Vulnerability
Posted: Thu May 06, 2021 8:43 pm
A lecture by Hari on Zoom, 20.04.2021
Now on https://youtu.be/FAtORXM42mg
Time: 6.50
In the last few days I have gotten a lot of - not a lot - but some significant communications, which have all addressed the same issue, which I am now going to place within the category of vulnerability. And what's interesting is, we were watching a TV show and that became, all of a sudden, the major theme.
And it just hit me. Like, wow! this is important. And, you know, I grew up in the culture of super heroes. Like Superman, right? Or Batman or Wonderwoman. Or these were the names (of the) heroes in my childhood. And at that time, these superheroes, they were in their own way super strong and vulnerable, they were, they had... their minds were just really proper, they never had any problems.
Time: 9:58
So on Marvel comics all of a sudden these change started, and in that change the super heroes started to become more human. The heroes started to express their vulnerability. Now, I think this is a very significant thing, that we had this idea of our heroes had to be transcendental to the things that made us human. They had to have strength and capacities that we could all look towards, so that we could transcend our troubles.
And interestingly this carried over into the spiritual realm as well. We had our spiritual heroes and they were invulnerable in their own way, having these great superhuman capacities. And vulnerability was not an acceptable quality.
Now, this is interesting, because now the period we are in, everybody is vulnerable, nobody is invulnerable. A little microscopic virus can finish you of completely. So people are not relating to heroes in that way. They're looking to their heroes to have issues that they have to deal with, that makes them more compatible with their understanding.
So it's a very important thing for us, because we're embracing a situation globally, so we want to feel comfortable with the people that we allow into our environment. And we suspect people who are completely in another dimension, or another league, who live in another space than us. In other words, we seek out that quality which really makes us who we are.
2
I mean, if any of us are going to speak about who we are, we will naturally include within that, you know, how we feel. Who we are and what we feel, or how we feel, are very intimately related things. This expression of self that does not include the feeling of self is not interesting. If I had to start, you know, telling who I am, and all I did was say: "Well, im somebody who gives lectures sometimes or answers email, or, you know, I take care of our horse farm here sometimes, or I go shopping, or I take care of my mother." How boring! This is the most boring description of self you could possibly imagine.
In one sense it's not that bad, because if I were to say: "I clean the house and I wash dishes, and I do this and I do that," than you would be thinking I do that too. So that makes some kind of connection, we are connected on this daily have to do stuff basis. But that kind of connection is very superficial, it's on the surface. We want something more than that, we want to feel a deep connection. This is something natural, this is something natural every human being feels. It's what we feel basically from when we're a baby in the arms of our mother.
We need to feel connection, and to feel that connection we need to experience the expression of self. When I speak to you in this way, I avoid these surface kind of stuff, the obvious kind of thing. And "I avoid these illusory images of the great spiritualist ideals or the great transcendentalist, whose what we should all attain to.
These personalities or ideals may or may not actually exist, that's not the point. The point is, I'm here right now, you are there over there, I talk and I'm expressing. I'm not talking and expressing about somebody over there, (Hari shows with his finger to the right) or somebody in some dream or somebody who used to live in the past. Those kind of discussions are fine too. But what I'm doing now in this format, is I am expressing me in relationship with you now, here.
Time: 20:44
Let's change this discussion a little bid, to make it maybe a little bid more interesting. Let's talk about the deities and the connection with the deities. The deities are persons, they're personalities, they stand there, they have forms like people. They are divine, they are God. Yes. So when we go before the deities, do we want to hear from them about somebody over there or somebody over there? (Hari shows with his finger to the right and than to the left) We are interested only in connecting with them, feeling them now, here, in this relationship we and them.
3
And they do not disappoint us. We reach out to them, because this is what we want. They reach out to us, because this is what they want. And we are connecting with them right now, right here in the moment, without any other need in this interaction.
What ruins that interaction? Well, for example, you go into that interaction with the deities and you bring with you some guilt or shame, or whatever, from a past, or you're demanding or requesting or praying for some future. Or you come in and you've got on your head an argument you had with somebody over there. So as soon as something else, other than the right here right now, us and them, enters into the picture, it ruins that connection.
This is something which is defining the axiomatic truth of who we are and what we are. Our axiomatic being, that fundamental being, is intimately involved with that connection here and now, between us and the deity. And it is exactly this, in exactly the same way, that we have experience with other people who we feel inclined, or have a desire, to be in connection with. The same exact principle. Can you imagine coming before somebody, maybe a friend or whoever, and you're filled with guilt and shame, from the way you've acted in the past, or you're just so filled with desires and longings for the future. It ruins the whole thing.
