4 ways human consciousness went down – Darn acronym

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I am grateful to be here with all of you today and today we are discussing the continuation of the pastime between the Devatas who have gone to Dadhichi Rishi to ask for his body and thereby his bones so that they can make a weapon by which they can defeat Rudrasura. So when Dadhichi expresses some reluctance, the Devatas are giving him some words of wisdom by which they will, by which he will agree to their particular request. So the two verses that we discussed, the first verse says that actually what can you not sacrifice? Saintly people, Brahmanas like you, there is nothing difficult for them to sacrifice.

And then the next was the continuation of that thought where they are saying that actually you are very empathic, that I understand, that you understand what we are going through. When a beggar asks somebody for help, then if the donor is empathic, then the donor understands what difficulty the beggar is in. And then when they understand that, then they will naturally want to help.

So the theme of this section is conversely if somebody knows how much in trouble the donor is and the beggar will not embarrass the donor by asking. So the idea of empathy is being talked about and then what the point being made here is that you as a saintly, as a sage are empathic and therefore you should not hesitate to give us your body. Actually Prabhupada takes that theme and broadens it.

He says we need to exhibit that empathy for sharing Krishna consciousness and we should also be ready to sacrifice our life for that purpose. So I will today talk about how we can have this empathic vigour, that the vigour for sharing Krishna consciousness is important, that vigour provides a sacrifice, sacrifice so that we can share Krishna consciousness. But the theme is that we don't just want the vigour, but we also want empathic.

So empathic means we understand where people are coming from. Now quite often we are not empathic as we are emphatic. Emphatic means this is right, that is wrong, just follow this.

So we can be emphatic, but we don't want to do it in a way that alienates people. So I'll talk about how we can to some extent understand the world as it is there today and that way we can develop some empathy. So how to develop empathic vigour, that's the topic.

How to, sometimes when we have vigour, the idea is all of you are wrong and I am right and I am going to tell you how you are wrong and I am right. But that alienates people quite often because nobody likes to be, there is talking with people, there is talking to people and there is talking at people. So talking with means there's a conversation, talking to is, this conversation is a one-way discussion, talking at means I am high up and you are low down, just listen to me.

So this is totally alienating for many people. I mentioned this last time when I was in Texas and Texas is a part of the Bible Belt in America where they say that a lot of evangelical preachers, they try to push Christianity on others. So there I saw on a car bumper a sticker which said that, Oh God, please save me from your preachers.

The normal idea is that God saves us through his preachers. But if the preachers are holier than thou, condescending, looking down at everyone, then people say, I don't want anything to do with such people. Oh God, please save me from them.

So that should not happen. There are people who consider Iskcon to be the evangelical version of Hinduism, where people come, we come and come up as pushy. Now, of course, everybody needs a push.

But if we understand where they're coming from, then the pushing can be done a little more effectively. So now why there is lack of God consciousness in today's world. If we understand that, then we will talk about how that lack of God consciousness can be countered.

So to develop this empathic vigor, I'll talk about four points today. And I'll talk about four causes of lack of God consciousness. So broadly about three points.

First point I talk about is empathy. Why empathy is needed. The second point I'll talk about causes of lack of God consciousness.

And then lastly, how can we counter those causes. This class will be a little analytical, but I'll try to make it as simple as possible. So I'll use an acronym, D.A.N. D.A.N. is a politer version of damn, damn it, darn it.

So D.A.N. is four things which have actually destroyed or depleted people's God consciousness. So first is divinity. That there is in today's world, it started from almost 200, 300 years ago, that there is an increasing suspicion and aversion towards divinity.

That the idea that there is a God is itself considered a pre-scientific mythology. Now, it's not always true. And the idea that there are two problems with the idea of God for people.

It's irrational. And it's judgmental. That how can you believe in God? How can you believe in God? It's not scientific.

There is a significant amount of evidence, which talks about how God does exist. But that evidence is often neglected or rejected. That often is not sidelined.

Most people think that if I have to believe in God, that means I have to give up science. But it's not irrational. That's how it is thought to be.

There is a Kelvin who said, a little of science takes one away from God, but immersion in science brings person back to God. So there is a significant movement within philosophy itself in a branch called analytical philosophy, where the case for God is being made rationally in mainstream society. So God, in one says, in Ramayana, Lord Ram went for exile and then he came back.

