Hello and welcome to episode 118 of The Ask Sri Vishwanath Show. Today I want to talk about complexity and how we can make the transformation from complexity to simplicity with the help of Krishna.
Today’s question comes from Trisha from Australia and she asks “Why do we complicate things so much? Why can’t we make things easier for ourselves? Life seems like a burden sometimes. Why is it so easy for some and not for others?”
Clarity and complexity
That’s a great question. The more it becomes clearer the more we go from knowledge to execution and from complexity to simplicity. It is important that we have clarity and clarity is not about knowing everything, but knowing what is needed to be known to get things done in the shortest possible steps. It also takes persistence and perseverance but clarity is the key.
Richard Branson says that complexity is an evil and I completely agree with him. It’s easy to complicate things but it’s not so easy to simplify the important things. That’s the key. It is only when things are simplified that we can start to take action.
Ram Krishna says to do that we have to do a little digging at the start. Let’s say that under the ground there are lots of pots of gold. You must dig with a spade initially and when they spade hits the metal of the pot you experience the first thrill of knowing something is there. You dig deeper and deeper until finally you reach your treasure, the gold which in our case is the gold image.
Who are you?
There are three things that make us go from complexity to simplicity. The first is who you are. Many people try to avoid this part thinking it is not important but it is. The people who live the greatest lives and do the greatest works are the ones that know who they are. The easiest answer to that is you are God.
You can live your life denying it but the fact is you are God and you are the consciousness. This is the key to all complexity. When you say you are the body mind and intellect you will be governed by circumstances, time and space and you will only be able to act within that domain.
This is why it becomes complicated. Certain situations are out of control but that is only because you feel you are the body mind and intellect. It completely changes when you are God. It’s not that problems will not exist but will we deal will that a little later. Just remember that when you feel like you do not know who you are know that you are God. You are the consciousness. You sometimes cannot accept this because of the gunas and because of your karma. But they key is knowing who you are. Not in philosophical way but really knowing who you are. This will bring you so much closer to simplicity.
Why are we here?
The second question is why have you landed here? Why here on this earth? Some people think that we’re here and that’s it so it’s not important but again this is wrong. A big mistake people make is mistaking passion for purpose. People focus on trying to solve the world problems and things then get really screwed up. People mistake passion for purpose because they could not answer the first question. They do not really know who they are so they make the mistake of thinking that their baggage, their karma is their purpose in life. The only purpose in life is to form the gold image using the mould. Remember passion is good but it is not your purpose.
Ram Krishna would always ask people if they really thought the world was so small that they could fix all of its problems. Many people can’t fix the problems in their own homes and yet they want to change the world. The people in your homes are the ones you should love the most and you should focus on them rather than the outside world. If you cannot fix your own problems then people will not be interested in what you have to say. It all stems from the ignorance of thinking your passion is your purpose and forgetting about the gold image. If you focus on the gold image your energy and productivity will really increase.
What should you do?
The third question is what should you be doing here? Once you know who you are and why you are here what do you do then? You are here to form the gold image, to draw the gunas in and be detached from the karma. That is what we need to do and by doing this you are doing a great service to humanity because by doing this you will be bringing great energy into the world and there will be great energy all around you wherever you go. There is nothing greater than spreading good energy wherever you go.
There is physical help, intellectual help and spiritual help. Spiritual help is the best type of help that you can offer to anyone because it will be helping others but you will also be helping yourself and you will not be mistaking passion for purpose.
It is the gunas, the emotions of pleasure, pain and power that make us work and the important thing, the key thing is to destroy that gunas. We need to draw our emotions in otherwise we will always be governed by them and we will never truly understand anything. All you will ever get is pain and pleasure and you will never be truly content. When you withdraw your gunas you get back to the shore and that’s what it is all about, getting back to the shore of the consciousness.
So to make things simple you must know who you are, why you are here and what you should be doing while you are here.
I hope I answered your question. Remember you keep asking questions and I’ll keep answering them.