So that principle, this principle of who we are, how we interact, this is a spiritual, fundamental, axiomatic formula upon which everything takes place. The more you'll become aware, the more you evolve, the less you'll have any interest in being anything than what you are with other people. That doesn't mean you can say anything you want, nasty things or whatever. No, we're talking about Being here. You are who you are, and you don't have to be anything else.
How many times do we speak with somebody else with the desire that they should be impressed by us; that we somehow reach out for their approval that we're good; that we need them to think in a certain way about us? As if the way they think about us defines us, so we have to fight that. It is so much easier to just accept who we are and be a nice, loving, kind person who likes to be of service and who is just who they are in every circumstance.
And what people think about us is arising in their own minds, it is their own problem to deal with, not ours. Do you know that a lot of people, they may feel another person, they may know what they may have to offer to be of service. But their identity is not dependent on that other persons perception. And these people are very attractive. Because we see the way they are and we know within, that yes, this is the way it should be. Because all that matters is who I am and I am just honestly and within lovingly, which is our nature, expressing that and making connection with others. Okay, now I'm starting to sound like a, I don't know what, a new age discussion, boring.
4
So back to the deities. Do we need the deities approval? Do we need the deities to think of us in a certain way? Nobody ever thinks about this. Because the deities are all-knowing, the divine, Radha and Krishna are all-knowing, they know everything. We can't hide, so we can't, like, make some show, so they will think of us differently.
Time: 32:24
So the only option we have is to just be ourselves. And when you learn the art of just accepting the deity and accepting their energy, and accepting their love and reciprocating it, that's it. You don't have to feel bad or ashamed, you don't have to seek out something better in the future, you don't need to impress them, you don't need to have them see you a certain way, it's perfect as it is.
So I would like to suggest something radical. And that is, that if we understand that relationship with the deities, and we understand that their's not really that much difference in relationship with anyone else, what does that mean? I know you're going to say: "But the deities they are all loving, Radha and Krishna are all merciful, they are all accepting. But I'm not all loving, I'm not all accepting, I'm not all these stuff." But when I come before the deities to make this connection, I am accepting and loving.
So what is my main problem with another person - not deity - another person? Well, I will think they are not accepting and loving. And that becomes the whole issue and one becomes defensive. But what if you just put aside that fear and just accept it and love? Well, what just happens, you become their deity. Consider that! If you are displaying that same quality of acceptance, you don't care about past or future or, you know, how they have to be fixed or changed, you just accept them. Than you become their deity, equivalent, who is accepting you when you go to the altar.
Well, what do we think when we come before a spiritual person? What is that spiritual devotee or spiritual sage or yogi or whatever? What is it about them that makes us so happy? It's because we think they are accepting us in that same love, they are representing the deity, they are the representatives of God. Is that representation, lectures and quoting shastra and bringing up points and solving your problems? Many people can do that. Or is it representing God in the acceptance, in the love, in the no requirement or expectation? So each and everyone of us can be that person to any other person.
5
Now there are some persons who do that for many persons, and they are recognized in their own way. But they do not do that all the time with everybody, in every circumstance. I don't think it's important to go into details. You can have, you may have, your own experiences you can rest on to understand that point better. But what I think is important in this discussion, is your, I mean my, our, personal responsibility for who we are. And again, we don't have to become, we already are.
Obviously that takes some bid of effort to get to, but it's not that difficult. Our main task is to be who we are. And in that situation, in that integrity of being - with self confidence in that self - to be there for others as their deity. Not their worshipful deity, who they are going to come to your house and change your cloth and give you a bath in the morning. Can you imagine that? (Hari laughs) You wake up in the morning and than they come and they do an arti. (Hari laughs) Okay. So, but I mean in the sense of who you are and how you relate to others.
Okay let's get realistic. It's not going to happen all the time, you're not going to be this loving, accepting, all the time to everybody, because it doesn't work like that. But instead of defaulting to the interaction of: "Well, I'll protect me because I don't trust you," you can be neutral and warming up to the possibility that your love and care and concern, and your just feeling of acceptance of others, is allowed.
