Breaking Free from Cause & Effect - Swami Sarvapriyanandaji on Causality & Beyond

[Music] Welcome to our YouTube channel where wisdom meets inspiration in this channel we share valuable insights to help you become the best version of yourself our content is designed to uplift your spirit and enrich your life make sure to subscribe to our channel to stay connected with this incredible journey click the Subscribe button below om Dak there's a lot packed in here actually the beginning of religion is morality ethics so in this world this is the place to practice ethics um that's why he says the the the teacher teaches the disciple about action the first

teaching is do this and don't do that that's the beginning of religion dos and don'ts you know which turned most of us off from religion but that's the beginning of religion dos and don'ts morality ethics why why is ethics the beginning of religion why can't you be spiritual without being an ethical person you cannot you can be a good person without being particularly spiritual but you cannot be a spiritual person without being a good person why not it's this ethics is nothing other than an appreciation of the power of causality that actions have consequences um

I saw this little kid walking ahead of me in Central Park and he had a toy he's walking past a a lawn with a fence and little he could he a toddler he was toling along with the toy and then casually tossed the toy over the fence and went flying over and fell on the other side his father was walking with the pram nearby and the kid saw that was bewildered for a moment now he wanted the toy back but he can't get it there's a fence then he burst into tears that's the superpower of

kids you know and he burst into tears pointed at the toy the father just shugged and he said actions have consequences buddy can't do anything about it and I said karma and he said he's right it's karma straight away a lesson in karma they might think that's cruel but anyway after some time the father went around to the gate and and then he took but he let the kid get it back for himself went around and he stood the kid ran for it and got the toy and got it back but yes so actions have

consequences now that seems like a no-brainer but we don't understand it even some of the most intelligent people among us don't understand this don't understand means in a theoretic way we understand it whereas where other people are concerned we understand it but not for ourselves we somehow feel we can we can cheat this law now our actions won't have consequences there's an ancient saying you know the law of karma good good bad bad so deliberately done good action results in what we call pun or Merit and that results in sukka happiness deliberately done mischievous action

adharma results in what we call Papa demerit and that results in dukka suffering in our lives that's a kind of moral law and there's a saying that everybody wants the results of Good Karma without doing the karma and everybody wants to do the Bad Karma without the results of Bad Karma it's like a deliberate violation of of causality um I remember this experiment which was conducted uh originally by the marshmallow experiment who was it done by um the 1960s I forget very well-known psychologist and then huh Walter Panky no it's Walter something else you're right

you're pretty close um I forget Walter Michelle Walter Walter Michelle yes and then it was repeated recently and you can see those cute videos online it was by this very famous psychologist whose books are standard textbooks in all psychology classes he repeated those experiments the experiment is very simple you know you put a marshmallow before a little kid four five years and there's a reason why they have to be four five years not more than that not less than that at that age they begin to understand the instructions and yet they don't have full control

over themselves so uh do you want a marshmallow and the kid says yes uh do you want two and every kid says yes and there it's being recorded you can see that um then the psychologist says that all right um you I'll put one marshmallow before you and I'm going out for some work I'll be back you wait if you wait and you don't eat that marshmallow I'll give you two then you can eat two marshmallows now the interesting thing is every kid said I want two every kid said I will wait but the interesting

thing was not all kids could wait the psychologist leaves the room and then you can see the videos you see it on YouTube marshmallow experiment it's very very cute very funny the kids some of them they stare so helplessly at the door because if the at that age if somebody's gone for 5 minutes or 10 minutes it's an age it's an eternity some kids uh they distract themselves from the marshmallow by playing games or something like that some stare helplessly at the marshmallow and then eat it and there was one little kid who said I'll

wait the moment the psychologist was out of the door he said I didn't even close the door he ate it immediately not only that when the psychologist came back he said give me the next one give me the other one clearly no understanding of causality that if then if you do this you'll get this now what what Walter michell did was he just recorded in the initial experiments were not videotaped it was just recorded who ate the marshmallow who did not then he followed up the kids over 20 years of the lifespan and he found

