16.13-20 The demoniac treat religion as a social cosmetic

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.

Continue with our discussion on the 16th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita. We are discussing about the activities of the materialistic people and how they, not just the materialistic people, but the ungodly, demoniac people. So first Krishna talks about their behavior, that is non-scriptural.

Then he talks about their world view, that is asattvam pratishtham te. 16.7 was their behavior. Prarottim chidivrttim cha, then asattvam pratishtham te.

Then after that, the consequence of that behavior is etam dushyamstvam nashtatmanu. They are spiritually lost. Then from the 10th onwards, he describes how they become materially also ruined.

So, kamam ashritya dushpuram. And then, asahapashyatair baddhah. They take shelter of lust and they become bound by unlimited desires.

So, in general, the material attachment, at the material level, it is very easy, if a person is attached to material things, to go from morality to immorality. Because at the material level, the only concern is how can I fulfill my desires. So, moral boundaries have no intrinsic value in the materialistic world view.

See, somebody may say that you should not do bad things. But how do you decide what is good and what is bad? I may think something is good and you may think something is bad. But without some sort of inherent moral order in life, what is good and what is evil? What is moral and what is immoral? You just have no basis.

Nobody has any basis for deciding that at all. Therefore, actually speaking, whenever there is philosophical relativism, philosophical relativism means all philosophical truths are relative. Oh, you believe there is God? I believe there is no God.

And it's all relative. So, philosophical relativism will lead to moral relativism. Moral relativism means, OK, this is right, you think that is wrong? That's your opinion that is wrong.

In my opinion, it's not wrong. So, now, we may say that what Hitler did, the example of killing so many Jews, that is wrong. But from Hitler's point of view, it is not wrong.

He gave speeches glorifying that, that particular course of action. But once we remove any inherent basis for morality in the creation itself, then everything becomes relative. Everything becomes relative.

So, anyayenarthasanchayan. Anyayenarthasanchayan means that these people, they have no scruples, no hesitation about acting immorally because ultimately morality is just, in the material life it is said morality is just lack of opportunity. Why are people moral? Because they don't have an opportunity to be immoral.

When people get an opportunity, they will also become immoral. They said metaphysical relativism, metaphysics is philosophy. Metaphysical relativism leads to moral relativism.

On what basis will I decide that this is right and this is wrong? There has to be some basis for deciding it. So, when there is no basis, then automatically anyayenarthasanchayan. So, now the next verse Krishna will describe what is this anyayen.

This anyayen is not just injustice, it can extend even to murder, contract killing. That's what Krishna will describe in the next verse. So, it is all meant for arathasanchayan, for the purpose of getting wealth.

bhavishyati punar dhanam asau mayahata shatrur hanishye cha paranapi ishvaroham aham bhogi siddho aham balvansukhi adhyo abhijan vanasmi konyasthi sadrusho maya yakshe yakshe dasyami modishya vitya jnana vimohitah dambho darpo abhinashya krodha parushyamevaja ajnanam ca vijatasya. In 16.4, Krishna described ajnan is one of the characteristics. So, that ajnan he also, asatthama pratishtham te, that is the foundational ignorance.

But here Krishna concludes, their conceptions are itti ajnana vimohitah, they are deluded by ignorance like this. That will describe the last part of the verse. First he described the actions.

They are just, for them there is no value to anything apart from money. iddhamadhyamayalabdham nam prapase manoratam I have got this much, I will get this much more, this much, this much more. So, earlier Krishna talked about kamam asitdhushpuram.

Now, kam is one, now he is talking about lobha, greed for more and more. And then that lobha will actually lead to himsa. This much I have got, this much I want to get more.

So, in one sense, these two lines seem to be repetitious. iddhamadhyamayalabdham imam prapase manoratam. This much I have got and this much I will get again.

iddhamastidhamapi me bhavishyati punardhanam. This much I have got and in the future I will get this much more. So, what is this referring to? This is actually in a sense repetition.

But it is talking, it is reflecting the mentality of the person. That is what the person thinks about. That becomes the obsession.

How can I get more, more, more? And there is no end to this greed. Because once a person gets infatuated by the desire for more, then the mind, we discussed earlier in the mode of passion, it's like an itch. By satisfying the itch, it won't go away.

So, itch is not just for lust, even greed is also an itch. And then one goes towards violence. asau maya hathah shatrur hanishye jaaparanapi.

And this much people I have killed. I have killed this enemy, I will kill that enemy also. And in the world today, life has become so cheap.

Life, especially for those people who are criminals, killing people is nothing. Just give some amount of money and they can just kill people. Why? Because once a person starts, once a person loses a spiritual perspective to life, then nothing is wrong.

Nothing is simple. Nothing is out of bounds. Why? Because there is no value higher than just earning.

So, asau maya hathah shatrur. I kill this person, let me kill that person. Hanishye jaaparanapi.

And the idea is, once I have killed all my enemies, then I become the controller. Ishwaroham aham bhogi. I am the enjoyer, I am the controller and I am the enjoyer.