Time: 42:53
So I think this point it actually really explains quite well how vulnerability is not a deficit; it's not a problem; it's not an issue that needs to be corrected. But it's something that gives us an opening, a doorway, into the energy of others, that allows us to connect on a level which is very deep. And I think this will, this is, already happening. But if we can learn to do this, we can creat kind of like a, I don't know, snowball effect, where, if one person understands this art, it snowballs to another and to another.
(Hari ends here his lecture and asks if there are any questions. There is some discussion in Russian in the video regarding this.)
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Time: 46:50
Question and answer session.
Sati: When someone is negative towards us, we can feel that in our energetic field?
Hari: This is actually a really important question because it very much relates to what I was saying and it exposes a little bid of what I forgot - I didn't forget - what I didn't get into that I should have gotten into. So now it's a good time.
6
When we go towards the deities, we go there because we know the deities accept us, we know they are the proper recipient of our connection. So, we would not do that with somebody who's emanating negative energy, we wouldn't bother. Now, we, it is up to us to have the capacity to be like this. But to pick and choose how we shall express that and to whom. Now a lot of that has to do with a negotiation - I know this is going to sound weird - but it's a negotiation. You're open to it, but whether or not you get into it, with somebody like that, on a deeper level, depends on how they accept your openness, or how they are themselves open.
So you offer that as a service, you offer that as your self. How they reciprocate is very much up to them. If there's no reciprocation, there's no connection, so there's no continuation. So if somebody is negative towards us, there's no reciprocation of that energy which is us, than we just are not interested, we are just detached, we're not interested. You don't have to do anything, you are just not reciprocating in any way. You go on with who you are without reciprocating. The active detachment is far more powerful than an active offense. (Maha is asking: Active offense?) Yeah, when you get into offensive action, like not that it is offensive, but like offense versus defense. You know, instead of being defensive you are offense offensive or you're defending yourself. If you just detach, it's far more powerful.
So there is really no need to be bothered with. That is the personal interaction. I'm talking only now about personal interactions, which is you and somebody else. It becomes totally different when others are involved. If it's somebody in your family is being attacked by somebody else, or somebody in your community, that you try to defend, that's totally different, that's another form of social interaction. That's a different thing than what we're talking about.
So all of these ideals, like economic exploitation or crime, or racism as mentioned here, or any form of somebody causing an offense against somebody else in a social context, that has to be dealt with in an entirely different manner. But what I've been speaking about here, is that me expressing me to another in the kind of context which is one on one.
Time: 54:44
Maha translates a question from the chat:
"We dream because we want to better and achieve something which we don't have now presently. What about heaven or spiritual world, do persons dream about something in spiritual world and about what they can dream? Dreaming meaning like we have some desire to be fulfilled in the future."
7
Hari: I don't understand the context of the question.
Maha: You mentioned that we don't... that in association there should not be interference of past or future dreams or desires and so forth. And the question is about dreams.
Hari: No. That's a misunderstanding of what I was saying. So that has to be clarified. I'll clarify it now. (Maha translates the question into Russian) Desires that we have for our future are not insignificant, they're not bad, they're not something we should avoid. But I was explaining about the interaction we individually are having with the deity, for instance, and what would destroy that interaction right here, right now, in the present. Any of the past or future would dilute that interaction in the present.
If I'm in connection, for example, with the divine, with the deity, with Radha and Krishna. For example, I'm already in whatever future I might desire. So, if I'm in that existence, that connection, and I have a whole bunch of stuff in my head about the future, I'm diluting that connection. So that does not help, that ruins it. So much better to just be in the connection and don't worry about past or future.
So let's just set that, as the what I was talking about. Now this new situation, independent of that, is that person is saying, well, what about my desires for the future to get to the spiritual realm or wherever? Yeah sure, that's fine. But that's independent and that's not of the same significance, that's a desire. Good, fine! That's not related to the direction of now.
(Hari asks if his answer answered the question. It was confirmed by the one who was asking the question with yes.)
Time: 1:00:56
Question: The thought of the spiritual world, or paradise, deprives me of the spiritual world or paradise, because the spiritual world or paradise, is very here with me or in me. Is that what you want to say?
Hari: No! What I'm saying is, if you take these things and you inject them into the connection you're having right now in the present with the deity when you're connected with the deity, it dilutes the experience you're having now. If you experiencing, you're feeling their energy, and you're reciprocating with their energy, if you were to start thinking about some place outside of that immediate experience, it will dilute it.
8
I do understand how what I'm saying is suffering from the problems of the limitation of our capacity to understand, or translate, my words into an all encompassing experience. I'm aware of that. If one is exchanging energy with Radha and Krishna on the altar, for example, everything's included in that. Time, space and events are not considered to be within that experience. Oh God, how do I explain this? It is an all-encompassing experience.
