3 Things I Learned Staying With The Hare Krishnas Outside My Engineering Campus
Knowing which will bring change the way you perceive the world.
Hare Krishna! While living in Folk, I began to appreciate spiritual life’s beauty. The ecstatic start of the day with aarti and kirtan, group Japa and lecture, daily cleaning services, observance of regulative principles, and meditation on the Holy Name are some of the key things I remember.
There were more festival-like celebrations and reading and discussion of the oceanic knowledge that Prabhupada left us in his evening books. My schedule was packed entirely with my Dual Degree of M.Sc.
I had a full packed schedule for my 4th year of college with academics of two degrees, Mathematics and B.E. Electrical and Electronics, and a three-person startup in improving public transportation.
I was never very grateful to my folk guide in those days. Whatever was happening to me, from reduced sleep hours to failing grades, seemed to be because of the stringent rules laid down by my mentor.
However, I missed his guidance immensely, right after shifting to a different city in my final year of college. Indeed, the work of a teacher is often a thankless job.
So now, after briefing you about the good and bad memories, I will dive into the transformation I experienced after staying there and following an army discipline.
1. Not having a grand purpose in life is a catastrophe.
Honestly, I cannot recollect how things were back in college, but as I look back now, the principle of this world being a ‘duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam’ was very much in play. Though not knowing the principles of Bhagavad Gita, most of my college friends were still able to do well. They put together good fests, sound poems, good placements, and good friendships, and I had these same pursuits and a good zeal for it, but it was all very frustrating.
Imagine that you are surveying a signal. You stop the cars and ask them where they are heading. You will expect them to say that they are driving to work or home or visiting someplace for another purpose.
How would you feel if someone replies, “I’m driving to follow the traffic rules” or “I have some gas in the car and to exhaust it, I’m driving it.” I was doing just that and living my life trying to take care of myself, my family, and a club, like driving a car to follow the traffic rules.
I remember how difficult it was for my folk guide to convince me to come for my first Vrindavan trip for three days. I was so much obsessed with academics and planned to get into GSoC.
Only now do I realize the need for a grander, larger purpose than the mere pursuit of happiness and security. Spirituality did that to me by giving me a purpose in life which has been driving my life since.
2. We cannot be alone with our purpose.
So one more thing I remember is being profoundly influenced by the book “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand. This book eulogizes the idea of selfishness by saying that we should put our interests before that of society.
Then there are many revolutions where leaders mobilize the masses to give up their rights on the pretext of the greater good. This “a blind man leading other blind men” makes me think if it is possible to have a purpose that does not conflict with society.
Imagine a lake, very friendly, tranquil water, and I go and throw a stone. My stone will create ripples. If you also go and throw another rock. Your stone will also create waves, and the ripples your stone created, and my stone made, come and clash and interfere.
If I throw a stone at one point and you go and throw a stone your stone at precisely the same point, then the ripples that my stone and your stone create don’t interfere. They only reinforce further and expand. That’s the difference between misaligned purposes and a very aligned purpose.
Now I understand that it is essential to consider the individual purpose, collective purpose, global purpose, universal purpose, and align with spirituality’s perspective. That understanding is not there today in the world, and as a result, we have created a very, very messy situation.
3. We are the creators of our problems and frustration.
Here, I would like to share something interesting about the deadliest pandemic recorded in human history. No, I am not talking about Corona. According to the World Health Organization, the Black Death of the 14th century killed more than 50 million people.
So what happened was a miscalculation of the cause. Cats were the cause of the spread until the people had redeemed themselves of the cat. Only then did people learn that it was not the cats but the rats. Imagine the situation where there were no cats to kill the rats and the plague went uncontrolled.
We are looking at problems in isolation. Cats were the cause but not the ultimate cause. Similarly, the various issues we see are symptoms of a bigger problem.
Conclusion
The real problem is our forgetfulness of Krishna. We are spiritual entities trapped in a material atmosphere simply of the opposite nature. In Bhagavad Gita 2.8, Arjuna says to Krishna,
na hi prapaśyāmi mamāpanudyād
yac chokam ucchoṣaṇam indriyāṇām
avāpya bhūmāv asapatnam ṛddhaṁ
rājyaṁ surāṇām api cādhipatyam
I can find no means to drive away from this grief drying up my senses. I will not be able to destroy it even if I win an unrivaled kingdom on the earth with sovereignty like that of the demigods in heaven.
Most people are doing startup or community projects these days and talk at length about what problems they are trying to solve, invariably holding the flag, ‘Making the world a better place.
Similarly, I was also involved in solving traffic issues affecting today’s cities. But my experience was that we are more interested in increasing our name and fame than solving any problems.
Whatever we solve for, the nature of matter is such that it will always have some issues. This approach of becoming happy is not so good as targeting the symptoms of the problem and not the real problem, as we saw in the example above.
Even Arjuna was putting forward so many arguments based on knowledge of the principles of religion and moral codes, it appears that he was unable to solve his real problem without the help of the spiritual master, Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa. He could understand that his so-called knowledge was useless in driving away from his problems, which were drying up his whole existence, and he couldn’t solve such perplexities without the help of a spiritual master like Lord Kṛṣṇa.
Academic knowledge, scholarship, high position, etc., are all useless in solving life problems. Only a spiritual master like Kṛṣṇa or his representative can help. Srila Prabhupada has opened up the eyes of humanity to the rampant propaganda against God and taught how the real solution is to revive our forgotten relationship with Krishna by chanting His holy Names and reading books like Bhagavad Gita.
Lord Caitanya said that a master in the science of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, regardless of his social position, is the absolute spiritual master.
Now you may wonder whom to accept as a spiritual master?
We see so many self-acclaimed ‘gurus’ professing to help you achieve your highest potential in life. Whom do we trust?
I will talk about the qualifications of the spiritual master in my next article. Until then, Hare Krishna!
The importance of spiritual life and the step-by-step procedure to realize is it yourself is described very elaborately in the book Srimad Bhagavatam, based on Bhagavad Gita, the timeless jewel from the Indian Vedic texts. This book gives a complete understanding of this subject.
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