

Gently, montage of jewels. He says, And we saw that bird going out. These birds are no threat to the treasure here. Yes. Yes.

We are also not a threat. We don’t want any of this wealth. We may not be able to go, but I’m sure you have the power. You please help us come out of this. And we are only here to serve, Lord.

We have no interest in the treasure over here. You have helped us, you have given us food, you have given us water, we are grateful. Please bless us so that we can go on our mission.’ So what Rams said earlier, Hanuman’s sweet speech, pleasing words, that’s not just a one time observation. That’s what Hanuman uses over here. So sometimes when we have to get things done, we can try to use force, and it’s required at times.

But generally, trying to force others to do things it over a period of time backfires unless we can actually connect with them and with our earnestness, with our sweetness, appeal to them. We can’t really be sure. So responsibility is like a leader is supposed to have power, but the biggest power a leader is supposed to have is not just over others. It’s a leader needs to have power over one’s own temper, one’s own emotions, one’s own speech. And that’s the responsibility that Bhumman shows over here.

So, Amprabha says, ‘Yes, I can help you.’ But he says, ‘I have I have to honor Indra’s words. Indra wants this place to be secret, and he says, all of you will have to close your eyes. Close your eyes, and then I will take you out. They all close their eyes their eyes are in one moment. So Emperorva uses mystic powers, and she brings them out.

And then she brings them out. Once they’re on the same side of the mountain, they’re on the other side of the mountain. And they’re closer to the ocean. And this is over here, we’re talking about how Anman you don’t have to have a leadership position. That influence without authority comes from capability.

If somebody has capability, they will be recognized. They will be able to fix problems. And now after this, they keep searching. And they search, and then what happens is that they hear. They’re searching close to the ocean, and they’re thinking that, okay, across the ocean is yes.

But then as they are waiting, they start seeing the huge ocean. And this ocean is so big what do we do? And now at this point they’re not even sure the lunga is across the ocean. They just see this is where it end we’re at end we don’t even know whether they should work or us. If you’re going to scale the ocean, they have to have some assurance that one guy has caused the ocean.

So as they’re sitting, they just they they work very hard, and they’ve not got anywhere and closer to find Seetha. One danger has passed, they seem to have come out of the danger, but then another danger is there. This is that Sugriva had told all the come back within one month. If anybody is later than one month, they will be executed. You say, that’s very harsh.

Why execute him? But the point is that you may not have executed them, but that was a way to ensure compliance that you could take this issue seriously. As Vandana, you can’t just wander around and eat fruits and not do your mission. So now one month has already passed. And the other two minds, when they go into Swam Prabhas Cave and come out, they realize that no time has passed.

And now some of the Vandana says that, you know, Subhriya told us to come back within one month and so on. We should go back. We should inform him what has happened. Adarmana said we should keep pressing on phalis phalisita. Adarmana said, down.

He’ll be angry, angry with you. And in hunger, you know, he he becomes he explodes, he says that. But if you go back, he’ll have all of us killed. And no one says, no, why would he kill you? He said he had no hesitation to get his brother killed.

Now if we go back and we have failed the mission and they’re also late in coming back, he will have us executed in front of all of our family and friends and we’ll be humiliated. So Angad still has that bitterness. Over here, this comes the biggest test of Hanuman. That’s the last part to talk about. What is that coin?

Care. So, let’s skip the part of the game which you’re having, because you wanna finish the class in time. So ‘E’ is empathy. Generally, in an army, at one level there is hierarchy. Where is your leader?

You have to follow them. Another level, speaking against the king or speaking against the leader. That’s considered, rebellion, that’s considered treason, that’s considered to be insurrection. A very serious crime. So now when Sugriv starts speaking when Sugriv is spoken of negatively by Angad, Hanuman faces a test.

Hanuman got a good anger with Angad. But Hanuman understands that Angad has been given this huge responsibility. This is the new political dispensation. Like, say, normally what happens is if one political party is in power, that political party goes, and quite often, many of the top leaders in diplomats or bureaucrats, they also resign. Because and they are also seeing the previous part.

New people come in. If somebody from the old dispensation is they have to prove their loyalty. Are you here for this? So so great. Angad has been given this assignment, and he’s not able to fulfill it.

He’s frustrated. So is he really, suspicious of Sogreep? Does he really think Sogreep is malicious? And should Anuman get on his case. Anuman just stays calm.

He’s an angad, he’s just at this point he’s a teenager. He’s a younger child, if not a teenager. He’s been interested in this huge responsibility, and quite often, anger or even hateful speech or hurtful words, they come not from a they can come from two different places. They can come from a place of enmity, you know, that or they can come from a place of insecurity. The two are very different.

Enmity is where that person wants to destroy us, and they’re just venting it out. They’re just bringing it out at particular times. But sometimes they can come from a place of insecurity. Somebody spreads some nasty rumor about us. What kind of person would do something like this?

It’s a terrible thing to do. But, you know, they could do it because they hate us, they’re enemies, or they could do it because, you know, I thought that, you know, you are so good now. If I, you know, if if everybody respects you, then nobody will care for me, and I’ll be lost. And I feel great fear because of that. It’s not a good thing to do, but some action coming from place of insecurity is very different from action coming from place of enmity.

Everybody has insecurity in their life. So, Anwar tries to pacify the answers. So greed is just ruler, and let’s try to stay calm, let’s make a decision on what to do. See, any big expedition, any big project that we try to do, there’ll always be differences of opinion. And now, when there are differences of opinion, there’s a problem.

How do you solve a problem? Sometimes the only way to solve- sometimes you just can’t solve a problem. Especially the problem that comes from difference of opinion, the only way to solve that is that Krishna sends a bigger problem. And that bigger problem forces us to forget our differences and unite to face that problem. So the vanaras, some of the vanaras, is for those we are not finding Sita, we are searched and searched.

And we cannot go back. We’ll be humiliated, we’ll be executed. It’s better that we end our life here since we will fast to death. And so there is- there is this act suicide. Interestingly, everything can be the three modes.

So there can be suicide in sathogna. Now how can suicide be sathogna? Normally we’ll think it’s tamas. Let’s do it say tamas normal. But suzary atogona means that if a person feels that there is no point for me to live anymore, then they decide that I will no longer maintain my body.

Just stop eating and stop drinking. And that can be done out of frustration, but that can also be done out of enlightenment. Some sages. This is called as. Traditionally this is called as Prayavratha.

Prayavratha. The first sannyasin ISKCON who got, got Parkinson’s dose, an Indian sannyasin in Marwada Maharaj. So he went to Rindavan, and it was incurable for him at that time, at once. This was many years ago. So he just stopped eating food.

So, somehow his godmother said, ‘Please eat something Maharaji.’ He said, ‘This body is meant to serve Krishna. If I cannot serve Krishna, why should I maintain this body?’ And then nothing another. He passed it for somewhere thirty two-thirty three days, and then very gracefully left his body. So Prayavrata is very different from suicide. Suicide is often where people use some artificial means to end their life.

But it has naturally stopped me. So the manaras decide that kids are going to fast with. And as they stand in their room, Hanuman is trying to pacify them, Hanuman is trying to encourage them, But things are just going out of control. And not all the mandaras sit there. But the annuman is torn.

Should I just go back? They keep searching. Should I abandon these mandaras? And at that time, a giant vulture comes over there. A giant vulture like being starts walking over there.

Walking. Not even walking properly, they’re not drawing and walking. And he starts looking at all the vanadas and licking his lips. Today, I’m going to feast. Apart by someone.

Or before I die, I’ll be the body’s going to be ripped apart. Who knows? So, Nirvana started panicking, and then Ambeda speaks, Alas, it seems that we are going to fail in our service to Lord Ram despite our best efforts, just as the valiant jitteryun failed in his service to God. Now, there is this whole thing called coincidence. Nowadays the word coincidence is not so much common.

In New Age there’s another word called synchronicity. Any of you heard this word? Synchronicity is where multiple things happen at the same time. So sometimes when we it is a coincidence that God’s ways of staying anonymous. Krishna is not something.

It’s when making two things happen at the same time. So now Angad, why would he remember Jatayu at this particular time? And why would he speak about Jatayu? That itself shows that how Angad was also dedicated, devoted to Ram’s service. Jatayu fought valiantly till his last breath and was just too much for him because he was elderly.

And Angad is thinking about Jatayu at a moment when he’s good about to pass to death and he sees this giant vulture going to eat them up. So that phrase, that those sentences itself and that memory itself shows his devotion to Ram. And Hanuman, he could have antagonized Angadha, he could have fought with Angadha, he could have criticized Angadha, but he saw he’s frustrated. But he basically still has that position. He wants to serve, he wants to serve Ram, he wants to be first sister, he’s just frustrated.

Everybody in life gets angry, And sometimes anger is not because the person is short-tempered. Anger is just because the person cares so much. Anger shows how much we care. Now, of course, anger is not the only way we show how much we care. If that is it, then it’s not good.

But Sukri, Anmaan, by his empathy, he keeps Anmaan. Although Anmaan doesn’t stop from wanting to end his life, his attitude is not lost for him. He speaks those words and suddenly then, Sampati? Jesus. Jesus, what did you say?

What happened to Jatayu? Oh, Maharaj, please tell me. -Oh, Vanaras, please tell me. Then the one suffers, so who are you? You know Jatayu?

-Yes, Jatayu is my younger brother. I am Sampati, and I have not seen him for many many years. Then, Sampati starts telling the story of how he and Jatayu had both tried to rise up high into the sky and close go close the sun. And then they both are getting burned, so Sampati, the elder brother, spread his wings to shelter Jetaey. So his wings got burned, and he fell to the ground, and since then they have been separated.

So then, Angadya tells Jetaeyu about the story of Jetaeyu, and Sampathis are lamenting. I protected my brother at that time from the sun, but how unfortunate I am that I could not protect my brother from this demon. I am old and weak and free. I cannot do anything right now. And we request the one that has said, Please take me by the waters and help me to do the ask to offer some water for my brother.

He did that, and he’s still avenging, and asked, I cannot do anything for my brother. I cannot avenge his death, I cannot punish the demon who killed him. And at that time, Angadhar thinks, just, you must have the sharp eyes. Do you see Rama going by? Do you know where Rama is?

And hearing this, some baddie perks up. He says, Yes, I can do some service for the cause for which my brother laid his life down. And he says, Although my body has become free, my vision is too sharp, as I can see that across the ocean Lanka there is Sita, and Rawal has her. And I feel confident that he will soon go there and find Sita and come back. So this is where the Vanara’s joint mission finally brings them to a place where now they can leave at Kosnaka.

And then all of them are eager to do the service, but none of them is capable of doing the service. And that’s when everybody is talking and falling silent. Then Jambavan turns towards Anima. And that’s when he reminds him of Hanuman. And then from here onwards, there’s Hanuman’s solo mission.

He’s alone going to Lanka and doing extraordinary things in the service of Ram. But before he gains his power back, he has shown how he has matured so dramatically. So that maturity is what will stand him in good stead when he faces the obstacles in the ocean, when he faces the obstacles in Lanka, and when he finally meets Sita and is victorious over there also. This is the journey of Hanuman to maturity. And as he- as Jambavan speaks to him, Hanuman, who has been silent all this time, till now Hanuman has done wonderful things, but it is not primarily by his power.

It is by his intelligence. It is by his expertise, by his sensitivity. One of the qualities of Hanuman is Buddhimatham Among the wise people, he is the best. So his wisdom, his maturity, his empathy, all these are seen over here. And then Hanma will go on his glorious journey to Lanka, which will be like a spectacular success for him.

So, we will summarize what we discussed today. Broadly, today we discussed about how an Hanuman regains his power before regaining his power that is his. How his maturity is seen. The maturity of Hanuman it is seen in broadly four ways. What is the acronym?

Care. C was? Commitment. So all the good things in life often require time and effort. So the opposite of committed is often fickle.

Like a chameleon. A person. Then things get tough, and some people just go away from those things. But hanuman sticks with sukhreev. So Hanuman being with sugrib, even when he had no reason to be in terms of a blood obligation, that shows that he has become committed.

That is self assigned of a possibility. A of maturity is alertness. For all of us, we all can think about our maturity in different ways. Can am I committed to things? Am I ready to persist in something even I will create difficulties?

Prabhupada is committed to sharing Krishna’s wishes no matter what happened. Prabhupada is alert to look for opportunities. Where can I serve Krishna? What can I do to serve Krishna? So, Hanuman’s alertness is seen in two ways.

One is his speech by which he forms an alliance with Supreme, and then alliance between Ram and Supreme, and then there is this warping. He doesn’t get get infatuated like Sugri does, but he keeps he brings well so. Sugri will come to separate. And r was? Responsible can be many different things, but But here, I specifically use a heads up heads up.

If you take the service take the service even without waiting for the position, the position may or may not come. So a truly responsible person somebody’s leadership quality is that they may have the position on their own other position, but they always have the disposition. So we discuss how an Oman, especially his his responsible nature is seen in his dealings with Swayampara in the cave. So there he does not lose his school. He does not attack.