Time is important to us now here, because it's passing and things happen at different places in time. In that relationship of experiencing and reciprocating with the deities, that is in the ever present, there is no time. Place is very important to me here and now, because I have to do different things, or act differently, or speak differently, or know differently wherever I am. It's not the same, when I am there with the deity.
So it's very hard to express in words that I'm speaking now an experience which truly transcends words. I do not mean that it cannot be described, I do not mean that. But I do mean it cannot be described completely in the depth, and it can experienced through the words. You can experience it and than to the best of your ability describe it, but the description and the experience are quite different.
So what I'm trying to do here, is to paint a picture and hope that you have enough experience, so that my words will inspire an understanding of that particular concept I'm trying to explain. I'm telling you, this is not an easy thing to do, it's difficult.
Time: 1:08:38
Question: In answer to this question about if there are categories of people we just have to avoid.
Hari: I would not answer that by speaking, using the word have. I would say that without even needing to translate the question, naturally we understand who we wish to avoid and who we might not, we might be interested in making connection. This is a natural thing. Every single person is different. You can't make a category of people. So it's our responsibility to understand if reciprocation could take place or not. So, again it enters into a negotiation.
Time: 1:10:28
Question: When I am in stress it is very difficult, if not impossible, to connect or to be of service.
Hari: Sure, I mean you're human. So how do you deal with such stress, and simple relaxation is a little difficult when you're in such state? Well, there's a billion techniques and everybody finds shelter in one of them somewhere. But what I have found, is when stress starts to reverberate very strongly on the cellular level, it's very difficult when that becomes a wave form that just rocks you. It's very difficult to deal with that.
9
Sometimes you just have to escape from the situation, or develop a very good sense of humor, and get a good laugh at yourself and a good laugh at the situation and just let it go. I like this saying that I heard somebody say. "You can speed up by slowing down." So, slow down to speed up! Because many times when you're stressed, you are going to do things fast and this and that, and everything is breaking and smashing, and you're... Just slow down consciously! Really slow and do one thing, and than another thing, and than another thing very slowly, just systematically! It does wonders in dealing with stress actually.
That's why relaxation meditation, it just slows you down. But to do that you need to be in a peaceful situation, you need to be seated, you need to be stopped. And that's, that requires a special circumstance and often it's difficult or not even possible. @So this other technique of just slowing down and doing everything very deliberately and one step at a time, is a wonderful way to deal with that kind of stress. Because that's active, just a very controlled form of acting.@ Kind of like the Tai Chi of action. You have here in your Zoom a super expert in Tai Chi, Jayanta, he should give you all a lesson.
Time: 1:16:34
(Maha translates a question from the chat into English) Dear Hari, thank you very much, you very deliberately, very clearly explained everything. Can we say, that when we accept another person with all our kindness, than we let the divine energy to go through us, we become conductor of divine energy in this way?
Hari: That is also true, but you are also divine energy. Don't sell yourself short! Don't reduce your own importance in this! You are yourself that divine energy, which that is what you are offering. But when you connect with the deities, you are not getting the energy from the deities to connect to the deities, that's you. The principle is the similarity of vibration. So, you are of that quality and the deity is of that quality, and that's why the connection takes place.
So indeed you are far more powerful than you give yourself credit for. And that's actually the problem, that you don't know that you are far more powerful than you give yourself credit for. You have to live in the past: "Oh, I'm bad this, that or whatever.." You already are that, you have to embrace it, you have to accept it! So I guess it's my job today to say, you can do that. It is so.
This is not illusion, this is not wishful thinking, this does not mean you have to wait twenty million years in the future till you'll become qualified. You are that here and now, let yourself be! And don't care what others tell you that you are! No matter what they say, they do not define you. And the only way anything, anyone, says can make you something different, is when you embrace what they say. So why should you do that? That's a whole another reason, why? But that's another lecture. (Hari laughs) Why we do do it is another problem, not that we should.
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Hari: I think im going to stop now because of all kinds of reasons, and I thank you all. I know it wasn't exactly the usual kind of spiritual lecture, but it was, I think, something important to say. (Hari laughs)
And I very much like this format of seeing everybody, I think that's great. And I wish you all good health and stay away from people (Hari is laughing). Sorry, just don't get sick, that's all I'll got to say! And live long and great health and happiness and prosperity! And big hugs to all of you. Good bye.
