LEADING A MEANINGFUL LIFE

New Year Lecture by Swami Paramarthananda (2005)

Transcribed by Sri VLN Prasad

NOTE: Swami Paramarthananda has not verified the transcription of talks.

The transcriptions have been done with Swamiji’s blessings by his disciple.

Published by :

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General Talks Leading a meaningful life

Leading a Meaningful Life

sadāsiva samārambhām sankarāchārya madhyamām
asmad āchārya paryantām vande guru paramparām
In the Bhagavad Gīta, Lord Krishna teaches Arjuna, several aspects of
Spiritual Sādhana and in the middle part of the Bhagavad Gīta, Lord
Krishna talks about his nature. At that time, he pointed out that I am not
a personal God with a small human form, but the whole Universe is my
own manifestation only.
He very elaborately teaches this from the seventh chapter onwards and
this goes up to the tenth chapter of the Gīta. He says that the Whole
Universe is my Rūpam or my form which is called Vishwarūpa
Ēshwaraha. Vishwarūpam means the very Universe as the body of the
Lord. Arjuna gets more curious to know.
Therefore, he asks Lord Krishna - Hey Krishna, I would like to
appreciate your Vishwarūpa more clearly. Give me the appropriate
vision for that purpose. Lord Krishna blesses Arjuna with this
Vishwarūpa Dharshanam. There, Arjuna sees the whole Cosmos not
only consisting of this earth, but all the 14 Lōkās.
He sees many events that are taking place in several places and he also
sees some of the events which are soon going to take place in the
Mahabharata battle field. It is because Mahabharata Yuddham has to
start and both armies are ready and lakhs of people are standing in the
battlefield arrayed and armed. Several Akshouhinis of armies are there,
one Akshouhini itself consists of around one lakh soldiers.
Like that, fourteen Akshouhinis or so are assembled. They are all going
to fight and we all know that in the Mahabharata battlefield, most of the
people perished. Arjuna sees this terrible event while experiencing
Vishwarūpam. This is very symbolic and clearly presented in the
eleventh chapter of the Bhagavad Gīta.

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General Talks Leading a meaningful life
amīchitvām dhrutarāshtrasya putrāha
sarvē sahaiva avani pāla sanghaih
bhīshmō drōna sūta putras thathāsou
saha asmadīyai api yōdha mukhyaih
Arjuna says O Lord, I am seeing that thousands and lakhs of people are
entering your terrible mouth which is full of scorching fire. I see them
entering your mouth. Not only the people belonging to the opposite
side, but Saha asmadīyai api yōdha mukhyaih - thousands of our own
kith and kin including Bhīsma, Drōna and others.
Many of them do not have a sudden instantaneous death. I see some of
them entering your mouth and you are crushing them between your
teeth. Some of them lose their hands, some of them lose their heads, and
some of the heads are crushed. I am seeing all of them in front of me.
This is not one or two not even hundred, not even thousands but several
thousands.
It is because there are 14 Akshouhinis and one Akshouhini has got one
lakh people and most of them are to perish in the Mahabharata battle
field. Naturally, Arjuna with a small, little intellect is not able to fathom
or understand or comprehend what is happening. He has been all the
time taught that the Lord is the most compassionate one.
And here he sees something which is totally different. Therefore, Arjuna
is overwhelmed and asks a question to Lord Krishna.
ākhyāhi mē kō bhavānugra rūpaha
namō stutē dēva vara prasīda
vignyātum icchāmi bhavantam ādyam
nahi prajānāmi tava pravrittim
O Lord, I don’t see you as a compassionate one. You appear to be the
most cruel and most terrible principle in the creation. I am not able to
understand what your function is and I am not able to understand your
actions. Can you tell me what is all this? Nahi prajānāmi - my intellect