He respectfully acts over them. Last was? Empathy. So this is especially seen with Angad. And Angad starts speaking rebellious words against Guru.

That is so his his hurtful words or his harsh words or his aggressive actions, you could say. His aggressive or rebel treasonous words, whatever you can whatever you use. Those come not from a place of enmity. They come from a place of Insecurity. Insecurity.

So sometimes when somebody speaks something which is very shocking, you say, how could you speak like this? You are committing a Vaishtha of Prad, you go to hell because of this. And so I said, okay. I don’t understand where the question is coming from. When Ram says, help me.

Thank you very much. Let us pray to Hanumanji that by his mercy we all can in our life and our service. We all can stay committed despite temptations, despite the appalling shortcuts, despite our mind’s tendency to be overcome. That we may all may always be all alert to find better ways to do our dharma, to do our seva, and try to improve by finding new ways as well as doing what we’re doing better. In this way that we can be responsible so that we don’t complain, we don’t have the facilities, but that we tap whatever opportunities we have without waiting for the position.

And then when we are working with other devotees, with other people, other family members, rather than judging them and condemning them, we can all have empathy by which we can help them go through difficulties and not just get breakdown, but rise up stronger and better. We have few minutes for questions. Any questions or comments? Question in one of the slides. You mentioned about, Krishna consciousness in two ways.

Can you please go back to that slide, Prabhijana? And can you please explain the difference between those two? I’m flattered that you consider these two as lines. Okay. Yeah, I can slide through them.

So now bring Krishna into our consciousness is something just straightforward. You all understand that. That it basically means that we come to a temple, we go to a holy place. And that’s how we bring Krishna into our consciousness. So now, what does bring what is in our consciousness to Krishna mean?

It means it can mean two broad things: one is that when we live in the world, there are certain internal things. Internally, we are attracted to certain things, and externally, there are some attractive things. Now we can call the external attractive things as maya, as sense objects. And that is true, but that’s one way of looking at it. We could call them as these external objects, we could call them as visaya.

Visaya is sense objects. But another way of looking at it is it is vibhuti. It’s what Krishna also wrote in the tenth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita. So there are many attractive things in this world And if we can develop the vision to see that the attractiveness of these objects comes from Krishna, then this is already in our consciousness and we can connect it to Krishna. So if somebody has a great interest for art or music or decoration or whatever it is that they have interest in, then those things will naturally be there in their consciousness.

And can they connect that with Krishna? Okay. So for them they can remember Krishna in many different ways but if they have to do some art they just get completely immersed. If they are like they are getting to some music they are completely transported to another domain. So what is naturally in our consciousness, that could be because maybe that person grew up in a place where there’s a lot of beautiful art, a lot of musical culture was there, whatever it is.

It Could be external. It could be internal. So internally, when we’re internally attracted to something, we can say that that is in a negative sense, it’s our vasana. We all have lust, anger, greed, all this. But our internal attraction could also be the vrutti that we have according to our varna.

Varna means this is not simply a category of brahmacharya shiva. It’s actually the natural attraction of our consciousness to certain things. So if we are naturally attracted to some things, then we could use those to connect with Krishna and to serve Krishna thereby. So what does this mean practically? That if we already have some natural interests or talents, so say if somebody has a lot of interest in say architecture, Then, let’s say their interest in architecture is mundane, or maybe they say I’d like to see different architecture, but let me look at say architecture that is connected with with sacred things.

Maybe what kind of temples are we building? What is the architecture in that? So the interest in architecture is already in our consciousness. We can bring it to Krishna. So to bring what is in our consciousness to Krishna, that is also one way to cultivate Krishna consciousness.

And that way, because that thing is already in our consciousness, it will be easier for us. We can very, you could say, comfortably and joyfully connect with Krishna in this way. So it’s important for all of us to find that. It’s important to help our children find that. I was in America and stayed at one devotee’s home and it wasn’t like America I see it all the time so I thought that so anyway so this, it’s the only that, mother is a double PhD, the father is a PhD, they’re brilliant, you know, those combined genes are there, they’re a kid.

So this kid, he was 10 and he was in the he’s in the part of the American National Robotics team. Apparently, the robotics Olympiad is there. And he was going to represent America. And talking with the kid was brilliant. And then his mother was telling me, till five he was very interested in Russia.

And then he discovered robots and he forgot Krishna. Oh, how does he say? I don’t know. He always is talking about robots and So then I was talking to the parent, then this boy came and started talking with him. And then I asked him that, when you make robots for these competitions, what kind of robots do you make?

So he said that, mostly it’s Amazon which is funding funding the robotics industry. They want very efficient robots for packing, unpacking, transporting. They want to replace labor with robots as it’s possible. So they are the main drivers. So robots with efficient movements of body.

That’s what we look for. So then and I’ll ask you a few questions about robots. It was he was so enthusiastic. It was like the Ganga flowing through his mouth. -When Nimal Pandit asked Kishokashvili to glorify Ganga, he spoke hundred verses spontaneously.

So I find he was so enthusiastic. -I asked him that, do you. In these robotic competitions, do they like innovative ideas? Yeah, innovation is appreciated very much. Then I said, what do you think about making a robot of Krishna speaking the verses of the Gita?

So I said, oh, that’s not a good idea. And he walked away. And he walked away. Then I continued talking with his parents. Then after five minutes he came back, you know, it’s not such a bad idea.

Nobody else would think like this.’ And then he said, ‘Nowadays there’s this whole emphasis on diversity and inclusivity.’ So, yeah, think about it. And a week later his parents called me and he says, you know, he’s now reading the Bhagavad Gita to find out which verses will sound cool or his robot. So the idea is that if there are some things you’re naturally attracted to, we don’t have to simply dismiss them as mundane. Sometimes we have to be a little more creative in seeing how those things can be connected with Kashi. So let’s bring what is in our consciousness to Kashi.

Okay? Thank you very much. Any other questions? So thank you very much. It’s wonderful to be here in Portland.

The post Hanuman’s Journey to Maturity 1 – How a curse can be a blessing – HG Chaitanya Charan Das appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

My dear Lord, please guide us all so that we can learn from the example of your great devotee Hanuman and come closer to you by his blessings. Hey, Krishna. Thank you for coming today on this occasion of Hanuman’s Anwanji’s appearance day. And among the many adjectives that are used for describing Hanumanji, one of them is buddhimatam varishtam. He said to be an extremely intelligent person.

Buddhimatam. Buddhimatam is one who is intelligent and varishtim is the best among those, the greatest. So today, we’ll discuss from Hanuman’s life about how he exhibits great intelligence in his the most important mission of his life. Which is the most important mission? Sorry?

That is a life mission, but within that, he has a particular mission. Yeah. Search for mother Sita. And within that also at a particular time, the projector is gone. Oh, wow.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Sure. So today, I’ll discuss about how Hanuman exhibits extraordinary presence of mind and intelligence and wisdom in dealing with the situation that he faces when he is in Lanka.

So we are these are all divine characters that is. At the same time, we are looking at them today from the perspective of what we can learn in our life. So I’ll try to make the situation as relatable as possible to us so that we can look at some things and learn from them. So here, if you look at the life of Anumanji, what exactly has happened? He has now come alone to Lanka and in Lanka, he is going to search for Sita.

So I’ll talk about four ways in which he exhibits. Is this my screen? That’s not my screen, it seems. Okay. No.

It’s not coming here. Is it connected below or not yet? Okay. No problem. I’ll speak without it.

So when Hanumanji comes to Lanka, at that time, he has a formidable task. He has to find someone whom he has never seen or at least not seen at close quarters. He has seen Sita once when Rawal is taking over it and from high up in the sky, she drops on some jewelry. We just caught sight of her very briefly. And then he’s come to Lanka.

Not only does he not not seen her, but he doesn’t even know where she is. So the four steps that I’ll talk about is the four phases of the challenge that he faced and how he dealt with it. First itself was finding Sita. The second stage was earning the trust of Sita. Then the third was encountering Rawan.

The fourth was warning Rawad and each of these buddhimatam varishtam, he expert. He exhibits that. So when Hanuman goes into Lanka, okay, that is quite distracting. Okay. Leave it.

I’ll manage without it if it doesn’t work. So when he goes into Lanka, he naturally searches in the most expected places. See if you lost a key, then we look at the places, okay, this is where I normally keep the key. This is where I went. I might have dropped the key.

So he first goes into Lanka. Now he is, he goes across the ocean all day. When he gets in, he takes a very inconspicuous form so that he will not draw any unnecessary attention to himself. And monkeys, at least in that part of the world are not very suspicious or dangerous creatures. So some of the guards see the monkey and they try to shoo it away, but the monkey just goes a little bit distance and then he continues on.

So he goes from palace to palace to palace searching for Sita. Now he’s waiting for it to be night. The first point which I want to talk about is hope. So I’ll be using the acronym head, how he kept his head. So first is keeping hope.

Among, we need many things to succeed in life, face our challenges. The most important thing that we need is hope. If we lose hope, we lose everything. We can lose externals and that’s bad. Among internals also we can lose many things, but if we lose hope, there’s slight difference between confidence and hope.

Confidence is I can do it. Hope is things will work out. Now hope can seem very passive at one level, but it is not. Hope and confidence are both meant to go together. The we confidence is I can do my part, but life is so complicated and the world is so vast that even when we do our part the best, still things may not work out.

So if you consider sports, a batsman may bat very well. But if it rain, it rains and the matches wipe out. No matter how well the bats won bat, nothing is going to be of much help. So on one side, we need confidence that I, I, I can do this, but along with I can do this, things will work out. That’s hope.

So we need both. Hanuman didn’t lack in confidence, but as the journey went forward, hope started declining. It is a this is journey his adventures in Lanka are quite a turbulent ride. So he goes and starts searching the most expected places. He goes into Ravanas Palace.

He figures out, okay, which is the biggest palace. Ravan is the obviously, the king and he also has the biggest ego. The biggest ego will be seen in the biggest palace. He searches through that palace and he can’t find Sita anywhere over there. Yeah.

Okay. I have a tab here. You can see if it works with this. Till then I’ll just continue. If it doesn’t work, that’s okay.

So what happens? He comes in and he starts searching in the palaces. And there in the middle of Rauner’s palace, he sees a spectacularly beautiful woman. I think this is Sita Jumping in joy. Yes.

I found Sita. I found Sita. And then as he initiated his beauty, he’s not personally attracted to her beauty in a carnal sense, but her beauty is what makes him think this is Sita. But then as his excitement dies down, he looks at that sleeping woman’s face and he sees that she’s looking very peaceful, quite contented, happy. And he thinks Sita will not be like that.

Sita will not let it be. Something else is there. So So he starts thinking she’s so peaceful. Sita will be in agony and separation from Ram. He has seen the agony in which Ram is.

This cannot be Sita. And then he looks at her carefully. He starts thinking like, this is not Sita. His excitement dies down, and they keep searching, searching. He cannot find Sita anywhere.

On one side, he has to maintain his cover. He has to be very discreet. I search. As Raul kept her in his smaller palace, he goes after one palace, second palace, third palace. Wherever he goes, he just cannot find her.

And whenever we try to attempt something extraordinary, no, there’s a lot riding on it. There’s a lot of expectation, lot of anticipation, lot of energy, and Hanuman has already achieved us spectacular feat by coming all alone across the ocean. And now suddenly what has happened? Throughout his life, Hanuman until now has not been alone. The only thing that he had done alone was as a child, he had leaped into the sky to catch the sun and that had ended in disaster.

He had become somewhat deformed by that. So now after that, he has always been with Sugri, always been with other one. Is the first time he’s embarking alone and the signs look very ominous. We keep searching desperate and then he just is look through each and every palace in the kingdom. Where does he search for?

He’s exhausted, dejected, frustrated, the darkness in the sky reflects the darkness in his mind and heart. So far I have come and did I come so far just to feel? Was it all for nothing? And as that despair is gripping his heart, he starts thinking about the future. The mind is a funny thing.

How the mind will work, we can’t really anticipate it. But if we are determined, we have a basic level of determination. However, the mind works, we will find a right path ahead. So as he starts thinking, if I can’t find Sita, what will happen? I have to go back and tell all the Manaras.

They will be rejected. And then we have to go into the sugiri. Sugiri will be bitterly disappointed. Then we’ll have to go and tell Ram and Ram will be shattered by this. He’s already in so much pain in separation from Sita.

If he comes to know that Sita is never to be found, he will not be able to live. If Ram is not able to live, Lakshman will not live and sugri is already burdened by the guilt of being responsible for his brother’s death, at least partly. Now if he thinks that he failed ram and lakshm, failed ram who helped him gain his kingdom, so greed will not be able to live and then when the news reaches Ayodhya, Bharat already holds himself responsible for Ram being sent on exile. Although Bharat was not, still he felt for my sake, my mother did this, I’m responsible. If he comes to know while in exile, Sita, Ram, Lakshman, all of them perished.

