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Pause for Thought. March 9, 2006. (With Terry Wogan)

I've been trying to get the kids to help out with the chores, Terry. Don't laugh, it has been known to happen. Often though it is tempting to just do it yourself rather than engage in a protracted and fierce debate on the merits of being responsible. But we have to do our best to train them as eventually none of us can escape the reality of responsibility and indeed work.

Mind you, it's not that we wouldn't like to. For the most part working hard is not everyone's favourite activity. As Jerome K Jerome famously said, “Work fascinates me. I could watch it all day.” But most of us don't have the luxury of just watching work; we have to face it week in week out, often not very joyfully. We all know that Monday morning feeling. Our lottery ticket didn't come up, so our dreams of early retirement to some exotic beach are back on hold, and off we trudge.

We do our best to reduce our workload, of course, inventing all kinds of labour saving devices and machines. Adverts for cleaning products seduce us with the suggestion that we could almost just wave them at dirt and it will vanish. And scientists are already talking about robots that will eventually do all the chores and let us lie back and relax. If we can't avoid work entirely maybe we can make it as easy as possible.

But is this really the best way to go? There is a story in India of a man who used to toil every day pulling a heavy barge with a tow rope. He was so poor he had no shoes and his feet were blistered and sore from pounding the stone path. He prayed to God to help him and one day the Lord appeared. “What can I do for you?” he asked the man. “My dear Lord,” he replied, “Please line this path with pillows.”

Of course the foolish fellow could have asked the Lord to free him completely from his hard labour. And surely this is the most intelligent course for us all. The fact that we try to avoid all kinds of strenuous exertion in this world, and even work hard to make it easier, must show us that it is really not natural for us.

This is what Hindu teachings such as the Bhagavad-gita tell us. Although we have to strive in this world, ultimately we are spiritual beings meant to be enjoying always with God, not toiling on some towpath. So let's turn to him and pray that he frees us for once and for all from all our struggles. Definitely better than winning the lottery, Terry.

Pause for Thought. March 2, 2006 (with Terry Wogan)

It was reported recently that MI6 have just paid compensation to three ex-servicemen who were unwitting guinea pigs in an LSD experiment back in the 1950's. Apparently MI6 thought it might be a truth drug, but it simply gave the poor soldiers horrifying hallucinations. It was fifty years before they found out why the room had melted all around them and their own skeletons had somehow become visible through their skins. All they were told at the time, so they claim, was that they were helping to find a cure for colds. A cold-aid acid test, you might say (sorry).

Anyway, MI6 were not the only ones experimenting with drugs of course. The hippies, headed by the likes of the late Timothy Leary, were another group who thought they had found a truth drug in LSD. But the drugs don't work. Certainly no chemical can reveal spiritual truths, as the hippies may have hoped. All it does is mess up your mind, which MI6 has learned to its cost.

Yet although their methods were often flawed, the hippies were at least searching for some deeper meaning to life. I don't see much of that in today's youth culture, Terry. It's all about gross materialism, as far as I have seen. Not much questioning about even the most basic spiritual enquiry - who am I? But surely that's the first thing we need to discover in our quest for happiness. For me at least self-realisation is the very purpose of life. As that famous flower child of the sixties Joni Mitchell sang back then, 'I don't know who I am – but life is for learning.'

This is the first instruction of the Vedas – know thyself – find out who you really are. The Bhagavad-gita (sometimes called the ‘Hindu Bible') suggests a way by which we can immediately recognise our true spiritual self. It tells us to observe how our body is always changing. Where now is the body we had as a child? Long gone. We have a completely different body now. We just can't do what we did when we were eighteen, as much as we might like to.

    Our mind and thoughts have also changed so many times. But we are still the same person, witnessing all the changes – remembering all our past states (well some of them at least). We are now as we always were and indeed will be, eternal parts of the eternal whole, God. Or as Joni so nicely put it, 'we are stardust and golden'.