on the average this is on the average the kids who were able to control their desire for the marshmallow and did not eat it as promised and they got the second marshmallow they did well on almost every aspect of life in studies in you know Sports in whatever demanded a little bit of effort they were also the popular kids the parents and teachers had no problem with them and the kids who ate the marshmallow again on the average again you can't pick out individual kids on the average they were the ones who did not do

the homework who were out partying who didn't listen to uh they would make a commitment and not hold on to it basically that's the thing make a commitment not hold on to it and the psychologist pointed out this the second set of experiments this basic this understanding or lack of understanding of causality that if I hold back the ability to postpone gratification this the word reduced ability to postpone gratification if I hold back now and put in some effort the end result is going to be better and you know more two marshmallows instead of one

and that's real but the real the problem is what's in front is literally sensorily real and the other thing is a matter of understanding those who are able to follow through with their understanding they did well throughout preschool school grade school you know University and probably later on in life and in you know jobs and families what whatever this is the understanding the psychology behind karda to a greater degree um this is from positive psychology in Vidant there are these four categories of people they talk about one is called the Pama the instinctive person the

person who follows the pleasure Instinct straight away fear or pleasure whatever it is follows it straight away and all all it it could it could be a highly educated person it could be a kid so from and they they have a whole range from the addict who lives for the next you know next hit next bit of um you know alcohol or drugs to um the person who who's a might be an expert in some field and can't help plagiarizing other people's work it could be a whole range of people but they can't help themselves

so that's called pmer instinctive they just live for what is calleda mean pleasure Karm means pleasure ARA means wealth success they'll do anything for that as long as the police or the IRS doesn't catch them they're they're okay the next level is those who understand causality they also want pleasure and success in this world they're all worldly people the same category s Ram Krishna talks about and but they know that if they live a moral life an ethical life then it's a sustainable life luckily most people in society fall in this category what you would

call at least they think of themselves as decent people we have some standards we won't sing to there there are certain things that we won't do even if it promises you instant success so that second level is called dharm v v worldly person one who wants worldly things but dharmik they have a code of honor they have certain moral standard and they understand causality Good Karma brings good you you put in the effort you will get something out of it so they these are people who generally build up their lives on the average successful better

communities better families better jobs and so on they do well in life then comes the third level According to vanta which is where the positive psychology hasn't gone yet just beginning to sort of is what s ramakrishna calls those who understand that even this kind of worldly sustainable good worldly life life will not give you fulfillment there's a higher spiritual purpose God realization Enlightenment whatever you call it so the third level is called sadhaka sadhaka means spiritual Seeker spiritual practitioner what's the difference between them and the earlier the earlier stage they still want worldly things

they're still going to the thorny um Bush um maybe they're just careful not to get cut so much a careful camel still nibbling on the same thorny bushes but uh but this person realizes there's something higher beyond all this and so their goal is Moka Enlightenment not pleasure or wealth not ARA and Karma but Dharma and mha and then finally there's a fourth level which is called sidha perfected one who is not pursuing any any goal dhar Moka already enlightened so in vant there are these four now in these four the top and the bottom

are those who don't understand causality the bottom because um they somehow feel that it won't work in my case you know I can do whatever I like and I'll escape the consequences and the top the sidha enlightened one who sees causality for what it is it's Maya it's not real causal so they are Beyond causality and so there's a difference between being childlike and childish the bottom the one is childish children can be childish that's cute but when you are above say 16 mean at 60 you can't be childish that's not cute anymore can be

destructive so that is the the bottom they they don't understand causality and the top they understand um and they see that it's beyond causality reality is beyond causality they are childlike but not childish in between other people who understand causality one group understands causality and is applying it to doing well in the world and the other group knows that even this doing well in the world is limited they want to get the real stuff Enlightenment God realization they also apply causality I will sadaka means person who understands that doing spiritual practices leads to spiritual uh

results then yes but is Brahman in all these four already yes not only in it is all of them it is all of them that's the whole game of life let me just add one little bit and I mean I went on and on but just compress what s Krishna is trying to say here is the levels of spiritual practice deeper and deeper the first level is ethics and that has to be based on an understanding of Karma and causality clean up your life be ethical be moral those dos and don'ts are very helpful there

you don't have to follow a particular code and follow the law that's always a good idea and follow your own particular code of conduct at least at least have a sense of decency or morality if you particularly follow a religion then religions do prescribe codes of conduct then he says the next level is see the first level is I am doing good so that I get good in return the next level is I don't want world returns I'm doing good because it purifies me makes me more spiritual more able to to pursue spiritual practice better