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raises thousands of questions. I am not able to find the answer for even
to one question.
Please tell me what you are, who you are, what are your activities and
what is the significance and the meaning. Lord Krishna starts his reply.
You know what the Lord says? The Lord says that I am the Cosmic
Event Manager. Now-a-days event managers are coming. I don’t know
how they manage, but Krishna is the cosmic stage manager.
I am the omniscient, omnipotent Lord. I am responsible for the Srushti,
I am responsible for the Sthiti and I am responsible for the Laya of the
whole creation. I am responsible for every event that happens in the
creation. In the form of Kāla Tatvam, I make everything happen exactly
according to the Universal Laws of Karma.
I don’t have any Rāga or Dwēsha, likes or dislikes. I am perfectly fair
and just and according to Karma, I make everything happen as it should
happen. I know what to do, I know when to do and I know how to do.
As a Sarvagnya Sarwēshwaraha, I never commit any mistake in my
duties.
As far as you are concerned, it is none of your business to poke your
nose into my department. You are here an ordinary individual, little,
puny, little Jīva. As far as you are concerned, you have to know what
your duty is during this particular occasion. Therefore, mind your duty.
Know what you have to do, know how you have to do and know how
well you have to do and perform your duty.
nimitta mātram bhava savyasāchin
drōnam cha bhīshman cha jayadratham cha
karnam tathānyān api yōdha vīrān
mayā hatāmstvam jahi mā vyathishthā
yudhyasva jētāsi ranē sapatnān
From this answer, Lord Krishna conveys a very important, indirect
lesson to us. Lord Krishna never gave an elaborate explanation and
details of what is happening here. He did not say why so many lakhs of
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people are dying. He did not answer that question. He did not say
whether all the Karmās of the people are ending at the same time.
He does not answer whether all the Karmās of lakhs of people end at the
same time. He doesn’t say whether some people will die before their
Karmās are over. He doesn’t say what will happen to the left out
Karmās. He doesn’t say whether those Jīvās will be hovering around.
All these millions of questions which a normal intellect asks, Krishna
does not answer any one of them.
What type of Karma these soldiers have, to die together in the
battlefield, Krishna doesn’t give the details of their Karmās. Why and
what will happen to them after the death, none of them Krishna talked
about. So, what Krishna did not talk about is as important as what
Krishna talked. Why didn’t Krishna answer all these normal questions
which will come to any human intellect?
Whenever there is a cosmic event, when millions of people or thousands
of people die, our intellect tends to ask several questions and Arjuna
also had the questions but we find that Krishna very carefully avoids
answering these questions. Why Krishna did not answer? Can you say
Krishna doesn’t know?
Krishna being the Lord, the cosmic manager, can give explanation to
every event, micro as well as macro. Bhagawān can explain, but
Bhagawān did not bother to explain. By not explaining, Bhagawān is
teaching a very important lesson to us. What is that? Intellect will
always ask thousands of questions about every event that happens in the
creation.
It is the curiosity; it is the tendency of the intellect to try to know the
explanation for every small or big event. And it is the job of the
individual to know that we need not know the answer to all these
questions. Krishna conveys a very very important idea. Millions of
events take place in the cosmos. At the individual level as well as at the
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macro level, so many events take place and we need not know the
explanation for every event.
Why? Because we don’t require answers to those questions for our
spiritual growth. For our spiritual growth, we should only know what is
my duty in a particular situation and what should I do and how should I
do to the best of my capacity. Knowing my duty and doing my duty
alone is my task because that alone will contribute to my spiritual
growth. I don’t require to know everything.
Not only that, even if I try to know, my intellect can never know the
answers to all the questions in the creation. That is why Bhagawān is
Sarvagnyaha and we are all Alpagnyāha with a puny little intellect. How
are we going to know all the things that are in the creation?
Scientists have been struggling, expanding the number of branches and
in each branch they have probed more and more. As somebody said,
specialization is - knowing more and more about the less and less.
Therefore, we are not going to know everything with our limited
intellect. If we try to solve all these mysteries, we will be only wasting
our precious time.
We have got a very small, limited duration of life. If you are going to
keep on talking about what happens to this person’s Karma, that
person’s Karma, why did Bhagawān do this, why did Bhagawān do that,
we will be talking for hours and hours. At the end of the talk, ask the
question as to what we achieved and you will find that we would have
wasted precious hours.
We would not have solved any mystery at all. Sometimes, the media
also add to our confusion. They keep on writing so many things about
so many people, so many events, so many situations and contradictory
reports about this and that. The mystery will become more and deeper.
There are many things we can never know.

