taking the mind as the best advisor of yourself not a good idea according to krishna bhagavad-gita same but it can become friendly to you and your needs necessities your mission your purpose your direction if it can become infused with spiritual consideration that becomes known to us through the agency sadhu guru and vaishnav just as in one place srila prabhupad says in a purport in the bhagavad-gita and i'm paraphrasing but he says when one realizes that material existence is a constant source of perplexity at every stephe said it behooves such a person to approach a spiritual master pursuing education there's no guarantee that you'll become einstein but that's not an argument against education still you'll become educated as far as possible and and you'll benefit from that same thing with spiritual education by practical experience we know that it's difficult to improve to upgrade but you can become degraded in 15 minutes it's amazing how quickly degradation sets in as one of the great writers perhaps hemingwayand a description said of someone at first things started to fall apart gradually then all at once so uh a satsang one of the first symptoms of the serious pursuit of vaishnavism in earnest is asanga chag to give up bad association mundane association or those who are addicted associating with those who are addicted to the mundane dostoevsky says and one of and notes from the underground he says that um humiliation is one of the most intense forms of self-awareness and consciousness not just being humble being humiliatedthere's a little difference there humble has this dignified ring to it humiliated is not something we strive for which reminds me of one british essayist who was giving advice to writers he said make sure you spell check everything you write he said because if words are misspelled people will think that you are stupid and he said rarely will you want to give them that impression [Laughter] so anyway humiliation is one of the most intense forms of consciousness and what is to continue with dostoevsky what doeshe think he said i was uh amazed by my capacity he said in one moment to be raising my glass in a toast to the highest the best the most divine he said and in the next moment capable of sinking into the most horrible slime of sinful activities that i observed about myself and that was quite humiliating so but one man i've got a tear coming down my cheek praising what is high and then the next moment i'm in the swamp of ignorance the worst type of ignorance and misconception lagu called guru means heavy heavier than thehimalayas lagu means light light is a feather so we see what is the cliche stereo light as a feather a breeze comes in lifts the feather up it's twirled around and it falls somewhere another breeze comes and it lifts the feather up drops it in another place the plight of the neophyte hearing one thing that makes sense and going in hearing another play the opposite of going in and up that makes sense going in that plane confusion unable to discriminate between higher lower desirable undesirable genuine devotion feigned devotion counterfeitdevotion what is condemned cannot understand what is in their own interest so lagu has to connect to guru why guru is heavier than himalaya is when i heard that i remember in bhagavad-gita first reading and hearing and when it came to christmas thing of this i'm this of that i'm not so i thought when it comes to mountains i bet you he's going to say and of mountains i'm mount everest so here it comes it says of mountains i'm sumeru not knowing what sameer was at the time still not really annoyingbut then he said of immovable objects i'm the himalayas month century what is that why why is that important of what cannot be moved i'm the himalayas what does gorowa say guru heavier than the himalayas tasmad gurung prapadyata jigyasu uttamam shabde paraj nishnaktam brahmanupasamasrayam when we're indicated to go to guru what is uh brahmana totally so much sheltered in the spiritual conception cannot be moved by any misconception right that personality sometimes guru maharaj will say this shikha right will be he says take the shikkaand tie the lagu disciples shall tie their shika to the lotus feet of guru so when the winds of misconception come being tossed this way in that way still being tied to the lotus feet of gurudeva will survive the onslaught of misconception god helps those that help themselves there has to be something from your side like very often we meet someone and krishna consciousness and they will say that they like krishna they like the devotees they like krishna they like everything everything and they accept everything butthen you say well what about initiation and i remember we were in uh kazan that's a city right so and someone had been given the jaffa mala before initiation i said i've got everything why do i need i have you know they'll make some case like that sometimes i've told them that yes it's good that you accept every you're accepting krishna krishna conception and that's wonderful that's what he went baran you know hearing stage you know and then bharan acceptance but acceptance has to be mutual it's nota one-sided affair so there's the acceptance from your side that's good then what we need is the recognition from the upper world of the mutual acceptance that from the upper world or the agent of the upper world that you've been accepted as sincere what gurudev would call a sincere seeker my guru myers told me wherever you will meet sincere seekers you'll extend this krsna-nam to them krishna prema bija pradhan you'll give them the seeds of krishna praying so this harinama so it has to there should be this mutualacceptance right so that's something else to factor in god helps those that help themselves something from your side indicating your sincerity your desire for a connection with divinity your desire for some help some shelter all of these things guru maharaj says without guru we are lifeless clay but we actually think we