I can meditate better I can pray more genuinely to God God becomes a reality for me so that's why I am doing um Karma the same Karma but I'm doing it selflessly maybe as a worship of God or for the welfare of others not for myself anymore so from the Sanskrit words are very uh instructive Sak Karm to Nish Karma Sak means with desire I am honest I'm a good person but I have worldly desires it's fine if you worldly desires you'll get the world and you'll get it in a more sustainable way than the

the the impulsive the person who doesn't understand the the causality and then you must go from there to I am good because it is good to be good not because it'll get me something because I am no longer interested in the prizes that the world has to offer I've seen through it now I'm interested in something which is God realization Enlightenment that becomes my project in life still causality applies there but it's now a higher kind of causality higher kind of kma it is called Nish Karma selfless action yeah all right I'll stop there somebody

had a question at the back uh yes Ram gopal why is the disc age old question of humanity and the direct answer is disconnect is because of our impurity of mind so ramak Krishna says the whole point of these spiritual practices is to purify ourselves what is impurity of Mind such strong conditioning of the mind I want that thing you know it could be relationships it could be gadgets it could be drugs or alcohol whatever it is that I am unreasonably attached to I want it even though I intellectually know there are limits I will

not get fulfillment from this and there are terrible consequences of this even then I do it see I think it was Plato or Aristotle who said to know the good is to be good and we immediately react by saying no that's not true to know the good is to be good what is good I know and I'll always I'll do that in my life definitely but we immediately protest and say that that's not true because that's the whole problem in human life we know what is good but we are not good why not so uh

the philosopher had a great Point here if you were truly rational if you were in possession of your faculties then if once you clearly know what something is good you would do it but the very fact that we know something and we clearly understand it and still we don't do it or we do we know that we shouldn't do it and we keep on doing it that shows something is wrong this whole question of guilt how strange is guilt I did something now I am self-critical about myself how could I have done that how could

I have said that how strange you did it it's almost like we two persons so where does that come from that comes from impurity of Mind Krishna this's a difference I mentioned it earlier in the Mahabharata the Gita you always people think that Krishna taught the Gita to Arjuna but he should have taught the gaita to the the villains the the bad guys what's the point in teaching the scriptures to a good person the person is going to be good anyway and you know your credit is if you can turn the bad guy around but

Krishna did try to teach Durana the villain but the result was not good before the war Krishna goes and tells dur the villain because of whom the war took place that what you are doing is not Dharma it is against Dharma it's against righteousness you shouldn't do this and D's reply was um I know that I know what I'm doing is wrong he really honest but my problem is not that I don't know what is right and wrong I know what is right and wrong but my problem is what is right I don't feel like

doing it and what is wrong I can't stop myself from doing it that's my problem and Krishna had no answer to that why no answer because no question was asked question should have been how do I change this how do I set myself right Arjun in the bhagavat Gita asks the exact same question impelled by what force does a man unwillingly do wrong things again and again why does a person do wrong things even though not willing has made up his mind that I will resolution New Year's resolution I won't do this anymore I won't

be behave like that anymore and so on and so forth and commits the same error again and again as if by some Force within this Force within also noted that verse is there I know what is Dharma I don't feel like doing it I know what Isa I can't stop myself from doing it why not there's some Force some psychic power within me as it is impelling me that's how I'm acting that's the age old existential crisis of humanity from you know across all civilizations we have faced it there something within me which doesn't even

while knowing what is right I still can't do it and the answer in yoga is provided by yoga is that the conditionings of the mind so dur just said it I can't do anything else about it this this just the way I am Arjuna didn't put it that way he said what is it that makes us behave this way and how can I change it how can I be better and Krishna answers him it says um lust and anger these are tremendously powerful they have conditioned our mind um they are born of rajes they they

