Can I know God?

Aum namo bhagavate vasudevaya.

Haribol.

So, we’re continuing with the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita series; and tonight, the topic I was asked to speak on, Can I know God? And of course, the short answer is, “Yes.” If it wasn’t possible, then there would be no meaning to the term God-realization. So the answer is, in short, yes. But it is a very deep answer, but I’ll try not to make it overly technical and hope that you will find things of meaning there.

So, in the question, “Can I know God?” what do we mean by “know”? And there’s two ways of understanding the word “know.” It’s to know about something; and you can know someone in a very intimate and personal way. And so, both of those apply in my answer to the question. Yes, it’s possible to know about the Supreme, to know about God; and it’s possible to personally come to know Him in a very intimate way.

And then, of course, the next question is, what is the “I”? Can “I” know God? So just as a little refresher, the foundation of all spirituality—so when I say that, if this principle is not there, then whatever you’re hearing about or hearing—who you’re hearing from, they’re not speaking of true spirituality. The foundation of spirituality is to appreciate that I am an eternal spiritual being, temporarily residing within this body. This body will go through change. It will age, mature, age, dwindle, and die, but the living being who occupies that body is unchanging. The body is constantly changing, but the living being, the perceiver, the atma, the self, remains constant.

When we are in the embodied state, covered by the gross physical body, which is obvious, and the subtle body, which is not so obvious, (made—comprised of the mind, the intelligence, or buddhi, and the false ego, the false concepts of self), then the living being, the spiritual being, is practically lost, lost to itself. We become utterly absorbed in the temporary body as being who we are, and our mind and whatever’s going on in the mind as “This is me. This is what I am feeling. This is who—this defines me.” And that is considered a deeply ignorant state from a spiritual perspective, because in that state there is no constant recognition that I am an eternal spiritual being.

So, with this understanding, we understand that there is a true self and a false self; meaning the true self is you, the spiritual being within, but when you lose the plot, and you begin to think of the body and the mind as being the self, that is recognized as the false self. And if I say, “Can I come to know God?” if I am deeply immersed in the false self, thinking that to be everything, that’s my identity, it is extraordinarily difficult, if not almost impossible, to know God. To come to know God, it requires a certain amount—at least a certain level of self-realization, of realization of my spiritual identity.

Then the last part of the question, “Can I know God?” it’s sort of like, okay, well, what do you mean by God? (Coughs] Excuse me.) This is, of course, a very big question, which we will deal with in a little bit later.

So, I’ve got a few notes that I’ll be referring to so I can kind of stay on track and hopefully finish without going into overtime.

So, within the sacred texts of the Vedas, or the yogic texts, the understanding that is presented of God is extraordinarily deep and very profound and incredibly complete. Their understanding is very vast and very deep and broad, and you’ll get some inclination of that as we’re proceeding. These texts also present something that is quite amazing. It is the appreciation of the reality or the fact that God can be experienced differently by different people, and that is a very amazing idea. And we’ll touch on that a little bit as we go forward with things.

So, the fact that God can be experienced differently by different people is tied to a very profound teaching, which also we find in the Bhagavad-gita, where it is said that He rewards people or seekers according to the nature of their surrender. So, we’ll be using this word often tonight, this word of surrender, and what it truly means. But—I’ll just quote a couple of verses from the Bhagavad-gita to reinforce this reality. In the first one, from the fourth chapter, the 11th sloka or verse, it states,

“All of them – as they surrender unto Me – I reward accordingly. Everyone follows My path in all respects, O son of Pṛthā”. [Bhagavad-gita 4.11]

So, with this understanding, you will see that genuine yogis or transcendentalists are not fanatical. They are not insistent that there is only one reality that must be experienced, and everything else is not true. That is not the case at all. People can find some connection with a higher transcendent reality from lots of different perspectives, but not everyone will experience the same spiritual result. And we’ll get to that also.

In another verse from the seventh chapter, there is this statement,

“I am never manifest to the foolish and unintelligent. For them I am covered by My eternal creative potency [yoga-māyā]; and so the deluded world knows Me not, who am unborn and infallible.”  [Bhagavad-gītā 7.25]

So, one of the things that we’re going to discover is that a person can be, from a worldly perspective, considered highly intelligent, they may have a massive IQ, but from a spiritual perspective, that same person might be considered extremely unintelligent. And I’ll give you a little example:

One of the big quandaries, or problems, that is facing the scientific world is the question of consciousness. Where does consciousness, meaning awareness, where does it come from? And so, you have a whole vast array of scientists that are known as material reductionists. Material reductionists means people that reject the idea that there is any such thing as spiritual. They say the only thing that exists is atoms and the interaction of atoms. That is the sum total. Everything can be explained through this. But of course, they then seek to try to discover what is the particular combination of atoms and molecules that produces life and consciousness. And they haven’t been able to find that.