So God is also making a comeback in mainstream society now. Mainstream academy also. Not a full comeback, but some level of comeback is happening.

But the idea that God is judgmental. Now, this idea that God is judgmental is largely an Abrahamic idea. So what I'm going to do now is, I'm going to talk about this to some extent.

I'll talk about the problem and the solution together. The overall structure is four causes and four solutions. So the Abrahamic idea, I was in America in a college and this is a talk on mindfulness.

So after that, a person told me in mindfulness talks, generally, I don't bring in God right at the beginning. Maybe towards the end, I talk about taking shelter of the divine. So somehow God has become an unpopular word.

So if you use God, people don't like it, but you can use divinity, divine, source. In Star Wars, there is the force. So may the force be with you.

So Bhakti Marga Maharaj is a contemporary teacher. He says, when I talk with people, may the source be with you. So he plays on those words.

But anyway, we talk about divinity. So after this one, this boy said, I don't believe in God. I said, okay, which God do you not believe in? What do you mean? He says, you said you don't believe in God.

What is the conception of the God that you don't believe in? I said, okay, I don't believe in a God who sends those people to hell who don't believe in him. I said, I also don't believe in such a God. What do you mean? He said that, see, there is a fundamental difference between the idea of hell and who goes to hell.

In the Abrahamic traditions, Abrahamic traditions basically means those traditions except Abraham as a founding prophet. So that is Judaism, Christianity, Islam. So hell is for non-believers.

But in the Vedic tradition, hell is for wrongdoers, not non-believers. Non-believers means those who don't believe in God. Krishna says, those who don't believe in me will not come to me.

They will stay in this mortal existence. But if they go to hell, it is not because of their disbelief in God. It is because of their wrong actions due to karma, krodha and loba.

So the idea is Krishna as a God is not, he is happy if we believe in him, we love him, we attain him. But he is not sending wrongdoers to hell. Sorry, he is not sending just non-believers to hell.

If an atheist is living a relatively sattvic life, that means they have regulated habits. There are atheists also who are vegetarian. So if they are living life sattvically, then they will not be condemned.

According to sattvic lifestyle, they will get appropriate destination. So the point is this idea of a judgmental God who punishes, say the idea is they talk about God loves you so much. How much? If you don't believe in him, he will send you to hell forever.

That much is how much God loves you. Well, I don't want to make a caricature of any religion, but effectively it works out like that unfortunately. So the idea is if people have to choose between such an idea of God and atheism, most people will, most thoughtful people will end up choosing atheism.

So actually since the Vedic tradition went towards the West, there has been many sociologists of religion who have studied. They said that in the Christian outreach, there has been a significant softening in the conception of God. Even those who were Advaitic Swamis who went from India, they did talk about bhakti at times and they talk about God's love for us, our love for God.

So the idea of a loving God is what the bhakti tradition, the Vedic tradition teaches. And the loving God means there is reincarnation, there are many opportunities. So even the Christians now, they have started downplaying the idea of a judgmental God.

And their idea is more that how God loves everyone. Jesus loves everyone. So I saw that in Texas.

I saw some signs on the road when I had gone about 2016-17, signs were, you know, where will you go at the end of your life? Jesus is here to make sure that you don't go to hell. They are like the advertisers on the roads. But now I went, this year I had gone, so there I saw the road signs were all that Jesus loves you whoever you are.

So they have shifted the idea to a more loving God, because the idea of a judgmental God doesn't appeal to people much. And if you see Prabhupada, we just talk about in the fifth canto, there is the hellish planets. But Prabhupada does not emphasize that.

When he is saying take up to Krishna Consciousness, he is not saying that you don't take up to Krishna Consciousness, you are going to go to hell. That is not his emphasis. He says that the sense gratification, it is not worthy of you.

You are a soul who has evolved and come to human body. There is so much more you can achieve in life. There is so much higher happiness you can have.

So in one sense, Prabhupada's approach was rational. It was much more rational, it was not irrational. Prabhupada presented philosophy, logic.

And Prabhupada focused on, he called the society the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Prabhupada's focus in one sense was on Atma Gyan. It was Atma Gyan and you could say Harinaam.