.
Now on https://youtu.be/FAtORXM42mg
Time: 6.50
In the last few days I have gotten a lot of - not a lot - but some significant communications, which have all addressed the same issue, which I am now going to place within the category of vulnerability. And what's interesting is, we were watching a TV show and that became, all of a sudden, the major theme.
And it just hit me. Like, wow! this is important. And, you know, I grew up in the culture of super heroes. Like Superman, right? Or Batman or Wonderwoman. Or these were the names (of the) heroes in my childhood. And at that time, these superheroes, they were in their own way super strong and vulnerable, they were, they had... their minds were just really proper, they never had any problems.
Time: 9:58
So on Marvel comics all of a sudden these change started, and in that change the super heroes started to become more human. The heroes started to express their vulnerability. Now, I think this is a very significant thing, that we had this idea of our heroes had to be transcendental to the things that made us human. They had to have strength and capacities that we could all look towards, so that we could transcend our troubles.
And interestingly this carried over into the spiritual realm as well. We had our spiritual heroes and they were invulnerable in their own way, having these great superhuman capacities. And vulnerability was not an acceptable quality.
Now, this is interesting, because now the period we are in, everybody is vulnerable, nobody is invulnerable. A little microscopic virus can finish you of completely. So people are not relating to heroes in that way. They're looking to their heroes to have issues that they have to deal with, that makes them more compatible with their understanding.
So it's a very important thing for us, because we're embracing a situation globally, so we want to feel comfortable with the people that we allow into our environment. And we suspect people who are completely in another dimension, or another league, who live in another space than us. In other words, we seek out that quality which really makes us who we are.
2
I mean, if any of us are going to speak about who we are, we will naturally include within that, you know, how we feel. Who we are and what we feel, or how we feel, are very intimately related things. This expression of self that does not include the feeling of self is not interesting. If I had to start, you know, telling who I am, and all I did was say: "Well, im somebody who gives lectures sometimes or answers email, or, you know, I take care of our horse farm here sometimes, or I go shopping, or I take care of my mother." How boring! This is the most boring description of self you could possibly imagine.
In one sense it's not that bad, because if I were to say: "I clean the house and I wash dishes, and I do this and I do that," than you would be thinking I do that too. So that makes some kind of connection, we are connected on this daily have to do stuff basis. But that kind of connection is very superficial, it's on the surface. We want something more than that, we want to feel a deep connection. This is something natural, this is something natural every human being feels. It's what we feel basically from when we're a baby in the arms of our mother.
We need to feel connection, and to feel that connection we need to experience the expression of self. When I speak to you in this way, I avoid these surface kind of stuff, the obvious kind of thing. And "I avoid these illusory images of the great spiritualist ideals or the great transcendentalist, whose what we should all attain to.
These personalities or ideals may or may not actually exist, that's not the point. The point is, I'm here right now, you are there over there, I talk and I'm expressing. I'm not talking and expressing about somebody over there, (Hari shows with his finger to the right) or somebody in some dream or somebody who used to live in the past. Those kind of discussions are fine too. But what I'm doing now in this format, is I am expressing me in relationship with you now, here.
Time: 20:44
Let's change this discussion a little bid, to make it maybe a little bid more interesting. Let's talk about the deities and the connection with the deities. The deities are persons, they're personalities, they stand there, they have forms like people. They are divine, they are God. Yes. So when we go before the deities, do we want to hear from them about somebody over there or somebody over there? (Hari shows with his finger to the right and than to the left) We are interested only in connecting with them, feeling them now, here, in this relationship we and them.
3
And they do not disappoint us. We reach out to them, because this is what we want. They reach out to us, because this is what they want. And we are connecting with them right now, right here in the moment, without any other need in this interaction.
What ruins that interaction? Well, for example, you go into that interaction with the deities and you bring with you some guilt or shame, or whatever, from a past, or you're demanding or requesting or praying for some future. Or you come in and you've got on your head an argument you had with somebody over there. So as soon as something else, other than the right here right now, us and them, enters into the picture, it ruins that connection.
This is something which is defining the axiomatic truth of who we are and what we are. Our axiomatic being, that fundamental being, is intimately involved with that connection here and now, between us and the deity. And it is exactly this, in exactly the same way, that we have experience with other people who we feel inclined, or have a desire, to be in connection with. The same exact principle. Can you imagine coming before somebody, maybe a friend or whoever, and you're filled with guilt and shame, from the way you've acted in the past, or you're just so filled with desires and longings for the future. It ruins the whole thing.
