Applied Spirituality with Radhanath Swami

Welcome to Applied Spirituality with Radhanath Swami on devotionalnectar.comThis is Episode 13 – Simple Living High ThinkingSrila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur, my param guru, the beloved spiritual teacher of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, emphasised that the foundational quality of a true devotee is – simplicity. Without simplicity, bhakti cannot be real; it cannot be deep.What is simplicity? In one sense, simplicity means that we don’t need a lot of things to be happy. – Radhanath Swami.We’re content with simple things: watching the sunrise, and then waiting sometime and watching the sunset. These are very simple joys in life. Hearing the birds singing in the trees, being on the banks of a river contemplating the messages and wisdoms of nature, simple relationships.Affection is a simple thing. A child is by nature quite simple, especially when they are young, they just want to be loved and they just want to love. These are simple things, doesn’t cost money, doesn’t need scientists to research, and doesn’t need all sorts of technological updates. To love and to be loved, are the simple gifts of life. And ultimately when we connect to our love for Krishna and actually realise Krishna’s love for us, there is nothing more satisfying, then in whatever situation we are in, we can be happy. When we are agitated, lonely, bored from within, then we need all sorts of distractions to cope with it. But however many distractions, like intoxication, it can divert our attention away from the emptiness within, but it can’t fill, it can’t fill that need that we have. And this is a serious problem. Instead of understanding what the real problem is in human society, what we really need and what we really want, we try to find distractions to somehow or other to preoccupy our mind and preoccupy our life with things.As we often say, in an evolved human society, people love people and they use things. But unfortunately the way the world is today, all too often, people love things, they need things, and they use people to get them. That is a symptom of a very shallow life. – Radhanath SwamiSimplicity is in the natural gifts that God has given us, we are happy, and we want to share those gifts with others. In experiencing that Krishna Consciousness within us, and wanting to share that with others through our compassion, through our integrity is actual satisfaction, because it’s receiving love and giving love. And when our relationships with each other are based on those principles, that’s a simple life based on high thinking.Society evolves when we value the simple gifts of God, of nature, and of others. – Radhanath SwamiMy mother taught me this lesson. On her birthday, somebody would give her a pearl necklace. Myself, I forgot it was her birthday. I saw someone give her something. So I wanted to give her something. So I ran in our backyard and went to her rose garden and stole one of her roses. I didn’t even take the thorns off them. And I ran up to her and said, “Mother, here.” This was when I was a little boy, and she cried. She cried. She was so happy. “That rose was more precious than a pearl necklace.” And she always said the same thing, “It’s not the thing that brings us happiness. It’s the thought that counts, it’s the love in which it is given.”patraà puñpaà phalaà toyaàyo me bhaktyä prayacchati [BG 9.26]Krishna is so simple. He says, “If you give me even a fruit or flower or little water, or a leaf, if that’s offered with love, I will be completely satisfied and happy.”mamaiväàço jéva-bhüta jéva-loke sanätanaù [BG. 15.7]We are all parts of Krishna. We all have that characteristic, we are all sat-chid-ananda. Our nature is we are simple, to love, to be loved, to have meaningful relationships, to live with integrity wherein we actually feel satisfaction in what we are doing.If we lie, if we are duplicitous, if we cheat, if we are cruel in the way we do what we do, it hardens the heart. It pollutes the mind. It agitates us. And yet we are thinking that these things are going to make us happy. It’s not that we have to give up our position, it’s not that we have to give up our wealth, our skills, we simply have to use them with a simple and pure heart. – Radhanath SwamiProgress in science, medicine, technology can be extremely beneficial as long as we utilise them with a proper perspective. If we lose that foundational perspective of our real values of life and our very spiritual basis, then what happens is, we just need more and more and more. And I don’t know much about computers, and I don’t know much about cell phones, but people have them and as soon as a new one comes out, then you are in misery. ‘Because this one isn’t any good any more, I have to have the new one. It has another feature.’ So you know, there is this whole consumerized mentality, where just somehow or other you will be happy the more you are expert at consuming. If we have a quality life, then we could use this technology, it’s not that technology uses us. This is the secret of happiness. Are we dependent on technology, or are we utilising technology for higher purpose?Today with all our super jet airplanes and our rocket ships and our microchips and all of our cellular phones and everything else, is the quality of life actually improved? Is there less greed? Is there less envy? Is there less hatred? Is there less prejudice and bigotry? Is there less stress? Is there less mental illness? Every year technology is surpassing anything beyond human imagination and science. But the suicide rate is as high as has ever been. Mental illness is one of the top three causes of suffering and death in the world; it wasn’t like that before.Due to unnatural stressful, polluted type of lifestyle, practically one out of three or four people get cancer, heart disease. One of the greatest profit making ventures in the world is antidepressants. Different type of chemical processes to somehow or other fall asleep. And so much fighting, and so much lack of trust, is life improving? It is not. It’s going down. We could go to the cinema theatre and put on those little glasses and see 3D’s and everything. I don’t know, I don’t do that, but it might be nice. But it used to be, we could go to a river and see crystal clear water and beautiful flowers, and we could drink the water from the river, and we could bathe in the river. Today in India, I have seen it. People go to holy places to go to a river to become purified. And as soon as they get out of the river, they take a bath in their hotel rooms, to get purified from their purified bath. How wonderful it was when the rivers were pure, when the forests were pure, when the air was pure, when the food we are eating is pure.From a spiritual perspective, there is not an environmental crisis in the world. There is a human problem; there is a crisis of spirit. Because we don’t understand real human values, it’s that crisis of spirit that’s polluting the environment. The environment itself is friendly. But yes, this balance of simplicity with our creative determined efforts within this world, is the key to happiness, and the key to a quality life.To appreciate what we have, rather than always yearning and in being in anxiety of what we don’t have, that’s a simple life. – Radhanath SwamiAnd when our relationships are based on these simple values, we can trust each other. There is a very large crisis of trust in this world and it creates so many problems in relationships because you can only be trusted when you are trustworthy, when we are faithful, when we have a higher integrity than just what the mind and senses are always demanding. So as technology is spinning and spinning and spinning to higher and higher dimensions, we have to balance that with what is actually required to have quality in life. Things alone cannot give us quality life.Appreciation, gratitude for natural gifts, for each other and for Krishna’s grace that gives quality life. And when we use our high education and the incredible resources that are available in world with that spirit, we can be instruments of enormously positive change in the world. – Radhanath SwamiAnd for us, making that inner connection to the simple essence of life can actually be fulfilled by sincerely chanting God’s names. And then whether we are eating apples or doing emails on apples or whether we are eating blackberries or talking to someone in another continent on a blackberry, we could be happy, we could have a meaningful beautiful life.You were listening to Radhanath Swami on devotionalnectar.com

Welcome to Applied Spirituality with Radhanath Swami on devotionalnectar.com This is Episode 12 – Winning the Game of LifeIn today’s world, people are prone to emphasize in their own aspirations – quantity rather than quality. Quantity of money, quantity of power, quantity of prestige, popularity, these things could be very helpful for ourselves and others, but not at the cost of the quality of our life, of our ideals, of what we live for and what we die for. It is said that, ‘If you don’t have something so important, an ideal so important that you are living for, if you are not willing to die for something, you don’t really have much to live for.’Character and integrity are quality, and we will be tested in the game of life. – Radhanath SwamiWill you be willing to compromise the integrity of sacred ideals that you know are foundational just for some popularity, prestige, or for some profit? Perhaps, one of the greatest reasons for all the problems in the world today is people are doing that. The economic collapse is very much affected by people who were more concerned with their own power, prestige and acquisition of wealth and property, than they were with living according to the foundation of integrity, morality, ethics, and a selfless spirit of service to others. Does a mother find more pleasure in getting a gift, or does she find more pleasure in giving to her children and making them happy? It is an obvious answer.The nature of love is to find satisfaction in giving. A universal spiritual principle is whatever God entrusted us with in life is meant to be shared with our family, with humanity, with all living beings. That consciousness brings joy.