Prabhupada focused on, if you look at the early classes of Prabhupada, 1966-67, Prabhupada didn't focus so much on Krishna's divinity directly. He focused on you are a soul and you can realize you are a soul by chanting. And as people started experiencing something higher, the idea of a soul, the idea of consciousness being there and consciousness being elevated, it's a very rational idea.

It can be very easily understood by people and accepted also. So there is a great opportunity for those who follow the Vedic tradition. If we don't succumb to demanding faith that can seem irrational to people, there is no need to talk about, we talk about ninth offence.

What is ninth offence? Yes, to instruct faithless people in the glories of the holy name. Now at one level what this means is that we should not tell people things that are going to be difficult for them to have faith. That means, say if somebody is here, so then we have to offer them a staircase which will take one step forward.

So tell people something in which they can have. So this much you could say, this is a reasonable faith. So somebody can say that.

Now, yeah, one step forward, talk about Atma, talk about mind, talk about our spiritual essence, that's possible. But unreasonable faith is, you want them to take a leap like this. This kind of leap if you accept them to take.

Suppose somebody has to come to a temple and there's no staircase. People have to take a high jump to come up here. How many people are ever going to be able to come, isn't it? So it's a stepwise approach.

So the idea is, there are things in our scripture which can seem unreasonable to people. But they are not the things that we need to present right in the beginning. We need to present in a way, sometimes people don't accept something and you say, you know, you are atheistic, you are materialistic, you are this and you are that, you are faithless, you are doomed.

That is not the approach. When Srila Prabhupada was in Hawaii, some of his disciples came and said, Prabhupada, we, when we talk with the scholars about the Bhagavatam and we tell them that Maharaj Ugrasen had some astronomical number of bodyguards, millions, billions, whatever, some astronomical number, they start laughing at us. They say, where would all these bodyguards live? And now Prabhupada could have taken a transcendental confrontation approach.

Krishna can sustain the whole universe on the tip of a needle. That is Krishna's inconceivable potency. But Prabhupada's approach was surprisingly non-confrontational.

Prabhupada said, among the thousands of verses of the Bhagavatam, was that the only thing you found to speak to the scholars? So, we need to present Krishna Consciousness in a way that can make sense to people. And that is our responsibility. So, the idea of if divinity is presented as rational and loving, then there is a great potential people want to have a personal relationship with some higher reality.

And in fact, when I talked with Swami's Prabhupada disciple, he said, when we were with Prabhupada, it was like Krishna was a living, loving presence with us. The devotees who started back to Godhead, Hayagriva Prabhupada wrote that, the only thing I had done with the magazine was read it. I didn't know how to run a magazine, how to publish a magazine.

I asked, Swamiji, how will I do that? Prabhupada said, pray to Krishna, he will guide you. Krishna is like next to you, ask him and he will help. So, Prabhupada presented Krishna as a living, loving person.

So, I have a friend in South Indian tradition, more like a smart Brahmin. He said, you know, you Hare Krishna have got everything wrong. He said, for Krishna, you use no honorific, no Bhagavan Krishna, no Sri Krishna.

And for Radha, you have a double honorific, Srimati Radha Rani. So, why don't you have any honorific for Krishna? Don't you respect Krishna? So, I told him, Prabhupada actually created the whole honorific. What is that? The supreme personality of Godhead.

Isn't it? In the Krishna book, Krishna, the supreme personality of Godhead. So, Prabhupada did create an honorific. But Prabhupada also wanted us to have a personal relationship with the divine.

And Prabhupada had a personal relationship with the Lord and Prabhupada wanted us to have. That's why when we talk about Krishna, it's almost, it may seem disrespectful, but it's not disrespectful as it is intimate. As it is intimate personal relationship.

So, generally, when I, if I speak in circles where they're not devoted, in general Hindu circles, I don't use the word Krishna. I use the word Bhagavan. People are more peaceful.

Bhagavan says in the Bhagavad Gita. It sounds a little odd, Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita. It took some getting used to, but people have their triggers.

You can say Bhagavan Krishna says. It just seems like a mouthful. Isn't it? But the point is, so then I said, you know, Radha Rani has been trivialized because of the understanding, because of the parakiyaras and other things, and Prabhupada wanted us to have a respectful concept of Radha Rani, not that that love is immoral.