So that principle, this principle of who we are, how we interact, this is a spiritual, fundamental, axiomatic formula upon which everything takes place. The more you'll become aware, the more you evolve, the less you'll have any interest in being anything than what you are with other people. That doesn't mean you can say anything you want, nasty things or whatever. No, we're talking about Being here. You are who you are, and you don't have to be anything else.
How many times do we speak with somebody else with the desire that they should be impressed by us; that we somehow reach out for their approval that we're good; that we need them to think in a certain way about us? As if the way they think about us defines us, so we have to fight that. It is so much easier to just accept who we are and be a nice, loving, kind person who likes to be of service and who is just who they are in every circumstance.
And what people think about us is arising in their own minds, it is their own problem to deal with, not ours. Do you know that a lot of people, they may feel another person, they may know what they may have to offer to be of service. But their identity is not dependent on that other persons perception. And these people are very attractive. Because we see the way they are and we know within, that yes, this is the way it should be. Because all that matters is who I am and I am just honestly and within lovingly, which is our nature, expressing that and making connection with others. Okay, now I'm starting to sound like a, I don't know what, a new age discussion, boring.
4
So back to the deities. Do we need the deities approval? Do we need the deities to think of us in a certain way? Nobody ever thinks about this. Because the deities are all-knowing, the divine, Radha and Krishna are all-knowing, they know everything. We can't hide, so we can't, like, make some show, so they will think of us differently.
Time: 32:24
So the only option we have is to just be ourselves. And when you learn the art of just accepting the deity and accepting their energy, and accepting their love and reciprocating it, that's it. You don't have to feel bad or ashamed, you don't have to seek out something better in the future, you don't need to impress them, you don't need to have them see you a certain way, it's perfect as it is.
So I would like to suggest something radical. And that is, that if we understand that relationship with the deities, and we understand that their's not really that much difference in relationship with anyone else, what does that mean? I know you're going to say: "But the deities they are all loving, Radha and Krishna are all merciful, they are all accepting. But I'm not all loving, I'm not all accepting, I'm not all these stuff." But when I come before the deities to make this connection, I am accepting and loving.
So what is my main problem with another person - not deity - another person? Well, I will think they are not accepting and loving. And that becomes the whole issue and one becomes defensive. But what if you just put aside that fear and just accept it and love? Well, what just happens, you become their deity. Consider that! If you are displaying that same quality of acceptance, you don't care about past or future or, you know, how they have to be fixed or changed, you just accept them. Than you become their deity, equivalent, who is accepting you when you go to the altar.
Well, what do we think when we come before a spiritual person? What is that spiritual devotee or spiritual sage or yogi or whatever? What is it about them that makes us so happy? It's because we think they are accepting us in that same love, they are representing the deity, they are the representatives of God. Is that representation, lectures and quoting shastra and bringing up points and solving your problems? Many people can do that. Or is it representing God in the acceptance, in the love, in the no requirement or expectation? So each and everyone of us can be that person to any other person.
5
Now there are some persons who do that for many persons, and they are recognized in their own way. But they do not do that all the time with everybody, in every circumstance. I don't think it's important to go into details. You can have, you may have, your own experiences you can rest on to understand that point better. But what I think is important in this discussion, is your, I mean my, our, personal responsibility for who we are. And again, we don't have to become, we already are.
Obviously that takes some bid of effort to get to, but it's not that difficult. Our main task is to be who we are. And in that situation, in that integrity of being - with self confidence in that self - to be there for others as their deity. Not their worshipful deity, who they are going to come to your house and change your cloth and give you a bath in the morning. Can you imagine that? (Hari laughs) You wake up in the morning and than they come and they do an arti. (Hari laughs) Okay. So, but I mean in the sense of who you are and how you relate to others.
Okay let's get realistic. It's not going to happen all the time, you're not going to be this loving, accepting, all the time to everybody, because it doesn't work like that. But instead of defaulting to the interaction of: "Well, I'll protect me because I don't trust you," you can be neutral and warming up to the possibility that your love and care and concern, and your just feeling of acceptance of others, is allowed.
Time: 42:53
So I think this point it actually really explains quite well how vulnerability is not a deficit; it's not a problem; it's not an issue that needs to be corrected. But it's something that gives us an opening, a doorway, into the energy of others, that allows us to connect on a level which is very deep. And I think this will, this is, already happening. But if we can learn to do this, we can creat kind of like a, I don't know, snowball effect, where, if one person understands this art, it snowballs to another and to another.