This is the primary, Prabhupada writes in the introduction of the Bhagavad Gita, this is the primary enjoying mentality. So, I want to control and I want to enjoy. And in this way, I am perfect.

I am balwaan. In a sense, if you look at the traditional Hindu movies, you would say this is Hindu movies, not Hindu, Hindi movies. So, we will see that this is the mentality of some person who they can't underworld on.

You know, this is, I have nobody equal to me. I can destroy anyone and everyone that I want. Ishwaroham aham bhogi, siddho aham balwaan sukhi.

I can just enjoy whatever I want. And I can kill anyone. Now, adyo abhijanvaan asmi.

Abhijanvaan means I am surrounded by my aristocratic relatives. And I can enjoy with them. So, actually, these people, they may have some affection.

But the affection is very I-centric. That means, for my people, my spouse, my children, my relatives, I will do anything and everything. But for others, I can do anything to them.

Doesn't matter. So, that aham mameti, that discrimination that is there, as you become more spiritual, you know, our love doesn't get sort of partitioned by walls. We actually develop a affectionate, respectful attitude towards everyone.

But in the materialistic conception, everything is based on the borders. This is mine and this is yours. Yakshe dasyami modishe.

So, now another thing that they do is, I will do some yajna, I will give some charity. So, although I am doing all these things, I want to also appear like a good person in society. So, many times, religion becomes an arena for people to exhibit their false ego.

Now, for example, now there is this Ganesh Utsav that happens. In a sense, it's a religious or a cultural event. But in many ways, it is just a social, it is just a event where people are just showing off.

You know, I have got this big Ganesh and you have got this big Ganesh. And many times people use, funnel their black money like this and they get a whole idea that we are, we are very religious. And actually there was a, about 4-5 years ago, there was a whole competition among several groups of people to construct the tallest Hanuman deity.

So, now there are Hanuman images that are almost like huge. They are 40 feet, 50 feet, 60 feet. You construct that, but who is going to worship that? After that, what kind of worship can we do if you have giant deities? And then, you know, somebody built 56 feet and then immediately somebody else built 65 feet.

And then the next person built 75 feet. So, you know, they just went on and on. So, at least you can say that there is some devotion that they are building Hanuman deities instead of just having some worldly things.

But still, often religion can become a means for people to just express their false ego. So, I will give some charity. I will do some Yajna and more Vishya.

In this way I will enjoy. So, for such people, religion is just a social cosmetic. Cosmetic is that which we wear so that we look good.

So, religion is just a social cosmetic. That means I do some religious activity so that I look good in the eyes of others. And people think that religion has no metaphysical or spiritual purpose.

It is just a way by which I also can get an image of respectability. Certainly, if a person is religious, that person will get respect. But that is not the purpose of religion.

So, when there is a utilitarian world view, when there is a materialistic world view, everything is utilized just for that. So, ithya jnana vimohitaha. Now, after describing this, Krishna will describe, in this way when they are just riotously murderous, just going around, what is their mentality? What is their inner state? These people may appear to be very, very prosperous, but internally they are not.

They are actually anxious, dissatisfied. Aneka chitta vibhranta. Moha jala samavritaha.

Prasattaha kama bhogeshu. Patanti narakeshu chau. Aneka chitta vibhranta.

Vibhranta means distracted. Vibhranta means completely distracted, perplexed. Aneka chitta.

There are so many ideas. I have to do this, I have to do that, I have to do that. See, often when people say, I have so much work to do.

Why do they have to do? It's not that all that work is essential. They just have so many desires. Their life becomes like if I'm going on a journey and I decide that I'm going to travel in my car and I have my car ticket.

But I decide I'll carry all my house things with me. I take my whole house things and put them in the car ticket. It appears impossible because it is impossible.

There's no way it can be done. So when materialistic people are there, they have so many desires. We just can't do everything that we desire to do in the limited time that we have.

And because the desires control them, so aneka chitta vibhranta. And moha jala samavrta, avrta. Vishnu had talked about avrta in the third chapter.

Avrtam jnanam etenam. He's talking about lust covering people. Here there is samyak rupena avrta, completely covered.

So they become like an insect which goes into a spider's web. And then the more it moves, the tighter it gets trapped. The more it moves, so aneka samavrta, completely trapped inside.

Prasaktaha kama bhogeshu. So because of their attachment to kama bhog, kama bhog is the same word as Krishna used earlier. Earlier kama upabhoga parama.

Earlier he had talked about it. So prasaktaha, because they are attached to kama bhog, patanti narakeshu chau. So asu chau, earlier he had talked about asuchi vrata, unclean vows.

So because of their unclean attitudes, they fall down to hell. Fall down to hell means, it is certainly, hell is a place where people can go and suffer. But hell is also a state of consciousness.

When a person's mind is uncontrolled, person's desires are driving a person crazy, then that person's life is just like hell. Now we don't mean to say that there is no such thing as hell. But actually our mind is such a thing that it can make heaven into hell and hell into heaven.