And that's why he uses that double honorific. So, Vishwanath Chakra Thakur doesn't use that. Bhakti Vinod Thakur also doesn't use that.

Sri Radha uses, Bhakti Vinod Thakur uses Sri Radha. But Prabhupada especially wanted to preserve or establish or emphasize the sanctity of Srimati Radha Rani. But the point is that if we present the divine divinity as rational and loving, there is a lot of opportunity for raising human consciousness, for attracting people towards God Consciousness.

So that's redeemed. What is the acronym? Okay, I don't want you to repeat it. The A is authority.

See, basically, there has been a significant erosion of faith in authority in the Western world. And there are reasons for that. In India, there was monarchy.

Kings were there, but kings to some extent, to varying degrees of conformity, they followed Rajadharma. Kings considered it a responsibility to take care of their citizens. Now, not all kings took care of their citizens equally well.

But in the West, the example was not of monarchy, they call it monarchy, but more of autocracy. It was more of dictatorship, where the kings often exploited citizens. So, kings abused their power.

There's an infamous incident where, I think Louis XVI was, he was living in luxury while France people were dying in poverty. And the masses, they marched, and they said, we want bread. And his queen, Mary, was so disconnected with reality, says, what's the problem? We don't have bread.

If you don't have bread, then eat cakes. Cakes were unimaginable for people. So people got so angry, they stormed the Bastille, and that's how the French Revolution happened.

They galloped and they cut off the bodies of the kings and the royals. But the point is, there's a lot of distrust of authority in the West. And there is a reason for that.

Many times, authorities have been exploitative, have been abusive. So, because of that, anytime somebody takes a position of authority, then people immediately become suspicious. So, in one sense, there's a fundamental difference between the Eastern, it's not just Indian, but it's Chinese also, Russian also to some extent.

So, approach to authority. So, the approach to authority in general, the Eastern approach is that there is faith till reason to doubt. That means, if somebody is in an authority position, that person must have done something right.

That person must have some credibility. So, we have faith, but then that person starts doing something objectionable, then there is doubt. But in the Western approach to authority is doubt till reason to faith, till reason for faith.

That as soon as there is an authority position, their idea is, you got to the top by exploiting others. This is a very leftist idea that all power structures, all hierarchies are a expression of exploitative power. Their idea is that somebody on top who has power, they must be exploitative, they must be exploiting the people below.

It could be, but it doesn't have to necessarily be like that. Somebody can rise to the top, there is a hierarchy. Now, somebody can rise to the top by exploitation, but somebody can get to the top also by competence.

So, both possibilities are there. It could be the negative possibility is by exploitation. That means, somebody got to the top by cheating, by backstabbing, by hurting others.

That's one possibility. But the other is, that person got to the top because that person is really good. So, competence.

Now, even in the West, that hierarchy of competence is accepted, especially in sports. That say, if somebody is number one tennis player, why is that person number one? Because that person plays better than everyone else. Is it that person is exploiting others? Not necessarily.

But that is the default idea in most areas, and especially with respect to religious authority. There is generally in our Vedic tradition, there is the Brahmanas and Kshatriyas. Both of them are to some extent religious authorities.

Brahmanas are primarily teaching scripture and Kshatriyas are maintaining the atmosphere where scripturally harmonious life can be led. So, these are the Kshatriyas and the Brahmanas. But Riddharao was a European thinker, thinker, non-thinker, whatever you want to say.

But he said, Europe will never know peace till the last king or last royal is strangled with the intestine of the last priest. The last priest is the Brahmana, the last royal is the Kshatriya. So, till the last Kshatriya is killed by, after killing the last Brahmana, till then Europe will never know peace.

Now, it's quite a dark view of authority. Now, of course, at a functional level, people can't function without having some kind of hierarchy and authority. In general, if you are driving a car and speeding, a cop tells you to pull over, people will pull over.

So, functional authority people accept, because you cannot live without accepting functional authority. But religious authority, there is a lot of suspicion. That is why, generally speaking, while there is an interest in spirituality in the West, people are interested in spiritual leaders, not in religious organizations, not in heads of religious organizations.