Without knowing who we are, how can we find fulfilment? Can we ever be truly happy as long as we try only to please a false, materialistic conception of who we are? I somehow doubt it, Terry.

Pause for Thought, Feb. 23, 2006 (with Johnnie Walker)

I try to keep in touch with leadership and politics, Johnny, and the other day I whiled away a pleasant half hour reading Tony Blair's recent speech to the Labour conference. I know, I'm a sad case, but I was curious to know what kind of vision he had, whether anything vaguely spiritual might be there. Needless to say there was nothing like that, but then so-called spiritual leadership doesn't have much of an image these days, does it?

Still, I was struck by one thing he said; that the goal of his party is to “believe in the potential of each and every one of us, and to liberate it.” For me that raises an important question: just what is the potential of each and every one of us? According to the Vedas, the Hindu scriptures, it is much more than mere skills and abilities – we are all said to be brilliant particles of the Supreme Spirit, capable of experiencing limitless spiritual bliss.

No mention of that in the speech, of course Johnny. It was all about improving material opportunity. But can any amount of this ever make us truly happy? I don't think so. The message of every religious teacher throughout the ages has been that real happiness lies within, and it is realised when we reduce worldly pleasures, not increase them.

In India there is a peculiar way of catching monkeys. They take a heavy glass jar with a narrow neck and put some bananas inside. This is left outside and in time a monkey will come by and put his hand inside to get the bananas. However, once it has a banana in its fist, it can't extract its arm from the jar, and it therefore can't go anywhere. A man will then run out and throw a sack over the animal, which is far too attached to the banana to let it go and just run off.

In the same way too much attachment to material enjoyment ultimately does nothing more than bind us to this mortal world and its unnecessary suffering. We deny ourselves the eternal bliss that lies beyond the temporary body and its limited pleasures. We just have to release our grip on the banana. It will never satisfy us anyway, even if we do get it. As Augustine said, our hearts are restless till they rest in God.

For me then, Johnny, liberating our full potential means helping us turn from materialism toward spirituality. That alone will make us happy. Maybe that's why our politicians never really please us and we always vote them out in the end.

Pause for Thought, Feb 16, 2006 (with Johnny Walker)

I'm not sure if you're aware Johnny, but it was recently Darwin's birthday. As I am sure you know, the great man was born in 1809 in Shropshire, and for his hundred and ninety-seventh anniversary visitors to Newquay Zoo, where they were marking the event, were being urged to sport beards in his honour. I think I might have gone for a monkey suit myself, perhaps with a missing link necklace or something.

Of course, Darwin's theory has become sacrosanct in science these days, and anyone questioning it is likely to be labelled hopelessly ignorant of reality, so I won't go down that path. But not everyone is comfortable with the suggestion that we somehow sprang from apes. Bishop Wilberforce, a contemporary of Darwin who opposed his theory, famously asked whether it was on his grandfather or grandmother's side that he claimed descent from a monkey.

Although Darwin's associate, Huxley, responded by saying he had no problem having a monkey as an ancestor, most of us these days are not keen on being called animals. It's a standard insult to say to someone, “Don't be an animal,” if they exhibit some kind of gross behaviour, lacking decorum or restraint.

According to Darwin we are supposed to have evolved out of that animal-like condition, and are now progressing toward more and more refined states. But I have to say I sometimes wonder which direction we are actually going in.

What is it that really does set us apart from the animals, Johnny? I would argue that it is religion, a sense of meaning and purpose to life. That means respect for God and his creation, for one another and indeed for our own selves, which in turn means an acceptance of moral behaviour. Animals have no real understanding of these things, but can we honestly say that they are increasing in our society today? Are we becoming more godly, more moral and indeed more respectful toward the world and one another? I at least would expect to see this happening if we really are moving away from animal life.

Of course, Darwinism and evolution is often touted as an alternative to religion. “Now we don't need God,” say the atheistic scientists. “We can explain everything without him.”

