October 7th 2025

To make sense of stress, one has to analyze what the dominant triggers of stress are. The most dominant triggers in the order are time<money<people. We feel the most stress because of people. If the supply (of time, money and expectations of people) is greater than the demand, there is no problem. It is when the demand exceeds the supply, the growth in the gap is a growth in stress, anxiety and dejection.

The gap between information and transformation is filled by the mind. We have access to tremendous amount of information (through scriptures/maps) and any single piece of information from any of these maps can be a trigger for transformation but we are not transformed because of the mind! A mind that is not receptive keeps us at the information level and mind that is open helps us to feel the transformation. Our course is designed to fix the mind such that we can experience the transformation.

The common way we feel disintegration is when we use the word “but”. Why is this “but” culture so common in our lives? We can examine this by trying to understand what is blocking us from practicing “parama prema” or bhakti? The block is that we have mixed up the functional and the fundamental. The functional cannot make me feel that I am fundamental but I have told myself that it can and so I don’t dedicate myself completely to the divine. Similarly, I feel the fundamental is only functional, praying and remembering the divine only when times are rough. It is this mixture which is characteristic of the mind that inhibits us from being dedicated.

Recap:

Verse 1: In this verse, Guru ji says that the mind is filled with confusion

Verse 2: This is our sole problem. If the mind can be made open, there will be transformation.

We should scan what is holding us back from transformation and then treat it, be as specific as possible.

This Class:

Verse 3:

yāvat malā na ksheeyante, manasah rāga-roopakāh;

tāvat na tattva-jignāsā, jāyate mānushe hridi.

Line 1: yāvat= as long as, mala= impurity, na= is not, ksheeyante= to dismantle/ dissolve/destroy

Quarter 1: As long as the closeness of the mind is not changed, then whatever we are inputing will stay as information and not become transformation.

There is no shortcut to bypassing the mind. One has to go through the mind to fix the mind to be able to feel the transformation. When our mind is impure, everything we experience is not solid.

Quarter 2: manasah= of the mind, rupakah= of the form of rāga

This impurity of the mind is of the form of raga (light definition= likes, medium definition=attachment, heavy definition=dependency).

Likes, attachment and dependency is a form of us descending into Dvaita. Dvaita means duality, built into duality is difficulty. We have ragas because of Vikshepa (projections). I project Satta or reality onto different articles, beings and circumstances. These are temporary but we project their permanence. So it makes sense for us to be dependent on them, like it. But if we truly check, nothing is going to stay forever. Projections come out strongly in this map.

Strategies on how to lighten the likes which will cause my mind to be more pure which will in turn allow me to transform to be joyous: Preferences are what leads to the likes/dislikes. It is preferences that makes us unique. When our preferences turn into likes and we get affected by them. We should not let our preferences devolve into likes and dislikes.

In Srimad Bhagavatam, the strategy to change our personality traits is by Vasana kshaya (short term), parivartana (mid term) and nāsha (long term).

Vāsana kshaya- exhaustion. When you experience the personality print, it slowly goes away. Eg: Our travel vāsana goes away after we travel a lot

Vāsana parivartana– for more stuck vāsanas, we should substitute. Eg: I can substitute organizing worldly parties with sacred ones like retreats, fund raisers, etc.

Vāsana nāsha– once we have lightened the vāsanas enough, the final dagger to the ego is disidentification. Ego has likes and vāsanas, but I am neither.

There is no circumventing this, one has to practice this!