So when the mind is uncontrolled, people's desires just drive them crazy. Patanti narakeshu chau. After that Krishna will describe about how despite all this internal suffering, these people are very proud of their success, very proud of their worldly prosperity.

ātma sambhāvitāstabdhā dhanamānamadānvitah mohījan te nāma yajñaiṣṭe dambhe nāvidhi pūrvakam So they don't do nāma yajña, they do yajña for nāma. mohījan te nāma yajñaiṣṭe So their yajña is just for the sake of nāma. They will do some fire sacrifices so that they can get some prestige, some nāma.

They don't chant the holy names. And because they are doing it just for nāma, it is yajñaiṣṭe dambhe nāvidhi pūrvakam. There is no vidhi that is followed in doing the yajñas.

So I had mentioned this earlier also about once I was invited for a Ganesha Puja program and they asked me to give a class. So I spoke on how to glorify the culture. But then after that, when they started doing the Ganesha Puja, they were having all movie songs going on.

So then I asked them, this is Ganesha Puja, how are you having movie songs? So, dambhe nāvidhi pūrvakam. What are their ideas? Actually Ganesha is bhakta vatsala. So his bhaktas like movie songs.

So he also likes movie songs. It's a crazy idea. It's one thing to have movie songs, which is bad enough, but to rationalize it in this way is terrible.

So what happens is, for them, whatever they are doing, it is not really out of a devotion or appreciation for God. God is just an incident. God and religion are just incidental factors in their schemes to control and enjoy material world.

And because of that, dambhe nāvidhi pūrvakam. So they feel rules and regulations are not very important. And this is quite unfortunate.

ātma sambhāvitahastabdhā There is a prominent temple in Vrindavan, which, on some day, dressed Krishna in jeans and t-shirt, and instead of his flute, he had a cell phone with him. So it created a big controversy. And the pujari of the temple was saying, Oh, actually, we have to stay in touch with the times.

Yes, we have to stay in touch with the times. We have to present Krishna consciousness in a way that brings people to transcendental level. There are certain things which are transcendental and which cannot be changed.

So these are things which can make people feel that when we start changing the core of our tradition, just for the sake of popularity or appreciation, then people start losing respect because then people feel everything is just something which people have only come up with. So what is the value? There is nothing transcendental in it. So, there are radical feminists in the West.

So, to some extent, it is true that women have suffered abuse, although the magnitude of that has often been exaggerated by some people. But the feminists, they came up with this whole idea that why should God be male? Why should God be male? So, you know, there are feminist Bibles where when God said, so whenever there is a pronoun, instead of he, they will have she. So, they have rewritten the Bible itself.

And then some people say, oh, why should God be she? So then, neither he nor she, they have made it to it. So, solve the problem by depersonalizing God. And this is not just some fringe people, there are people who are actively doing that.

In fact, in New York, in a church, there is an image of Jesus with breasts and female genitals. They say, why should Jesus the Savior be male? Why should he be male? Why should religion be dominated by males? So, what is the point of all this? This is avdambhen avidipurvakam. So, this is a clear idea of people just concocting their own ideas.

There is also this whole deity of Santoshima. I don't even use the word deity. It is just some sort of worship of Santoshima.

Actually, Santoshima started from a Bollywood movie. And there is no scriptural basis for it. It just started, oh, women who are in trouble, they should worship Santoshima and their problems will be solved.

And then some people started worshipping and apparently, by word of mouth, the worship started spreading. And now so many people do worship of this. So, similarly, somebody may say, what is the problem? Somebody gets some relief by that, what is the problem? But the problem is, this sort of concocted speculative worship, it mixes the shallow spirituality, shallow religion with the substantial religion.

And then skeptical people start thinking, okay, today you started worshipping Santoshima, maybe 5000 years ago somebody else started worshipping Lakshmi like that. So, this is concocted, even that will be concocted. Therefore, there has to be some serious education.

People need some kind of solace. People need some kind of feeling of being protected by some unseen presence, a desire to worship something higher. But that has to be directed according to Shastra.

Many of the, there is this whole Hindutva group. So, they have their own temples in which they, instead of worshipping any deity of Krishna or Ram, they have the deity of Bharat Mata. Now, Bharat Mata deity, they have Bharat Mata entirely posing like Durga.

Now, she is sitting on a tiger. Only thing is, she is having a tricolor in her hands. Now, the tricolor was more or less developed in 1905.

So, now, sorry. So, by Bipin Chandra Pahalwan, Bipin Chandra Bhattacharjee, all of them, they came up and they did all that. So, you have to put that in the hands of Durga.

That is completely invalid. So, see, there is nothing, the idea of that one's motherland is sacred or is deserving of one's worship or respect or service, that is laudable. That is not Paradharma, but it is one of the Upadharmas.