This is not exactly true, as there are still big holes in the theory, but apart from that, is this the only reason why we need God – just to explain where we came from? I don't think so. I think we need God now more than ever, not to show us how we got here, but rather to show us how to get out, to put us on the right track that leads us right out of this world of suffering and death.

And whatever we may say about Darwinism, that is one thing it is never going to achieve, as far as I can see Johnny.

PAUSE FOR THOUGHT FEB 2, 2006 (With Terry Wogan)

I've been thinking about the incitement to religious hatred debate, Terry. It seems to have got a few popular comedians going. Religion is a good source of material for them, and it would no doubt be quite annoying if they were marched off to the cells straight after their shows.

I don't often crack jokes about religion myself, but I am often the butt of them as I go around in my religious dress. In fairness, I wouldn't say I face much hatred, but I do encounter plenty of misunderstanding or ignorance. The other day I popped into a grocer and the assistant, plainly a member of another faith, immediately said, “Your book is wrong.”

Interesting greeting, I thought, but I just smiled. I am used to people reacting to my unusual appearance in all kinds of ways. Once a group of children in a small northern town, seeing my shaved head and robes, asked me if I was from another planet.

I laughed at that one, but assertions that our faith is wrong are not always so funny. Seeing other religions as inferior in some way to one's own has created so many conflicts over the centuries, and this is obviously the kind of religious hatred we need to counter.

Of course, hatred can attach itself to anything. It does not need a religious pretext. Race, nationality, politics, football – there are so many things that stir up strong feelings. And religion, properly practised, should actually be the solution to hate, not its cause.

In fact the term religious hatred is something of an oxymoron, two words that don't belong together, as religion is really meant to be about love – divine love for God and his creation, which means all other people. If we hate in the name of religion we have surely missed the point.

Nor is there that much difference between so called different religions anyway. In every theistic doctrine the same essential messages are given – this life is not the all-in-all, we are eternal loving servants of God, don't build your house on sand, follow God's laws, etc. And in every tradition we find true saints who were perfect exemplars of their faith – men and women who were free from hatred and filled with love. Surely hate, anger, envy, greed and all other bad qualities are the very things that spiritual practises should aim to destroy.

At the end of the day, Terry, we are all spiritually the same as parts of the supreme whole, God. However we wish to express that, through whatever faith, should be respected. If we must hate then lets save our hatred for the ignorance that sees unnecessary differences and divisions between us, and makes us believe that we are in some way better than others.

Pause for Thought Feb 9, 2006 (With Terry Wogan)

I was just looking through the newspaper in your well appointed waiting area, Terry. I really shouldn't, as it never leaves me feeling too good, but I can't seem to break the habit.

It reminds me of a story about a Christian priest who went to a northern mining town to preach. He spoke to a group of miners, warning them of the consequences of not following the Bible. “You'll end up in hell,” he said, “A dark and miserable place.”

The miners just looked at one another. “We're already in a place like that,” they replied, thinking of the mines.

The priest thought about some way of getting his point across and then said, “Yes, but in hell there are no newspapers.” The miners were shocked, “Horrible!” they said.

And for most of us that probably would be horrible. The daily news seems to be something we can hardly live without. It's not just papers of course – 24 hour TV, radio, internet, or even the mobile phone – news is a constant feature of our lives. But not usually a pleasant feature, for sure. Today's paper is a standard example – a grim litany of suffering from all around the globe. War, tragedy, disaster – it's all there.

None of it comes as any surprise to practising Hindus, though Terry. Our main scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, describes this world as intrinsically miserable. Sometimes we're accused of being morbid when we say this. “You're not seeing the wonder and joy of the world. Alright, there's some pain, but you've got to take the rough with the smooth.”

But isn't that the whole problem? We don't want any rough at all and we try our best to keep out of it. Science and technology constantly tries to minimise the miseries and difficulties of life – even to the point of avoiding death. I saw in the paper one scientist claiming his research was close to finding a way to increase our lifespan to possibly a thousand years. (Well, at least the mortgage payments would be more manageable).