(Hari ends here his lecture and asks if there are any questions. There is some discussion in Russian in the video regarding this.)
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Time: 46:50
Question and answer session.
Sati: When someone is negative towards us, we can feel that in our energetic field?
Hari: This is actually a really important question because it very much relates to what I was saying and it exposes a little bid of what I forgot - I didn't forget - what I didn't get into that I should have gotten into. So now it's a good time.
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When we go towards the deities, we go there because we know the deities accept us, we know they are the proper recipient of our connection. So, we would not do that with somebody who's emanating negative energy, we wouldn't bother. Now, we, it is up to us to have the capacity to be like this. But to pick and choose how we shall express that and to whom. Now a lot of that has to do with a negotiation - I know this is going to sound weird - but it's a negotiation. You're open to it, but whether or not you get into it, with somebody like that, on a deeper level, depends on how they accept your openness, or how they are themselves open.
So you offer that as a service, you offer that as your self. How they reciprocate is very much up to them. If there's no reciprocation, there's no connection, so there's no continuation. So if somebody is negative towards us, there's no reciprocation of that energy which is us, than we just are not interested, we are just detached, we're not interested. You don't have to do anything, you are just not reciprocating in any way. You go on with who you are without reciprocating. The active detachment is far more powerful than an active offense. (Maha is asking: Active offense?) Yeah, when you get into offensive action, like not that it is offensive, but like offense versus defense. You know, instead of being defensive you are offense offensive or you're defending yourself. If you just detach, it's far more powerful.
So there is really no need to be bothered with. That is the personal interaction. I'm talking only now about personal interactions, which is you and somebody else. It becomes totally different when others are involved. If it's somebody in your family is being attacked by somebody else, or somebody in your community, that you try to defend, that's totally different, that's another form of social interaction. That's a different thing than what we're talking about.
So all of these ideals, like economic exploitation or crime, or racism as mentioned here, or any form of somebody causing an offense against somebody else in a social context, that has to be dealt with in an entirely different manner. But what I've been speaking about here, is that me expressing me to another in the kind of context which is one on one.
Time: 54:44
Maha translates a question from the chat:
"We dream because we want to better and achieve something which we don't have now presently. What about heaven or spiritual world, do persons dream about something in spiritual world and about what they can dream? Dreaming meaning like we have some desire to be fulfilled in the future."
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Hari: I don't understand the context of the question.
Maha: You mentioned that we don't... that in association there should not be interference of past or future dreams or desires and so forth. And the question is about dreams.
Hari: No. That's a misunderstanding of what I was saying. So that has to be clarified. I'll clarify it now. (Maha translates the question into Russian) Desires that we have for our future are not insignificant, they're not bad, they're not something we should avoid. But I was explaining about the interaction we individually are having with the deity, for instance, and what would destroy that interaction right here, right now, in the present. Any of the past or future would dilute that interaction in the present.
If I'm in connection, for example, with the divine, with the deity, with Radha and Krishna. For example, I'm already in whatever future I might desire. So, if I'm in that existence, that connection, and I have a whole bunch of stuff in my head about the future, I'm diluting that connection. So that does not help, that ruins it. So much better to just be in the connection and don't worry about past or future.
So let's just set that, as the what I was talking about. Now this new situation, independent of that, is that person is saying, well, what about my desires for the future to get to the spiritual realm or wherever? Yeah sure, that's fine. But that's independent and that's not of the same significance, that's a desire. Good, fine! That's not related to the direction of now.
(Hari asks if his answer answered the question. It was confirmed by the one who was asking the question with yes.)
Time: 1:00:56
Question: The thought of the spiritual world, or paradise, deprives me of the spiritual world or paradise, because the spiritual world or paradise, is very here with me or in me. Is that what you want to say?
Hari: No! What I'm saying is, if you take these things and you inject them into the connection you're having right now in the present with the deity when you're connected with the deity, it dilutes the experience you're having now. If you experiencing, you're feeling their energy, and you're reciprocating with their energy, if you were to start thinking about some place outside of that immediate experience, it will dilute it.
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I do understand how what I'm saying is suffering from the problems of the limitation of our capacity to understand, or translate, my words into an all encompassing experience. I'm aware of that. If one is exchanging energy with Radha and Krishna on the altar, for example, everything's included in that. Time, space and events are not considered to be within that experience. Oh God, how do I explain this? It is an all-encompassing experience.