– Radhanath SwamiSrila Prabhupada, our Guru Maharaj, had nothing personally but he was the most blissful person I ever met. Why, because internally his whole life was built on the foundation of his love for God, and he was simply an instrument of sharing that love with every one, this is a universal principle. Years ago, I visited Mother Teresa in the ghettos of Calcutta. She has nothing personally but she was joyful, why, because she was using her life to give for others.What is the game of life? I remember my mother and father. When I was a little boy, my father really struggled; he was brought up in the depression. In order for his brothers and sisters to go to high schools and college, he had to drop-out to work to help them. He worked and he worked. Then he started business and went bankrupt. You may appreciate as business, he was the largest dealership of Edsel in all of Chicago land. You don’t understand that but any one from America knows the repercussion being an Edsel dealer. He lost everything and he worked and he worked and he worked, and eventually he became very wealthy.Threw it all, whether he was wealthy, whether he was struggling with practically nothing, he and my mother they always taught us the same principle, working, working, working for money somehow other just to keep things stable, but they always taught us that, “Money is not very important. We have to do it, we need to do it, but the only things that are really important in life,” according to them, “was our values, our love for each other and our health. We should never ever compromise any of these things, health may be, but our loving relationships and our values should never be compromised for the cheap thrills of money.” Later on I became a Swami; I mean I don’t own anything. So sometimes when they would ask, “Why are you doing this?” I said, “This is what you taught me!” And my mother said, “Why you always have to be so extreme, we didn’t tell you that.” But later when they came to India they were so happy, they said, “Actually we did tell you that.”What is winning and losing? We see in athletics, there are examples in India Cricket players, in America Basketball, Football players, people who were really champions brought their teams to champions, win all kinds of awards, but then did certain things in their lives due to not really emphasizing the inner quality of their values, that either put them in jail or put them historically in shame. You know in Las Vegas there is the casino’s, they play games there many, many different games. People from all over the world, especially India go there. I was amazed. Anyways the Casinos never lose, they are set up in such a way that they always win, and when they see some winning a lot of their money, they are very happy, because the more you win the more they know you become addicted to that experience of winning and the more you are going to play. Ultimately because the odds are always for them, eventually you are going to lose, it is the way it is set up. The more you win, the more happy they are, because they know the more you win the more you are going to lose. Because once you taste that winning, even if you are losing, losing, losing you have to get that sensation of winning again. Sometimes a little drop comes but then you lose, then another little drop and then you lose, this is the way material nature works. Ultimately we have short lives. Like the Casino, material nature may give you many wins but ultimately takes everything away. We come from dust and ultimately we end as dust. Now this is not a pessimistic view of life, it’s actually meant to bring about optimistic view of life.What Bhagavad-Gita is teaching? It is teaching a reality that is foundational to all the inevitable changes of this material existence. And Bhagavad-Gita is not teaching us to reject or renounce these material existences: be an engineer, be a businessman or women, be a doctor or lawyer, be a good farmer, be a good teacher or a professor, be a good mother or father but with your spiritual foundation in your life. War is a type of game, is it not? War games, its winning or losing but it’s very serious. The Bhagavad-Gita was spoken on a battle field and what does Krishna teach Arjuna, Arjuna wanted to leave battle field because he didn’t want to play that game where somebody have to win or somebody going have to lose, and he didn’t want to lose, and he didn’t want to hurt the other side if he won, very very difficult. The whole Bhagavad-Gita was Krishna convincing Arjuna to play the game, to fight the war, but the quality of consciousness in which he should do it.Krishna tells, “Do not be attached to victory or defeat, to honor or dishonor, to success or failure. Try your best for victory, and try your best for success, do everything within your power, but do with the integrity of the foundation of offering the results to me.”When we perform our work our occupation, when we live our life in harmony with the will of God, as an instrument of the compassion of God, and we try our best to do it according to our capacity, but it’s that effort that makes us success. – Radhanath SwamiOur Gurudev Srila Prabhupada often said, “Krishna or God doesn’t see what you offer, the Lord sees the intent, the purpose in which it is offered.” You can win and lose, and you could lose and win, because if our intent is right and we try our earnest best for the right cause even if we lose we are victorious, and if we win we are also victorious.There is no losing on the spiritual platform, if we have the right intent. – Radhanath SwamiSo yes, you can become a millionaire and you can become a billionaire but that doesn’t mean that you are going to happy, and that doesn’t meant that you are going to do good for the world. Many people are prisoners of their own success. I know many people who tell me the same thing, they used to be simple, they became tremendously wealthy, tremendously powerful but then they say to me, “I can’t laugh anymore like I used too. I want that back. I used to be able to laugh heartily for my heart, I can’t do that anymore. There is too much pressure, there is too much anxiety. Sometimes when you become like that, you don’t know who to trust and not to trust; even your own relatives. Is that a quality life?But yet, if they don’t fight constantly to stay where they are and expand, they lose everything because there are so many people trying to destroy them. The bigger you are the more there are the big people trying to destroy you. When you are little person not too many people care. But the bigger the bigger, the bigger the more envy and the more prestige and greater appraise it is to tear you down: in business, in profession, in politics, it is very painful. Quality of life! And you can become a billionaire and even the trillionaire, no problem, but build it on the foundation of quality, a spiritual foundation based on eternal principles, “That I am not this body I am the eternal soul, and the soul is eternal full of knowledge and full of bliss. The soul has relationship with God the supreme soul, who is all attractive, all beautiful, all loving.”To access that love of Krishna and be an instrument of that love through whatever we do is real joy, to live with the character and integrity that will uplift humanity, and to be willing to take even potential losses to sustain our integrity, that is a great person. – Radhanath SwamiA great person is not someone who gains a lot of money, a great person is not a person who gains lot of power or becomes great famous, a great person is not a person who just has many certificates for academic accomplishments. A great person may have all those things or may not, he is a person who lives according to the spiritual principles of integrity even in the phase of great risk and temptations.Winning the game of life means to maintain our integrity to have the right intent despite all the winning, losing and the happiness and distress and pleasure and pain and all the dualities that come upon within this world. That is success. – Radhanath SwamiYou were listening to Radhanath Swami on devotionalnectar.com

Welcome to Applied Spirituality with Radhanath Swami on devotionalnectar.com This is Episode 11 – Art of ToleranceOne can measure a person’s character by their capacity to tolerate difficulties. We are living in a world of dualities. One cannot escape dualities. One must learn to adjust one’s consciousness and maintain integrity despite dualities. Example is given of a coin; there is a head side and a tail side. If you want one side, you automatically must accept the other. They are inseparable. Distress is inseparable to happiness, pleasure and pain are inseparable, attraction-aversion, honor-dishonour, success and failure, and these dualities will come upon anyone at any time.One of the greatest problems we face in life is we all want to be in control of our destiny, today and tomorrow, but the problem is no one is in control. There are higher powers dictating circumstances upon everyone. We have control over our future destiny by our activities today, that is the laws of karma. But what is coming upon is something that is not always under our control. – Radhanath SwamiUltimately, we are all being controlled by time. No one wants to become old, you lose your beauty, you lose your money, and you lose your physical capacities. Does anyone want to be old? But, can anyone stop the process? It is a humbling experience to live in this world, because we are not the controller. Everyone wants to succeed, but so many people fail. Everyone wants it to be nice weather, but we cannot control intense heat and intense cold. We are all subordinate, dependent to higher powers, and those higher powers works on the basis of dualities.Thus Krishna explains, “The non-permanent appearance of happiness and distress and other dualities and their disappearance are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer season, one must learn to tolerate without being disturbed.” Really this is what Bhagavad Gita teaches.One of the greatest themes throughout Gita is to learn how to be tolerant. – Radhanath SwamiSrila Prabhupad, our beloved guru maharaja, in one of his books speaks one line that I consider to be so very important to be understood by all classes of human beings. This one line goes beyond all sectarianism; it is a universal principle. Who is a great person? People love to adore great people or envy great people, and people like to become great in their own way somehow or other.But what actually is greatness? A mahatma means great soul. So what are the actual qualities of a great soul? Is greatness is to have a lot of money? Some of the most degraded people are millionaires and billionaires. Is greatness fame? Being a good singer, or a good dancer or having a beautiful body, being strong or athletic, or being heroic. Srila Prabhupada, according to the universal principles of all spiritual paths, describes what is greatness: “One’s greatness has to be estimated by ones ability to tolerate provoking situations.”It is easy to make a show of being great, but when you are challenged, when provoking situations face you that is actually the test of the substance of your character. And this the great scriptures give us as a constant theme. There are six enemies that exist within our heart, and they are provoked by circumstances both within and without. What are those six enemies: lust, envy, pride, anger, greed and illusion. A great personality is one who is able to tolerate these urges.Lust! Today it is actually quite fashionable, popular and quite heroic to succumb to lust. A person is considered great manly, to the degree they are enslaved and weakened by the lust, and engage in such activities again and again. It is very sad and we see throughout history that even people at very high position are degraded by the provocation of lust; they are not being able to tolerate the circumstance. So