So, for example, what I mean by this is, Radhanath Maharaj wrote the book Journey Home. That entire book, he mentions ISKCON only once. He is one of the biggest leaders in ISKCON.

He doesn't talk about that at all. The only place where he mentions ISKCON is when he is introducing Prabhupada. He says, Prabhupada founded the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.

Maharaj doesn't even mention that I joined ISKCON. He says, I have been to New Vrindavan and started living a life similar to that of my beloved Ghanshyam Baba, taking care of cows and worshipping the deities. Why? Because people are leery, especially western people are leery, suspicious about religious organizations and leaders, heads of religious organizations.

So, there is a lot of suspicion about authority. But this does not mean that people don't care for authority. But authority has to be earned.

It cannot be assumed. Authority has to be earned. Okay, you speak some wisdom, if it makes sense to you, then I will respect you.

But if you claim in advance to be wiser than me, then get lost. We have this, in the Leela Amrit also, you may remember, when Prabhupada was in, I think it was France, somewhere in Europe, he was giving a college program. And the devotees had organized a big Vyasasana.

And Prabhupada was sitting on the Vyasasana and there were leftists. Why do you have to sit on this high seat? Prabhupada says, I can sit on the floor. Just hear what I am saying.

After Prabhupada said, don't have any of these trappings, external things when you are doing public programs. Why? Because people get put off by that. People just start thinking, you are just a show off.

You and your acolytes. See, the word Bhakti is popular in the world, but somehow the word Bhakta has got a negative connotation. Like you are a Modi Bhakta, you are this Bhakta, you are that Bhakta.

That means you are just an uncritical follower of that person. So the idea is that authority has to be earned. So sometimes when we are interacting with people, especially if we are sharing spiritual wisdom, we might expect that they will offer us some respect.

But sometimes you have to gradually earn that respect. If you don't assume that, but we act in a way that is respectable. When Prabhupada went to America, there's nobody, Prabhupada, nobody respected him.

He's just a strange looking person come from India. But Prabhupada earned the respect. Prabhupada didn't, there's no facility possible, but Prabhupada didn't expect also that I'm a great Acharya and all of you should come and respect me.

So when our presentation comes off as very authoritarian, so there's a difference between authoritarian and authoritative. Can anyone say what is the difference? Oh really? Okay. So we depend on some other authority now.

Okay. But anyway, authoritarian and authoritative. So is there a difference? Can you say what is the difference? Yes.

Perfect. Thank you. Authoritarian means, it's like, you are perfectly free to express your opinion as long as you agree with me.

So that is my way or the highway. That's authoritarian. But the authoritative means, okay, this is where I come from.

This is what I say. And these are the reasons why I say it. One can quote scripture, one can quote logic, whatever the appropriate source of authority, that person uses that.

So in general, we need to be authoritative, not authoritarian. So quite often, when we quote authority, which authority do we quote? That is also important. So it's ironic that in India, if somebody quotes a lot of verses, oh, this person is very learned.

For example, scholarship is simply equated with capacity to quote a lot of verses. There's much more to scholarship than that. But in the West, if you quote too many verses, can't you think for yourself? Are you just like a robot to some other voice speaking through you? Generally, when we do Western outreach, if you hear the class of Radhan Maharaj, Devamrith Maharaj, those who are successful, you talk with them, they'll quote verses very sparingly.

It's not just because people don't necessarily accept the authority of scripture. Actually, they don't consider that they want to see how they don't want to say how what authority are quoting, they want to say how authentic you are. So there are entire Christian websites meant for Western outreach, they're all dictated to say biblical values.

But they will practically never quote any Bible verse. Why? Because quoting can be like we consider scripture to be a source of authority, and we accept it. But you're just quoting some strange old book, you expect me to believe that? And believe you because you quote that? I don't care for it.

So if you're going to quote authority, you have to quote the authority that people respect. So maybe it would be science, it could be art, especially authority people accept nowadays is personal experience. If we have experienced something to be good, then people accept it.

So authority is of course required, without that communication can't happen. But authority cannot be presumed, it has to be earned. And earning is by the way we appropriately behave with others.

So I was once giving a college program, some boys and girls, and one young girl just suddenly out of the bowl, she asked, how old do you think I am? So I said, 85. So everyone started laughing. I want a serious answer.