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If we keep on talking about that, we will only waste our time. Therefore,
Krishna conveys a very important idea that misplaced curiosity is a very
big intellectual obstacle to spiritual growth. Misplaced curiosity is a
very big intellectual obstacle to spiritual growth because due to this
misplaced curiosity, we will be talking a lot and wasting precious hours
of ourselves as well as other people.
I have seen very many intelligent people. They are not able to filter the
field. They are not able to discriminate what intellectual questions
should be answered and what questions should be ignored. Therefore,
due to misplaced curiosity, they waste their time. Krishna says, Arjuna
shut up, get up and do what you have to do. Time is running out.
Therefore, the first important lesson is to give up misplaced curiosity
and learn to be comfortable with several unanswered questions. At any
time in life, there will be several unanswered questions regarding many
events, many people, the character, etc. We will have hundreds of
unanswered questions regarding so many things. If all questions are to
be answered for peace of mind, we will never get the peace of mind.
Therefore, learn to avoid misplaced curiosity and learn to be
comfortable with many unanswered questions. If somebody raises the
question, openly tell that I don’t know and I am not interested in
knowing. Especially, if you have a Kāvi Vastram, you had it! People
think we are the source of answering all their questions.
It is as though Bhagawān consults me regularly and Bhagawān informs
me. I openly declare that I myself, I don’t know the answers to most of
the questions. The only difference between you and me, the questioner
and me, is I don’t know and I am not disturbed because I don’t know the
answers to several questions.
I am interested in knowing what is to be known, within the limited time.
I should know what my duty is as an individual. I have a duty to myself,
I have duty the family, if I have a family, I have got duty to my religion,
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and I have duty to my nation. I want to know what I should do in a
particular occasion.
Whatever curiosity, I have is - how best I can do or discharge my duties
so that I will also benefit, so that the society also will be benefited by
my action. Action benefits the society, but not empty armchair talk,
wasting hours. So, the first lesson is to give up misplaced curiosity
which is an intellectual obstacle and do what you have to and what you
can.
The second problem that a spiritual speaker faces is misplaced
sympathy which is an obstacle at an emotional level. Misplaced
curiosity is an obstacle at an intellectual level and misplaced sympathy
is an obstacle at an emotional level. When I have misplaced sympathy, I
get obsessed with the object of my sympathy. It may be a person, it may
be an institution, it may be a Nation, it may be a religion or it may be a
community.
When I have misplaced sympathy, I get obsessed with the object of the
sympathy and constantly keep on thinking of that only. I am sad for that
person, I am distressed, I am distressed. Constantly, my mind is
victimized by emotion. When this misplaced sympathy overwhelms me,
not only I am obsessed with the object, I am immobilized and I am not
able to do what I have to do.
The situation requires action and if a sympathy or sympathetical attitude
obstructs my duty, that sympathy becomes misplaced sympathy. I tell
people that all the time the same thought keeps coming that my hands
and legs are not cooperating, I am not able to do my regular house work
also. Not only I waste my time, but I talk only about this all the time
again wasting precious time.
Therefore, Gīta is very clear that even sympathy which obstructs your
discharge of duties is a misplaced sympathy and it is a very big obstacle
to your spiritual growth. Therefore, whenever our mind goes on
thinking of a person only, all the time sympathizing, ask from
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to what is the benefit that comes out of this. Do I get any benefit or does
the object of sympathy get the benefit?
Instead of saying I am worried, I am distressed, if those ten sentences
are converted into Rama Nāma or Krishna Nāma, we would get Punyam
for each of those Nāmās. That Punyam can be used to improve the
situation. Constantly saying that I am upset about this event, I am
worried about that person, doesn’t benefit anyone at all.
We find Arjuna going through the same problem in this second chapter
and first chapter of the Gīta. He got misplaced sympathy for the people
in front of him. That sympathy became an obstacle for Swadharma
Anushthānam.
Arjuna blabbered and blabbered in the entire first chapter wasting
Krishna’s time also. Krishna had to listen to Arjuna’s lectures. What a
Prārabdham! Bhagawān had to listen to Arjuna’s lecture! Krishna
ultimately remonstrated-
ashōchyānan vashō chastvam pragnyā vadāmscha bhāshase
gatāsūn agatāsūmscha nānu shōchanti panditāh
I don’t want your misplaced sympathy, misplaced grief. Drop all them,
get up and fight. So, the second big pitfall, the big obstacle is misplaced
sympathy for others which becomes an obstacle for doing your duty.
Spiritual growth requires action. Appropriate action which will uplift
me and which will parallelly uplift others also.
There is a third group. They have got misplaced curiosity and misplaced
sympathy. It is not for others. Misplaced curiosity - I am such a great
saintly person. Therefore, we begin analyzing various events taking
place in our own life.
For many experiences we go through, we have no logical explanation. It
is not because logic is not there, but because our intellects are too puny
to understand the totality of the situation. How can and Alpagnyana
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explain any event that is taking place? I can never know the Karma of
any one. I can never know the Karma of myself also.
That is why Karma is called Adrushtam. It is incomprehensible.
Therefore, we keep on asking the question - why me or we keep on
sympathizing. We are all the time worried about either the present, or
the future. All kinds of emotional problems are born out of misplaced
sympathy and misplaced curiosity.
All problems are because of misplaced curiosity and sympathy either
about others or about myself. We already have this weakness and other
people add to it. When New Year comes, they write this Rāshi Phalam
for 2005. As it is, we don’t do what we have to. So, we won’t keep
quiet.
They will say in September month, third week there would be some
problem. Now, this fellow starts thinking of September third week. And
you read another magazine and it says that is the best time for you. So,
that means - again, which one to believe? What to do? So, Krishna,
through Bhagavad Gīta, conveys a very important lesson.
Be a Kartru Pradhāna Purushaha, focus on yourself as a Karta and keep
on doing what you have to do. If at all you want, you learn, learn how
well I have to do, what I have to do. I talked in my previous New Year
talk about how to excel in every field. I don’t know whether you
remember.
I talked about the five principles regarding how to excel in every field.
They are very easy to remember. Somebody gave me the formula also -
LLIFE. These are the five principles-
1. Love to do whatever you have to do
2. Learn to do what you have to do
3. Implement what you have learnt
4. Focus on whatever you are doing