But to make a deity out of that and start worshipping that and make temples of that, and not only they do that, but they say, actually, this is the way all Indians can be united. And they say, okay, this is one form of deity which not only Hindus and Muslims should worship, Christians should worship. And because of this, the transcendental aspect of religion gets lost.

You see, scriptures, now, all these examples I am giving to illustrate this principle. Scriptures come from a transcendental source. They come from the spiritual realm to the material realm.

And they connect us to the spiritual realm back. That is what the scriptures essentially do. Now, when they come down to the material realm, they may be expressed in various ways according to some small variations.

That means, now you may say that if some Chinese devotees make some pictures of Radha Krishna, in that way there is a slightly Chinese look in that. And that will be slight regional variations are okay. That is just natural.

People will pronounce things differently. But the ideals that are there, they should not change. So, there is a difference between practicals and ideals.

So, practicals may change according to culture. That is perfectly okay. For example, you know, we may have had particular things, when Prabhupada started the Krishna Conscious Movement, there were no Tulsi beads available.

So, they had simple wood and they made beads out of that. The practicals may change. But when the, what is devised as a practical is made into an ideal.

So, the idea that okay, India was under foreign rule and India should be, India should avoid exploitation by foreigners, that is good. So, but when one doesn't follow Shastra, then what is utilitarian, what is done at the practical level becomes ideal. So, you know, when this Hindutva movement started, the pioneers of this were Veer Savarkar and Golwalkar.

So, they were thinkers in their own way and they said that we have to unite all of India. And how do we unite India? They said that we have to have a conception of Hindutva, we have to have a conception of Bharata and we have to have a conception of Hindu. So, they said, how do we bring about a conception of Hindutva? So, he said, if you try to do it by language, India has so many languages.

If you try to do it by cultural practices, do it by religious practices, there is so much variety. So, there is no criteria by which you can unite all of them. Then he said, okay, we could say that faith in scriptures.

But he said, if we use faith in scriptures, then we have so many Buddhists and Jains. They will be left out. So, let's not have, let's not have that also.

Then what are the criteria? They said, okay. You know, those, all those people whose eyes are on India, they are Hindutvavadis. That is the definition of Hindu.

Eyes are on India means, all those people who consider their holy places to be in India. They are Hindutvavadis. So, by that, we can include Jains, we can include Buddhists.

And of course, all Hindus come in. But then all Muslims, their holy, their eyes are in Mecca. All Christians, their eyes are in Vatican and other places, Bethlehem and other places.

They said, therefore, they cannot be included. And indirectly, the result of that was, okay, their eyes are in India. That means, India becomes greater than whatever each of these religions is saying.

And the object of worship becomes worshipable because it is present in India. So, we need to have at a practical level unity. That is fine.

But making the practical into an ideal and making that into a duty can have a lot of counterproductive effects. So, of course, we are not talking here only about ungodly. This may not be outright demoniac.

The point here is, as long as there is avidhipurvakam, avidhipurvakam can go to any length. jante naam yagyese tam bhen avidhipurvakam Why do people do like this? Because their whole idea is that everything is meant for my enjoyment. So, even religion is meant for my enjoyment.

And all the religious rituals should be done in such a way that they give enjoyment to me. If they don't give enjoyment to me, then just give it up. That is the utilitarian view of religion.

Now, I was talking about these radical atheists who are so hateful of religion. But they also have, they have come up with a… Now, they are also, they are generally naturalists. They say, oh, nature is so great.

By natural selection, all of us have been, all of us have appeared. So, they basically say, if we tell them, you cannot explain how the feathers of a peacock could have come out just by random natural selection. If you can't figure it out, that is your problem.

That is not natural selection's problem. This is just word jugglery. This is basically simply like making natural selection into God.

So, this is nothing but a call for faith. Religious people will say that you can't explain it because God's intelligence is greater than your intelligence. So, if you can't understand, it's your problem.

It's not God's problem. So, what they do is they just faith in another God. But this is a faith without morality, without any transcendental purpose, and without any disability regulation.

So, even they, for the sake of preserving nature, they may say, actually, religion is good. Because religion sometimes imbues people, imbues nature with the vision of the sacred. People think, oh, nature is sacred, then they will take care of it more.

So, therefore, we should support religion, as far as it enables people to see nature as sacred. Actually, it is not sacred. The hypocrisy of this was Bertrand Russell was one of the most outspoken atheists.

But whenever, so he would have, he would call his friends and have talks on atheism. But when he would have talks on atheism, he would have all his talks in closed doors. And he would ensure that none of his servants would be present while he was talking about atheism.

So, he was asked, why is that? He said, you know, as long as my servants believe in God, they will not rob from my house. So, even atheists understand that atheism is morality, morality debilitating. But still, he was under the idea that atheism is intellectually correct.

But he said, no, it will not sustain the moral fabric of society. This is how it's riddled with inner contradictions. Actually, atheism is neither morally good, nor is it intellectually sound.

Not intellectually sound because ultimately, there has to be a cause from which everything starts. There is no explanation for the original cause. So, Dambhenavidipurvakam.