Time is important to us now here, because it's passing and things happen at different places in time. In that relationship of experiencing and reciprocating with the deities, that is in the ever present, there is no time. Place is very important to me here and now, because I have to do different things, or act differently, or speak differently, or know differently wherever I am. It's not the same, when I am there with the deity.
So it's very hard to express in words that I'm speaking now an experience which truly transcends words. I do not mean that it cannot be described, I do not mean that. But I do mean it cannot be described completely in the depth, and it can experienced through the words. You can experience it and than to the best of your ability describe it, but the description and the experience are quite different.
So what I'm trying to do here, is to paint a picture and hope that you have enough experience, so that my words will inspire an understanding of that particular concept I'm trying to explain. I'm telling you, this is not an easy thing to do, it's difficult.
Time: 1:08:38
Question: In answer to this question about if there are categories of people we just have to avoid.
Hari: I would not answer that by speaking, using the word have. I would say that without even needing to translate the question, naturally we understand who we wish to avoid and who we might not, we might be interested in making connection. This is a natural thing. Every single person is different. You can't make a category of people. So it's our responsibility to understand if reciprocation could take place or not. So, again it enters into a negotiation.
Time: 1:10:28
Question: When I am in stress it is very difficult, if not impossible, to connect or to be of service.
Hari: Sure, I mean you're human. So how do you deal with such stress, and simple relaxation is a little difficult when you're in such state? Well, there's a billion techniques and everybody finds shelter in one of them somewhere. But what I have found, is when stress starts to reverberate very strongly on the cellular level, it's very difficult when that becomes a wave form that just rocks you. It's very difficult to deal with that.
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Sometimes you just have to escape from the situation, or develop a very good sense of humor, and get a good laugh at yourself and a good laugh at the situation and just let it go. I like this saying that I heard somebody say. "You can speed up by slowing down." So, slow down to speed up! Because many times when you're stressed, you are going to do things fast and this and that, and everything is breaking and smashing, and you're... Just slow down consciously! Really slow and do one thing, and than another thing, and than another thing very slowly, just systematically! It does wonders in dealing with stress actually.
That's why relaxation meditation, it just slows you down. But to do that you need to be in a peaceful situation, you need to be seated, you need to be stopped. And that's, that requires a special circumstance and often it's difficult or not even possible. @So this other technique of just slowing down and doing everything very deliberately and one step at a time, is a wonderful way to deal with that kind of stress. Because that's active, just a very controlled form of acting.@ Kind of like the Tai Chi of action. You have here in your Zoom a super expert in Tai Chi, Jayanta, he should give you all a lesson.
Time: 1:16:34
(Maha translates a question from the chat into English) Dear Hari, thank you very much, you very deliberately, very clearly explained everything. Can we say, that when we accept another person with all our kindness, than we let the divine energy to go through us, we become conductor of divine energy in this way?
Hari: That is also true, but you are also divine energy. Don't sell yourself short! Don't reduce your own importance in this! You are yourself that divine energy, which that is what you are offering. But when you connect with the deities, you are not getting the energy from the deities to connect to the deities, that's you. The principle is the similarity of vibration. So, you are of that quality and the deity is of that quality, and that's why the connection takes place.
So indeed you are far more powerful than you give yourself credit for. And that's actually the problem, that you don't know that you are far more powerful than you give yourself credit for. You have to live in the past: "Oh, I'm bad this, that or whatever.." You already are that, you have to embrace it, you have to accept it! So I guess it's my job today to say, you can do that. It is so.
This is not illusion, this is not wishful thinking, this does not mean you have to wait twenty million years in the future till you'll become qualified. You are that here and now, let yourself be! And don't care what others tell you that you are! No matter what they say, they do not define you. And the only way anything, anyone, says can make you something different, is when you embrace what they say. So why should you do that? That's a whole another reason, why? But that's another lecture. (Hari laughs) Why we do do it is another problem, not that we should.
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Hari: I think im going to stop now because of all kinds of reasons, and I thank you all. I know it wasn't exactly the usual kind of spiritual lecture, but it was, I think, something important to say. (Hari laughs)
And I very much like this format of seeing everybody, I think that's great. And I wish you all good health and stay away from people (Hari is laughing). Sorry, just don't get sick, that's all I'll got to say! And live long and great health and happiness and prosperity! And big hugs to all of you. Good bye.
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