are in of insatiable hunger if I act according to my rage or anger will I be satisfied will I be peaceful forever after that absolutely not you won't be it might feel satisfactory for a moment will increase your unhappiness if I give in to my lusts and passions will I be fulfilled afterwards no it'll Blaze forth even more so this is the thing and then how do we overcome that for that that is the answer to the question why has God put us in this world for that purpose so that when we have cleansed out

cleansed out our minds and so that when it is a fact what the Greek philosophers said to know the good is to be good it is possible when we have purified ourselves to know the good will be good then what we know what we study we will be able to do in our lives with minimal struggle yes is there you know some some of us do not understand the loss of causality right causality some of us do is there an inherently uh is there inherently evil as opposed to inherently goodness and the two of them

always in history face each other out of that good comes a new good comes you know and necessary both are there yeah so that's not a way of thinking that is there in the dharmic religions it's a more abrahamic way of thinking what has happened is from from a vtic perspective this this you know lack of understanding of causality one word for that would be ignorance so this is one of the aspects of ignorance and this ignorance is what leads to evil from not only vidanta in in fact all the Indian philosophies Buddhism also says

the same thing the root cause is uh ignorance aana now this in the um three religions in first of all in zor estrian ISM and then in Christianity and Islam I don't know if it I don't think Judaism has a devil does it I don't think so I haven't heard of it so in rism Christianity and Islam this this cause which is the source of all trouble in personal life and in the world is projected outwards and personalized as evil as an as a reality evil as a reality as a separate reality that's one way

of dealing with it but that kind of thinking vant doesn't agree what vant would say is that it's it's in all of us and it's it's a Continuum rather than black and white if you do black and white there's one way of dealing with it if you do Continuum there's another way of dealing with it if you do a Continuum from black to gray to you know pale white to absolutely pure the entire from Darkness to light there's a whole range of um then for example you can't condemn anybody as a a person as entirely

evil or happening in the world or some kind of accident something as entirely evil you can't condemn there will be some mixture of something that's good and positive which comes out of it so there's not an anical yes anthological evil generally is not in the dharmic Traditions yeah it's just a phenomenal yeah yeah um this anthological evil I guess you would trace it back to zoraster maybe zaratustra who yeah see I I did not mean that I I meant something you know something in the realm of action you know we need that in realm of

action across history yeah we need these two forces right so this is no you that's what you meant actually this this idea which is in your mind it goes it's an ancient idea it goes back to ancient Christianity Islam but even before that the precursors of Christianity and Islam uh I can't say about Judaism because I don't know but clearly the Breakthrough which zoraster made was instead of a variety of deities let's just think about in this is in ancient Persia this just think about light and darkness Aura Asda and ariman ariman is I shouldn't

even take the name is he he who must not be named so yes Aur raaza is a force of light and fire often the Persians the zor estrian are called fire worshippers as one zor estrian told me in exasperation we we don't worship the fire it's a symbol of light of AA so um from there so ontological evil there is a force in the cosmos in communities among nations in each person then that Force has to be overcome by the force of light and Aura is going to help you or God or Allah is going

to help you and you must take the you must declare once for all whether it's there in zorm you must declare once for all whether you're on the side of aura or ariman and in the end a is going to win it going to be a terrible fight you you can see how this ontological evil it's a very ancient idea going all the way way back to the zor estrian but Hinduism Buddhism jism Sikhism none of the Indian religions think in that way in Vidant evil is evil is there but evil is caused by ignorance

and so in order to overcome evil one must overcome ignorance and know who I am I what is the reality here know that this gentleman before I come to you you she has been raising a hand for a while yeah but notice what I said I said something which is tricky and subtle the ultimate the perfected what did I say about them they are Beyond causality one might not pay attention to that but that's you're opening the gate for something quite dramatic there the moment you say you're Beyond causality in general s Rak Krishna viand

and all of them would say such people will never do anything wrong because because of the the long process of purif ification spiritual practice all the evil or most of it has been crushed out of them and their Natures are good so they're going to manifest goodness only they are going to manifest the truth however it is also well understood at least in vedanta in Tantra in Tibetan Buddhism that you cannot make laws for the perfected laws are for us laws are for us the two kinds of people in between worldly people who are decent