The pain of that will be unbearable for him, and he will also not be able to live. So two entire glorious dynasties will perish all because of my failure to find Sita. I would rather die searching for Sita rather than going to such news. I will not let this happen. As long as I’m alive, I will keep searching for Sita.

He said that over my dead body, you will do this. That means you will not do this. So I will keep searching for Sita. As as from the dark trajectory of thoughts, where he sees some consequence that is so horrifying has to be unacceptable. Now when we foresee a con consequence that is horrifying and unacceptable, that may just make us more gloomy and dejected and hopeless or it can make us determined.

No. I whatever it takes, I will not let it happen. Or at least as long as there’s life in my body, I won’t let this happen. I will keep searching for Sita. And as that determination rises in his heart, that is reflected in the sky.

The the moon breaks free from the clouds and light streams across. And as he’s looking around, he’s already searched through the palaces. He starts thinking, where else can I search? And in the moonlight, which is also accompanied by, dawn is happening now. He searched all throughout the night.

So he sees the moonlight streaming on a nearby forest grove. Suddenly he thinks, hey, I have not searched in the forest grows. It’s quite likely that Sita would have refused to live in Ravan’s palace. He remembered how when Sugriva had invited Ram to come and stay in Kishkinda in his palace, Ram had said, my sentence was to exile to the forest, not just exile outside of Ayodhya into another kingdom because Janak Mahal had already offered him. You come and stay with me in my palace for the forty years.

So he says, so if Ram is taking that sentence so seriously, Sita will also do that. Maybe Sita is here. His heart becomes alive with hope And at the renewed spring in his bounds, he leaps across to the forest grove. And as he’s moving forward, so, oh, then he looks around. He suddenly sees Rawad, the same monstrous being who had been sleeping at night when he had seen.

Now he sees him marching towards somewhere. He looks very purposeful, even angry. No, Anurman moves back and waits and watches. So when we talk about our head, keeping our head, not losing our head, one aspect is never losing hope. So the way we maintain hope is by contemplate one way we maintain hope is by contemplating what is unacceptable for us and then deciding I won’t let this happen at whatever I can do.

I will do it to prevent this from happening. Now hope can come. It’s that’s why I said the mind is peculiar. Sometimes thinking of the positive can bring hope, but thinking of the negative can also bring hope. Things can go down so far.

I can’t let this happen. Things can become this wonderful. Yeah. I want that to happen. So hope can come both ways.

In the case of Hanuman, hope comes by contemplating the dreadful consequences of failure. And no, I cannot let it happen. So with that hope, he starts searching again. Now, this is where the acronym I was discussing was what? Anyone remember the acronym?

Head. So Buddhi’s intelligence or head. So I’m gonna talk four points about Hanuman’s journey in Lanka. So H was how he maintains his hope, even when like a hope against hope you maintain. So like that he maintains hope.

Now E is expertise. Now expertise, what does it mean in this context? It’s expertise in earning trust. Expertise can be many different fields. So now when Hanuman is watching, he sees Raman approach.

The forest grows and he sees there are, a group of, demonesses who are surrounding one particular tree and depart when they see Raman coming. And then he sees that there is a beautiful lady whose beauty is covered or concealed by the soiled clothes that she’s wearing and by the sad expression that is there on her face. And yet despite it all, like a jewel that might be covered by dust and dirt, it is still the full jewel. So despite her state of being disheveled and disheartened, her beauty is still striking. And the way she shrinks backward on seeing Raman come and recognizes this must be Sita.

He discreetly jumps from tree to tree and comes closer and tries to hear, but doesn’t want to raise suspicion. So he’s waiting and watching. He clearly sees that Ravan is trying to tempt Sita, threaten Sita Sita, but she pays no attention to him. And then Ravan turns towards the demonesses and yells at them. With you to threaten them that they should get her sit down to comply and he walks away in half.

Hanuman keeps himself to conceal us, Ravan goes away and then the demonesses base around sita and they are threatening it. They’re scaring her, threatening her, intimidating her, and then finally get exhausted. And one realizes this must be a daily occurrence. His heart goes out to Sita thinking what her plight must be. He he longs to just go ahead, assure her, comfort her, give her the confidence that Ram is coming soon, but he is a warrior and he understands the danger of doing this.

One is that Sita might be surprised and she might, she might scream when the demons will get attracted. He could fight and kill the demons easily, He doesn’t want to unless it’s necessary. And he, if he gets caught in fighting, he might not be able to talk with Sita. So he thinks what to do. See when two people are unknown to each other, one of the best ways to develop a relationship is to focus on what is a shared interest.

If two people may not two two people may not know each other, let’s say two of us are from the same country. If we are from, we are from, say India or some part of India, then we talk about something or India, that’s a shared interest. If we are working in the same field and we talk about the common field. So now Hanuman doesn’t focus on introducing himself. He starts singing gently, sweetly the story of Lord Ram’s life and Hanuman’s voice and his words are very sweet as Lord Ram has himself acknowledged before.

And Hanuman is using the very gift that he has been given, the gift for which Lord Ram has praised him. He’s now going to use that gift and he starts singing gently. Sometimes when there is, when there is a very close bond of love between two people, If say, for example, the mother is doing some work at home or in the kitchen and the baby is sleeping in the nearby bedroom. Now if the baby makes a slight noise, nobody else may hear that noise, but the mother hears. So when there is love in the smallest of sounds, they’re heard very loudly.

Now if there is anger or hatred, two people may scream at each other and still nothing is heard, So Anuman sings very sweetly. It’s a very soft and sweet voice. The demon says they don’t hear. They’ve gone a little distance and because he’s speaking about Ram, Sita’s ears work. Oh, who’s speaking about Ram?

Who in Lanka is speaking at the glories of Ram? She turns around and she sees, oh, the sound is coming from the tree. And she looks up and she saw, there’s a small monkey over there. And that monkey is sitting with folded hands and is singing the glories of Ram. She’s intrigued.

But as you say, once burnt twice shy. Sita has been burnt once when she trusted that person who looked like a sage and who turned out to be a demon. So she’s never going to go by appearances now. Is could this be Rawan? Could this be some of the demons of Rawan who have not taken this guard to somehow get her to lower a guard and then exploit her in some way.

So Hanuman very gently jumps down from one branch to another branch to another branch, and finally he comes in front of Sita without doing anything to alarm or threaten her. Just continue singing the glories of Ram. And as he’s singing, Sita’s heart is softening in this place. It’s who speak the glories of Ram? Who speaks with such sweetness?

While see, in the heart, there is one side of us which has doubts, other side which wants to have to put trust, to have faith. And both of these are important in their own way. If you’re driving a car, then the faculty of doubting is like the brakes and the faculty of trusting is like the accelerator. In a car, we need both the brakes and the accelerator. Now if we are always doubting and, like, we’re sitting in the car and we’re only pressing the brakes, The car will never move anywhere.

Or if the engine is moving, the car will just move round and round and not get anywhere else. On the other hand, if you’re in a car with only accelerator and no brakes, then we will go, but we’ll go where we don’t want to go. So now we need both faith and doubt together. So now in one sense, trust and doubt are worrying in Sita’s heart. Is this really someone from Ram?

Is this or is this some trick of Raul? So Hanuman keeps gently singing, and then he introduces himself. As he sees that Sita’s heart is softening from her face, he sees that suspicion is decreasing. And then finally, p introduces Sita still she wants to believe, but she’s still not ready. Then he took some takes out the signet that Ram has given her.

And Sita sees that and just takes it touches it touches it to her heart, and she feels Ram’s presence by that. And still, could it be that this is a demon who has somehow seized seized this particular signet from Rama and somehow brought it? And once he sees it, I still not understanding and not accepting. Now he doesn’t blame her. He’s in guilt her.

You know how far I went through? How many risk I took? I just did all this for you, and you’re not gonna trust me. No. He doesn’t get up get angry with her.

He doesn’t demand that trust. Now we may do a lot for someone, but sometimes when we come in front of that person, they want to see what do we do for them at that time. Whereas parents, we may work very hard for our children, but then we will say, I’m working so hard to earn money to send you school to do all the good things. But if in front of a child, we come and that time just snap at them and yell at them. Say, I’m doing so much for you.

And the only thing you are doing is shouting at me. That’s what the child will see, isn’t it? So it’s important to do many things in the background, but when we are with someone we care for, how we conduct us and at that time is very important also. So Hanuman does not demand that trust. Then he’s as he’s speaking the stories of Ram of then he starts speaking a very intimate pastime.

Now Ram has told him this pastime, and this is something which is known only to Ram and Sita. And there are certain intimate details. Sita knows that Ram would not tell this to anyone. That Ram has not told us even to Lakshman. There are something between the husband and wife, they stay with them only.

So the fact that Hanuman knows this means is that things. Hanuman must be very trusted by Ram, and that’s when, you know, the defensive wall for her own protection that is she has built that it breaks down. And Sita starts crying in joy. Yet, Ram has finally found her. Ram’s messenger has come and she asks him.

She asked Hanuman, how is Ram? What is he doing? And Ram tells Ram one says how Ram is can be constant agony thinking about her, calling for name, longing to be with her. He says she asked why has he not come for me? He says, he didn’t know where you are.

Now I will go and tell, and soon he will come. So Sita is gripped with a bittersweet joy that Ram has not forgotten her, that Ram still remembers that Ram is going to come for her. That brings joy. Still that Ram is in agony because he’s away from her. That is bitter for her.

And then as this moves forward, now Hanuman hears. He does his tell Hanuman, Al Ram to come immediately. Otherwise, he has Ravan has threatened me. This he has said that I am going to enjoy you one way or the other. No, that is in English as well, like we have Carnivorous.

So Carnivorous is one who eats flesh and enjoys. Now, Rawan is Rakshasa. Rakshasa is one who eats humans also. So he said that he wanted Sita to fulfill his desire. He wanted her to fulfill her, his carnal desire.

Carnal is basically sexual desire. They can’t fulfill her carnal desire, then she will fulfill his carnivorous desire. So he said that I will have my cooks cook you for my breakfast and I’ll eat you up. If you don’t submit within one year. And Hanuman here, this he gets alarmed.

He says that’s too much of a risk. You know, Ram will come immediately, but it’ll take time to come all the way. So it’s better you come with me. I’ll take you with me. Now all along, Hanuman is he has taken a very small form so that he will not be detected.

And when they’re talking also Sita turns around and Sita is Sita is are sitting so strategically that the demon is on the other side. They don’t see. So now Hanuman knows his power. What Sita thinks? Oh, monkey.

You are so tiny. How will you carry me? Now Hanuman has just exhibited supernatural powers leaping across Lanka. It likes like somebody who is very virile and masculine for them to have their strength challenged. It’s almost like an insult.

If somebody is a very well built person and we tell them, can you carry this bag? What do you mean? I can carry it with one finger. They may try to carry it with one finger and they’ll break their finger. That’s a different thing.

But yeah. So Haluman says, he he says, yeah. I can carry you. I had it, but he was so small. Just see how small I am.

I’ll show you. And then Sita is looking down at him, and Sita is increasing, increases, increases, increases. Sita has to look up at him now. So am I now large enough to carry you? So Sita says, yes.

Yes. You get kept. But he says, I I want to be rescued by Ram. So let him come and rescue me. Moreover, if you try to go with me, you’re carrying me, then the demons will attack you.

And with me, with you, it’ll be difficult for you to fight. Moreover, you know, I was already touched by a man other than my husband by force. I do not want that same thing to happen again. So, and one respects our wishes. This is where the Hanuman decides that, see, I should do I’ve done the service of finding Sita, but I should do something more.

So what are the economy we’re discussing? Head. So we deserve expertise in earning trust. Then after that, now is alertness. So alert means we are alert to dangers.

We are alert to opportunities. So some people just do what they are told to do and come back, But that’s not enough. And sometimes, you know, we have to think, we have to think about the big picture. Ultimately, if Ram has to fight a war, then what can I do to help Ram? If Ravan is threatening Sita, can what can I do to something to stop him from threatening?

Now sometimes people just, they don’t think of the big picture. One of my friends just telling me how nowadays many big companies or big government department, they work in complete silos. So it’s like, you know, if the three people who are employed to, to take care of a garden. So you wanna plant something in a garden. So you have one person who will dig the hole, the second person who will plant the seed, and the third person will fill the hole.

And suppose somehow the second person is sick. Well, the first person will come dig the hole. The second person doesn’t come, the third person will come and fill the hole. And the job is done. The most essential part of the job is not done, isn’t it?

So we need to do our part, but we also need to be aware of the bigger picture and to see how does my part contribute to the bigger picture. So Hanuman was told to find Sita, but now Hanuman thinks that let me do some more service. So he alertly looks for a portion. Now he’s already expanded his size. And when this size comes up, the demonesses, they can’t, but notice him.

Then they get alarmed and they asked the guards to come and Hanuman has traveled light. There’s no carry on bag, no check-in bag. He flies. So he doesn’t have any weapons. Just looks around and there’s a gate to the park.