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5. Expand your mind so that whatever you do, will benefit not only
you, but as many people as possible.
So, if we learn excellence in our work and if we avoid the pitfall of
misplaced curiosity and misplaced sympathy, we will be making every
moment of our life meaningful. This is the best method of making the
life meaningful. Once we start doing that, the beauty is that we will
derive Ānanda from our very Karma itself.
We will gain Karma Ānanda itself. We don’t have to wait for Karma
Phalam. I am not a Bhōktru Pradhāna Purushaha, I am not a Karma
Phala Pradhāna Purushaha but I am a Karta, a Karma Pradhāna
Purushaha. Lord Krishna tells this beautifully in Gīta-
mukta sangō naham vādi dhriti utsāha samanvitaha
sidhya sidhyōr nirvikāraha kartā sātvika uchyatē
A Sātvik Karta is an enthusiastic person. This person is not Castrol oil
person, all the time grieving, complaining and murmuring. He
enthusiastically does what he has to. Mukta sangaha - he is free from
misplaced curiosity and misplaced sympathy. At the same time, he has
got sufficient compassion for the others which will inspire him to do
what he has to do.
We don’t say sympathy is not necessary, but we are only criticizing
misplaced sympathy. That compassion and care which will inspire me
to enthusiastically do what I have to do, that a Sātvika Karta process.
And that will make my life meaningful and I will add meaning to other
people also. Therefore, don’t be Bhōktru Pradhāna Purusha but become
Kartru Pradhāna Purusha. Be a doer, not a talker. Talk less and do more.
Talk is a nice word, what happens is blabber. Therefore, don’t blabber.
If from Bhōktru Pradhāna Purusha we become a Karma Pradhāna
Purusha, keep on doing the duty that needs to be done, sooner or later,
we will get a curiosity to know what is really worth knowing in our life.

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Misplaced curiosity will go away and it will be replaced by a very
valuable, very valid, very meaningful curiosity.
That is, curiosity to know the ultimate truth, knowing which our life’s
purpose gets served. When I get appropriate curiosity, ātmēcchā
vyavasīyatām nija gruhāt tūrnam vinirgamyatām - we ask the question
to be asked. We ask the right question and Bhagawān will answer that.
gnyēyam yat tat pravakshyāmi - Ask that question which needs to be
asked and I will tell you what needs to be known. So, don’t waste your
time. So, from Karta, I become a valid Gnyātā, a knower. Then, before
the end of this life itself, I know what is to be known. That will
ultimately make the life meaningful.
Therefore, what is a journey? - Bhōkta to Karta to Gnyātā. This is Lord
Krishna’s teaching in the Gīta and this is the teaching of our Vēdās, the
original scriptures also. I wish all of you a very meaningful 2005. With
this, I conclude my talk.
Pūrnmadah Pūrnamidam Pūrnāth Pūrnamudachyatē.
Pūrnasya Pūrnamādāya Pūrnamēvāvasishyatē..

Om shānti shānti shāntihi

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