moral who have a good you know personal ethic work ethic they understand laws and spiritual people you know we are all spiritual Seekers we understand the the importance of causality the the laws are also not for the absolutely instinctive because they don't believe they're not going to follow it they're not interested in that until they learn with great suffering you know bleeding the camel which was bleeding but the the perfected ones you cannot make laws for them even it's understood in v for enlightened being the enlightened one of perfect wisdom Jan MTA enlightened while living

uh it's a it's a philosophical point that you cannot you cannot say now you're enlightened so these are the ones these are things that you have to follow now you can't see that that's literally they have gone beyond that um but then there is this little footnote to it which would be what you're talking about is it possible that they might do some things which don't tally with our our understood morality uh you have to leave it open that's why the Tibetan Buddhists have this idea of crazy enlightened people the dalama was once asked about

it he also um gave a nuanced answer he says it's quite possible that they may be highly spiritual but it's also equally true it doesn't matter to you you're not supposed to follow them yeah they might demonstrate something about spiritual life which is somehow so is it just morality is uality just morality no it isn't there something beyond that so they might that might be one corner of it which they are demonstrating but as he was very clear you're not supposed to follow them and Vidant also is very clear about it you're supposed to follow

the teacher is supposed to embody in his or her life the highest standards of ethics and that's what we supposed to fall because otherwise it's harmful for uh it may not harm you if you think you are highly enlightened and Beyond causality but the rest of us are not Beyond causality and we will be harmed by such a poor example the gentleman there from from what I could understand question is no pain no gain I've heard so the camel trying to get something is going through pain but hasn't the enlightened one at the last level

also gone through something so should we go through pain to get the game or should we not want the game yeah you cannot it is a good question so there's a pain involved in in going after something and so if the pain is too much then it's not worth it it's not worth it Game Theory will tell you that a calculus you set up and tell you that yes but the thing is We Can't Stop vant will say you cannot stop because um you are compulsively going to try to live compulsively you're going to try

to be happy you can't stop trying to be happy you can be happy you can try in different ways one in a hedonistic way you can pursue pleasure and try to be happy in a stoic way stoicism by the way is going through a great Revival in the west especially here in New York Massimo is there and so on so in a stoic way you can try to but still trying to be happy and both have to undergo some kind of pain and that's inevitable now what spiritual life tells you is there's an intelligent way

of going about it and there's an unintelligent way of going about it unintelligent way is to keep on taking the pain and not and getting cheated every time not getting the not getting the gain we keep on taking the pain for example um I was reading Robert Wright so he's written this book He's a Neo Darin right here he lives in Princeton or somewhere he's written this book The Evolution of God why Buddhism is is true why Buddhism is it was on the New York Times bestsell list and so on so he says I am

a uh evolutionary biologist I'm I'm I'm a scientist I understand the things which Buddhism is telling me from an evolutionary perspective it says nature always has programmed us for her own ends to expect more pleasure than she's willing to give so whether it's a candy bar or any kind of sensuous pleasure um we feel it'll be tremendously good it never is as good as you expected it to be most of the time they what you call a buyer's depression you you buyer's remorse yes you buy it but it say opportunity cost is there because you

have bought it and that means you have given up something else you could have bought something else and then what you expected from it is less than what you got so he gives an example for this is well known in um evolutionary biology he says this craving for sugar now it made tremendous sense when we were in the savanas in in Africa and living in the grasslands there there was hardly any sugar available in natural form you had to get a rare fruit or something like that which was rich in sugar and you had to

grab it when you got it sugar is essential for your functioning but now we surrounded by Sugar everywhere we still have that craving and now it is become very unhealthy for us but we can't give it up because the craving is there inside or any kind of sensuous pleasure so Nature has imparted it in us for reproduction and then when we go through that we feel it was not good enough maybe it'll be better next time and that's exactly what nature wants nature wants you to think it'll be great and when you do it it's

not as great but nature wants you to think that if I repeat it again it'll be get better because nature basically wants that nature doesn't want you to be satisfied either by sugar or anything else if you get satisfied you take one bar of sugar and satisfied that animal is going to die nature wants you to live and continue doing what nature wants you to do so Robert Wright says that all these things I know I know what's underneath my cravings and I I can't control it but what even by knowing all that I can't