And the reason they’re not going to be able to find it is because life and consciousness is not a product or a result of atomic interaction. It is a completely different energy. And when you begin so-called scientific exploration by cutting off the possibility of another form of energy existing within the world, then you’re only left with atoms and their combination, molecules and DNA and RNA, trying to explain consciousness; and they can’t do it. And so, this would be considered an example of people, from a spiritual perspective, that are considered unintelligent and foolish, because they close their eyes to any other possibility, rather than being true scientists and being very open and willing to explore.

And so the same thing applies in relation to the question of any higher spiritual reality or God: If you begin the process by ruling out any such possibility, then it’s sort of like, then, yeah, of course, if you examine every single atomic particle in the entire universe, you will never find God; and so, to say, therefore, He doesn’t exist, well, what if that’s not the way to find Him, to find whether He truly exists?

So, in the quest to try to come to know God, the Vedas also taught that it was important to recognize the limitations of the mind and the severe limitations of the external sense organs. So, I’ll deal with sense organs first.

You know what the Hubble telescope is? You might have seen pictures from the Hubble telescope of the galaxies far away and everything. You know, nobody’s seen that with their eye? You can’t see it with your eye, even if you look. The Hubble telescope, it’s not like an optical thing. It’s actually receiving different bands of light and different radiation from the universe, and it’s taking that data and creating a picture from the data, so that if you were actually way out there, that’s what you would see. But the picture that’s been created is not what somebody is seeing. That’s been created by a computer, just from measuring radiation and light from different galaxies and distances, and it’s an artificial creation that represents a reality. So it doesn’t matter how good your eyes are, you cannot see, even with the aid of the most powerful telescope, you cannot see the extent of the universe.

So all of our senses that we use for acquiring knowledge (they call them the five knowledge acquiring senses, smelling, tasting, touching, seeing, hearing,) with these senses you cannot explore the extent of the universe.

When you consider the mind also, the mind was considered in Vedic teaching not to be the absolute refined instrument for knowing everything. They recognize the severe limitations of the mind. So for example, if I ask you, “Can you conceive of the size of a hydrogen atom?” You know what a hydrogen atom is? It’s just one proton and one electron moving around it. “Can you conceive of how big that is?” And the answer is, “No.” Even if you’re a top scientist, you can’t factually, actually fully comprehend. We can talk numbers. For instance, they say in a normal line of type, at the end of a sentence you have a period. That period can accommodate about 10,000 hydrogen atoms. So can you in your mind take that little dot, maybe you can divide it in two. And you can, “Yeah, I can grasp that.” Divide it in four. “Yes, I can grasp that.” Now divide it in 16. Ooh, that’s getting really tiny. Divide it into 100 pieces. You can’t conceive of how tiny that piece is. Now let’s go to a thousand. Let’s go to 10,000. Can your mind truly conceive of how tiny that is? The answer is, no, you can’t. You can have a concept, but truly conceive of that, you can’t.

Similarly, the mind cannot grasp the actual size of the universe in which we exist. It is so vast and fathomless, you cannot conceive. You can have some idea, you can mathematically compute things, but actually to have that, I mean, if you could actually conceive of that, you probably wouldn’t be able to talk. You’d be like [Mimes amazed face]  You’d just be astonished. You would be so blown away, and you would feel so insignificant. You would just be—it’s like you’ve taken LSD and never come back from that. You’re just way out there. Really, it’s that dramatic.

And so if the mind cannot conceive the largest unit in the universe, the universe itself, and if it cannot fully comprehend one of these smallest units, a hydrogen atom, what to speak of atomic particles and subatomic particles, if God or a higher spiritual reality exists, that automatically exists outside of the spectrum of the atom and the universe; and so if we are intelligent, we would understand, okay, with my mind, I am not going to be able to rely on it to fully comprehend any higher transcendent reality or truth.

We doing okay?