yes, marriages are spoiled, nations are put into ruinations sometimes, because people cannot control, they cannot tolerate the provocation of lust.Then, there is greed. It is very difficult to tolerate the provocation of greed. Recently in Calcutta I was asked to give a lecture in a management institute on “Ethics in business,” because today people are very much disturbed and even confused due to such unethical behavior, even by people in such high positions. It is difficult to tolerate temptations. People rob, people steal, people cheat, people lie and people even kill being provoked by greed. Our colleges should must teach students how to follow proper ethics and morality, otherwise they may be big, they may be rich but they simply cause damage to the planet. It is a fact.How to tolerate that greed?We must understand what is real wealth. Real wealth is in our integrity. Real wealth is in how the lord within our heart is seeing us. Prem-dhan. The greatest of all wealth is love. Money cannot buy love. Fame and prestige cannot buy love. If we are loved and we love, we are wealthy people. – Radhanath SwamiAnd what is ultimate love – the love between the soul and the supreme soul or God. Because in that love we actually can see all living beings equally, and that is actually the means by which we can tolerate envy.What is the root cause of that envy? It is the false ego. We envy someone who we feel has more than us, it may be more wealth, knowledge, ability, prestige, or high position. Envy is such a deep-seeded disease. But envy cannot even exist where there is even a trace of real love, where there is love for God, we see every living being as part and parcel of God. Therefore we are happy at another person’s success, and we feel sad to see another suffer. To tolerate envy is very very difficult.And anger. It is very very difficult to be dishonored without becoming angry. When any of our desires are unfulfilled, it brings about a sensation of anger. In fact, Bhagavad Gita explains, for one who is honored, dishonour is worse than death. But more difficult than that is to tolerate honor, without becoming proud. According to the Christian Bible, St. Paul had said, “Pride cometh before the fall.” The very integrity of one’s humanness is destroyed when there is egotism-false pride. How to tolerate being honoured without becoming proud, without considering oneself superior to others and naturally offending others? It is very difficult.So, first of all we must advocate in our lives, what is sacred, what is of utmost importance? Is it just accumulating more fame, prestige, money, is it enjoying more and more through the senses or is it living with character, is it doing something wonderful for the world by our example. The example you set the others will follow – your children and the people around you. So yes, please evaluate what is of great value in your life – to live by truth or live by illusion.So the question is – are you the body or you the soul. If you are the body then so many materialistic ways make sense, but the conception that you are the body really makes no sense at all. Your body is a vehicle, the soul is the person animating this vehicle, at the time of death the body is there, where is the soul, where is the person, where is the life? The beginning of all truth according to Gita is to understand that you are not the body but you are the eternal soul. That is considered to be truth.What are the needs of the soul? To live in harmony with the needs of the soul is human life, to forget that principle is the life of two legged animals. What is the nature of the soul? To love, to have equal vision of compassion to all living beings: whether one is in business, engineer, housewife, teacher, student, swami, architect, farmer, whatever our particular occupation may be, to express our values, to express or love, our devotion to God and all living beings through our work. That is the highest life; that is natural life. In that life there is happiness and in that happiness we have the power to tolerate all provoking situations.You were listening to Radhanath Swami on devotionalnectar.com

Welcome to Applied Spirituality with Radhanath Swami on devotionalnectar.com This is Episode 9 – Vedic Perspective on Climate ChangeCouple of years ago I was in Udipi, a very spiritually holy place in South India. The place I was staying was on a dirt road which was quite away from the city or the town, and every day I would look outside my window and see a little puppy dog, there were two little puppy dogs. And the mother was always trying to protect them, because I had heard from the people in the house I was staying that, two of her other puppies were run over by cars and killed right in front of her eyes. And these were her two surviving children. So you can imagine how fearful, how attached, and how protective she was after seeing two of her own children killed by cars.Now one of these little puppy dogs, very small just like a little ball of fur, was so energetic, he was just running and jumping and leaping, and one day he decided he wanted to dig a hole that he could lay in. So he was working for hours and hours every day just digging on the side of the road, digging, digging, and the mother would come up and lick him and smell him and feed him, and he was just digging; very attentive, intense, determined. For about three four days he was digging until the hole was about a foot deep, and when he finally got that hole really nice, he went inside, crawled up and went to sleep. I walked by and I saw him, and it was like he was in heaven. It was his own custom- made, personally tailored bed.One day, it was about 7 O’clock in the morning and I was walking, chanting God’s names along railway tracks. I was coming back and I turned onto this road, and there was a car. The car was going down the road but somebody parked a motorbike right in the middle of the road. So the car turned off the road, it just went to the side and I saw the front tire sink and I heard a sound, and then I saw the back tire sink and there was only silence. It was the dog!Suddenly I heard the pettiest heart cracking howl of his mother; it was the howl of a totally distressed broken heart. I saw her running and running and running and she came to that hole, and I ran to the hole and saw the little puppy. Blood was streaming out of his nostrils and out of his mouth, and he was in so much pain. His little legs were flapping uncontrollably and the mother was looking at him. I sat right next to him. Dogs are people too, what to speak of cows; she understood that I cared. So I sat right in front of that little dog and loudly chanted the Holy names as he was going to die. She stepped back and just watched as I was chanting.The legs were flapping and flapping, and then they both went up and slowly came down; and he was dead. And as soon as he stopped breathing and it was very pronounced that moment, I heard the mother; it was the most eerie, heart breaking sound you can imagine. I looked over and tears were streaming from both sides of her eyes down her fur. I stepped aside and she ran over and she was licking the dead body of her little child, licking and licking and licking frantically as if she was trying to lick life back into him. But he was gone. For the next several hours she just kept licking the little body of her child, and then his little brother came and he just sat on the side of the hole, watching his mother licking and he started crying.This happened in the morning and that night I came out to look out of the window and I saw the mother, she would walk a few steps and come back and lick her little baby. She would walk 20 steps and come back. She would walk 30 steps and come back. Finally, I asked the neighbor – because you know it wasn’t my property, I couldn’t do anything – I said, “Could you bury this little puppy because the mother is not going to overcome this until it is out of her sight.” So the neighbor did that, but then I saw the mother and her baby for the next two-three days were just going and crying over that hole and smelling the hole; and people say that animals are not people?These animals may not have the intellectual, philosophical capacity that we have, but their will to live and their concern for each other and their feelings are very similar. A human mother wouldn’t suffer too much more than that dog mother at seeing a loss of her baby. It should not be that we are only compassionate towards those that are relevant to me. – Radhanath SwamiIn the west, the person’s dog is really a part of the family. People would walk behind their dog with special plastic gloves, and when the dog responds to the nature’s call, which is what they like to do. If they just do it in your front yard, you can call the police and have that person fined unless he personally picks up that warm, mushy, in the winter smoking, excrement. He has to pick it up with hand in a special bag that he puts it in. One hand he is carrying a bag with the dog’s excrement and in the another hand he has his glove which he takes it off and puts it in the bag, and then it is the nature of the dogs that they like to do things in installments. I have observed like this. So they are very meticulous, very possessive, and if you kick their dog they will be outraged; but then they go home and eat cows and lambs and chickens and don’t think twice about it. They care for their children as much as that dog does, but because it is not relevant to me it doesn’t matter if it suffers.When compassion comes to the higher level to the level, it is more and more inclusive of other living beings. Compassion only for those people that are very directly involved with my life because of my attachment for them, it is compassion, but it is a type of selfish compassion. To the degree our compassion is selfless, ‘It’s not about me it’s about that person,’ that’s real compassion; the greatest need in the world today. – Radhanath SwamiNow back to that little puppy, his story is very much the story of humanity – he worked so hard with such determination and attention to dig a hole that he could enjoy, but the very hole became the cause of his suffering and death. You have heard this saying – to dig your own grave. On that particular day that saying echoed within my mind as a brutal reality. Yes we work very hard, but human intelligence is to look into the future and understand deeper and higher principles than just the temporary accomplishments we make and the pleasures that we derive from them; that is intelligence.Merry Shelley wrote a novel called Frankenstein; Frankenstein is a monster but that’s not really the purpose. Doctor Frankenstein had very noble and good ideals, he wanted to create an ideal human being that could live extra ordinarily long and could help the world. But the problem was he was meddling with the laws of nature. Although his intension may have been good to help, but because he wasn’t really seeing the whole picture of how the world works, he wasn’t really seeing the way God works, in his attempt to make something for the benefit of man he created a