do anything about it I'm no different from the person who doesn't know evolutionary biology but then he says what Buddhism spiritual practice meditation practice of moral life help me to do was convert my knowledge into lived life I'm actually able to do something about it now yeah um anyway straight answer to your question no pain no gain correct whether in worldly life or in spiritual life and but there's no way of going back for us we have to go through this viand says you cannot run away from the machine you must learn how to work

the machine and the Machine will set you free machine of causality you must learn how to work the machine how to learn work the machine is through ethical life and then this selfless from selfish ethics to selfless ethics to to there are higher practices of spirituality yes gentlemen there ignorance is at multiple levels one is as you just saw we were all talking about ignorance of causality even though we know about it we are ignorant in the Deep sense that we don't follow it we don't really believe in it or you it's not a living

reality for us that's one kind of ignorance in v in vant the ignorance is supposed to be about your real nature that you are Brahman that everybody you deal with is Brahman so as you said you see feel Brahman everywhere would it attenuate the effects of the ego yes how is the ego attenuated the effects of the ego are thed out how do you do that um in by Karma Yoga in karma yoga from selfish action to selfless I used to do everything for I me myself strengthening the ego more and more and more but

now reverse it let me use the time and energy and resources of this little person for the good of many that that reduces attenuates the ego bti does it powerfully the ego comes to face and face with to face with the personal God this Grand Majestic presence of the god of the universe so if you have faith in God then the ego automatically humility comes immediately then um attention training the power of attention through meditation meditation can attenuate the ego by calming the mind the ego thrives in the Restless mind and then the highest of

all I would say is The Path of Knowledge where you see that you are not the ego shankaracharya sings famously man I am not the mind I'm not the intellect I'm not the memory I am not the ego literally if you translate it is I am not I how how crazy is that I am the Consciousness that is the witness of the ego ego is just the function of the Mind I am not the ego yeah so these are the ways in which you thin out the ego yes desire be influenced by Krishna could be

but then um here's it's coming now somebody asks why doesn't God free all of us so God could have just changed dur you might just say the whole thing was a play of krishna's L in order to instruct all of us we see in ourselves a little bit of Durana a little bit of Arjuna we we are all of those characters some lady you raised your hand at the back sure that's a long long debate but I'll just tell you whatever your concept of morality is observed that the real struggle is there everybody has a

concept of morality and everybody finds it difficult I can reduce my lower my level of morality my concept of morality to the point where I find it easy where whatever I like doing is moral I will myself know that it it's I'm not true to being true to myself and I'm I'm know I'm cheating then so the moment I have a concept of morality whatever it is um I'll find it's difficult why is it difficult if it's my standard of morality why is it difficult for me to follow it everybody finds it difficult to follow

that struggle it's only when it's imposed this is the standard of morality then we Rebel why this it's then we say morality is relative so big debates about moral relativism all that will arise but all right given all of that you have your own standard of morality why is it difficult to follow so that's whatam Krishna is pointing out that our minds are so deeply conditioned there impurities are there um and we are all doing it you make question it but the very fact that you are here is that you're seeking some kind of higher

life a spiritual life that itself that struggle is the struggle to be a better person so spiritual life starts with being a better person a selfless person a calmer person and a more wise person more loving person I put in all the yogas there the lady at the very back did you have a question you had raised your hand it's true um if I'm traumatized if I have see in basically any of these these things which you say that it has reduced your autonomy of action your degrees of freedom that person is not not as

free to follow certain practices as the rest of us might be all right then help that person to the extent that they can you know medicine will be helpful counseling will be helpful but what they have found is um our own autonomy is very important which is what the distinction Krishna made between duryodhana and Arjuna why is D the villain and Arjuna the hero when they asked more or less the same question Arjuna wanted to change right so yes you can have Psychotherapy you can have you can medicate a person all those will help but

nowadays I think the most popular thing is what they call cognitive behavior therapy where the person is vitally crucially involved in his or her own therapy I remember the psychiatrist in India he had this very beautiful idea of he says the progress should be from patienthood patienthood to personhood to Human Excellence you can't remain a patient you must become a person again and from person to Human Excellence and he says his therapy he said I I think as a doctor as a psychiatrist I covered the whole Spectrum I would like to help you from being