So then, how is it we are going to come to know any higher spiritual truth? How is it that we are going to be able to comprehend, to see and experience an individual soul, or atma? Or how are we going to conceive or see or experience the Supreme Soul, the Paramatma? And of course it’s just like, wow, we realize that we are very challenged.

So, this challenge was spoken about in part of the Bhagavad-gita. Arjuna, the warrior prince, who was on this battlefield, began a profound discourse with Sri Krishna about the nature of reality and wanting to know everything. And at one point, he begged or requested to be able to see what is the full majesty and the profound mystery of Godhead. His asking to see that means he wasn’t currently seeing it, and he wanted to be able to comprehend and to understand these things. And so, in the Bhagavad-gita, when he made this request, Krishna responded to him by saying,

“But you cannot see Me with your present eyes. Therefore I give you divine eyes. Behold My mystic opulence!” [Bhagavad-gītā 11.8]

And so he was now gifted with a vision. He was gifted with a capacity to see that which is beyond the eyes, the senses of the body and the mind. And this is now the key. We’re beginning to look at what is the key to be able to have true spiritual realization and experience. In Sanskrit, there is a term that is used, and it is also used in Bhagavad-gita, adhoksaja. So this term, adhoksaja, means that which is beyond the measurement of our senses; and of course, it’s reference to that which is spiritual. That which is spiritual is beyond the limitations of our own senses to see, to experience, and specifically to be able to measure, which means to fully grasp. So, all that is purely spiritual is beyond the limited and mundane world of the material energy. It is therefore called adhoksaja, or beyond the material senses.

So, you often see with people that are atheistic, particularly people that are supposedly very intelligent, and one of the things they always say, “Well, if God exists, show Him to me.” But there’s no consideration of whether I actually have the capacity to see, even if it was shown, whether I have the capacity. There is this assumption that, yes, I’m able to see, I can know all of the highest spiritual reality, you just need to show it to me. Whereas the approach of the Vedic teaching is that a person needs to approach this in a state of humility and a recognition of the limitation of the equipment that we have that we are trying to come to know God or some higher truth.

However, despite the limitations of the body and the mind, the vehicle that we are currently using, the Vedas taught that God is discoverable, that we actually can come to know a higher spiritual truth, but it requires a major change. It requires a purification of, big word coming, our consciousness. The thing that stands between my ability to enter the spiritual reality or to be completely bound here is determined by my state of consciousness.

So, these arguments that are put forward by people that are professed atheists, this argument, “Well, if God exists, show Him to me,” it’s sort of like a small child: imagine a three-year-old child being told—living here in Hamilton and being told by their parents that there are such things as elephants. And the kids go, “I don’t believe you. Can you show me an elephant? Come on, show it to me right here. Can you show it to me?” And of course, the parent doesn’t have the capacity to go and get an elephant. Where are you going to do that? Maybe go to the Hamilton Zoo and what, bribe the guy and bring the elephant to the child, so when the child sees it, it believes it? But if the parent can’t do that, then the child goes, “Well, I don’t believe that. I don’t believe there’s elephants, because I’ve never seen one. Therefore, I don’t believe it’s real.”

And so this type of argument that is often put forward, sometimes people become intimidated when it’s put forward by so-called highly intelligent people, but the argument itself is considered, from the point of view of the Vedas, to be rather childish and even stupid, because you’re not taking other things into consideration, like your own limitations.

So the great spiritual divide, the thing that needs to be crossed in order to be able to experience the reality of that which is spiritual, is this necessary change of consciousness. Our state of consciousness is what limits our ability or improves our capacity to know spiritual truth. So when we speak of state of consciousness, we’re going to talk about something that’s very intimate to us, and I will use the term self-centeredness. It is a question of self-centeredness versus a state of selflessness. And when we use the word “self” here in self-centeredness, then we are talking of the false self, the false concept of who I am.

And the reality is, is that we all suffer from this problem. All of us, we see ourself at the centre of everything. We see everything in relation to me. It’s all about me, what I like, what I don’t like, who I love, who I dislike, what I like to taste, what I don’t like to taste, where I like to go, where I don’t like to go. Every—My husband, my wife, my children, my parents, my friends, my countrymen, everything is in relation to me. I see myself at the centre of the entire universe, and I see everything in relation to me.