He just goes there and he breaks the gate and rips apart one of the thick iron pillars that are there to the gate, the parts of the gate. And that becomes like his mace over there. Traditionally, Hanuman is symbolized with a mace. When he goes to Lanka, he does not have a mace with him. So he just use improvising weapons over there.

And then he starts destroying one after another after another, the various soldiers that are attacking him. So what is Anuman doing now? His job is done. Should he not go? He is thinking I should do some more service.

So then one after another after another, Rawa hears about his who’s the upset monkey has come. That particular gardener is his favorite gardener. It’s called Ashoka Vatika. That Ashoka Vatika becomes for Rahul Shoka Vatika. It’s just oh, one after another after another, his generals are all being destroyed.

Finally, he says Indrajit. Now Indrajeet also is not able to work up or power. Anuman by ordinary or even extraordinary weapons. Finally, he uses his most powerful weapon, The Brahmastra. When Anuman sees the Brahmastra coming, he just folds his hands.

You know, this is too powerful, but he has a blessing that the Brahmastra will act on him, but not for too long. It’ll temporarily overpower him and then he will be able to break free. So then when he’s arrested, now dictatorship is all about keeping people under control through fear. So Rawan is a dictator of Lanka. And for him, that there is some person who has come in the favorite forest grow of Rawan and has destroyed the forest grow and has killed so many of his soldiers and generals.

That is like a slap on his face. And in order to establish his power once again, What, what he tells us, this person has been arrested, parade him through the streets. Anybody who does challenge Ravana, let us show what happens to him. So then he’s paraded through the streets and while he’s paraded at that time, the soldiers are kicking him. The soldiers are insulting him.

The soldiers are whipping him. Now all this for a powerful warrior like Raoul, Hanuman could be humiliating, But Hanuman doesn’t bother about that. His focus is on seeing opportunities for service. So the demons have their own agenda. They want all the citizens to see what happens to anyone who dares to challenge the might of Rawat.

And so they are parading Hanuman through the streets, but Hanuman has his own plan. While he’s being paraded through the streets, he’s looking at all the military formations. What are the strong points? Where the weapons skipped? Where are the weak points?

From where can we attack? Later on after Indrajit, after Indrajit, fells Ram and Lakshman, and it’s presumed that they are dead. The Vana Raksha celebrating at that time, the Vana later launched a surprise attack. And that time Hanuman leads the attack based on his knowledge of the inside of Lanka. So sometimes we may be humiliated.

We will be disrespected and it’s going to be very painful when that happens. But through in that also, we can see, is there something I can learn? Is there some service I can do for a devotee? Service attitude is what always protects and that Anuman maintained that service. I had constantly looking for a port you deserve.

Now what is he doing? Like I said, he had completed business. Why didn’t he go back? He wanted to do reconnaissance. He wanted to also give a warning to Ravan.

In case Rama is not able to reach within one year, there’s a little delay. He doesn’t want disaster to happen. So Rahwan needs to be given a stern warning. So Hanuman lets himself be arrested and paraded because he knows eventually he will face Rahwan. And when he faces Rawan, finally he comes into the court.

Now this time he sees Rawan in his full regal majesty. He has seen Rawan thrice before. One when he was abducting Sita, then when at night and he was sleeping, Mandodari was next to him, then he saw almost like a half drunk, half awake stage going to towards Sita in Ashokwathika. But now Rawan in his full regal majesty sitting on the throne of Lanka. And it’s amazing what is the first thought that Hanuman has.

See, this person has such power, such splendor. If only this person had been Dharmic, if only this person had been a devotee, he would have done so much good for the world. This person could have become a protector of the gods who protect humanity. Unfortunately, so he’s he’s now a threat to everyone. So this is the the sign of a healthy mind is to look for good everywhere.

Now that does not mean we don’t see the bad, but we look for the good to see the potential for good everywhere. Sick. It only sees problems everywhere. It still only sees negativities everywhere. So Hanuman knows that Rawa is a terrible person, but still he sees.

So this person has power, this person has splendor. Only if this person had character, that it would be so good, and then they start speaking. So some of the demons are saying, you know, you should be punished and you should be killed. Raul is also very angry, but he says, I want to know who this person is. I want to know why this person came and did such a damage to my favorite garden grow.

So then he has him questioned. And Hanuman says, I am messenger of Ram, and I have come with a message. If you’re a messenger, you should have come here straight. Why destroy my career? He said, I’m a messenger.

First, you should give me a seat. He says, you didn’t act like a messenger. You know, you destroyed my forest floor. You destroyed my soldiers. You’d killed my generals.

You don’t deserve the respect for a messenger. Then Hanuman, what does he do? He expands his tail and he expands his tail and normally the court, the royal court, the king sits in the highest position. Hanuman expand his tail so much that tail becomes a higher seat than Rawan. And first time in his court, Rawan has to look up at someone.

That itself is infuriating. Then now Hanuman decides to play coy over here. He says, actually, I’m just a little monkey. I was hungry. I was eating some fruits while jumping from tree to tree.

The trees broke down. And when the trees broke, these soldiers attacked me. And in self defense, I attacked them. Most soldiers attacked me, they attacked them again. So he says, now he’s playing assessing the he’s trying to understand the mood of what is going on in the forest, in the palace.

Is everyone there with Rawan or are there some people dissenting over there? He’s observing everyone. And then that is he says, okay. But what is your message? Why have you come here?

So he says that I have come as a servant of sugri who is in alliance with Ram. And Ram has warned you return Sita immediately. Otherwise, an entire army will come and destroy all of Lanka. Now, Ravan does not like looking at anyone above him in his own court and to be chastised and warned. This is just unbearable.

He says, fool. Who do you think you are? You don’t know who I am. You don’t know what I can do. He says, we will kill you right now.

So Vibhishan intervenes. In many ways, here Hanuman is playing coy and is playing provocative just to see if there are some dissensions in Ramana’s rank. When he’s provocative, Ramana is going to attack. And then if anybody stands up for him, that means that is a person on their side who is not completely on their side. That’s why later when Vibhishan comes on the Ram’s side, that Hanuman is the one person who says that we should accept Vibhishan.

All the other one that I say, no, he’s a demon’s brother. He’s Rahu’s brother. How can we accept him? So then Vibhishan says he’s a messenger. He should not be killed.

He says, but still, you know, he just he killed kill my soldiers. He should be killed. So he says, but now the vision here appeals not to Rawan’s morality because that demon has no morality, but he says he appeals to his dignity. He appeals to his sense of fame. See long ago.

Now some people say the other kind of the Rama is interpolated because here, Vibhishan and Rama discussing and they’re saying that actually a messenger should should never be hurt or harmed or killed. But long ago, when Rawan had seized Lanka from Kuvera, when Kuvera was not there. At that time, Kuvera had sent a messenger. Saying this is my kingdom, give it back and Rawan had killed Kuvera. So Rawan had already done heinous things.

So they said, therefore, that whole section is interpolated, but that’s a very superficial argument. But anyway, at that time, Rawan was just establishing his power. At that time, he just wanted to be brutal in any way he could be. But now see what happens when even bad people, they rise to the top. They want to look good in people’s eyes.

Isn’t it? No. Bad. Everybody wants people, they become powerful, successful. They want all the good things in life.

If I say, I want power. If I melt, I want I want prestige. And then I want not just the prestige of having power and wealth. I want the prestige of having a, being a good person also. That’s not something wealthy people give a lot of charity.

Now they, they may earn the wealth by sucking the blood of poor people, but they will give charity to the poor people to look good. That’s not true for all wealthy people. But the point is that some wealthy people also want to look good. So he appeals to his sense of pride and he says, you know, what will happen to your good name if it comes to be known that you killed a messenger? So Rama thinks okay, but he said he should be punished.

These monkeys are very proud of their tail. And it is with this, that tail that he has humiliated me. Let us burn his tail. Now he has a plan. He thinks that his tail will be burned and then we’ll release him and he’ll go back.

And when he goes back to his family and friends, they will all see his charred condition. Either they will laugh at him or they will tremble in fear of my power. Either way, my purpose will be served. Hanuman gird himself. His tail is going to be burnt and he’s ready to tolerate the pain.

But then now all while this is happening, this is big news. There is no live broadcast over there, but what is happening in the code, they’re all in the sea. The whole kingdom is alive over there, abuzz. Because never before has something like this happened. Anybody coming into Lanka and penetrating Lanka and and threatening and threatening.

So there are people on the courts running around and telling everyone. So Sita also comes to know that Hanuman is to be burnt. His tail is to be burnt. And then Sita prays to Agni Dev. And he says, please don’t let Hanuman feel hurt.

No. Don’t let Hanuman feel pain. So Hanuman is ready and his tail is lit. And now the one that has the rakshasas, his tail is so long that to get to put some inflatable material on it, to tie it to inflatable, that itself is exhausting. But finally do it and they light it.

And then Hanuman sees he doesn’t feel any pain. He says, when are they going to light it, looks back, hey, huge fire over there and there’s no pain. And now see, when we are proud, proud people are very eager to take credit for things they are not done and humble people. They want to give credit to others, even for things they have done. So Hanuman said, see, I am so powerful that the steel doesn’t burn me.

But he thinks, you know, I don’t have this power. So how is this fire not hurting me? Immediately, he thinks. Now who who could who’s who could be doing this for me? He knows Ram is all powerful, but Ram does not know his plight right now.

At least he does not know whether Ram knows. So he thinks it must be Sita’s doing. And he he mentally thanks Sita. And then as he’s waiting and watching the one, the rakshasa are looking at him, why is this person not in pain? What is happening?

And then Hanuman suddenly gets an idea. This burning, but not hurting tail is a ready made weapon for him. So Rawan in trying to humiliate Hanuman has given Hanuman the weapon to humiliate Rawan. So Hanuman grabs the opportunity. That is the last part in the head.

Achrony D is deterrence. Deterrence is where if somebody is doing something terrible, then we need to show them that there will be terrible consequences if you do this. So in real world geopolitics, deterrence is very important. If the other person feel that they can get away with something, then they will do more and more and more of that thing. But as deterrence is there, then they will not do that much.

So India, Pakistan, China, there are three wars, many wars, but three major wars that happened between them. But in the late 1990s, since all three of them have got nuclear weapons, although there has been some tensions, but there’s been no outright war. It’s not a support of nuclear weapons. Just the principle of deterrence is being said that when people know that there’ll be consequences for their actions, then that deters them from doing crazy things. So Hanuman wants to deter Rawan from doing anything crazy.

He wants to give a stern warning to him. So he jumps up into this, jumps up and his huge tail is lit with him. He just breaks free of all the ropes. The Brahmasa long ago stopped having an effect, and one’s just waiting for the opportunity. And the Rakshas are stunned.

And Rawan wanted to humiliate Anuman, but what is more humiliating than a prisoner breaking free, not from the prison in the darkness of the night, but a prisoner waking free in the middle of the day in the court with everyone visible. So if Rawal wanted to establish the authority to fear, just Hanuman’s escaping itself with another big slap on Rawan’s face. And then first, Hanuman is shocked. How how did he how did he break free? What happened?

But then before he understand what’s going on, Hanuman jumps on to one of the, buildings. Now it is said that his building, his whole city is a golden city. Now gold does not melt very easily and for a golden city to burn, the temperature has to be immensely high. But Hanuman by this blessing, his tail is burning, but it’s not hurting. He uses that tail and he sets one place in one building on fire and another building on fire.

And the one other time the Rakshasa are trying to attack him, but Hanuman is expertly dodging them. And soon the fire starts spreading. And Ravan does not know, but Hanuman has a hidden ally. That is why you why you starts blowing. Whichever direction Hanuman goes, the wind starts blowing.

Like a small fire starts becoming like a forest fire. Recently, there’s this horrifying fires in LA. Now the fires occurring is not an uncommon thing there, but it’s like all the bad things happening at the same time, wrong things happening at the same time. A fire coming at the same time, there’ll be a stormy wind in the direction where there is human habitation. Then it’s devastating.

So Ravanas Lanka starts getting burnt. Hanuman doesn’t know, should he stop Hanuman? Should he stop the burning of the city? And he tries to do both and he succeeds in doing neither. And then within just a short while more than half of Lanka is burnt.

And then like in a movie, it’s a spectacular climax. So Hanuman climbs on the border wall and his tail is still burning and he raises his tail high above him. His long tail is like a blazing fire above him. So with that blazing fire behind him, Hanuman looks extremely scary. He looks like a angel of death or devastation.

And there Hanuman speaks in the most thunderous voice. Oh, Rawa, you just saw what one servant of Ram can do and I am the smallest of the Vanaras that will come in thousands to destroy your Lanka if you do not return Sita. And then Anwan jumps as if to more spectacular effect just by his jump from that wall, the whole wall crumbles and one leaps into the sky. As he leaps into the sky, the whole of Lanka is filled with shock and horror at what has just happened. Ravan and authority has been undermined like never before.