For me though Terry, all this is missing the point. We are trying for permanent happiness in a place where everything is transient. We don't belong here. As Christ said, “We belong to the Lord and not to the world.” And this is also the message of the Bhagavad-gita. We are eternal souls living in a temporary body. This world and its misery are like a bad dream. One Hindu song therefore says, “Wake up sleeping souls. Awaken your ecstatic love for God.”

Pause for Thought Oct 20 2005

When I pray I usually go before God with a shopping list of requests. “Please give me this, give me that, save me from this or that problem,” and so on. Generally we approach the Lord as the all providing and protecting father and, while this may not be a bad thing, is it really the best way to please him?

As a father myself I am used to being plied with never ending requests. But how nice would it be if my children came to me and said, “Dad, what can we do for you today?” Probably I would faint with the shock, but it would certainly be a pleasant shock. Of course, it does happen sometimes, on my birthday and the like. On such occasions the children will usually use money I have given them to give me something, and obviously I am over the moon even with that, as it is the love that counts.

For me God is a person like us who also wants to see our love more than anything else. Although we may pray for so many things, in truth he supplies everything we need anyway. It is nice to recognise the Lord as our maintainer, but do we really have to ask him for our material needs? If my children came to me and said, “Dad, will you look after us today?” how would I feel? Obviously I want to make sure they always have what they need without them asking.

God always provides for us, even when we don't ask him. After all, even atheists are maintained. How many of us, though, ask God what we can do for him? This is what we really need. The reason we ask God for things is because we think they will make us happy. But nothing ever does. Even if we get what we want, we will probably soon ask for something more. The only thing that can satisfy us is to link with the Lord in loving service. We are like fish out of water in this world, having forgotten our loving relationship with God. Being placed in his service again is like re-entering the water and coming back to our real life. As Augustine said in his famous prayer, “Our hearts are restless till they rest in you.”

So maybe next time we pray we can give it a try, Terry. Put aside the shopping list for a moment and instead offer ourselves as humble servants to God. Surely then we will soon forget all our other so called needs.

Radio interview with Don McLean
BBC Radio 2, 'Sunday Morning',

Don. With me in the studio as you know is Krishna Dharma, now Krishna is a Hindu priest in the Hare Krishna Centre here in Manchester. The news this morning is very disturbing, all this unrest involving Asian youths, now you originally wrote about the riots that took place in Oldham three weeks ago, is this unrest racial or religious?

Krishna Dharma. Well it's probably a mixture of both. It seems to me that it stems from the same basic ignorance, whether they identify it in terms of race or religion, there's an underlying ignorance that I see as being the cause.

Don. An ignorance from who, from the Asian community, from the British white community?

K.D. Well it's from anyone who identifies another group of people as enemies or antagonists on the basis of their bodily designation. I may think I'm a Hindu and this one's a Muslim and therefore he's my enemy, but that's a misunderstanding. In reality I'm not actually a Hindu, he's not actually a Muslim, I'm a spirit soul, a part of God and so is that person. And if I don't see on that level, if I simply see on the level of the body, that's an ignorance. Or if I see that I'm white or he's black, then that's another ignorance. You may call it racism or religious bigotry but basically it's the same underlying ignorance.

D. This is a very good piece, I wish I could read it all out, that you wrote about the Oldham riots, you said, it's entitled "Oldham riots, a type of skin disease", that's a great This very good piece, I wish I could read it all out, that you wrote about the title, but could you just expand on that.

K.D. Yes, well what it is, is that the ignorance that I'm referring to is an ignorance of the Self. We don't know who we are ourselves, that actually we're different from the body that we inhabit. The body is an external temporary material covering for the soul.

D. Now just to stop you there – where you're coming from, you're talking about the belief in reincarnation, of the Hindu faith aren't you, that's part of it.