This is a massive spiritual problem because while we are in that state of consciousness and living that way, we cannot actually come to know, in a large degree, any higher spiritual reality or truth. So the self-centredness—we often think of self-centred people as people that we don’t kind of like. They’re sort of like, they just want to talk about themselves, it’s all about—they don’t take others into consideration—A person can be very caring and very involved and nice to others, but still be very self-centred. Again, it’s not just a crappy mentality. It’s the pervasive mentality in this world.

So self-centeredness, as we’re using the term, it fundamentally has to do with being egotistical, haughty, fiercely independent, proud, and selfish. It’s all about me. I see myself as the centre of everything. And that state of consciousness is—it runs counter, it’s completely opposed to the natural state of self-realization. When I experience the reality of myself as an eternal spiritual being, I will display a completely different type of consciousness.

So to become free or becoming free of material consciousness and awakening our true spiritual consciousness, there is a move towards kindness. There is a move towards compassion, simplicity, humility, and love. This is the natural state for the spiritual being, the spirit soul to exist in. So what we’re talking about is fundamentally a shift away from taking, meaning, it’s all about me, and “How am I going to get this? and how am I going to enjoy this? and I want to marry someone, and I want to have a family so I can enjoy them…” And there’s just so many considered normal things in life that actually have—they are coloured by the idea of taking, what’s in it for me, what can I get for me. So, the opposite, of course, is the mentality and consciousness of giving, of serving, and of loving.

Is that a cold breeze running through here? Maybe you can close the window behind if people are finding it too cold.

So this is kind of like the big picture that we’re dealing with here. And when we actually come to understand and appreciate this, then, wow, there will be this very big internal shift. This shift in consciousness creates the possibility of actually knowing God.

So I’m going to read four verses from the Bhagavad-gita that address this shift in consciousness. The first one is from the fourth chapter, and Sri Krishna states,

“This very ancient science of the relationship with the Supreme is today told by Me to you because you are My devotee as well as My friend; therefore you can understand the transcendental mystery of this science.” [Bhagavad-gītā 4.3]

So two words there: “devotee” means one who is very humble and submissive in heart in the way that they are directing their attention or seeking to cultivate a connection with God; and that mood must be one of friendliness.

You know this—I’ll share something with you, that for me when I first heard it, I found shocking and I couldn’t accept. In the Vedic teaching, this tendency towards self-centredness is spoken about as being enviousness of God. When I heard that, I was shocked. I was like, What? I’m not envious of God. But the mere fact that I am seeking to be the centre of my world, I see my enjoyment, my pleasure as being the all-consuming thing that’s driving me, and I must make compromises, I must make deals with family members or people I’m close to, in order to get what I want, I have to give something also. It’s like, negotiations. And it is a way of living, but it is not a way of living that is deeply spiritual.

The reality is, I’m not the centre of everything, nor is it all about me and my quest for so-called happiness; that self-realization means I begin to see that I am very small, I am a part and parcel of God, a tiny spark of God, that I do have a place in everything, and it’s not at the centre. My main purpose is fulfilled when I can love and serve God. So this is kind of like, wow, that’s a massive shift in consciousness from being the centre of everything to being very humble and submissive and seeing myself as a loving servant. And that is the consciousness of a loving friend.

In another verse, it states,

“The Supreme Lord said: My dear Arjuna, because you are never envious of Me, I shall impart to you the most secret wisdom, knowing which you shall be relieved of the miseries of material existence.” [Bhagavad-gītā 9.1]

“…because you are never envious of Me…”And if we contemplate and understand that my attempts to be the centre, to be the central enjoying agent, my desire to build a home in this world, a little kingdom where everything is there in support of my happiness, it means I am trying to usurp the natural position of the Supreme Soul, of God. And that means it is a display of envy. I am desiring something that is not natural for me. My natural position is to be an eternal loving servant of God.

In another verse,

“Because you are My very dear friend, I am speaking to you the most confidential part of knowledge. Hear this from Me, for it is for your benefit.” [Bhagavad-gītā 18.64]

And again, just drawing attention that Arjuna was—great spiritual truth and realization and experience was shared with him, or he was empowered to experience it because of this submissive and humble attitude. His approach displayed this transformation of his consciousness.

Then in the final verse in the series,

“Always think of Me and become My devotee. Worship Me and offer your homage unto Me. Thus you will come to Me without fail. I promise you this because you are My very dear friend.” [Bhagavad-gītā 18.65]

And so what we can deduce from these verses is that to see God, it is a gift of divine grace or revelation. So—and you will see amongst all of the teachings on yoga and spirituality in the Vedas, they say that ultimately there are only two paths. One is called the aroha–pantha, or the ascending path, and the other one is called the avaroha-pantha, or the descending path.