And if there is any chance that Ravan could have come to his senses, Ravan may not understand the language of morality, but would he at least understand the language of force that his entire army cannot stop one, one soldier, one person from the opponent army. What chance does he have to win? So Hanuman has done all that he can to deter Rawan from his course of either hurting Sita or even holding Sita on. And then he leaps into the ocean and extinguishes the fire in his tail and then leaps up again and goes back his mission to Lanka, spectacularly victorious. Sri Hanuman ji ki jai.

So I summarize what I discussed today. We talked about how Hanumanji is called as buddhi matam varishtam. He’s the more best among intelligent people. Why is it called like that? We discussed that from the activities that he does in Lanka.

So we discussed the acronym. What was it? Head. So h was hope. So when he’s unable to find Sita, he starts losing hope, but he gets his hope back by thinking of the dark consequences that would come.

I cannot live and see this happen. I would rather die trying to prevent this from happening. So sometimes hope can come by envisioning the wonderful that we want And hope can also come by envisioning the dreadful that we just will not accept with that hope he pushes on. Then next was he was expertise, expertise in earning trust of Sita. He doesn’t just go straightforward and demand it, you know, and proclaim himself.

I have come for you. He actually talks about Ram, glorifies Lord Ram, and slowly, sweetly earns her trust. He does not demand that I’ve done so much for you in coming here. He waits. And then by showing her the signet, by speaking with intimate pastimes, slowly he wins her trust.

So whenever we have to do service, it’s important to have hope, but expertise is also required. And then after that was alertness. Yes. We did our service, but that service is a part of a bigger mission. Can we do something more, not just operate in mental tunnels or have a tunnel vision or operate in complete silos?

So he thinks, what more can I do? So he decides, I will do reconnaissance to understand what are the strengths of Raul. And thus he challenges the demons, fights with them, even when he’s arrested and humiliated rather than focusing on his humiliation, he’s still focusing on observing what is going on. Even when he seems to play and provoke in Rawan’s court, he’s trying to see if there are any cleavages, any dissensions in his rank, which can be used by Ram. And then finally, D was deterrence where he decided that he wants Rawan, but he understands that Rawan is not a person who is going to simply understand the language of words.

So uses the language of force. Sometimes the smaller destruction may be required to prevent a bigger destruction. So when he destroys Lanka, the point is not just want an anger. The point is that he is, he sees by the alertness that I’m a burning, but not hurting tail is a ready made weapon. So Hanuman, he, what Ravana tries to use to burn, to humiliate our, Hanuman uses that against Ravana.

So then he uses that itself to burn Lanka. Sometimes there’s a trail blazing adventure. We say trail blazing is very extraordinary. So Hanuman’s adventure in Lanka is trail blazing and tail blazing. His tail is literally on fire and he is blazing.

And then finally, as this final sign of deterrence, what does he do on the border wall? He proclaims not just his own power, but the power of Ram and the power of those who are supporting Ram. And then with a spectacular visual demonstration of his power, crushing the border wall of Lanka, which has never fallen before, which is the symbol by which Ravan establishes proclaim this power. Then Hanuman leaves and goes back victorious. So we all can pray to Hanumanji that whatever challenges we face in life and whatever services we need to do, it may be always have hope, may be always be expert, and may be always be alert, and may be always in our devotion, use whatever is required including that deterrence to achieve whatever service we are called upon to do.

Sri Hanuman ji ki. Sri Hanuman janti Mahama. Sri. Sri la Prabhupa, the key. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much, Yeah. So much of what I spoke about, say, humanly about hope and and and, expertise, some of alertness, those things that explain in this book is not exactly what Ramayana, it is Gita for the CEO. Now a lot of people would like to know what is the practical wisdom, especially for professional success in spiritual books like the Gita. People want to know the art of war and other books like that. So the Harper Collins asked me to write this book and this is also the Gita is a conversation.

This is also conversation which explains the Gita’s principles through a conversation between two people or corporate leaders. One is a corporate leader who knows the Gita, the other one who wants to know the Gita. And there are some simple illustrations and diagrams which explain the concepts. It’s light read and it is explains how we can just take Arjuna, not just a great devotee, but also a great warrior. He was a great leader.

Like that, we’ll also be successful in all walks of life through the Gita’s wisdom. And this is a more devotional book, prayers inspired by Bhagavad Gita. This is 22 prayers. There’s a beautiful picture of deity of Krishna, one line summary prayer, then there’s a Bhagavad Gita verse, and that verse is poetically rendered over here so that we can get a feel of the poetry and the beauty of the Gita. And then the one page, prayer reflection on that verse.

So this is the way in which we can not just connect with the wisdom of the Gita through a prayerful devotional mode, but also connect with Krishna. We all want to if you want to pray, sometimes we can pray from our heart, we can pray scriptural prayers, but can we bring both of them together? We take scriptural verses and prayers inspired by us. So there’s a table of contents with about 22 titles. So whatever you feel is your prayer needed at a particular time.

If you’re going through hard times, you’re not able to make sense of life, your mind is going wild. So whatever it is, all that is, there are various titles you can just easily refer to it. It’s also a very good way if you’re doing your daily morning prayers or morning chanting, reading one reflection can calm the mind and put it in a devotional frame of mind so that we can pray more effectively. And much of what I spoke about Hanuman is in this small book, Living the Ramayana. This is about Hanuman’s adventures in Lanka.

So I read several books in the Ramayana, but this is one of smaller books applying ancient wisdom to modern times. So all these books are available outside. If any of you want, you can take them from there. I’ll also be here for some time if you want a signature or if you want to ask any questions. Thank you very much.

Hare Krishna.
Thankyou!

The post Life Lessons from Hanuman | Chaitanya Charan | Washington DC appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

Hare Krishna.

Principles means see, generally, as we say, a friend in need is a friend indeed. So now our choices have consequences. For Hanuman, that meant if he would go with Sugriyo, Walli would always permanently blacklist him. When Walli would send people to assassinate Sugriyo, if Hanuman came in the way, Hanuman would also not be spared. So there’s a heavy cost to pay.

It’s a heavy, heavy price to pay for him to make that choice to go with Sugriev instead of going with Wally. So this itself shows see, if somebody is very powerful, security guards and everything. Okay, you can take on the mafia there. It still requires courage, but actually at that time you have protection. But here what happens is he chooses side, and he has no idea how long he will have to stay practically in exile.

Just as Lakshman had no obligation to go with Ram when he went to the forest. Similarly, Hanuman had no obligation to go with sugriy. In fact, we could say that at least Lakshman was a brother. So a brother, brothers might want to stick with the brother. Now Hanuman and sugriy had no relationship, no blood relationship at least beyond that Bharat was not trying to constantly assassinate Ram.

So that choice of Lakshman going with Ram meant a sacrifice, but it was not that because of that choice, he will be persecuted. So Hanuman, it was principles. He calls principles. He paid a heavy price and that itself chose the opposite of having principles as being expedient. Expedient means whatever the easiest thing you do that, whatever is convenient to do that.

Some people are like chameleons. With one person, they speak one thing, another person, they speak another thing. Whatever will please that group, they’ll speak that. But here itself, Hanuman has made a very, very serious choice. And that too, if you see, he doesn’t have power.

If he had his powers, then he could have countered value itself. But at this point, he does not have powers. So to stick to principles without powers, that’s actually a very heavy price to pay. That itself is a sign that he’s no longer impulsive. Impulsive person, a shortsighted person, a mature person would not make such a choice.

And even if a person made such a choice, they would not stick to this. They say, oh, you know, this is too much. I’ll go back. I want to be I’ll it’ll go and apologize to Volley and make it good with Volley. So he doesn’t do that.

Then after that, then what is seen is his speech. The first meeting that is there between Hanuman and Ram. So Ram and Lakshman are walking through the forest, and Hanuman comes in the garb of a Brahmana. The Sugri has told him, check it out. Check out what’s there over there.

So Guru has become super suspicious. So anybody who comes in is very suspicious of that person. So when he sees Ram and Lakshman going through the forest and in the Kishkinder area, and Ram is lamenting. Now will we ever find Sita? It’s it’s so long now.

Who knows what has happened to her? And he’s crying. So Guru becomes alarmed, and he runs to his associates. And they peer through and Jammu and said, what is there to be alarmed about? These are just two hermits.

No. But they’re not hermits. If they were hermits, why are they carrying weapons? And look at their physique. It’s not like that of a sage.

So he’s suspicious. And he says, you know, if they’ll come to assassinate you, they would have come discreetly. Assassinate doesn’t come making a loud noise. But what are they doing over here? Who are they?

So they depute Hanuman. And Hanuman changes his form and goes. Now it’s interesting. He does not lost all his power, so he’s able to have some of his powers and he’s able to change his form. But then when he starts speaking, his speech, he just greets Ram and Lakshman, We all have our own natural voice.

As I mentioned, this fingerprint analysis we do for identifying a person, now it’s called voice print. We can try to mimic other people’s voices, but we can’t change our natural voice too much. Sometimes people can nowadays there are voice changer apps, or you can try to mask our voice, but our voice is what it is. So some people just have such a sweet voice about Krishna, the Gopis, and the Gopi get describe. They say your voice itself is sweet and your words are also so endearing.

Some people may have a sweet voice and they speak very harshly with the sweet voice. It’s terrible. Now, some people may not, may not have a very sweet voice. Some people have a little bit of raspy voice, but what they speak with that will be very pleasing. They’re very encouraging.

They’re very appreciative. So now with respect to communication, there are these two things. There’s our voice and there is our words. So now the best is if our voice is sweet and our words are pleasing. Our voice can be harsh.

Our voice can be graph or rough or raspy or whatever word you wanna use, and our words can be agitating. So now for a communicator, what is the best to be in among these four quadrants? Fourth, yes. You have a sweet voice and you have pleasing words that you speak. So they say about a diplomat.

A diplomat is a person who lies abroad for the good of their country, you know, lies abroad. So stays abroad but also applies to lie abroad. And to be diplomatic means what? If a diplomat says yes, he means maybe. If a diplomat says maybe, they mean no.

And if diplomat says no, that means he is no diplomat. So the ideal situation is where the speech is the words are pleasing and the voice is also very sweet. Sometimes some people, they have this combination. We might come with agitated mind, but if that’s the person that’s speaking, just calm down and calm down. Listen, like, babies, if they’re restless, mother, somebody sing a lullaby.

The idea lullaby itself has a soft soothing tone to it. And mother when they’re singing with love that also has a sweetness to it. The baby becomes peaceful and goes to sleep. So like that now for adults, we don’t sing a lullaby for them, but the idea is our mind can get agitated and somebody speaks very sweetly and pleasingly then the mind becomes peaceful so here Hanuman exhibits this quality that Ram is agitated because he feels a personal sense of failure. You know, Sita came out of her faithfulness to me.

I couldn’t protect her. Lakshman also feels guilty, but after she’s his wife, Ram feels the primary responsibility. And he’s feeling this. He’s so long we’re not able to find what is going to happen. And just when Hanuman starts speaking, that’s not Hanuman speaks any profound words of wisdom.

Just the speech of Hanuman. Ram turns to Lakshmi and he says, surely, this person must be learning all the Vedas. Surely, this person must be trained by the greatest of sages. Surely, this person must have done some great punya in a previous life. Surely, this person must have been brought up by cultured parents.

He infers all that from what is spoken. So this capacity to speak in a sweet and pleasing way is also a sign of maturity. So what has happened? Hanuman is not as impulsive. He doesn’t blow up his cover.

He doesn’t confront who are you. He is according to time, place, circumstance, behaving in a very appropriate way. What you mentioned about social awareness that is being depicted over here. So that also shows Hanuman’s maturity. Now just to complete this four quadrants, sometimes we really can’t control our voice.

We can to some extent, but not much. So we may not be able to always have a sweet voice, but we can always from wherever we are, we can move if you can move in this quadrant, that is the best. But if that is not in our control, if you can have our words pleasing and our voice sweet, that is the best. But if you can’t, this is the this is the best, but going at least second best. Let’s not speak in ways that agitates others.

Some people think that as a sign of their cleverness, they’re sarcastic and they are not there’s a time and place for sarcasm, but on a habitual level being insulting, using, using bad names to call others agitating speech and especially nowadays with social media available. People’s one person’s agitating speech can agitate hundreds and thousands and millions of people. So we need to be careful. This is the second sign of Anuman’s maturity, the speech that he speaks. And just by that speech, he helps in the forming of an alliance.

An alliance means sugri and Ram become friends. So if somebody’s playing a particular role, they need to play that role well. So Hanuman has his own relationship with Ram, which will manifest in due course. But at this point, what he does is he shows he is able to do the job that he is sent to do. He does it well.

He, by sweet speech, he pacifies Ram. He connects with Ram and helps build a bridge so that Ram and Sugri, you can form a relationship. So his speech forms a bridge. With he’s on the side of sugary at this point, a bridge between sugary and rama. So that is what is formed by his speech.