K.D. Well, that's another thing. What I'm talking about is the belief of any religion that life endures beyond the body, that life is something more than just the body, that when the body dies we don't die. So what is it that doesn't die? It's the soul, that's the eternal Self. And it's not just when we die that we become an eternal soul, we're always an eternal soul, even now, but we think we're the body, we identify with the body. We think, I'm a man, I'm a woman, I'm a Hindu, I'm a Muslim, I'm black, I'm white, but these are all misidentifications, actually we're none of these things, we're an eternal soul. When we die, this body dies, we move on. What do we become then? Will we always be a Hindu, will be always be a white man, or a man or a woman? No actually we're not, we're eternal parts of God so we have to see on that level, that spiritual level, then we can see beyond the differences, the external differences of the body.

D. So as far as you're concerned then, in your belief you could die and come back as your old enemy, or the enemy you had in a previous life.

K.D. Well yes, I wrote that. In the Bhagavad Gita it says that whatever one is thinking about at the time of death, whatever your thoughts are absorbed in, will influence your next birth so if you very much hate a group of people, then you're absorbed in thoughts of them and if you're fighting when you die – in the midst of that battle and you're just thinking of them, there's a possibility you'll take birth in the womb of one of that race or religion. This is the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita. You oscillate, you know, this is the point to understand that, I'm not what I think I am and he's not what he thinks he is, we're both the same on the level of spirituality so what is the point of this fighting and antagonism?

D. Well exactly, what is the point? But you often hear on the news, they say community leaders have been asked to help. How would leaders of the Hindu faith, how will they be dealing with the problems this morning that have gone on in Bradford overnight.

K.D. Well I think the most important thing is for religious leaders and communities to try to get their own people to focus more on their own spirituality, because as much as we have spirituality, our own life will be peaceful and it's a lack of spirituality in everyone's individual case that leads them to be agitated, not to feel peace, so I mean they can say, ok you shouldn't fight, you know, it's not good but if someone's feeling agitated, if someone's not feeling peaceful in themselves, if they're not actually understanding the spiritual truth about themselves then these calls for peace are going to fail. Something deeper is needed.

D. For years people have lived in harmony. Asian people who have come to this country in places like Bradford and Oldham and yet all of a sudden it's flared up. Does this mean that the younger generation are not really filled with the values of their parents. Probably religious values.

K.D. Yes I think there's something to be said there Don, that as time progresses there does seem to be a diminishing of spiritual practices. Perhaps older generations had more peace because of their spirituality. I'm not entirely certain of the external causes, but ultimately I'd say that if someone's not feeling peaceful towards another group, then it's a lack of spirituality, a lack of spiritual knowledge that's causing that.

(Music)

D. That was Anouska Shanka, the daughter of Ravi Shanka and she's been on Good Morning Sunday, haven't they all, and Krishna Dharma is still with me. Krishna, you're a teacher of meditation, would that sort of music be used as an aid to meditation.

K.D. Possibly, but the most importance aspect of meditation, the most important element, are the words, the Mantra.

D. Umm

K.D. There can be any kind of music in the background, it doesn't matter.

D. Right.

K.D. But the sound vibration of the words is the most important thing.

D. Okay, yes and that sort of mantra is repeated over and over again.

K.D. Yes like the Hare Krishna mantra "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare." That's the one I meditate on and you can sing it to the background of music like that, that would be nice.

D. And you actually teach people to meditate.

K.D. Yes.

D. I find things like that ever so difficult.

K.D. Well it depends what you think meditation is. There are some kinds of meditations which are very difficult to practice, when you have to sit down, calm the mind, and just think of a certain thing, you know, and focus on a mandala or impersonal meditations, like what is the sound of one hand clapping, you've heard that kind of thing. Certainly that's very difficult, but the meditation that I teach is very simple, it's called Jappa. It's simply chanting the mantra I just said and hearing that sound.