entirely helpless through medication maybe I'll help you there and then from moving from medication to counseling from counseling to you take charge of your own life and then you become a source of help to others you go to that extent where you are helping everybody else he would always give us the example I mean he had a PowerPoint presentation he would show two examples one he would show a picture of Stephen Hawking another one he would show a picture of um um what's his name the he was here in Princeton he won the Nobel Prize

um the Beautiful Mind Nash John Nash yes so so here's this person whose limbs don't work at all he this um you know cumulative this nervous disorder which degenerative nervous disorder which is totally paralyzed and yet his mind is ranging all over the cosmos with a devastated body what a mind you can range all over the cosmos and do tremendous groundbreaking work in Cutting Edge physics cosmology here's a man man another man John Nash whose mind is devastated schizophrenic and yet he does work that gives gets him the Nobel Prize even after all those at

those times the treatments were pretty crude even then he goes on doing maths all his life and economics so from person it can be done even in very difficult circumstances and to a level that's not only the same as the rest of us far higher than the average of humanity yeah let me just go a little further and make a few comments and stop because we run out of time um so all of this then the question next question would would be why doesn't God free us from the world then let just free us from

the world let God do everything and we'll be free it doesn't work that way in fact he says God is doing that this is the process it's just that we want it instantaneously it's done in God's good time over many many lifetimes there a funny story of read and readest that um you know he had heard this man had heard God Is So vast you know so what whatever a human our money is like nothing to him God is infinitely wealthy and so on so he prayed and prayed prayed to God and then God appeared

before him and he said what do you want and the man said oh not much I just want one cent of your money which is equal to several billions of our money you know so just one cent from you which will surely be billions of dollars at you know for human beings and God said go okay wait one second wait a second which might be millions of years so God is freeing us s ramakrishna says he will free us when the disease is cured when you are admitted to a hospital we have a lot of

Hospital examples analogist today when admitted to a hospital you can't run away the doctor will not let him go unless his illness is completely cured So the faster we become healthy we it's very interesting the Sanskrit word in many Indian languages the word for health is swasa swasa means being established in your real nature and that's the word for health literally the word for health health centers are called swasa KRA so swasa means uh centered in your real nature that's health okay last observation because we have some amount of Freedom whatever our circumstances if we

try to do the best that we can it becomes better and better but the whole goal is not to make it better and better the whole goal is to be free of this cycle of uh you know of cause and effect how how do you reduce the past Karma the effects of past Karma yes you want a loophole yes there's a story of a of a lawyer I'm sure he was from New York so he was at atheist all his life and then he was critically ill he was in the hospital and his friend came

to see him uh and then he found to his amazement the man was lying on his bed death bed maybe and reading a Bible carefully and they asked him you are reading a Bible voice suddenly what are you doing he said no I'm working the case I'm looking for loopholes cuz that's where I'm going now so I want to see the whole loopholes in the law there yes uh spiritual direct answer to question spiritual practice reduces the effects of past Bad Karma the holy mother has said that if you do spiritual practices like japa like

prayer like good works for others then whatever is coming to us the bad effects of that are reduced she said where one would have lost a leg one will feel a pin prick why would that be that's illogical right does God play favorites shouldn't God be perfectly strict with the no in vanta in fact by vant any theistic religion in vanta the what's the point of all of this then why are we at all here and the goal is Enlightenment God realization that's what's happening the whole of life is driving us towards it if you

are on the straight and narrow path that means towards God realization then God is on your side because you are doing what God wants you to do in that case it won't do to scare you off with sudden burst of Bad Karma you know so God will be favorable things will go but the moment you stray off from this side or that side all of that bad karma is going to come come down on you like a ton of bricks so God will help us to stay on on the path if you stray away from

the path all sorts of things will kick in which will again bring us back to the seeking and you need not bring God into it at all the Buddhist has the exact same logic without bringing God into it at all it's just the way the universe is designed it will force us towards enlightenment om shant shant [Music] shant Krishna [Music]