Now after that, the third stage is that he is also able to go back to the kingdom after Vali is killed. Now Sugri goes back to the kingdom, and what happens to Sugri? Sugri has been in a zone with no Wi Fi for many years. And suddenly, he gets full Wi Fi and he goes on a Netflix blinch. Binge.

He goes on a complete Netflix blinch, forgetting everything else. He just there’s there are all kinds of royal pleasures that are available to him and just loses himself in that completely. Now Hanuman has also been living in austerity, living in austerity and in fear. Hanuman doesn’t have so much fear himself, but fear of safety is there. Hanuman doesn’t get drunk.

Hanuman doesn’t get intoxicated. Hanuman stays sober. And when the four months of get over, he reminds, reminds whom? So we discussed that earlier, you know, that he, he, he cautions, He doesn’t, get he cautions to grieve. So this is again the opposite of impulsiveness.

So he’s showing his maturity that he’s aware that this is a like we talk about responsibility. Responsibility is being aware of what needs to be done when. So that is also sign of, responsive. Now he does it in a very appropriate way. Actually, Sugriyu, Sugriyu’s character itself is very interesting and, in many ways that is a separate subject.

Sugri is first told by Hanuman. Now although later on, Hanuman will seem to be much more powerful at this point, Hanuman is a assistant or minister of Sugri. So he is subordinate to him. Now after that, Tara wants him. Now Tara is in a peculiar position that she is being Sugri’s brother’s wife, but when Vali passed away, Vali told him that that, you know, you should stay in his shelter.

So in that culture, the had their own culture, then it was accepted. So she was like a senior to him in the sense that she was so she had certain position and Valley also told him, listen to. She’s very wise. I didn’t listen to her, suffered because of that, but you should listen to her. Tara wants him.

And then Lakshman comes. Now Hanuman, according to his position, is gently cautioning him. Tara is a little more blunt. And when Lakshman comes, Lakshman is super blunt. All you put is super sharp in what he speaks, and then, Subhri jolted out of his complacency.

And then Sugriva takes on responsibility thereafter, but just being aware of the responsibility. Now after this, then comes the next thing. So this is at this particular point, when they are about to go on a search, on the search for Sita. So this is the last part and this is fascinating and we could have a whole session on this, but I’ll just explain this here. There is, you could say, there is influence without position.

This is what Anuman demonstrates over here. If somebody appointed the leader of a particular group, then they have the position Then also and they have to get to get people to work with them. But if you are the boss, if you are the if you’re the boss in a company, a, people don’t listen to you, they just fire them. But if you’re just one of the members in the team, but you have some good ideas. Now to get others to go along with your ideas is not that easy, isn’t it?

So if you don’t have position and at that time we have to get things done, not just from ourselves, but from our peers and even our seniors. That’s not easy. So this is what Hanuman really, this is the Sundarkand begins when Lord Ram sends Hanuman, sends the whole team to go, in search of Sita. But it’s interesting that Sugriyo appoints whom as the leader of that group? No.

Angad. Angad is appointed as the leader of the group. We’ll talk about that. At the same time, now the it’s a very interesting group over there. Now Angad is the leader of the group, but Angad is neither the oldest nor the strongest.

Angad is appointed because there is still some tension between Angad and Sugri. Wally told Sugri Wally I’m sorry. Wally told Angad, don’t blame Sugri for my death. It was my own deal that led to his death. But Angad was just a young he was he was from our perspective would be a little in the late teens.

He was a young adult. And suddenly, he saw his father who was a king, one day just comes out and is killed. And he understands that Ram is not responsible, but he he there is some tension between him and Sugri. So now if we are working in a team or we are working in a company, and we have our boss and the boss has his boss or her boss, whoever it is. And if we know that we are accountable to this boss also, we are accountable to that boss also and the tension between the two of them.

It’s very difficult to manage that. And who do we listen to? We don’t want to annoy or anger our immediate boss, but in doing something that our immediate boss want, you don’t want to anger our bigger boss also. So here, Angad, he is dutiful. So Angad, what happens is that Sugri also wants to win Angad over.

Sugri also actually Sugri doesn’t celebrate when Vali is killed. Suguri regrets it. Suguri says, oh, my brother could have killed me anytime, but he didn’t. And I, as soon as I got the first opportunity, I killed him. What a vech I am.

I don’t deserve the kingdom. So that is very painful scene over there. But then Ram tells him, this is what what he wanted. This is your duty. You should become the kingdom.

So now Sugri wants to make overtures to Angad. And the Sugri makes Angad the leader of the team. The Lord Ram recognizes that Hanuman has Hanuman is special. That’s why he calls Hanuman and he gives him a special ring. That is this, you find Sita, show her this.

That’s how you will know that. She will know that you have come from me itself. And it has a confidential story also to Hanuman. So at this particular point, when they are going, initially they’re very enthusiastic. Yes.

They’re going out, they will find Sita and this is the group in which Angad is there, Hanuman is there, and there’s one more senior person. Who is that? Oh, wow. Yeah? Jambo.

Jambavan is has been far more powerful, but now he’s big aging. So he’s not that powerful now. There is two characters in the in the Ramayan who are actually confronted by the problem of aging. When I speak to, people who are older, I talk about this one. One is Jatayu and other is Jumbo.

And both of them are affected. Their names are from and they’re also affected by what is called a Jara. Jara is old age. So how they deal with it. It’s a challenge.

But at this particular point, when they go out search, they’re enthusiastic initially. But then things start going south. Just not able to find Sita anywhere. And then group start forming. You know, if any teamwork is to be done, they say the cricket team is there.

Then maybe around the captain of group forms, around the vice captain of group forms. And some of the tensions between the two can rip the team apart. So like that tension start forming. See, tensions, if we are winning, the tensions are not so messy, but we start losing and who is blamed for the loss, who should be blamed for the loss. That’s when the tension starts surfacing and they start escalating.

So here Hanuman slowly starts taking leadership without threatening anger, without undermining anger, without sidelining Angad, it’s organically start to lead us. So they are searching. They go into the heartland of Southern India. In the middle, it’s very, very hot, and they’re searching. Not only they don’t even find Sita, they can’t even find any food.

They kind of find the water, and they’re starving. And then they’re searching around. Suddenly, Hanuman notices that there’s a cave, and from a cave, a bird is flying out. And when the bird is flying out, its wings are dripping water. So then Hanuman points it out, and they all go in that direction.

And they’ll peer into the cave. These are one of us. They can send get a sense of what’s happening over here. Is it it’s a very dark cave and how long it is, nobody knows. So Hanuman suggest that let us all form one line and let each one hold on to the next one before and after.

That that none of this will get lost. Let us go in. And then Angad wants to lead, but he doesn’t have really much experience. When his father was the king, his father was so powerful that Ranga really didn’t have to fight any major wars. He’s heroic, but he doesn’t have experience.

And Ranga agrees. So Hanoi does it very discreetly. And the whole story of how they go inside this cave and there’s the there’s the celestial lady, Swayampraba. She she is she offers all kinds of foods and drinks, and she says, well, you just stay comfortably over here. No.

No. We need to go on this. His said that this is, I mean, arranged by Indra and he has arranged in such a way that anybody who has come into this cave, they can never go out. And Angad started getting angry. Tell us how to get out, otherwise I’ll destroy you.

And Jammu gently calms Angad. Sorry. Jammu says, wait, wait. Says, you know, we we mean no harm. I’m sure Indra must have had some purpose in that giving that boon.

He said, yes. He said he had created a lot of opulence over there and he didn’t want that opulence to be plundered. So anybody who comes in, they cannot go out. But he said, we saw the we saw this bird flying out. His the bird does not destroy the opulence over here.

The bird will not bring other birds who will destroy the opulence over here. Because we also do not want to destroy any opulence. We don’t want to plunder anything from here. We just want to serve Lord Ram. But but nobody who can come comes in can ever go out.

Then Angad is getting angry and Hanuman comes and says, but I’m sure, you know, you have the power to go out. You please take us out. So Hanuman here maintains his school. And what happens is here in this particular situation, if we go back, he is naturally taking leadership. Yeah.

So one he cautions sugary, and then he he keeps his cool. So there’s a procreate situation. He could have got angry. He could have got angry with or he could have got angry with Angadha, but doesn’t get angry with either of them. Both with and with Angadha, he keeps his cool And then so Emperor takes them out.

And they they come out and then they are searching. And she says, you’ll soon find you’ll come across the ocean and across the ocean, you’ll find Sita. And the one has become jubilant. You know, this is a this is a whole search for Sita is a high octane ride. This is a lot of emotions.

At one moment, there is hopelessness and despair, there’s starvation, and I’m with the excitement and jubilation. And then the vanaras, they charge toward the ocean. So I’m so they are actually in a mountain. So so emperor not only gets them out of the cave, but she gets them out of the cave on the side of the river. So side of the ocean so that now they don’t have to scale the entire mountain.

They charge ahead and they charge ahead. At that time, they’d say, oh, across the ocean, Sita will find her, but then they come charging to the ocean and then they stop. Wow. How are we going to this ocean is so big. How are we going to cross the ocean?

Their mouths their their this jubilant and their mouth shut, their eyes become droop, and they’re just completely confused. And it is this time that Jambavan speaks to Hanuman. But before that, we’ll talk that in the next session. But before that, one more thing happens. Actually, they come out of the cave and they start searching.

They, they, they start moving toward the ocean. They’re looking around the ocean to try to find out how will we get across. And I just can’t find it. So it’s not who tells them. They know that across the ocean, you’ll find.

That’s what has happened. They they they also known that around across the ocean. So they have that sense, but they just can’t see any way to go ahead. And the ocean is so big, they just don’t know what to do. And again, their spirit start dimming.

And this time, Angad just loses it. And Angad says, better we never go back. So Sugri, you see there are different ways of administering justice. There there are different ways of administering administering justice and for that matter, enforcing discipline compliance. So one of the things that he has told so, yeah.

So one of those things that Guru has told us, All the one of us should come back within one month. Is there anybody who delays returning beyond one month, they will be executed. That’s so harsh. You are executed. See, this is a serious and time bound mission.

Now Angad takes that and Angad says, we have been searching for Sita. Now what has happened is they have been searching for more than a month and they not found Sita. And already two opinions are formed. Should we keep searching? Should we go back?

Now Hanuman is of the opinion that we should keep searching. Some other of the opinion should go back. And now Angadha, he says, one of the one of the one of the side, he says that we should not go back. He says that actually, if we go back, then Sugri will have us executed. Then one of the Wanderers who is is more on human side, he says that, no.

No. Sugriva is a fair person. He would not do that. We tell him that we were actually searching for Sita and we got some clues. That’s why we kept searching.

Okay. So then Angad speaks. Angad says, you know, Sugriva had his own brother killed. Now he killed his own one who killed his own brother. Why would he spare an ordinary soldier?

Now in the terms of war, this is called as sedition. No. Sedition is what? You inspire rebellion against your boss, against your own authority. So sedition, it could also be called as treason.

Treason is where you go against your own authority. Now Hanuman could have taken Angad to task. Now how dare you speak like this about your king? You are saying your king is cruel. You are going against your king.

This is a punishable crime. But Hanuman does not do that. Hanuman understands that Angad does not have a bad heart. Angad is just frustrated. He’s lost his father.

He has been given an opportunity to prove his mettle and the challenge is so much that he’s not able to do it. So what Hanuman does over here is, this is where the maturity shown is, he shows empathy over here. He does not judge or condemn Angad. He he just keeps his calm. And one of the Vanaras from Angad’s side says that maybe we should go back into the Cave Of Swayamprava.

And we’ll hide there and we’ll live there forever. Swayamprava already had said we can stay over there. So now once one of the manas on Hanuman’s side says that, you know, if you anger sugary you, he will not spare us. He will find us and he will punish us. And then Angad said that’s what I was telling.

He’s a cruel person. And then while this fight is going on, finally, Angad says, no. We have just failed. Let’s accept it. He says, rather than going back and being humiliated in front of our family and friends, he says, better that we die over here.

And Angad sits down. He says, I’m going to fast to death. And he says, I’ll do a or that is called a prayavrata. Prayavrata, you know, it is very different. There is, have any of you heard this word?

You know, it’s, it’s something unfortunately not uncommon in today’s world, but everything in this world can be in the three modes. So Sattva, Rajas, and Thomas. So now suicide itself, you may say it’s Thomas, and it is, but somebody, they fast to death. That is considered way of ending one’s life. That is called as.

Means that one does decide that my life is enough now. I don’t want to live anymore. So they decide to abstain from food, abstain from drink, and then the body lives on as long it lives on and it ends the life. So that’s a respected way of ending the life, and many sages would do that. So that is basically, what are what he says.

Now, Angadasa says, this is what I’m going to do. Now as contrasted that, most suicide is tamasic. This is basically because of hopelessness that it is not only life is terrible, it’s I. I am no good. Generally, if we will all face loss in our life, that is just inevitable.

Now when we face loss, if in, you’ll understand, I have lost. That’s a reasonable, okay. I tried to get this interview. I tried to get this job. I tried to get this into this college.