monster that terrorized him and all the people in the area – he dug his own grave.From the Vedic perspective this is very much what is happening to the world today, our Sciences, our technologies, our industries, even if there are good motivations unless we understand the laws of nature and the laws of God and take responsibilities for what we are doing, we can create monsters that become totally out of our control.The reason for the ecological pollution is very simple, the pollution of consciousness, because our minds are highly polluted with toxic greed. – Radhanath SwamiWhat is the nature of greed? It can never be satisfied. Even if you conquer, control and become the proprietor of everything within the entire universe, your greed will never be satisfied; it’s insatiable. It burns like fire, the more fuel you put in it the harder and higher it burns.The Vedic solution is to learn how to be content and satisfied with simple things. Due to ignorance, avidya, we are trying to find happiness in things, in stuff, but the soul is part of God. The soul, the heart needs love. It is the only thing that can satisfy us is – to love and be loved, because things cannot touch the heart. Sensual pleasures, mental pleasures do not touch the heart, and satisfaction is not the thing of the mind, it’s not the thing of the flesh, it’s the thing of the heart.Our nature is to love God and in loving God we see every living being as part of God, we naturally love every living being. That brings contentment. – Radhanath SwamiSo unless our consciousness returns to its original nature we are not satisfied. From the Vedic perspective, yoga means union, yoga means harmony, the harmony between humans, between other species of life, between nature and between God; that is yoga. Yama, Niyama, Asanas, Pranayama, Dharana, Dhyana, Samadhi, all of these different stages of yoga are all ultimately meant to bring our consciousness in harmony with nature, with other living beings and with God.You were listening to Radhanath Swami on devotionalnectar.com

Welcome to Applied Spirituality with Radhanath Swami on devotionalnectar.comThis is Episode 8 – STOP WORRYING, START LIVINGThere are numberless reasons within the world that we live: we may be worried about our health, about our wealth, about our loved ones, about our friends, we may be worried about your yesterday, your today, or your tomorrow, and we may be worried about the environment and the situation in the world and politics. The nature of this world is birth, disease, old age and death.The nature of this world is everything is always changing and essentially the biggest problem is we want to control our environment and the eternal reality is you and me we are not the controllers. Things are going to go their own way. We can try our best and to some degree we have influence, but ultimately things are out of our control. So to the degree we are attached to anything or anyone on this worldly platform, there will be worries. Attachment brings worry which is the cause of lack of inner spiritual fulfillment.– Radhanath Swami We have often given the example of the foundation of a building. Externally we see the building: the architecture, the furniture, the painting, the particular building material may be marble, may be plaster; but it is the foundation that holds it up and gives it the strength. Without a strong foundation when a storm comes it will be blown down; with a strong foundation hurricanes or earthquakes cannot harm it.So our mind is stable when it has a strong spiritual foundation. Storms may come as reversals, but if we have that foundation of inner fulfillment, we deal with it with a very clear and practical mind but it does not disrupt us because we are connected to something that is immortal; we are connected to the truth; that is our home.Our real home is where there is comfort, where there is love, where there affection, where there is happiness, where there is trust. That is the actual meaning of home. – Radhanath SwamiBut in this world we are like strangers in foreign land. What is foreign – misconception, I am thinking that I am someone that I am not, I am thinking I am this body, I am thinking I am this mind. The body and mind are subjected to unlimited reversals and ultimately the body dies when it gets old, but the atma is eternal. The atma in its own nature is sad-cit-ananda: full of knowledge, full of happiness, and full of bliss.So going back home to our real origin and uncovering the secretes of our true selves is the way to come above all this needless worry of this world and find real fulfillment. Whatever happens cannot disturb that fulfillment. – Radhanath SwamiDuring the monsoon rains, a puddle of water gets bigger, bigger, bigger and during the dry season the puddle of water dries to nothing; it is very much affected with rains. But the ocean, whether it is the dry season or the monsoon rains, it remains the same. What is the difference? The puddle has no depth! Therefore it is completely affected by its environment, and by circumstances. But the ocean in its own self has such depth, on the surface it is affected by the monsoons but deep down it’s not affected at all; it neither grows bigger or smaller. So, yes, on the surface we have to deal with the things in this world but if we don’t have much spiritual depth, it can really ether elate us or devastate us with anxiety, misery, and worry. But a person who finds that spiritual depth, who uncovers the truth within and deals with the things on his surface, nothing can change that fulfillment, nothing can change that meaning that love that is within.Years ago I was walking along the sea shore and I saw a little fish, just a three or four inches in size, it was lying on the sand. But, this little fish was in so much worry. So he was flapping and flapping and flapping and I looked in his eyes and he just looked in total confusion, frustration and misery. Somehow or other a wave just washed this little fish up and there he was in the sand, couldn’t breathe properly and I was just looking at him flapping and flapping and flapping and suffering. It was hysterical. Now, I could have, got a female fish and put next to him, would that help any? I could have got some mango lassi with a nice sanitized straw and put it next to him. I could have got him a diamond ring or a ruby crown. I could have offered him a BMW. Would anything of that make him happy? He was out of his natural element. Nothing could make you happy unless you are not in your natural element.So I tried to pick up that little fish and throw him back into the ocean but he was so intensely worrying that every time I picked him up, he just flapped so hard that he flapped right out of hand back into the sand. And I picked him again and he flapped out of my hand into the sand. At least 5 times I picked him up and he flapped out. I was his well wisher trying to save his life but he could not recognize me because he was just in such a state of trauma.Finally with both my hands, now if people saw me they would have thought I was crazy, but with both my hands, I cupped this little fish and trapped him so he couldn’t get out and then I threw him in the ocean as far as I could. And I thought I did a good deed but then the next wave of ocean came and it resided back into the ocean and left the fish flapping in the sand. With two hands again I trapped him, it was trying get out, it was flapping, flapping – infact my whole body was vibrating – and I as hard as I could threw it into the ocean. But I waited. The next wave came in and it resided back, and left my little fish flapping in the sand. Now I was committed to save this fish. I tried to pick up this fish, it was flapping, flapping out of my hand, and eventually somehow or other tried to escape but I caught him and I went into the ocean carrying him: step by step, up to my knees, up to my waist, up to my neck, and I had the fish over my head and as hard as I could I threw him and I came back. I was wet. The next wave came and no fish. I watched the next twelve or thirteen waves, no fish. I felt that the fish would never recognize that I saved his life, it is a selfless task, thankless task. I got all wet, spent so much time, the fish will never thank me, doesn’t even know who I am. But I walked down a little and I felt very nice.When you see somebody really suffering you naturally feel something very personal. People who say, there are vegetarians and who eat fish, they say, “Fish don’t have feelings.” Fish have feelings: fish worry, fish want to live. That fish was struggling and flapping as much as any human being would in that predicament, it may not have intellectual understanding of what was going on but the emotions were there. I walked down the shore for a few minutes then I saw a boat coming in, and with the boat I saw people, there were fishermen and they had stretched a long net at a distance along the shore. They brought the net in and I looked in the net, and there were hundreds and hundreds of the same little types of fish flapping and about to be put in frying pans. There was nothing that I could do. I wasn’t going to fight with all the fishermen. But I was thinking that, ‘the saintly people have that as a thankless task. They work so hard to make one person, to put one person back into the ocean of their natural position. But Maya, with her net, specially her internet and so many other networks and net profits, takes people out of their natural position and puts them in this unnatural situation on the shore and on the sand of material existence. But who we actually are? That is most important question in life.The path of devotion teaches us the simple principle that we are all individual divine eternal units who are eternally connected  to the Supreme Absolute Truth or Krishna, and we are all meant to serve the  absolute truth and in doing so we serve each other. We create real harmony. Because we have common purpose. – Radhanath SwamiThe Bhagavad Gita explains that there is the external world. Higher than the external world is the body. Higher than the body is the senses. Higher than the senses is the mind. Higher than the mind is the intelligence the power of reason, and higher than the intelligence is the atma, it is the conscious force, our true identity. So to find real fulfillment we must uncover that essential nature of who we are. And then worry, worry can be utilized for the highest purpose also. A person who is connected to the soul and connected to God, who is finding that deep, deep peace, fulfillment and love within, worries about other souls. That is compassion; that is higher than not worrying at all.You were listening to Radhanath Swami on devotionalnectar.com