In the ascending path, I think it is because of my righteousness, my purity, my goodness, my capacity to be austere, to do pranayama, to do all of these difficult yogic practices, because of my austerity, because of my goodness, I will climb Mount Everest, I will reach the peak. But we understand that even when one chooses this path, it is described as being extraordinarily difficult and it is rare that one will come to the peak.

The other path, called the avaroha-pantha, is the descending path. It means the path of revelation or of divine grace, where—I remember talking with my dad shortly before he died. He wasn’t a particularly religious person. He would pray. He would say some prayers every night and every morning. And he had this attitude of always doing the right thing. He would stick up for people. He wouldn’t be afraid to get into a fight to protect someone that was helpless. He was a bit of a tough guy. But he had this attitude that he’s going to earn his way to heaven. In his framework, his thinking, “I’m going to earn my way there.”

So, I was taking him for a walk in a wheelchair and I told him, “You know, there is another way.” I said, “A person could be the most degraded human being. They may have completely wasted their life. They may have hurt so many people. They may be drug-addled or drug-addicted or alcohol-addicted. They could be lying in the gutter, facing death, dying, and suddenly have a clarity of mind, where with great intention and humility, they say, ‘I am nothing. My life has been wasted. I have caused nothing but pain for others. There is not a single good thing in me. But in this situation, I have no other shelter than you. And I beg you, please give me shelter.’”

And I told my dad, if a person died, if they left their body in that condition, they would be immediately awarded with entry into the most extraordinary spiritual experience and come to know God. Not because they have done anything great or wonderful: they have been so humble in the recognition of their situation, and they have begged for that shelter—the recognition that I am powerless, I am powerless and I cannot save myself, I cannot do anything. This would be an example, and a quite extreme example, of the descending path, the path of divine grace or the path of revelation. And this is a real spiritual path and opportunity.

I’ll just read another two verses from the Bhagavad-gita that pretty much cement this reality. And when Krishna gave—we had read in the very beginning, Krishna had told Arjuna, “I will give you the spiritual vision, the transcendental eyes to see a higher spiritual reality.” There’s this verse,

“The form you are seeing with your transcendental eyes cannot be understood simply by studying the Vedas, nor by undergoing serious penances, nor by charity, nor by worship. It is not by these means that one can see Me as I am.” [Bhagavad-gītā 11.53]

—which means the revelation here is many of the things that people adopt in the beginning of their spiritual journey, eventually they will have to discard, that as they become increasingly purified, that it is not going to be through their efforts and endeavours that they attain any form of God-realization. It is going to be by divine grace or revelation.

And in another verse,

“My dear Arjuna, only by undivided bhakti, or devotional service, can I be understood as I am, standing before you, and can thus be seen directly. Only in this way can you enter into the mysteries of My understanding.” [Bhagavad-gītā 11.54]

So that is cementing this truth or this reality.

Someone may say what—but through the Ashtanga yoga process, the mystic yoga process, great effort was taken by extraordinary yogis to attain heights of spiritual perfection. The great authority on the mystic yoga process, his name was Patanjali, and he wrote a very brief work called the Yoga Sutra. And in the Yoga Sutra, he is describing the stages of spiritual experience up to the highest level of samadhi. Samadhi means spiritual absorption in truth, in God. And there is a technical name for it, asamprajnata samadhi. And after describing it and how difficult it is to attain, Patanjali recites this verse:

 Isvara pranidhanad va

—very short and pithy verse. And it literally means that this state of samadhi,

“Asamprajnata samadhi is also or certainly attained by devotion or complete surrender to Isvara.” [Yoga Sutra 1:23]

 So even within the yoga system, it is not actually recognized by many scholars, by many people that try to study this system. This just escapes them, this point, that the way that we will come to experience any higher spiritual reality, or God, is not by our undertaking, but by complete surrender and supplication, great humility, that one can become blessed.

So, in the beginning of the talk, I just mentioned how God can be experienced differently by different people, and how we had read that He rewards seekers according to the nature of their surrender. So previously we’ve mentioned, and I don’t know how many people have appreciated this, that there is an understanding in the Bhagavat Purana, it describes that God or the highest transcendent truth can be experienced in three features.