So, people do all sorts of concoctions in the name of religion. Now, in India, we see so many godmen today. People who fleece their followers in the name of some miracles, in the name of some worship.

And in this way, they play around with the faith of people. So, all this is Dambhenavidipurvakam. And that's why scriptural education is extremely important.

Without scriptural education, vidhipurvakam. Whereas Krishna used avidhipurvakam earlier, demigod worship, isn't it? So, now same point in making vidhi and avidhi. So, but there at least they were following some sort of rituals for karmakand.

But even Krishna called that also as avidhipurvakam because that's not according to transcendental principles of worship. But here, there is not even the scriptures of karmakand. It's just completely concocted.

Dambhenavidipurvakam. Then, Ahamkaram balam darpam, ahamkaram balam darpam, Kamam krodham ca samshritaha, kamam krodham ca samshritaha, Mamatma paradeshu, mamatma paradeshu, Pradhvishanto abhyasuyakaha, pradhvishanto abhyasuyakaha. So, ahamkaram balam darpam.

Krishna's summary of qualities now. So, ahamkar is pride, bala is strength, darpa is showiness. Darpa is pride again.

Kamam krodham ca samshritaha. So, samshritaha is same as ashrita. Samyak rupena ashrita, they have taken complete shelter.

And mamatma paradeshu, that they are abhyasuyakaha, they are envious of me who is present in their hearts and in the hearts of others. So, ultimately, all this starts from envy. There may not be explicit expression of envy, but there is envy.

Now, today morning, I was talking about the difference between envy and sin, offense and sin. So, actually, in general, sin is against punya. Offense is against bhakti.

So, there is a difference between the two. Sin is against morality. Whenever people violate moral codes, the moral codes may be based on social morality or scriptural morality.

But whenever there is a violation of moral codes, that is sin, that is papa. Papa is like the opposite of punya. Whereas, aparadha is when there is violation of devotional principles.

So, papa affects the body or the mind, depending on what kind of sin has been done, what kind of reaction comes. But aparadha affects the atma. Atma is indestructible, but the atma has God consciousness, has attraction towards Krishna.

So, that attraction towards Krishna can get obscured by aparadha. From the spiritual perspective, aparadha is much more dangerous than papa. Krishnachikara Thakur does an elaborate analysis of the various stages of bhakti in Madhurya Kadambani and he says that actually aparadhas, their consequences may go on right up to till almost bhava.

One may have to endure and go through the consequences of aparadha. Papa literally falls away quickly. Manaratha Nritya itself, most of the papa and the reactions fall away.

And nishtha, there might be a little bit remaining. But aparadha can go on for a very long time. So, in a sense, that's why in the bhakti path, often pride is considered to be more dangerous than lust.

Because lust leads to papa, but pride leads to aparadha. And that's why we will see Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, in his shikshashtakam, first calls for humility and then he calls for freedom from lust. First is trunadapi sunichena and then there is na dhanam na janam na sundari.

So, in a sense, there is an abhyasuyakaha, envious. So, I will summarize what I said. Aparadha is worse than papa.

Aparadha harms the body-mind. Papa harms the soul. Sorry, other way round.

Papa harms the body-mind. That's why, as I said, pride is more dangerous than lust in the path of bhakti. Pride leads to pride.

When I am proud, it is so easy for me to think I am greater than others and I can disrespect others. Lust leads to papa. That doesn't mean lust is less dangerous.

Lust is also dangerous, but from a relative perspective, even if you look at long term, there can be, in the spiritual life, you can have sensual deviations, sensual falls versus philosophical deviations. So, which are more dangerous? Philosophical deviations, they are more dangerous. So, often philosophical deviations come because one thinks I know better.

The biggest difference between lust and pride, or rather aparadha and papa, is that lust makes us feel fallen. Pride makes us feel great. That is subjectively a very dangerous difference.

When I am proud, I start to know I am greater than others. If I think I am greater than others, I cannot take help from others. Now, when I feel lusty, even if I fight and control or even if I succumb to it, every person has even a little bit sense of conscience still active and will feel fallen.

And that is very conducive for humility. It can make one take shelter of Krishna, one can make a call out to Krishna. So, therefore, actually, often when we are good at certain things, when our strengths are there, in bhakti, our strengths can become our weaknesses if they make us proud.

And our weaknesses can become our strengths. For example, if I am weaknesses and strengths. So, for example, if my strength leads to pride, pride leads to aparadha, then that will lead to weakness.

That aparadha will make me weak in the spiritual life. On the other hand, if I have a weakness, say, if I am not able to control my weakness, because of my weakness I feel lusty. That lust will make me feel fallen, will make me feel humble in the need of Krishna's mercy.

And that will, when I feel the need of Krishna's mercy, I take shelter of him and that makes me strong. That becomes my strength. So, we don't have to, remember earlier I said, where we are is not as important as where we are looking.