Welcome to Applied Spirituality with Radhanath Swami on devotionalnectar.comThis is Episode 7 – UNITY IS STRENGTHOne of the greatest powers in all fields of life is unity.  But there is a fundamental problem, that there are so many diversified distinctions between living beings.  Everyone has their own conception of their identity and this creates a natural conflict amongst those who look different, think different, or act different. There has always been conflict between the castes, not only in India but all over the world, and it may go by different names – there is the educational class, there is the administrative class, there is the working class, there is the class of trade and agriculture, there has always been distinctions and conflict between nationalities, between races, between religions, between generations of people’s ages, between sexes, and between philosophers. On practically every level of the world there is reason for conflict, even within a family there is the older brother and the younger brother that creates conflict, because everyone has their separate independent interests.There is an example:  if you throw a stone in a clear pond of water, wherever that stone falls it will create a circle, and that circle will expand, expand, expand. If you put another stone and throw it into another part of that water, it will create another center, and from that center the circle will get bigger and bigger.  However many different places you put stones, there will be different circles, and they will all collide and create a tumultuous situation in the water.  However, if you put every stone or throw every stone in the same place, because there is the same center, there is no conflict.How to create a center that we agree on in a world of such immense ego, competition and diversity?  This is a great challenge because wherever there is unity, there is great power and strength to create a peaceful situation in society. – Radhanath Swami  Let us examine from a very relative, practical viewpoint of how unity creates strength. In the United States of America, on December 7th in the 1940’s, which happens to be my birthday, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, which was the largest naval base in America.  Most of the American navy was destroyed by surprise. Now before that, Churchill in England and everyone else in the European continent was begging, pleading with America to get involved in World War II because the Germans were conquering one nation after another after another after another, and Hitler was teaching tremendous racism. But America did not want to get involved, which is on the other side of the ocean.  In fact, they were still suffering from a major Depression, where practically the entire nation was in poverty.But when the bombs came to their own backyard, they realized, ‘We have to fight this.  Whether we like it or not, we are in the World War.  It’s not a matter of choice.  It is a matter of emergency.’ Actually, sometimes emergencies bring people together like nothing else. Why?  Because there is a higher purpose involved.  At that time, every newspaper, every magazine, billboards all over America, there was one slogan: “United we stand, divided we fall!”  It was a matter of life or death—united we stand, divided we fall.  So what did the people do? Hundreds and thousands of men volunteered for the military.  The ladies went into different industrial complexes to work. In fact, during the years of World War II you will see there were no automobiles manufactured. Automobile plants, all the steel plants, practically every industrial plant in America was simply working for the interest of the nation.  They weren’t concerned so much with their own personal private profits. They were working together making military machinery: to fight, to build battleships, to build airplanes, to build ammunition, to make the uniforms of the soldiers, to provide food.  Because of that unity, they won the war. That is the strength of unity.In industry, there was a man named Henry Ford. He revolutionized the industrial world.  How? By creating unity. There were other people who were making cars or automobiles, but he created the assembly line. Now, it is a simple concept, but it was revolutionary.  What is the assembly line?  Where everybody is just working completely in unity with one another, everyone is like one part of the machine working in harmony, and that was producing cars so radically fast that he became a multi-multimillionaire and everyone else followed his way. Through unity, he gave great strength to the whole industrial world.In sports, recently a person who was the most popular and famous athlete in the United States, he spoke something which was very interesting to hear.  He was a basketball star.  His name was Michael Jordan. He was in a game and there were seconds left, and the game was tied. There were seconds left till the end, and he was in a position where he could easily throw the ball, and if he made that score, he would have earned or established a world record in the history of basketball for making points in a game. Everybody was so excited because he was so close and he could now make that point, and there was only seconds remaining. To everyone’s great surprise, he passed the ball to one of his teammates who was closer to the basket and that person made the point and they won the game. The newspapers asked him, “Why did you do that?  You could have gone down in history.” And he said, “I am not concerned with that.  When I’m playing, I’m only concerned with the team.  If you want a strong team, every team player has to think in terms of the team first and one’s individual interest last; otherwise, the team cannot be a champion team.”  He said, “That other teammate, even though it was an easy shot for me, it was an easier shot for him. So by giving it to him, we would have more chance of winning the game.  That is more important than me going down in history.”  That is why that team won almost every championship, world championship in that decade.  That is the strength of unity.Actually, when things are unified, they are beautiful.  What makes music beautiful? Harmony.  And what is  harmony?  Unity.  It’s not that the violin is playing one thing and then the flute playing whatever they want, and the drums are playing whatever they want, and the guitar is playing whatever he wants, organ is playing whatever he wants.  When there is harmony, when all the voices are trying to make one voice – not that ‘I’m heard’ but ‘we’re all heard’ – when all the instruments are trying to combine together unified to make one sound, then that harmony creates such beauty, such musical talent.And in the structure, every beam is depending on every other beam for its strength; that’s unity!  In a machine, if every part of the machine is not working together in harmony with every other part of the machine, there is a breakdown.  And in the family, without unity between the husband and wife, then how will there be unity amongst the children. How much destruction disunity creates, and how much power unity can give us to overcome all obstacles.What is the meaning of religion?  Religion comes from the Greek word religio, which means to bind back, to be in harmony, to be in unity. Every living being has a body, has a mind, and has a consciousness. The consciousness is the energy emanating from the soul or the atma.So to harmonize the body, the mind, and the soul is the art of yoga.If we don’t have unity within ourselves, then is it possible for us to create unity in the world around us?  No!  You can’t give something you don’t have, even if you have all good intentions. If we have unity, we can create unity.  – Radhanath SwamiIf our mind is in conflict, if our mind is not balanced with our body and with the needs of the soul, then there is a fundamental disunity in our life. There could be no real peace, there could no real happiness, there can be no real love. That is what yoga means, simply to unite. There is an inner disunity within all of our hearts – the mind is the battlefield, the dualities of life are always competing with one another.From the spiritual platform, while working in this world to do good, we must simultaneously actually realize the art of love, the art of yoga, to be united body, mind, and soul, and soul with God. And then whether we are business people or students or industrialists or architects or teachers or farmers or politicians, or soldiers, whatever we may be, we express that inner knowledge, that inner love, that inner compassion in everything we do. – Radhanath SwamiIs there anything that is greater needed in the world than that mentality within human beings?Each and every one of us within our own hearts had unlimited tremendous spiritual power.  The process of yoga or the real, true process of religion is not just to perform some rituals and have some social identity in which you protect yourself from other people with a different religious or social identity.The essence of real religion or yoga is to access that incredible spiritual power and to express it in every aspect of our life.  Then with a pure heart we can overcome so many obstacles that seem so impossible. – Radhanath SwamiI have often told the story that there were people who I was working with in the spiritual path that I am following now who I had nothing in common with. In fact, I really did not like them, I couldn’t tolerate them, and they couldn’t tolerate me either. They were kind of people that I would never have anything to do with in my previous life, myself and my friends wouldn’t even look in the direction of such people, and here I am working hand in hand with them! We didn’t get along, but on the basis of spiritual principle we understood, ‘We have so many differences, differences of opinions, differences of ways.’ We didn’t agree on anything except one thing that the goal of life is to love God, and in order for us to love God we have to love each other.  That person became my very best friend after a couple years, such honor, such respect, such spontaneous affection earned through sacrifice. The strength of unity, when it is founded within the heart on the spiritual level is the greatest power on earth, a power that can heal, a power that can remove tension.You were listening to Radhanath Swami on devotionalnectar.com