D. You've actually said that your goal is to bring to the west the wisdom of the east, that can't be an easy thing to do can it really.

K.D. Well no it's not. It is a very profound wisdom. When people hear it they are interested and they're influenced, you know, like the Bhagavad Gita, that's the main thing and I'm really just trying to spread the knowledge of the Gita.

D. And of course if people do want to hear more about Hinduism then there are a tremendous amount of books, I know you write a lot of books yourself but there are books available aren't there.

K.D. Oh yes, certainly, yes. That's right, I've written Mahabarata, which is a very good overall view of Hinduism, you know ancient Hinduism.

D. Is that the latest book you've written. I know you've written something very recently haven't you.

K.D. Yes that's right, The Mahabarata in the condensed version has just been published.

D. And people would be able to buy that from any bookshop presumably.

K.D. Yes, they can buy it in bookshops.

D. Okay. Well anyone with any queries can contact us. But I must bring this up, because I know that before you became a Hindu priest you were an officer in the merchant navy and after all it is Sea Sunday you know. How long were you in the merchant navy.

K.D. 7 years Don.

D. That's quite a time isn't it.

K.D. Well there was about 3 years training and then I became a deck officer, a navigation officer.

D. Oh fabulous. So quite important then. And were you on large ships, liners or what.

K.D. Mostly supertankers. I worked on them internationally.

D. And what decided you, I mean, that was obviously your chosen career, you'd gone into it presumably for life and then you decided to become a Hindu priest. I presume that was wasn't a sudden thing.

K.D. No it was the culmination of a spiritual quest on my part. I was well off in the merchant navy, a decent wage and stuff like that, but there was a spiritual vacuum, a lacking within me which led me to study various books and different philosophies and ultimately I was drawn to the philosophy of the Gita.

D. Obviously if you were searching you studied several different paths, so why did you decide this was the one for you.

K.D. It just answered all my questions. I was a very inquisitive person, scientific background and everything and it was only when I encountered the followers of the Bhagavad Gita that I found those questions answered which no-one had previously been able to do for me, and it was such a moving experience I just got more and more into it.

D. It's one thing though to embrace a religion, it quite another to become a minister of that religion isn't it, I mean that really is a big step.

K.D. Yes, quite a big step. Initially of course I didn't think that I would do that, but it's just the way that things developed. I got so into studying and practicing – Krishna Consciousness really is what it's called. Hinduism is a very broad church which includes many things, like Christianity of course, specifically it's Vaishnavism or Krishna Consciousness that I practice and it's such a wonderful thing that I thought I want to share this with other people.

D. We have a lot of Hindus in the country now and a lot of Muslims. We are a multi faith society. So it's very important isn't it that we understand one another because bigotry comes from fear and ignorance as you said earlier. What can we do to combat that, just find out more about each other.

K.D. Well certainly, we can try to understand one another empathically, that doesn't often happen but more than that is as I say to get spiritual knowledge. In every faith that knowledge is there, the truth is there, of what we really are, of who we really are. It doesn't matter whether Hindu, Muslim or whatever, that knowledge is there within their faith and if they turn to that and try to deeply understand that then I think that a lot of the differences can be resolved.

D. And of course every faith, no matter what it is believes primarily in peace and let's hope for peace and an end to all this silly unrest in Yorkshire and Lancashire at the moment.

K.D. Absolutely.

D. Great to have you join the programme again. Don't go because we'd like you to join the prayers.

Prayer led by Krishna Dharma

Dear Lord please help us to see the true quality of all living beings as your eternal parts and parcels Give us the spiritual vision to see beyond the temporary designations of the body, to realise that we're all immortal souls equally loved by God.

Help us to experience that love, awakening our own love for You and thus for all other creatures.
Give us the understanding that love for You is a dynamic thing evinced by our desire to follow you instructions.

Help us realise that our greatest happiness lies in always pleasing You and that You are pleased when we treat others as we would be treated ourselves.

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