Where we are is not as important as where we are looking. So, I may be fallen, but if I am looking towards Krishna, then I have a chance to become elevated. I may be in the mode of, I may be in the mode of ignorance, I may be Swapacha also.

But I can get elevated if I am looking towards Krishna. But if I am a brahmana, I am situated in the mode of goodness, I have knowledge, I have pride. And I am close to Krishna, but I am looking away from Krishna.

Then, it is not of much use to me. I will ruin myself, because I will not surrender to Krishna. I will not seek Krishna's help also.

I think that I am good enough. Any questions about this? Does paap affect the spiritual progress? Yes, definitely. It is not that our material life is immaterial for us in the spiritual path.

What happens in my material life matters to me. For example, if my health is not good, then I may not be able to chant properly. If somebody is aggressed and a person suddenly loses the job, then that is a serious turbulence in the person's life.

So, we cannot say that the material is immaterial. Immaterial means unimportant. So, although paap will affect only at the material level, but as long as we are in the material world and we have a material body, the material upheavals do affect us.

So, see, when we say Jagai and Madai never offended any Vaishnava, we have to clearly understand that the word offense can be used in a very narrow specific sense and in a broad sense also. So, is it that if somehow I displease some Vaishnava, is that an offense? It is safe for me to think like that and try to avoid displeasing Vaishnavas. But that in and of itself doesn't become offense.

When I do something which is intended to hurt a devotee, when there is intentional malevolence, then malevolence means to desire harm for others. Then that is actually an offense. This is an elaborate issue.

Let's quickly talk about it over here. What is offense? So, not incidental hurt of others, but intentional malevolence. Incidental hurt means, okay, I was doing something and somebody else got hurt by that.

So, at a very exalted level, not incidental hurt, not incidental hurting of others, but intentional, not just others actually, specifically we are talking about devotees over here, towards devotees. So, at a very exalted level, sometimes the principle may be illustrated that, say, Rupa Goswami was meditating and seeing Krishna Leela and he was laughing and at that time some Vaishnavas just walked by and that Vaishnava was limping and a Vaishnava thought that he is laughing at him. And then Krishna Leela disappeared for him.

So, that was completely incidental. And the result of that was he could no longer see Krishna Leela. He could not have a darshan of that.

But he did not get any harmful reaction for that. Not that he had to suffer. Of course, we can say a devotee not getting Krishna Darshan is also suffering.

That is true. But these are extreme examples to illustrate specific points. We should not even offend devotees.

We should not even unintentionally let devotees get hurt. We should be cautious about it. No, that is just like, that example is like Chota Haridas committing the offense for which Chaitanya Mahaprabhu punished him.

It is a valid principle, but it is an extreme example of a valid principle to teach something. Just as Chota Haridas' example is with respect to lust, an extreme example to teach. Similarly, this is an extreme example with respect to offense.

The core principle is valid. But one does not have to become paranoid about that. So, Srila Prabhupada, for example, he spoke very strongly about his godbrothers sometimes.

When Srila Prabhupada came in 1970, today when I was discussing with Arunachala Prabhu, so he was telling how in 1970 Prabhupada came and some of his godbrothers, they started poisoning the disciples. You know, actually what he has taught is not proper. He is not teaching Gaudiya Vaishnavism properly.

He taught this, he taught this, and then they got confused. And Prabhupada got so concerned by that. And then Prabhupada gave strong letters telling that, be very cautious about associating with other Gaudiya Mahatma devotees.

And Prabhupada made very strong statements about it. And then after that, one of his godbrothers departed. And Prabhupada had even spoken strongly, you know, he is like an envious leek and things like that.

Prabhupada has spoken about his godbrother. Then eventually when he departed, the devotees went, Prabhupada, where did he go? The devotees get some perverse joy in asking other people's destinations. So then Prabhupada became very greedy and he said, he went back to the spiritual world.

He was shocked. He said, how is it possible? He said, you said this, Prabhupada said, he said, he has served my spiritual master faithfully. My spiritual master is very powerful.

He took him back to the spiritual world. So Prabhupada's critical statements about his godbrothers did not necessarily mean that he disrespected. It essentially indicated that he wanted to protect his disciples.

So, but at the same time, he also saw their connection with the spiritual master and he respected them for their service to the spiritual master. So the point here is Prabhupada also said that I can speak these things about them, but you should not speak these things. You should treat them just like your uncles.

So here Prabhupada's statements may have hurt his godbrothers. And Prabhupada, to show an example for us, in the last days, when he was there, Narayan Maharaj and others had come on. Prabhupada said, I have committed many offenses, please forgive me.

I am Mahapati. And then his godbrother said, no, you are Mahapati Pavan. So Prabhupada exhibited that symbol of Mahabharata also.

He spoke strongly. It was not an offense because it was done with a particular mood of service. But he also had respect for his godbrothers.

There are many other incidents. One time in the Mayapur Foundation Stoning Ceremony was there. And it was complete wilderness.