Welcome to Applied Spirituality with Radhanath Swami on devotionalnectar.comThis is Episode 6 – DYING TO LIVEThe great philosopher from Germany Hegel spoke very strongly the principle “Die to Live,” which is very much in harmony with the essential knowledge of the Bhagavad Gita and the Vedas. If you want to live in truth, you will have to die as you are in your present state of consciousness. Material illusory consciousness is one of exploitation and real consciousness of the soul is a consciousness of service.  Death to the ego is a process; it is the most important process that is the very basis of all spiritual paths. Just like gold, when you put gold in fire, the fire burns away all the gross coverings, and the longer the gold is in fire, the more its original natural shine manifests. It becomes more and more and more beautiful. Sandalwood – the more you press sandalwood or rub sandalwood, the more its natural beautiful fragrance is manifested.Thesis, antithesis and synthesis can be understood from various points of view. From one point of view, we can understand that theoretically we are the eternal soul, part of God.  We are eternal servants of Krishna. However, in our life, and in the process of purification, in the process of making actual progress there will be many challenges and obstacles that are threatening and fighting against the principle of what we want to achieve.  However, if we, with proper integrity and proper spiritual direction pass through those obstacles, they bring about realization. There is jnana, and through the process of overcoming so many obstacles on the path we develop vijnana or realization which is the synthesis, the holistic understanding of the truth of who we really are, what is our relationship with God, what is our relationship with other living beings, and what is our relationship with material nature.  In order to make progress on the spiritual path, in order to properly ‘Die to Live,’ there must be elimination, elimination of our conditioned state, of our very deeply rooted desire to exploit, to accumulate, to possess, and acceptance of a path of humility, purity, and service.Seva or service really means death to the ego; it is very powerful. It is our constitutional position.  It is not our desire to simply die; we want to die to live. Not only do we want to dismiss the ego or cause death to it, but we want to live according to our real ambition, to live in a state of complete fulfillment, divine life and divine love. – Radhanath SwamiFreedom means to surrender to the truth. – Radhanath SwamiTo serve the mania of the society of the world is slavery, but this is the ignorance of the world.  We are thinking that slavery to our mind, our senses, and our ego is freedom, and we are thinking that to live a spiritually oriented life is slavery. Milton had written the opinion of Satan that, “To reign in hell is better than to serve in heaven.” That is the modern day philosophy of life in a very blatant and honest form. But if we want real life, actual life, we have to understand the opposite principle.Real peace is to understand that I am meant for the enjoyment of God. My constitutional nature is to serve. – Radhanath SwamiSacrifice is the quality of real love, not to take, not to accumulate, not to possess, but to give, to serve, that is spiritual quality, that is our nature, and that is where we find real happiness.Actually, death means transformation. On the gross physical level, when somebody’s body dies, really what has happened? Just transformation of material elements, it is not that the elements of the body cease to exist.  They may be turned into ashes if put into fire, they may be turned into dust if they are put into earth; they are just transformed. So similarly death of the ego means transformation of our consciousness, and in that transformation there is real life.One of my God-brothers wrote a beautiful song where he describes how the caterpillar – just by nature’s process – the caterpillar is crawling around and then enters into a cocoon, and that cocoon is in a very very restricted environment. But through that austerity, through that process of tapasya you may say, it is transformed into a butterfly.  Now, nobody thinks a caterpillar is very beautiful, but butterfly is perhaps the most beautiful of all little insects with all of its colors, flying from one scented flower to the next scented flower.Transformation: transformation of the heart is what is required, transformation of our desires from living according to this egoistic conception that, ‘I want to enjoy,’ to the conception of wanting to serve. Is anyone ever really satisfied by whatever fame, prestige, or accumulation of wealth one may achieve? Even in the wealthiest parts of the wealthiest countries in the world people are spending their money in psychiatrist, taking sleeping pills, taking anti-depressant pills, even suicide, so much dependence on intoxications, just to try to ease off the frustrations of life. Fame, power, material wealth cannot bring happiness; and ultimately, we are living for these things and what is the culmination— death; it’s all taken away. This is not pessimism. This is simply reality. So, transformation means to actually have the proper attitude to strive for what is real.What is real, is what is eternal, what is ever lasting, and what is temporary, it is illusory.  Now, people may challenge that how do you know the soul is eternal? How do you know there is a God? Unless we have faith in these principles how will we strive to live for that when there is so much opposition? Philosophically, logically, socially the scriptures and the great saints of every spiritual path, of every religion throughout history have lived and died for this truth. Now, throughout histories who are the greatest people that ever lived, are they the politicians? Are they the atheistic scientists? Are they the athletes? Or are they the saints who dedicated their lives, their souls, and everything to truth, who were willing to sacrifice their whole lives to enlighten people, to love God.The saints of India, the saints of Christianity, the saints of Islam, study their lives. The actual rishis lived completely pure, they were completely peaceful, they were completely intoxicated, intoxicated with love for God, and they spoke their realizations of God with such illuminated hearts, with such realization that they transformed millions and millions of people’s lives. So, who to believe?  People taking sleeping pills, smoking cigarettes, addicted, and saying there is no God or people who are living the most pristine lives of compassion and sacrifice of love for all living beings without discrimination; it’s for each of us to decide. Especially the great rishis of India spoke with such deep philosophy and profound knowledge the science of God consciousness, not just some sentimental belief, but presented the truth, the existence of God in his three features — Brahman, Paramatma, and Bhagavan — in such deep, sound scientific, philosophical, logical ways with realization.We don’t have to die to realize God. God is within us. God’s energy is everywhere. It is the art of utilizing whatever talents we have in a spirit of servitude. – Radhanath SwamiSometimes the example is given of when Prabhupada was living in the estate of John Lennon of the ‘Beatles’ in London, and George Harrison became so deeply moved and transformed that he gave his heart to Krishna. Now, he was a multimillionaire with so much fame and so much prestige and so much property and he was young and he was handsome; he had everything. One of the most popular people in the world, with more money than he knew what to do with, and he was young and he was strong, but yet he asked Prabhupada if he could shave his head and live in the temple, because he explained that there was no happiness in any of this, and he never met anybody who had any of it that was happy. He was a man of great dignity; He was looking for something real. Prabhupada told him that, “Krishna consciousness doesn’t mean giving up things, it simply means giving up the ego. Carry on in the Beatles, play your guitar, live in your beautiful estate, but transform your consciousness. Understand how everything is the grace of God, everything is the property of God, and reciprocate with love in a spirit of service.” And he dedicated the rest of his life to do that, and in the 1970’s he wrote one beautiful song, ‘The Art of Dying,’ where he is explaining there is nothing so beautiful as the art of dying.Today, it’s very popular, ‘The Art of Living,’ but actually a higher level is, ‘The Art of Dying.’ He said, “There is nothing so pleasurable, there is nothing so glorious, there is nothing so great as the art of dying.” Now, he wasn’t just talking about the body, just the heart stops and the pulse stops, and you just drop dead. He was speaking dying to live, the art of dying to this egoistic misconception of selfish life. You cannot live until you die to that. There is nothing so beautiful as the art of dying, written by a man, sung by a man who is living the way practically the whole world wanted to.You were listening to Radhanath Swami on devotionalnectar.com

Welcome to Applied Spirituality with Radhanath Swami on devotionalnectar.comThis is Episode 5 – THE DESIRE TO LOVE AND BE LOVEDWhen two people say let us make love, what does that mean? It means sexual experience. In the name of love this is the practical idea that people are very much influenced by – kama or lust. It is said in Chaitanya Charitamrita that metal is one, there is gold and there is iron – love is like gold, and kama or lust is like iron. It is very influential in the world. It is the basic theme of the movies; they spend hundreds and millions of dollars on some movies and they make profits, sometimes of billions of dollars on movies, and they are usually love stories.Advertising is one of the greatest ways of promoting any product – whether it is paper or glue, it is with a beautiful woman or handsome man – to somehow or other connect that need to express passion which is with in the heart through that product. Fashions are very much to attract the opposite sex to awaken passion.Krishna says in Gita –kama esa krodha esa rajo-guna-samudbhavah mahasano maha-papma viddhy enam iha vairinam [BG 3.37]“That it is lust, it is kama only Arjuna! This is great symbol of sin which is later transformed into wrath when unfulfilled, which is the all devouring sinful enemy of this world.” The scriptures declare that this material universal creation is maithunya agara, which means everyone, is shackled by these attractions of sex – the power of perverted love. The greatest misery in the 14 worlds is when this so-called love is frustrated.I remember a song –if you have a bad headache, some aspirin will do, if you have a backache, some rubbing with oil will do, but if you have a broken heart, there is nothing you can do! People sing about it; people write books and dramas about it.There is no greater pain than a broken heart. – Radhanath SwamiWhen that propensity, that need to love is reposed in someone and then that someone cheats you or deserts you or dies, there is no greater pain. Rarely the people commit suicide due to physical miseries, even people with cancer, even people dying of terminal diseases rarely do they commit suicide, but when their lover leaves them, they cannot face life. And we find in the world today, when love is frustrated – kama esa krodha esa – it often times just blazes into the fire of anger. The world is full of histories of men who kill other men, and women who kill other women because they have violated the faithfulness of the one they love. We have personally seen. Man comes home and sees his lover with another man, before he even knows whether it is day or night the man is shot in 10 places in the head; just uncontrollable anger. This is the common theme that police departments have to deal with. There is no greater pain than frustrated love.The love of this world is so deep, like the love of a mother for her child. What austerities is that woman willing to do for her child? No one else will they be willing to stay up all night, every night just to take care of child; it is a 24-hour call. You practically can’t even pay someone to do what a mother does for a child. A mother is willing to sacrifice her life in total out of love for her child. A father, out of his love for his wife, out of his love for his children sometimes work all day long, 6 days a week, foaming at the mouth like a beast of burden, why? He never questions? The love of father for his children is so very very deep.In the United States of America, in the middle of the 19th century, there was a civil war. Have you heard of the civil war of America? The entire nation was divided in North and South, and each one built up massive armies to fight and conquer each other over economic and ideological conflicts. One nation became two enemies. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of that millions of people died in that bloody war that lasted years. And they didn’t have much time to send people to training camps. They would just recruit men, any young man they would just recruit him, put a gun in their hand, and send him to the battlefields. There are histories of men who were being drafted into the army. It was so unbearable for his lover, a sweet innocent young woman, to be without her husband knowing that he may never return home alive. They would tie back their hair and put men’s clothes on, and enlist in the army to be their husband’s comrades, and they would be in the frontlines and they would die together.Now let us examine what is the origin of those most powerful conquerors of all conquerors within this world, and why is it all pervading. This is a very essential question in life. In Bhagavad Gita, the material body is declared to be yantra, like a machine. Who is the passenger within this vehicle of the human body or for that matter the body of all species of life? It is the atma. Atma refers to the body, to the mind, and to the eternal soul depending on our consciousness. Atma means self. Those who are under the delusion that they are this body, they think their body is the self, so that is their atma. Those who are on a subtler platform think that their mind is the self. But the life giving force of the body and the mind is the atma – the soul. When that soul leaves this body, the body is dead. Like a vehicle without a driver, it can do nothing. Feed it to the birds, put it in the ground, feed it to the fish or put it in fire. Where is that person we love? If he is body, why we are disposing of him? The real person is the soul, the person who loves, and the person who is the object of love is the soul.What is the nature of that soul? It is sat-chid-ananda: eternal, full of knowledge, and full of bliss, ananda-mayo’bhyasat, because our nature is ananda, our nature is blissful. We cannot live without bliss, it is our integral constitutional position to enjoy ecstatic fulfillment; that is why every living being is looking for pleasure, and we all have that in common – whether we are Indian, or American, or Pakistani, or Russian, or African, or Chinese, or we are Eskimos in Arctic Circle – we are all looking for pleasure. We are all trying to protect ourselves from that which disturbs our pleasure. That is called pain because the soul is pleasure seeking. And within this world what is the highest pleasure? What is the cause of the deepest most unbearable pain? It is love. You can have money, you can have fame, you can have health, but if you don’t have love, your life is empty, it is frustrated, it is not fulfilled.There is a history, recent histories, I think it was in the 1960’s or 70’s, the most famous musician, he had millions of young ladies screaming just upon seeing him, what to speak of when he played his guitar and sing. Women would fall unconscious. He made millions and millions and millions of dollars, he was famous, he had big mansion, beautiful cars and everything a man could want. But then he found his wife betraying him. He went out with a shotgun shooting at her in a car, totally frustrated. He had everything in the world, but he was miserable, why?It is the essential need within the heart of every living being to love and to be loved. – Radhanath SwamiThere are many names of God. Krishna is the all-inclusive name because ‘Krishna’ is all attractive. Krishna has the power to attract all of our soul’s propensities to love. He is the ultimate object of everyone’s love universally.We can transcend all of the passions of this world when we experience the unlimited pleasure of Krishna’s love. – Radhanath SwamiSripad Yamunacharya of the Ramanuja-Sri-Sampradaya prayed that, “I was terribly addicted to sex life and the pleasures of this world, but now that I have tasted the sweetness of serving Krishna, when I think of these passionate things of the world, my lips curl in distaste and I spit at the thought.” When Krishna plays upon his flute, his love which permeates the holes of that flute permeate the entire atmosphere of Vrindavan, and all living beings become captivated. The Yamuna River, which is flowing down streams, starts flowing upstream. The wind stops to hear. The cows lift their ears to drink the nectar and become motionless. The calves that are drinking the milk from their mother become so much inundated by love for Krishna that they cannot even suck; tears flow from their eyes and they embrace Krishna within their hearts heart to heart. The little baby Gopas, the little baby children, they just start crying, they want to run out to the pastures to be with Krishna even though they can’t walk. The gopas dance and cry in ecstasy. And the gopis are willing to leave everything, they are willing to leave their families, their homes, their protection, even their social ethics. They are willing to renounce everything being completely consumed by love for Krishna. That is the power of Krishna’s love.Aham bhija pradah pita, Krishna is the Supreme mother and the supreme father of all living beings. What is his love? Birth after birth after birth, even though the living being rejects and rebels against Krishna, still Krishna says, “yada yada hi dharmasya glanir bhavati bh?rata,” continues to descend within this world, continues to empower his devotees, the sadhus to attract our hearts back to his eternal abode of transcendental Love.It is love of Krishna that is the essential constitutional nature of every living being. Without Love of Krishna whatever arrangement we make whatever spiritual realization, we gain even mystic powers, even liberation; we are like fish trying to be happy outside of the sea. – Radhanath SwamiYou can imagine you are happy if you have all phantasmagoric devices around you, but a fish can never find real satisfaction lying in the hot sand, nor can spirit soul finds satisfaction in any arrangement. That is contrary to our eternal nature, which is to eternally be swimming in the nectar of devotion, the nectar of ecstatic love.You were listening to Radhanath Swami on devotionalnectar.com

Welcome to Applied Spirituality with Radhanath Swami on devotionalnectar.comThis is Episode 4 – THE POWER TO CHANGEThe power to change is in each and every one of our hands at every moment. As human beings we have a most precious gift, a gift that differentiates us from all other species of life: the fish, the insects, the reptiles, the animals, the birds. They are more or less programmed by nature to behave in certain ways. You never see a tiger becoming a vegetarian on ethical grounds, and you never see a cow running as fast as it can to devour a rabbit. It really never has choice, they act according to nature. You never see a mosquito eating berries because he does not want to hurt anyone. They cannot think beyond the way they are karmically programmed by nature. But a human being has free will. That free will could create the worst disasters or the greatest blessings: we could create nuclear bombs and drop them, we can pollute the environment, we can create crime, we can declare wars, we could do terrorism, we could abuse, abuse the innocent, and it is based on free will. Or, we could enlighten ourselves and perform every act, every word and every thought in a spirit of deep compassion for all living beings.So, when we speak of change we are speaking of how we choose to use our free will. – Radhanath SwamiWe all have that. In one sense the way creation has been designed since beginning, it is constantly changing, we can’t stop change. It is a question of what type of change we want to facilitate. Mahatma Gandhi, Subhas Chandra Bose believed in something by their free will, and they were willing to make sacrifices for their ideals. People were willing to be killed, willing to be beaten, willing to be publically disgraced, willing to be imprisoned, and because of their determination for their ideals – the freedom fighters – India is an independent nation. But what kind of problems are still here, how many problems?Nelson Mandela, just a single man, was in prison for so many decades. He was beaten, he was deprived of human decency, and then he became the president of his nation. When he died, every newspaper, every magazine, every television station was talking about that. He choose to make a change. And the country where I was born, in 1860s – which is not that long ago, it was just 80yrs before I was born – all the African American people were slaves, they were bought and sold. Whoever bought them, they were their property, and they would do what they were told to do or they were usually killed; there was not even a penalty for killing a slave because he was your property.And then there was civil war; that was a big change. More Americans were killed in Civil War than in World War I and World War II, it was Americans fighting Americans over ideologies, the North and South; massive slaughter of human life. After that, things didn’t really change that much, they changed in the law books. People may not have owned, but was not freedom. African American people were forced to live in ghettos, and in many states in America would not allow them in colleges, they were not allowed in restaurants with white people. Then Martin Luther king and other people began the Civil Rights Movement, they went to prison, they were beaten, many were killed. It is unimaginable. Because I was part of that movement when I was young, it is absolutely inconceivable and unimaginable the change that today the President of the United States is an African American, coming from that culture, just 30-40 years ago, but still how many problems in America and the poor President, he is getting smashed, he is getting baseballs thrown at his head every second in various ways. So the world is always changing. There is social change when people stand up with determination and belief in their ideals, and their willingness to take risks.And what kind of technological and scientific change has been there. My father is 90 years old. When he was a child, there was no such thing as television. There was no such thing as telephones in people’s houses. There was no such thing as a computer. Only the richest people could afford a car. And when I was young, it wasn’t that much different. And now, my God! Before the class, before every class somebody has to announce, ‘TURN OFF YOUR CELLPHONES!’ It is incredible, the science, the technology!There were so many diseases. People were dying of small pox all over the world. Now there is no small pox. Tuberculosis, if you had it, you would die; now there are so many cures. Heart disease, now there is ‘Open Heart Surgeries.’ There is such incredible progress, such incredible change – in medicine, technology, telecommunication, and entertainment. What to speak of military! Now if a bomb is coming, you just press a button and it goes into the air and hits the bomb. Who could imagine such a thing!But with all our medical technology, is the world much healthier? I was at a conference in California, where some of the most accomplished investors, bankers, entertainers, scientists and medical people were having seminars. Leaders of countries, leaders of universities were there. They had statistics that in the people living today, 1/3rd of every male is going to have cancer in their life, and 1/4th of every female is going to have cancer in her life. That is a medical statistic of what is coming. And hepatitis and heart disease! With all our medical technology, are we much healthier?And mental disease is worse than it was ever been recorded in history. One of the largest selling drugs is a drug for depression. Billions of dollars are invested in these drugs for depression. So much stress! Even in leading universities suicides of students, top students! It is happening all over the world. With all of our military progress and technologies, there are still so many wars. And the danger of the all-out war now, is the worst it’s ever been in history.Srila Prabhupada explains, with all our progress there is a pin-prick, that just nothing is really getting better! In certain levels it’s better but what’s really required to make things better?The Bhagwatam gives us a solution that just like if you have an infection in your blood; boils may come on your body. I know people who have had boils for years and years and years continuously. And with every boil there is a way to relieve it and to treat it, and to bring it to a painful state where pus starts gushing out, and it gushes out for a couple of days and there is a hole in your arm or wherever it is, then you put medicines on it to disinfect it. And a few days later, another boil. You see, treating symptoms are necessary but there is no real solution unless we go to the root cause, which is the disease in the blood, we have to treat that.So the reason for all the anxieties, stress, conflict, pollution, misuse of the glorious things we have been given is something within ourselves. We cannot connect to our source, to God, to Krishna, unless our hearts become clean. And when we actually connect to that source then we become empowered by that, and then what incredible changes we can make in the world. What incredible changes we can take place in our own lives, in the lives of those who are close to us, and what we could do instrumentally and collectively for the whole world, it is beyond ourselves. – Radhanath SwamiBut the change is not just superficial change, it is not just change of names and positions, it is a change from the desire to exploit to the desire to serve with love, compassion.It’s a change where we actually connect to the supreme power of Radha, Krishna’s grace, or whatever name we may have for God, that one supreme source whom we call Krishna, to connect to that love, to that grace; and there is no greater power than that. That change lifts us above, not only envy, anger, pride, greed, selfishness, and arrogance; it lifts us above birth and death. – Radhanath SwamiSrila Prabhupada, the great acaryas, they have come into our lives to give us an opportunity to be instruments of that power to change ourselves and to change according to our capacity and beyond our capacity; the world to a better place!You were listening to Radhanath Swami on devotionalnectar.com

Welcome to Applied Spirituality with Radhanath Swami on devotionalnectar.comThis is Episode 3 – FORGIVENESS: THE BASIS OF ALL RELATIONSHIPSForgiveness is a quality that is absolutely crucial in order for there to be any peace of mind, or any peace and harmony within this world because it is the age of Kali, an age especially characterized by the rampant inclination for quarrel and hypocrisy.If we can’t forgive then there is no possibility of any relationships surviving on any level, whether it is God-brother and God-brother, or God-Sister and God-Sister, husband and wife, friend and friend, neighbor and neighbor, between religions, between various ethnic groups and caste, between nations. – Radhanath SwamiThe nature of this world is that it is under laws. There is the law of gravity; law of gravity means everything’s nature is to go down. Yes? For those of who are structural engineers, you know your whole service is somehow or other battling against the laws of gravity, to build a structure that will stay up despite the natural tendency to collapse, and there are so many impediments to keep it up. There are so many stimulants in this world to drag everything down, especially our consciousness.Without the quality of forgiveness everything sacred within life must collapse. – Radhanath SwamiI will give an example of how maintaining resentment, hatred, vengefulness affects our own heart. Someone hurts us and we are angry; we feel that our rights have been violated. We pick up burning hot amber of coal; it’s just bright red from within and without like fire. We pick it up with our hand and hold on to it and hold on to it, and hold on to it day after day, week after week, year after year with the intension of throwing it at the object of our abuse. Who suffers? We suffer. By holding on to that burning fire we are torturing ourselves. It is fact.Resentment, hatred all of these qualities, vengefulness are like a burning blazing fire. If we keep it in our heart what will happen? It will burn to ashes all of our virtuous, all of our spiritual qualities, and it will make us simply miserable. Holding on to these qualities of thinking evil intensions toward others is factually – and not figuratively – from an emotional, from physical, and from spiritual point of view, it is like keeping toxic poisons within our mind. It is a fact. Any proper sensitive doctor knows that emotional turbulence creates emotional and physical disease, especially the poison of hatred and ill intensions toward others. It is poison.Forgiveness is the art of liberating ourselves from that toxic deadly poison that’s destroying our spirituality, our emotional content and our health, and also potentially of all those who are around us. – Radhanath SwamiIf we withhold the free choice to forgive someone, what actually happens is we simply remain a victim of whoever has hurt us or abused us. We are really only a victim until we can get that poison out of ourselves through the art of forgiveness.Health research has proved how these qualities create deterioration in every aspect of our life. As we give the gift of forgiveness, we are healed. According to the great saints of all tradition, a definition of love is the capacity to endlessly forgive. The love of a parent is they can forgive their child no matter what their child has done. If they can’t forgive, they don’t love. Forgiveness doesn’t mean necessarily that a person shouldn’t pay a particular price to learn the lesson. Forgiveness means to be the well-wisher even of our persecutors, and thinking in terms of their well fare.Inner peace: Bhagavad Gita teaches is to change oneself. Inner peace will never ever come by changing the peace of who have cheated us and hurt us. We can try in a positive compassionate way, but we can’t really succeed unless we change our own attitudes and perceptions. One great thinker has said that, “If we don’t forgive we are breaking the bridge which we must cross in order to be forgiven for all of the improper things that we have done.”William Black said that, “It’s much easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive the friend.” Does that make sense? It really shouldn’t make sense. But it is the reality of the world because the more intimate relationship we have with someone, the more we expect from that person and when you put your trust and your faith and your affection in someone, or they in you, you have the greatest power to cause them pain.Actually, one time a police officer told me, this is in the United States, that they are really not afraid of going into the mafia dens and breaking things up. They may be killed or they may be not. It’s something that it’s not so bad. What police officers generally fear the most is entering into a scene where there is a dispute between loved one’s. Why is that? Because there is such a rage of anger that you just have no idea, you can’t even speculate of what they may do at any movement. Yes? At least gangsters and the enemy soldiers and enemy nation, you basically know what they are going do.Without forgiveness no relationships can be satisfying; no relationships can survive. – Radhanath SwamiAnd this is a very foundational universal principle of all spiritual teachers and all spiritual paths. Now, it’s easy to talk theoretically about how to forgive when our mind and our hearts are in turmoil over various apparent injustices to ourselves. But, it is important that we understand philosophically the phenomena that’s taking place, and also see through historical examples how others have achieved the goal of this virtue.Bhakti Vinod Thakur explains the pure spiritual perspective of how forgiveness is inherent within love of God. ‘Bhakti’ means devotion, pure spiritual devotion, the natural energy between the soul and the supreme soul or Krsna. ‘Dainya’ and ‘Daya’ are inherent within devotion or ‘Bhakti.’ ‘Dainya’ is humility. Humility means, ‘I am very insignificant and God is great. I am very wretched and very fallen. I don’t deserve but God’s mercy is all I have to depend on; it’s my great hope. I really have no possessions. I have nothing. I am simply depending on the grace of the God.’ That is ‘Dainya’ or humility.What is Daya? Bhakti is the tender affection of the heart toward Krsna or God. Daya is that same tender affection toward all living entities who are all the eternal servants of God. So Bhakti is our affection to Krsna or God, and daya or mercy compassion is our affection toward other living entities, knowing that they are all part of our God. When dainya or humility mingles with daya or compassion, what takes place? Bhakti Vinod Thakur explains, “We are thinking that I am very fallen, I am very unqualified, I have no right to judge anyone else. I have no right to punish anyone else. That’s not my position. That’s humility. When that mixes with affection and sympathy toward other living beings, ‘kshama’ or forgiveness is created. Thus forgiveness is intrinsic quality of devotion or love for God. It cannot be separated and one’s love for God is expressed through one’s compassion and one’s power to forgive.You were listening to Radhanath Swami on devotionalnectar.com