It didn’t work out. If I’m somebody might say, I am lost. I am lost means I just don’t know what to do. I’d spent so much time and energy in this particular thing, I am lost now. But somebody in Tamoguna, they’ll process that same thing as I am a loser.

So they will take that failure too personally and that failure will become a part of their self definition. I am a loser. Now what happens is if we were if you’re in a relationship with someone and and if you start thinking that person is a loser, then we would want to end that relationship. I don’t want to stay in a relationship with the person who is a loser. We want to break up.

But if we think I am a loser, what are we going to do? We can’t break up with ourselves or can we? So suicide is actually a tragic way to try to break up with oneself. So now Sugriyu, so sorry, out of while anger is expressing anger at Sugriyu, it is basically he is hurt. So as they say, my word hurt people, hurt people.

Hurt people who are hurt, hurt others. So the harsh words spoken towards they’re not coming from a malicious heart. They’re coming from a hurt heart. So Anuman understand this, but even this is beyond his power. Because Angad, these are not he says, no.

The two opt the three options now for them. Either they keep searching or four option, they keep searching, but they don’t know how to search because where how far will they go? Where will they go? How will they cross the ocean? That’s one thing.

Second is that they just stay over there. That’s not an option. They are going to. That’s not really good option. They go back.

Angad doesn’t want to do that. It’s a difficult decision, and Anuman is not the team leader. So the one are split into a group. And some of the sit down, and they said, we are going to fast. They are supportive of Angadha, and they say, we’ll fast to death.

And when they see this, a a pile of gloom settles over everyone. The one who are not decide not to fast also, they also don’t know what to do now. We are already as a whole team, we are not able to search and find. If our team depletes to half, what are the chance that we will find even now? So when they are sitting Angadha starts lamenting, Angadha, he speaks, alas, we went on this mission to serve Lord Ram, but just that that heroic Jamba failed, we too are destined to fail.

Now when he speaks this, he speaks it at a particular juncture. What happens is they are sitting for fasting to death and then a giant vulture comes over there. That vulture is some is Sampati. Sampati is Jatayu’s brother. And that vulture comes along and vulture starts looking and you can see the vulture licking its lips.

So, oh, today, I’m going to feast. Another one, I’m ready to die, but it’s one thing to be ready to die and another thing to know that we’ll be ripped into pieces and you turn up. In a person who dies, at least they hope for a dignified burial or a dignified cremation. So, so what happens is that seeing this, they just get a node and that’s where Angadasa speaks, alas, we are meant to fail. And that giant vulture who is walking around them looking, licking his lips suddenly freezes.

What did you say? What did you say happened to Jatayu? And then the monk is surprised what happened. And then at that time, he says, I am Jatayu’s brother. And, please pray tell me, has something happened to Jatayu?

I have not seen my dear brother for many years, And that’s when he’s told he’s told, Angadha speaks, Hanuman speaks, and they tell the story. So some party is shattered by that. But then, Angadha and Hanuman are still thinking. See, Hanuman has not antagonized Angadha, and nor has Hanuman spoken songs. Angadha still has a heart that wants to serve.

Sangat starts thinking that the jatai that some party is completely rejected. Just please, you know, I can’t move. I was I my wings got burned long ago. It is a longer story. He says, I just want to offer some water for my brother.

Can you take me to the coast? And they help me over the coast. He offers water. They can see he’s very, very shaken by this. And then Angad says, the Jatayu, he sacrificed his life in search of Sita.

And the Sampati is lamenting. You know, I couldn’t do anything for my brother, but I can’t do anything to get back at the person who killed my brother also. Because I don’t have any things. And suddenly, I’m not the things. He says, you know, actually, he says, I believe you have very sharp vision.

Do you know where Sita is? Did you see Rawa taking Sita? Yes. He perks up immediately. He raises into this full light and he says, yes, although my body has weakened, my eyes are still strong and I can see that Ravan still has Sita with him across the ocean in Lanka.

And I can see that you will soon find him. So what happens, it’s like a this is what is called as serendipity, something accidental discovery. So the one that’s about to give up hope. At that time, the Sampati comes to eat it. That’s terrible.

But then Sampati comes to eat them and that another will speak some words. And those words lead to a transformation, and then they find the way ahead. So I’ll while Angadha has lost hope, Angadha has not been embittered by Hanuman or anyone else. So Angadha has some hope, some desire that I can serve, and then the opportunity comes up. So Hanuman’s empathy plays a significant role over here.

And then comes a time when Hanuman comes into his full prime. So here till now, he’s one among the Vanaras slowly is showing his leadership skills. But then from that, it now when he goes across the ocean, it will be like a solo performance for him. One man performance that will be showing. So that is where but this particular point through all these dangers, how Hanuman has navigated expertly shows his maturity.

And does Jam Bowman is reminded, and Jam Bowman will remind Hanuman of his great powers that we’ll discuss in the next session. So I’ll summarize what we discussed today. We’re discussing Hanuman’s life story. So I first said the c in what way we are discussing it. I said the acronym does anyone remember the acronym lead?

L was literal, ethical, allegorical, and devotional. So we are discussing from which perspective? Ethical perspective. Ethical means it’s a guide for decision making. And in that a person’s life story can con con convey the four c’s.

What are the four c’s? Choices, consequences, and the choices happen because of conditions conditions and conditionings. So if you look at these four things, then we can understand the character of the character. What is the substance of the person? Then you start in this story and then we look at this story.

There are similarities and there are dissimilarities. It’s dissimilar in terms of the ability and the arena. Arena is where the incident is happening, but it’s similar in terms of that everybody has limitations in their life. And they live within the limitation. And then there are accountability in this and that everybody has actions for which there are consequences.

The exact consequences may not come immediately and they may not come in the same way that we face them, but that principle is there. So within that, how they make choices. So we discussed about Hanuman, how he was given, he had ability and he had to develop maturity. So initially, Hanuman was in this quadrant one and that’s when he was mischievous and that’s why he was cursed. Not exactly a curse, but it was just a forgetting of his abilities.

So today, what we discussed was Hanuman’s journey from quadrant one to quadrant four. So journey from immaturity to maturity. So Hanuman is a child and Hanuman as an adult. And within that journey to maturity, we discussed five stages. The first was his living according to his principles.

Okay. So Guru was not wrong. Wally was wrong. So principles are easy to follow and there is no price to pay, but then the principles come with a heavy price that shows a deep level of maturity. Then was his speech, the way he helped form a bridge between Ram and, Sugriyu and the way he very manifested speech that is both sweet in tone or sweet in voice and endearing in words.

The voice and words. So Ram is very pleased by his speech. And after that, he exhibits his caution. He warns Sugriyu about the about his duty to Ram. And then finally, we discuss about two incidents where he shows leadership without position that he doesn’t have the official position of the leader, but still, one is it, or does he show in that queue?

He said keep stay cool. Amid provocations, stays cool with everyone over there. Swayamprabha also with Angad also. And finally, when Ambad Angad starts, express speaking bad things about sugaryu, he doesn’t get on his case. He has empathy.

He understands that he’s hurting. And in this way, in all these ways, when he shows maturity, then the time comes for him to regain his ability. This is the Mahavai Hanuman that will manifest in Sundarkand and take over the narrative of the Ramayan practically for that particular story that will, that Hanuman is going to soon manifest. So let us all pray to Hanuman ji that this he’s eternally a liberated soul, but this is through his journey. Just as you manifest Hanuman ji, the journey to maturity help us all become mature that we can also use the ability that we have fully so that we may also be blessed with more ability, so that we can do more service and make more of a positive difference in our own lives and the lives of those around us.

Thank you. Are there any questions or comments? There are some questions here. Yeah. Hare Krishna.

Thank you Prabhu for, your talk today. I wondered if you might speak on on the journey to maturity as a teacher. I see a lot of moments that you mentioned with Hanuman’s journey in his own learning. And, I want I was really curious to hear maybe, like, a short reflection just about about, a teaching incident or experience where you, like, could share with us that, it was a moment that repeated and you realize, oh, I’m I’m doing this in a more mature way or something. Okay.

So you’re asking about the the time when I noticed, something from my what my own journey towards maturity. Yeah. I’d say that, see, as we grow, we also start one aspect of maturity is that we understand what really matters. So once I was giving a class in Pune and somebody asked a really a question that I felt was a bit arrogant. And I gave a sharp answer.

Man, I said it was logical. It was it was, this person was something like it was I could I felt clearly as a completely anti feminist, like a completely aggressive feminist. And he says, you know, this all these Hindus, this Hindu religion itself is against women. And he said, that’s why we don’t celebrate Radhashtami. We only celebrate Janashtami.

That’s So we don’t celebrate festival long way. So we celebrate the dance festival. So I said, okay. Is for one day. No.

Is for nine days. Which other deity has a celebration for nine days? Even Diwali is not for nine days. So everyone clapped, and I was also happy with the clap. But then afterwards, there’s one devoted friend.

He had brought this friend, And this person, he felt very insulted. And he said, you do. Yeah. I’m never going to come back to the temple. So now I was just interested in giving a sharp answer.

And I would say that my answer was not wrong in the content, but the way I spoke it. And not just the way I spoke it, the way everyone responded to it. And then it is I was thinking, okay, how clever I am. I can say one sec. I can give a clever answer.

But then, any years later, something similar happened. Then so actually, it’s similar is exactly the same question came up. This is a common question. It’s like we’d if we try to apply today’s values to the past, then nobody will stand according to today’s values. People live with a different system of values over there.

So the feminist angle applying it, the concerns are valid, but nobody is saying that we have to go back to the past now in today’s world. So but this critic is there can apply to any religion, any tradition, any thought system. It’s just there. So anyway, so the same question came up again once, and I gave the same answer, but my first thought was that I don’t want this person to be hurt. So I said, yeah, that’s an important question.

And it is unfortunately true that there are times when, there is, there’s there’s discrimination or there’s exploitation, gender discrimination, exploitation is there. And sometimes it’s justified in the name of religion. At the same time, it’s very questionable whether I have my doubts whether this is the reason for that. And then I said the same thing that that there’s a nine days is there. And then everyone started clapping.

And then he says, don’t clap over here. He says, I’m not here to score brownie points. You know, I’m here to actually have a discussion. And then afterward, that person came and talked with me, and we had a nice discussion. He basically he was in a he had always he had grown up in a family where there’s domestic violence, and the father was, father was quite abusive.

It was all justified in the name of religion. It was a very complex situation. And then I realized at that time, everybody had laughed out or made fun of him. You know, he would have been really hurt and damaged by that. So I talked with him and then give various examples of how, you know, protection is still important thing in our tradition.

So Indhra Pradesh was dishonored, the whole war was fought for that. So it’s not a small thing that this kind of violence. Anyway, my point is that one way I have to recognize maturity is that it’s not just showing how clever you are. It is trying to help the person who’s asking a question or person there to try to get a better understanding. Okay?

Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Okay. I’m not sure if I’m asking the right question. Did drama had limitations?

Did Rama? Had limitations. Did Rama have limitations? Well, he’s God, so he does not have limitations. But when he comes in this world and performs Leela, he often acts like a human being.

So that means he does not always exhibit his omnipotence. The one why I was giving this, telling the story of Sita being abducted and we know the story of how Maricha is a deer. He took Ram far away and then when Ram’s arrow hit him, he screamed in the voice of Ram. So I was telling the story in Texas, and one boy asked this question. You know, when Maricha screamed, Lakshman and Sita, why didn’t Ram scream?

That’s not me. That’s Maricha. The whole problem could have been avoided. But the point is that Ram is playing Narila. Narila means he’s a human being.

He is acting not a human being. He’s acting like a human being. And within that cosmic hierarchy, the rakshasas are physically more powerful than the manavas. They’re even more powerful, but the rakshas are more similar power. The others are slightly more powerful.

So the Rakshasa’s voice was much bigger than the Manuva’s voice. That’s why Ram’s calling out would not have reached across the distance. So Lord Ram does not have limitations, but when he comes in this world, he acts within limitations. He does not act omnipotent or omniscient all the time and especially in the Valmiki Ramayan, Lord Ram’s divinity is substantially downplayed. Because the Valmiki Ramayan emphasis is more on doing the right thing and understanding who’s the ideal person who does the right thing.

And you are God, then you are all powerful. They can always do the right thing, isn’t it? So that does not emphasize Ram’s divinity so much. The Ram is a person who faces adversities and he does the right thing even in the face of adversities. Okay.

Right. Yes, please. We have two more questions. Only one question we have, Aarti, after that. Okay.

Aarti, we’ll start now. Okay. Hare Krishna, Prabhu ji. I have one doubt, this choice and consequences. So basically, you are saying, like, when we make any choices, so at the back end end of the mind, we have, think about the consequences.

Like, whatever choices we made, there is some consequences. So shouldn’t we surrender it to Krishna? Like, why, why we overthink on this? Like, I want to understand this part because I face during this application, like so I want understand this part. Like, should I overthink on my choices and, all Well, if you use the word overthink, we should not overthink, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t think.