So the devotees had only one chair for Prabhupada. His godbrothers came along and there were no chairs for them. And Prabhupada said, I cannot start the program till you get chairs.

There were no chairs. It was complete wilderness. The devotees had to run around and they delayed the program by almost like an hour or more till they got chairs for all his godbrothers to sit.

And then he started the program. So Prabhupada was respectful to his godbrothers. So here, even if some hurt happens to others, that is not necessarily an offense, if that is done for the sake of some service.

Somebody says, okay, this particular incident might be bad for somebody. And if that may be true also, then tell them, okay, don't get into this. That's fine.

The real serious offense is when there is intentional malevolence. I want to hurt somebody. I don't like that person and I want to pull that person down.

So backbiting, gossip, blasphemy, all this comes under the realm of offenses. That is what should be avoided, definitely. Avoiding offenses means that we don't speak critically of others just because we should.

If at all we had a speaker to educate some people about some things, it should be spoken with a very mature and balanced attitude whenever it has to be done. Did you answer the question? You had something to say? Okay. So, abhyasuya kaha.

They are all, Krishna is telling, they are ultimately envious of you. So all these are symptoms. The root cause, all the demoniac behavior are ultimately symptoms.

The root cause is abhyasuya kaha. They are envious of you. And because of this envy, what happens? Krishna says, they suffer.

tanaham dvishitah kruran, tanaham dvishitah kruran, samsare shunaradhaman, samsare shunaradhaman, kshipamyajasrama shubhan, kshipamyajasrama shubhan, asurishway vayonishu, asurishway vayonishu. So tanaham, those people, dvishitah kruran, the envious, the cruel. I, samsare shunaradhaman, kshipam, the lowest of human beings, kshipam, I throw them away.

I put them, ajasram is for a long time, almost forever. Asubhan, asurishway vayonishu, in demoniac words. I will explain this after looking at the next verse.

These two are frightening verses actually. asurim yoni maa panna, asurim yoni maa panna, mudha janmani janmani, mudha janmani janmani, mamaprapyaiva kaunteya, mamaprapyaiva kaunteya, tato yantya dhamam gatim, tato yantya dhamam gatim. So asurim yoni maa panna, they are born in demoniac life and mudha janmani janmani.

So here Krishna uses two words which he used in 7.14. Asuram bhavam ashrita was one word and further there was mudha and naradhama. So previous was naradhama, here it was mudha. So here he is not using those terms, the four kinds of categories that were there.

He is saying they are lowest among humans, they are foolish, they are demoniac. So then mamaprapyaiva kaunteya, don't attain me and tato yantya dhamam gatim. They go into lower and lower species.

Now if you see, actually Prabhupada is so thoughtful. So in fact the word krura, normally we would say krur is cruel. But Prabhupada translates krura as mischievous.

Why mischievous? Cruel and mischievous don't seem to be at all related. So here, these verses almost seem to sound like Krishna is throwing people into eternal damnation. They will forever suffer, ajasram.

Tato yantya dhamam gatim, they will go even further to hell. Now can you think of other verses in the Bhagavad Gita? If you just take the Bhagavad Gita out of context, you will say that Bhagavad Gita supports eternal damnation. But can you think of some other verses where Krishna says that anybody and everybody can be delivered, no matter what the conditioning? Apichaya sudracharo is one.

Samoham sarva-bhuteshi, okay, I am equal to all. Apichaya dasi papebhya, sarvebhya pakrutama. So this is good.

This is important. How you know even one statement of Krishna, even if Krishna makes a direct statement, if you take it in isolation from other statements, then you get an eternal damnation. Eternal damnation is a concept which is there in the Abrahamic religions, where they have the idea that if you don't surrender to Jesus, you don't surrender to Allah, through Mohammed, then you are going to go to hell forever.

And you suffer forever in hell. That's eternal damnation. That's their concept.

Of course, whether that is originally present in the literal, in the actual wording of the scriptures is a little bit questionable. But anyway, that is their mainstream idea today. So does the Bhagavad Gita talk about this? So first is, are there other verses which say that anybody and everybody can be delivered? So Apichaya sudracharo is one, that it is specifically talking about.

Somebody, if he takes to devotional service, then that person can be elevated from any level, Apichaya sudracharo. Then there is Apichaya dasi papebhya, that is 4.36. Apichaya dasi papebhya. This is 4.36 only? Anybody can check? Apichaya dasi papebhya.

Then what are the other verses saying? Apichaya dasi papebhya. Correct. That is 33.

9.33. Apichaya dasi papebhya. So anybody, so actually Krishna is giving three examples over there. Apichaya dasi papebhya.

So these are all examples. Vachithe mam ananasadarevasa manitave samjan devata ori shikrambhavati dharmatma laksad The context of Jnana is 31. 36 and 43.

Okay, fine. Now, what Krishna is telling is, ultimately anybody can be elevated. There has to be of course a process to be followed.

