Have you ever known anybody who is captured by a television? And I'm not talking about a television reaching out, as in a cartoon, and grabbing somebody and pulling them away, but it captures the consciousness of the person who created it. I create it, and then I am able to somehow channel various pictures and stories. Sounds like a very elemental way of describing television, but then somebody may become addicted to it and become nonproductive. One might even say, "Oh, such and such is addicted to watching television, and can't stop doing it."
The modern version of television is a little screen we carry around in our pocket, which is a brilliant invention, but then it captures us, and we can't control it. There's a perverse relationship we have with the so-called lower energies of the world in that we're superior in quality, but because we're minute, and the material energy is great and it's controlled by God, we can become carried away by it. So when we're carried away by the lower energy and we're captured by it, this is a fals, it's an illusory kind of life that we have.
It's very much like when you see water in the desert; it looks like water. You may think there's a lake, but if anybody had experience with mirages, which is likely if you've lived in California and you've traveled across any deserts here, you see what looks like a body of water, but then you'll notice after some time that no matter how fast you're moving towards it, it recedes because it's fake water. It's the illusory presentation of water. So the entire material world's like that.
But our nature is different.We are satisfied when we're connected only with the higher energy. So it makes sense that when we turn our attention to Krishna, who's all spiritual, we feel satisfied, just as much as one who's thirsty and finds a real body of water and is able to drink feels satisfied. Therefore, one of the analogies given in the ancient wisdom literature called Śrīmad Bhāgavatam describes genuine spiritual practice with the process of eating. When you're hungry and you eat food, says the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, three things happen. One is that you feel nourished. The next one is you feel satisfied. And the third is that your hunger goes away.
Every morsel you eat, you're noticing these three things. If you take time to notice, sometimes we don't really think, "Am I being nourished, satisfied, and is my hunger going away?" We just eat. But they do happen, and if you think back to when you ate lunch today, if you were hungry, your hunger went away, and you feel nourished and satisfied. That's why you're able to sit so stoically here, because you ate such a nice lunch. Perhaps true. What did you get? some roti ? Or, yeah, roti? Okay, that'll do it.
Therefore, the practice of bhakti yoga is non-sectarian. It's universal. The basic principle is the same everywhere, because no matter where you go on any continent, although the external covering may be different and the cultural habits may be slightly different, the basis is the same. And that is that we are a superior energy called consciousness, living within a body constructed by lower energy.
In general, souls are entranced by that lower energy. So to come out of that, there's a system, and it's called Krishna Consciousness—turning one's consciousness towards Krishna. (excerpt from the talk)
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