One of these features is this ocean of spiritual light and energy called the Brahmajyoti. And when certain categories of yogis have the experience of merging into that, they lose concept of self, and they are lost in this experience of blissfulness in this ocean. But this is not understood to be the highest experience of God. This is considered His spiritual effulgence, this Brahmajyoti.

There is another feature of God that actually permeates the material creation. Within each atom, but primarily sitting within the heart of all living beings, there is a feature of God that acts as the internal guide—the Chaitya-guru, the guru within—and guides the living beings in their sojourn and is their eternal friend and is waiting for the living being to turn and recognize the actual Lord of their heart.

There is a third feature of Godhead that is more intimately personal, and they use the term Bhagavan. Bhagavan means one who is full in all opulence. And what they mean by that, they describe six characteristics. One of them is beauty, for instance. So in this world, we all have a yearning for beauty. We want to see beauty. We want to experience beauty. The reason we have that yearning for beauty is because the highest spiritual reality, God in a personal feature, is supremely beautiful and all-attractive. And that is why he is drawn. So this characteristic of opulence, these opulences cover the full spectrum of characteristics of God.

But there is also a revelation in the Vedas that the personal manifestation of God, the ultimate manifestation of God, shows two different characteristics to two different people, two different types of people.

So, one of these two characteristics is called His opulence of aisvarya. And the other one is madhurya. So aisvarya means grandeur and majesty, whereas the term madhurya means limitless sweetness, limitless and intoxicating sweetness. That’s what it refers to. This is something that is unfamiliar to most people, even religious people.

People generally, when they think of God, their understanding of Him is somewhat limited. They reference, for instance, the fact that He is omniscient. (You know this word, omniscient? Knowing everything.) He knows everything. He knows everything about everyone. All of your thoughts, all of your feelings, all of your desires, everything that is going on. He is aware of everything. And that’s kind of like almost unimaginable. He is also described as omnipresent, meaning He is present absolutely everywhere at all times. And the third is He is omnipotent. He possesses all power and all potency. So when someone thinks of these qualities, then they are thinking or conceiving of God in great majesty and great power, and He doesn’t seem very approachable. But many people, in their desire to have a connection to God, are focused on this aspect of Godhead.

The other aspect known as madhurya, this feature, it is a feature of God where He displays friendliness, kindness, attractiveness, deep affection, playfulness, and the eagerness to love and to be loved. And it is through these sweet attributes that Bhagavan establishes close relationships with those who are both surrendered to Him and loving.

So that’s—we’ve come to the end of the journey. There’s a lot there, and I’m sorry if it was too broad, but we can deal in coming talks with different parts of this. But I feel that it’s necessary to at least establish some baseline of what it means when we are talking about coming to know God, can I know God? And as I said, yes, it is possible, but it requires a complete transformation of a person’s consciousness, and one must be touched or gifted with divine grace. It is not by my power, but if God chooses to reveal, to manifest in your life, to approach you, that cannot be stopped. That cannot be prevented. And these are the two options. These are the two paths.

Does anybody have a question as a result of that? Was that a bit too much or what? You like it?

Convener: Inaudible.

Acharya das: Yeah.

Convener: Inaudible.

Acharya das: Yeah, we can do that. I was just checking if there was one or two here now or not. If not, if you want to think about it a little bit over dinner, then please do feel free to ask.

What I’m hoping to have shared is that the way we are taught by the great spiritual teachers and the lineages coming from the Vedas is a very comprehensive and profound and really deep understanding. And as I always say, we’re barely scratching the surface. But hopefully from what I have shared, you can see that, “Wow, I haven’t thought about a lot of this. I’ve never heard some of these things before. And maybe I need some time to consider and prayerfully think about and contemplate upon them.” But the approach, the Vedic approach to coming to know God is absolutely extraordinary.

It can be simplified. One of my concerns is if it’s presented in an overly simple fashion, then people think it’s just a form of sentimentalism and just blind acceptance. And it’s not like that at all. It’s just—it’s amazing.

So of course, we all know that the principal way to transform our consciousness is through the process of meditating upon spiritual sound. And the most powerful practice that can make it so a person experiences the greatest possible benefit from spiritual sound meditation is through kirtan, sankirtan, the congregational chanting of these spiritual sounds, that they will actually purify the heart and mind and begin to deliver in the beginning even a small drop of a great ocean of spiritual nectar and happiness that awaits us. So I will chant the Maha Mantra, the Hare Krishna mantra.