So one thing is to simplify your life and this is really nice for the modern age to give yourself permission to simplify your life.
Atyahara, you don’t have to collect too much. In fact nowadays studies are showing that when you have less clutter in your life you can focus more and actually that focus is more important than intelligence. It’s better to be a focused person than to be a genius whose attention is being pulled all over the place. And one of the ways he’s recommending that you become focused as you simplify your life. Get rid of a few things that you don’t need. It’s actually very satisfying to the self when you get rid of external things that you don’t need. As many of you know. I know cause i’ve mentioned many times in this class, i once had a professional organizer come to my house. I’m getting rid of all the stuff i’m going to get it all organized. I hired a professional organizer. They’re really good too, that’s all they do, and she came over to our house and she told me something that really stuck in my mind. She said that all the extra things that you have hanging around amount to visual noise, visual noise. See that thing over there, yeah, what’s it for, i don’t know, get rid of it, get it out of your life and as you do one by one it’s also almost metaphorical because there’s parallel clutter in my heart at the same time, they are just clutter i keep in my heart. Why do i need all these things. I mean if you listen to any of the airwaves now days they will introduce you to unlimited ideas and worries that you never need and knew you needed to have and that you get to carry around. It’s clutter you don’t have to have it. You’re human being just soul in a human body just passing through this world and the shastras already given their complete permission to not concentrate on all the chatter. You have full permission not to tune into cnn, specially on fox or any of the other frequencies in this world that simply give you anxiety. You have permission you’re liberated. Don’t collect this clutter don’t collect it externally don’t collect it internally, this is a practice that anyone can take up in their life and feel satisfied. It’s a rage right now in japan somebody wrote a book about living a zen-like existence get rid of all your stuff that you don’t need and see how you feel. See if you’re not more focused when you get rid of all this stuff – maybe i’ll use this in a year, it’s a broken blender, my brother-in-law said he has a cousin who has a friend who lives in new york that he knows somebody in philadelphia who can fix it and therefore i’m holding on to it because it may have some value. If your are being chased by a tiger you have to go across the river you drop everything so you can swim faster. So think like that and also realize the fact that as you shed a lot of the extra things that you have in your life, you’ll see actually that krishna is supplying everything anyway. This is the beauty of growing up in an brahmachari asrama, this way you are trained, so children can learn early on i don’t need anything. I’m happy with a little mat on the floor and then only need is just a little prasadam and service and if i have that life is sublime and happy you don’t need anything else. But if you get an apartment you got to get insurance you gotta get a telephone then you gotta get internet and the internet doesn’t work fast enough so you got to get more internet then you gotta replace the telephone because it’s already obsolete by the time you get the internet and then you go then you enter into hell which is also known as home depot. Home depot with unlimited varieties of stuff you can’t figure out which one to get and it doesn’t matter which one you get its the wrong one and there’s nobody there that really cares to help you.
I really don’t care so this is commonsensical advice spiritual life. Is easy it’s something that you can start with right now. Right today. Start getting rid of a few things, started giving up a few the things you’re carrying within your heart that you don’t need to carry. Stop taking in extra things and have a simple diet, eat something that is simple. You don’t need extra stuff, you don’t eat junk, just simple foods offered to krishna and be happy with that. These are just two things that can make you feel so satisfied and then you can sit down and you can read bhagavad gita and chant hare krishna. Get rid of more stuff and only keep the things that you really need. If you just keep those things you’ll start feeling satisfied, so make a list about the things that really matter in your life, make a priority list, what one thing, if you could only do one thing for the next week, what do you think would be the most important thing for you to do that’s all you had to do for a week
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