And the whole point is that it’s like depending on Krishna, Krishna is not just out there, Krishna is in here. Krishna also is so depending on Krishna also means using the intelligence that Krishna has given us. If I think it is my intelligence and become proud of it, that’s different. But if I see the intelligence as a resource that Krishna has given me, then using the intelligence is my responsibility. Arjuna surrendered to Krishna.

Arjuna, Krishna, you are God. You only kill those. Ajurad took his bow and was ready to fight. So generally, in the in this world, God does not take center stage. This is the world where God allows us humans to take center stage, but we need to take center stage in a way that is in harmony with God’s will.

So, yes, we should we consider what choices will lead to what concerns? Of course, we should consider. Otherwise, what is the point of Krishna giving any scripture? Krishna basic scripture are telling us do this, don’t do this. Now there are some some situations where the choices are moral.

Some places the situation choices are just logistical. We don’t it’s not a moral moral element over there. Should I take this job or should I take that job? No. Should I stick my home over here or there?

But these choices also have results and we need to use our intelligence to make good choices. So it’s using our intelligence is not acting independent of Krishna. It is depending on Krishna by using the resources that he has given us. Okay? Thank you very much.

We stop here. I think we can take later. Sure. So thank you very much. So we will have next class at 01:15.

So we have Aarti here itself. So we have Aarti or if somebody want to get fresh, please feel free to use. And if you have any question, Pujid’s here. I think now or later, you can ask. That’s the time to ask.

Okay? So thank you so much. Hare Krishna. Very nice to have your association again. What is your name?

I’m box of Sam. Sam? Mhmm. Oh, okay. Yeah.

What are you doing currently, Sam? Now I work in, telecom, and I work Namaste.

The post Four Life Lessons from Hanuman’s Adventures in Lanka | Chaitany Charan | Washington DC appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

One’s greatness is seen not just in how forcefully they can make the world bend to their will. How forcefully they can get the world to say yes. One’s greatness is also seen in how gracefully they can accept when the world says no.

Because accepting setbacks and failures and reversals and even injustices is an inevitable part of the human experience. So Rama is the supreme but when he appears on the earth, the divine descends in the human level to teach us humans how to face life. And he is loved by everyone as he grows up.

He is powerful, he is handsome, he is compassionate, he is competent. He is every way suited to becoming a king. And at that time, for no fault of his, because of a palace conspiracy, he is exiled to the forest.

The conception of exiling to the forest may be difficult to understand today because there are no forests to exile people to. Hardly any. Probably the nearest you might come today is to deportation.

But even when a person is deported, they have the facility to go back to their own country. But exile means you just become homeless. In the jurisprudence of that time, exile is the worst punishment, just one below execution.

In some ways, exile is actually considered worse than execution. Because when you are exiled, everything that makes your life worth living is taken away from you. And for many people, better you take my life away than take everything away from me.

And he is completely blameless. At that time, Lord Ram could have rebelled. He could have incited a rebellion.

But he did not. He kept always the greater good in mind. And rather than fomenting rebellion in anyone, he can’t ever rebel.

There is a classic conversation between Ram and his younger brother Lakshman about how to face adversity in life. And this conversation actually echoes modern thoughts in many ways. So when Lakshman comes to hear that Ram has been exiled, he is a faithful younger brother.

He says, this is atrocious, this is outrageous. And he says, you should fight against this. Now Ram’s father Dashrath has given a promise to his youngest wife Kaikeyi that I will fulfill two of your wounds.

And she asked that Ram be exiled for 14 years and her younger son, her son, who is the youngest among the four brothers, Bharat, be made the king instead of Ram. Now Lakshman is angry. And he says, how could the king do like this? He is blinded by lust.

He is completely under the spell of infatuation. You have no need to obey. Ram calms him down.

There is a sweet rhyme between the word Ram and calm. Whenever Ram goes, he brings calm. And when he goes inside our heart, then also he brings calm.

Actually there is another rhyme between the English C-A-L-M, calm, and the Sanskrit K-A-M-A, calm. So calm is craving, is unrestrained desire. So as long as there is the Sanskrit calm inside us, the English calm will not be there.

As long as there is craving, we cannot have peace. So when Ram comes, he brings calm, and he removes calm in the form of selfishness, and selfish cravings. Ram calms him down.

He says, I was her father. It is not out of infatuation. It is out of obligation.

Why would Kaikeyi do something like this to you? You have always treated her like a mother. She is so mean to you. Generally when we are angry, anger does two things inside us.

It makes us look for an aggressor, and the other side, it makes us look for a villain. I want someone to hit back another person, and I want someone to hit it. So Ram says, don’t.

Don’t speak ill about Kaikeyi. You know how much she loved me. Her love for me was like an incessant flow of the river Ganga.

Lakshman is still angry, and he tries to weaponize Ram’s metaphor against him. He says, that’s what I can’t understand. How did the Ganga dry up in one night? When did all her love disappear? And then Ram makes the discussion philosophical.

He says, that’s why seeing her inexplicable change in disposition, I concluded that this is the well-known destiny. Lakshman is not yet done. He says, it is only cowards who accept injustice as destiny.

Heroes fight against injustice. So then Ram makes a key point. He says, for me, destiny is not as important as duty.

He says, as a duty to my father, I was ready to ascend the throne. And as a duty to my father, I will now go to the forest. So he accepts, he calms his brother, he calms the citizens.

When something bad has happened to us, it’s very easy not only for us to feel miserable, but to make everyone miserable. And to make everyone angry at whoever we think has caused the misery. And thus we end up making things worse.

So, why do bad things happen to good people is a universal question that everyone faces in life. Through Lord Ram’s example, the Ramayan inspires us to rephrase the question. Rather than asking, why do bad things happen to good people, we are encouraged to ask, when bad things happen to good people, what do good people do? Ram does not have any bad karma from the past.

So whatever philosophical explanations we may have for why bad things happen, none of those apply to Lord Ram. And yet bad things happen to him. So, rephrasing the question, accept that this has happened now.

Now, what can we do about it? Life is unfair. That’s just the unfortunate fact of life. Some of you may notice that I need crutches for walking.

So when I was one, I got polio. It was an accident of fate. And the vaccine I was given had some problems in it.

I’m not anti-vax over here. But anyway, when I was one, I got polio. I don’t remember it.

I was learning to walk. I fell down. And I was about two and a half or three.

That’s my first memory. A distant relative had come to our house and she was consoling my mother saying, it’s so sad your son got polio. And I remember my mother’s voice, very calm, clear, confident.

She said, whatever he lacks physically, God will provide him intellectually. I don’t know why she said that. And somehow that stays with me.

Actually, the intellectually part stays with me. God came later. But I found that, yeah, I could play outdoor games like other kids.

And I could say this is unfair. But then I realized that I did have more intellectual ability than others. I could read things fast.

I could remember things well. I could articulate things clearly. And somewhere in the back of my mind it settled that, yes, life is unfair.

However, in the big picture, life is fairly unfair. Fairly unfair means sometimes we get worse than what we deserve and sometimes we get better than what we deserve. So, Lord Ram accepts the unfairness that has come upon him.

But that, I was talking about the acronym. Do you remember the acronym? Art. So, acceptance is one part of how to deal with life.

The second is our responsibility. Responsibility often requires us to reframe how we are seeing the situation. When Lord Ram is being exiled, his minister says, this is such an outrage, this is such a calamity.

And Ram replies, what is the calamity? For an elder brother, the younger brother is like a son. And which parent does not want to see their son prosper and flourish in their presence? He says, we are all ultimately meant to grow in wisdom. Most people who are householders get the opportunity to associate with sages and saints only in the later stages of their life.

I am so fortunate that in my youth I get to spend time with the sages. And, he says that, while I am in the forest, I have heard, the sages have been terrorized by demons. I can do some service to them also.

So, that brings the second part is responsibility. Taking responsibility versus casting blame. Lord Ram does not blame anyone.

He takes responsibility. This is the situation I am in. What is the good I can do in this situation? This is where, instead of asking, what if this person had not done this? What if this person had not done that? What if I had not done that? Changing the question from what if to what is.

Instead of asking, what if this had happened? What if that had happened? Okay, what is here right now? What is it that I can do right now? So, Lord Ram in the forest took responsibility. Responsibility to do service. He was a warrior.

He was a protector. He decided, while I am in the forest, let me protect the sages from demoniac forces, from dark devilish beings who were persecuting and terrorizing them. In everything that happens in our life, there is something bad and there is something good.

So, taking responsibility does not mean let the burden of the whole world come upon us. Taking responsibility means that this is the situation I am in. How can I make the best of this situation? And Lord Ram enriches himself with wisdom, serves the sages and sets an example of how to gracefully, not just passively accept adversity, but to responsibly do something constructive amid that adversity.

So, for me, my mother did that reframing for me. Instead of worrying about the physical, focus on the intellectual. We all, if my mother was the person who actually inspired devotion to Lord Ram in my heart in my childhood, we would grow up with a beautiful picture of Ram and she would tell me stories of Ramayana.

So, if we have someone in our life who can teach us acceptance, who can teach us responsibility, we are actually very blessed. now, while we are accepting what is unchangeable and taking responsibility for what is changeable for us. First of all, finding what is changeable and then working on what is changeable.

That brings us to the third part. The third part is transcendence. Transcendence is that Lord Ram he has this fascinating duality about his identity.

He is the divine, but he is playing the role of a human being. Especially the original rendition of the Ramayana, which is the Valmiki Ramayana, his divinity is not emphasized much. Because if the fact that he is God is emphasized, then he is God.

He can do anything. What problem does he have? Isn’t it? That can become an excuse for others to not learn from his example. That’s why his divinity to some extent, it is not hidden, but it is not emphasized.

So, transcendence refers to the fact that there is a higher reality beyond the reality that occupies our minds in daily life. And for us to be able to face life’s injustices, to not be crushed by our daily responsibilities, we need to regularly rejuvenate ourselves by linking with that higher reality. Normally, when we start our life, for us the world is very big.

If I am here, the world is very big. And God, even if he exists, he is very small. When I started my spiritual journey, I started sharing with all my relatives about what I had learned about the divine.

And one of my uncles told me, yeah, I believe in God. He is happy there, I am happy here. So initially, however we conceive God, he might seem irrelevant to us.

Not very important. So that’s the initial part. The initial stage is where the world is very big for us and God is very small for us.

But as we grow spiritually, in the bhakti tradition, chanting the names of God, chanting the names of Ram, the names of Krishna, this is one way to infuse our consciousness within the presence of the divine. So as we grow spiritually, the dynamic inwards. The world starts becoming smaller and God starts becoming bigger for us.

And when God becomes the bigger reality, the result of that is life’s ups and downs don’t affect us that much. When the world is very big, world’s ups and downs also become very big. It becomes a giant sine wave.

We get tossed up and down. But when the world itself becomes small, then the ups and downs within the world also become small. And that’s how we can stay more composed, we can stay more connected, we can stay more connected when the world becomes small for us.

So Lord Ram, through his example, he demonstrates how to live in the light of a higher reality. Of course, he himself is the higher reality. But he lives for the principles of dharma and the characters within.

There is Lakshman, there is… In many ways, in the Ramayana, Ram is the supreme hero. But God is not just someone who says, I’ll be the hero and you be my follower, you be my fan. God wants each one of us to discover the heroism within us in a mode of service and contribution.

In Ramayana, actually the most adventurous and beloved section, ironically, is the section where Ram is not present at all. That is called the Sundar Kavant. Where it is Hanuman whose adventures are shown.

Similarly, in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna is revealed to be God, but Krishna is calling upon Arjuna to become the hero, to take a heroic responsibility. God is great and connecting with him invites us all to embrace the great destiny that God has for each one of us. So Hanuman, Hanuman embodies this transcendence through a two-fold competition.

Hanuman has a mace in his hands and his hands are folded. That is the iconic imagery of Hanuman. Hanuman is considered the greatest devotee of Ram.

By Ram’s inspiration, one who infuses transcendence is said to become like Hanuman. So Hanuman’s folded hands, they represent Bhakti. And the mace in his hands represents Shakti.

So Bhakti is devotion and Shakti is strength. So similarly, one who becomes infused with transcendence, that person has this combination that their eyes are fixed on the Lord. In the service of the Lord, they are not seeking worldly gains, they are not seeking power and fame and all those things which most of us crave for our own pleasure.

Bhakti means the eyes are fixed on the Divine. God is the bigger reality for them. But just because God is the bigger reality does not mean that they dismiss the world as illusion.

The world is also reality. The world is a place where each one of us is meant to become an instrument of God’s will in a mood of service and compassion. And thus, the mace in Hanuman’s hands signifies Shakti, the strength to bring about a positive change in the world.

So, devotion is what brings change in our heart. And the contribution that we make through our God-given talents, that is what brings about a change in the world. So Lord Ram’s example of transcendence is that there is inner change and there is outer change.

The post Ramayana’s Universal Message of Inspiration, Interfaith talk at Houston on Ramnavmi 2025 appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.