One has to take shelter of devotional service, one has to take shelter of the supreme law, one has to take shelter of Jnana. But nobody is irredeemable. Nobody is irredeemable.

Nobody is beyond deliverance permanently. Now, I'll conclude with this point. Slightly controversial point.

In the Madhva philosophy, Madhvacharya's philosophy, there is a concept of eternal damnation. And Madhvacharya says that, now whether Madhvacharya says or his followers say that is a question. But anyway, the current ideas of Madhva's doctrine are that souls themselves are of three kinds.

There are mukti yogya souls, there are nitya samsari souls and there are naraka yogya souls. So, according to his, according to the current interpreter of Dwaitavada, the idea is that the mukti yogya souls are those who will come to Vaishnavism and they will get liberated. The nitya samsari souls are those souls who will never get liberated.

But by following dharma, by following punya, they will live better in the material world. And there are naraka yogya souls who will go to hell only. There is no other destination for them.

So, actually what has happened is, in a sense, mukti yogya, nitya samsari and naraka yogya, this is basically sattvic, rajasic, tamasic. And these are characteristics of the body-mind complex. They are not the characteristics of the soul.

Somehow they have become superimposed on the soul only. So, this idea is decidedly non-Vedic. Even Sri Sampradaya doesn't talk about it.

No other Sampradaya talks about it. So, what is the purpose for this? See, Madhvacharya came at a particular time. Every acharya's teachings, they have to be contextualized.

So, Madhvacharya came at a time when his whole mood was to just smash Mayavada to powder. So, I think I have discussed this earlier how they would write books. For example, they would have Advaita Kalanala, the fire of destruction for Advaita Vada.

That is the name of the kind of books that they would write. And then the Mayavadis would write a book like Madhvamukhamardhana, smashing the face of Madhava. And then the Madhavais would write a book, Madhvamukhabhushana.

So, I am just giving random examples. The Madhavais would write a book, Advaita Dantakhandana, something like that. Breaking the teeth of Advaita Vada, something like that.

So, it is Gyaana Yuddha. So, when a war is there, sometimes whatever weapons are at hand, they are used. So, many of, especially the confrontationalist conceptions of Madhvacharya, they have to be seen from the context.

Yeah, and I will come to the, what do you mean by context is, certain things may be, the Lord may inspire even an Acharya to speak certain things, which may not be the absolute truth. Because that is the best way to sort of shake people. See, we see, what to speak of Lord inspiring Acharyas to speak something.

The Lord may himself speak certain things which are not appropriate. Like Krishna comes as Buddha and he speaks something which is not the Vedic conclusion. So, you know, whenever we see any teachings, we have to always see the teachings in light of the conclusion.

So, here Krishna is saying, ajasaram. But actually it is not ajasaram. Why? Because you look at the complete Bhagavad Gita.

Look at the overall tenor of Krishna's teaching. Krishna is not in a condemnatory mood at all. So, always, what to speak of Buddha, speaking even Krishna himself when he speaks Karma Muvamsa in Govardhan Veda.

It is not correct. So, there might be some, there might be some occasions where the absolute truth may not be spoken in terms of what that truth means. The purpose of that is to illustrate something in a particular context.

So, at that point, many of Madhvacharya's statements are meant to create a sense of fear about Advaita Vata. So, generally, these Naraka Yogya souls are who? Naraka Yogya souls are those who are Advaita Vatis. That is, this is such a demoniac misconception according to them that it will take a person to hell.

Therefore, one should stay away from this. So, the idea is that in the, Bhakts also talk about the four Sampradayas and he also says that in the four Sampradayas, that as far as their conceptions of God are concerned, those conceptions of God and the processes of Bhakti are enough to purify people and take them to the spiritual world. All the four Sampradayas, they practically teach Bhakti.

And people who are practicing Bhakti can go back to the spiritual world. But as, but both this, their Sambandhya and their Abhidhaya, their understanding of the absolute truth and their practices and their doxy, they are not the fullest revelations. And that's why what we, what Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has done is, he has integrated, synthesized, integrated all into the complete understanding of the absolute truth.

So, therefore, we respect Madhvacharya and we respect the Vedic Sampradaya. At the same time, we understand that certain things are spoken in certain contexts. And they should not, those differences should not be unduly highlighted.

And nor should those differences be papered over and saying that, no, it's all right. There are some differences, but they don't have to be highlighted too much. What we need to understand is, Prabhupada says that there are three things on which the Acharya has never differed.

What are the three things? The subordinate position of the Jiva, the supremacy of the Ishvara and the eternality of Bhakti. So, Jiva, Ishvara and Bhakti, these three. So, let's conclude with this.

Contextual statements create fear of opposite dhantas. And what was the point I was just telling you? All Acharyas agree on eternality of the supreme, no, supremacy of Ishvara, subordinate position of the Jiva and eternality of Bhakti. So, in this way, there is core agreement and there might be some differences in some things.

So, we'll continue tomorrow. If you have any questions on this, we can start with those questions tomorrow. Thank you very much.