have some value i think oh guru maharaj is telling that no if guru maharaj is telling it it's just the truth and if we don't embrace the idea that without guru without sri guru and his grace we arenothing but lifeless clay we need some adjusting [Music] no well you know i'm kind of good at certain things before i came in connection with krishna consciousness you know i have some qualification no that's don't think like that it'll be better to think nothing in my case it's very easy for me to realize i came with nothing so i consider myself fortunate by the lord's grace i left school when i was 16. so i know anything i got i got in connection with krishna consciousness and by the grace of guru and vaisnava sometimes i think i have some qualifications in some kind of hysteria some mania descends upon me and for a moment i think i actually know something but then i return to my normal condition [Laughter] so a a sincere aspirant just like in the song we're saying every day yogyata vichari kichu nahi pai tomara karunasar the disciples praying the guru saying if you examine me really you'll find nothing salvageable nothing worth saving there's nothinghere for starters it's not i have i'm so valuable and with a little bit of adjustment no he's saying no value but through your connection by your grace your mercy sri guru and his grace by the grace of sri guru you can take me from the imperfection plane to the perfectional stage that i believe that miracle is possible by your connection and guru maharaj will say to come out of the mud you may have to walk through the mud for some time to come out of the mud of misconception we may have to walk through the mud ofmisconception for some time but we'll need a proper direction but that's like call and response we're expressing our sincerity and our needs i need shelter i want shelter i acknowledge my limitations what is it even though guru maharaj is saying jiva goswami identifying gopher he played boron as the primary anga but what is interestingly what does bhaktivinoda begin in this song which can really be rendered various ways but one way is to say hopeless desperate desperately hopeless or hopelessly desperatewhere someone makes a real careful assessment of like what is the world who it is i think i am acknowledges the misconception that they're under and praise for some divine intervention some help we take guidance for everything everybody watching us or many people they have gps right they're not opposed to taking why because they understand the value of i get this device will give indicators of how i should proceed so for us you say a sincere person a spiritually progressive person they need spiritual gpswhich comes in the form what we call sadhu sastra guru vaisnava means spiritual teachers the spiritual books spiritual practitioners you come in connection with them put yourself on under their guidance and then that revealed truth expressed by them becomes like a uh you know a magnetic north by which you can navigate the world in existence what's the first principle or the vaishnavism to give up bad association who is bad association anyone who's not seriously pursuing krishna consciousness that's how it should be understooddoesn't say that people who are a bad association aren't nice folks it's not saying like that but they're not seriously pursuing krishna consciousness krishna shillingham krishna shillin for those who are serious about pursuing krishna consciousness then faith can become deeply rooted as opposed to a superficial embrace spiritual tourism the transfer of autonomy in this world under the influence of humanism we pride ourselves as being autonomous agents when it's not actually true we're a product of acquired prejudiceacquired tendency uh upbringing environment they're just so many factors but we think we're autonomous agents that we're acting independently and we're no one tells me what to think i move in my own way yeah that's why you're you know embodied and conditioned after millions of lifetimes so the transfer of autonomy when arjuna says in the beginning saying i are uba or madhye one of where he tells krishna pull my chariot between the two armies first i'm playing the charioteer and arjun has a meltdownwhen he is asking saying so many things expressing what he observed of the environment i thought christian is listening but when arjuna finally realizes he doesn't know what to do he's bewildered he's confused doesn't know how to proceed he's full of anxiety what does it say and when he turns the krishna and offers himself as shisha disciple so krishna smiles mildly a little bit and then he begins this instruction and prabhupada makes the point he said now friendly talks are finished so that was before now that arjunawisely is accepting krishna as his guru now instruction is going to begin this is going to be different from sharing observations about things arjun needs to inquire infinite perspective not another finite perspective there's so many finite perspectives expressed by so many finite and the sum total of the finite is never equal to the infinite so he's turning he's transferring his autonomy to krishna and saying now you please instruct me that's why day one what does guru maharaj say to guru dev are you prepared to listen to me and notyour mind that's the first thing he says to him because he knows if that's not at the basis of the relationship it's going to be meaningless he's not going to make progress he's not going to go very far it's going to be a show of servitude submission but if you're going to follow me and resist the suggestions of your mind then you're going to make progress a satsang so that sangha to tag is the mind and the suggestions of the mind what prabhupad once referred to as eating the mind's bananas[Laughter] so sometimes what appears to be counter-intuitive guru will know that what is favorable what is unfavorable lagu needs to be in connection with guru the disciple needs to be in connection with guru to properly navigate