So I said, if you seriously think that I'm going to seriously answer this question, there's something seriously wrong with your understanding of how seriously foolish I am. So they all started laughing. So then one of the boys, one of the boys, he said, this monk is cool.

So afterwards, they told me, one of the boys, he told me that, you know, we had planned this question to trap you only, we want to test you. So it's funny sometimes the way things work out. So authority has to be earned.

It cannot just be presumed. So then that is a second, we're talking about D-A-R-N. R is religion.

People in the West nowadays, now when I'm talking about the West, these trends, I'm talking about it, not just to tell my experience on the West, but India also is becoming slowly like that. Especially the generation that is, I would say the last four or five years, the pandemic changed the world in many ways. And one of the ways is that it actually made it globalized entertainment.

That means Indians would normally watch Bollywood movies. But now among the top 10 grossers, top 10 movies which are popular in India, only two or three are Bollywood movies. Some are Hollywood movies, some are here, some are there.

There are TV series from Korea that has become popular in India. There's a video game from this part of the world, that part of the world. So along with this kind of entertainment, those values also come in.

And that's why, especially if you want to reach out to the younger generation, then we need to be aware where they're coming from. So it's almost like the younger generation here, see those people who go to the West, they also see the negative side of the West. There is a lot of positive in the West, enter the material facility, the positive is there.

But there's a lot of negative, a lot of loneliness, a lot of alienation, a lot of isolation is there in the Western world. But what happens is when we see in India, we see the West, we see only the rosy side of it, without the dark side of it. So in that sense, it's even more, it can be even more tempting and disorienting for people.

So the third R is religion. Many people, they just don't care for religion. In America, as well as several European countries, when there is a census, when people ask, what is your religion, they ask.

So they have various religious options and at the end they have one more, nun. Nun means, not N-U-N nun, it is N-O-N-E nun. It is not a female monk, it is, I don't care for any religion at all.

So their typical idea is, the school of thought is called as apatheism. Not atheism, but apatheism. That I just don't care whether God exists or not.

Their idea is you religious people, you fight about the nature of God who exists in other world and you create trouble in this world. And it is sadly true. Of course, the amount of religious violence or violence in the name of religion that has happened in the world is far less than the amount of secular violence.

Means violence with secular causes. So for example, some of the religious terrorism, religious extremism comes in the public eye very quickly. But there are so many other causes of violence.

So if you consider Soviet Russia and China, these are atheistic countries. Officially, atheism was tried as an experiment for the longest period in human history, not the longest period necessarily, but the largest space. Aggressive atheism, 1970 to 1987-88-89 when communism fell, USSR fell basically.

But during this what happened? 100 million people died. 100 million is more than the toll due to World War I and World War II. And who killed them? Without any war.

The government only killed. Anybody who is suspected as the opposite to the government. So intolerance does not result due to religion.

Intolerance results due to ideology. And whenever any ideology a person gets indoctrinated by. So the ideology, we talk about intolerance, often the cause is thought as religion.

Now religion can be one cause, but the actual cause is ideology. More specifically, you can say ideological indoctrination. Ideological, when a person is indoctrinated, just this is the right thing, everything apart from this is wrong.

Now this can occur because of religion, but it can also occur because of secular ideologies. So Marxism was a secular ideology. It officially rejected God.

But their idea was that anybody who is the enemy of the state should be ruthlessly punished and killed. And people believed that. And there are people, inside a family, inside a home, if one person speaks something against the state, then another family member will rat them out, tell the state.

And the state will come and take that family member and put them in jail or execute them. And this person who ratted out, ratted out means, you know, tell, reveal a secret to everybody else. We ratted out a family member, that person will be specially awarded by the state.

Just see, his devotion to the state is greater than his family. This is the kind of citizens we want. So this is a horrible extremism.

So the point is that somehow the history of communism, the dark and harsh history of communism has been whitewashed. And wherever religious extremism is there, that comes in. So the point is that religion is often seen as a source of conflict, as a source of negativity.

That is hardly true. Inspired by religion, all over the world, people do so much charitable work. But when we talk about religion, now there is, there are two things in religion.

Ultimately, it has an otherworldly purpose. Otherworldly purpose means, religion is, the practice of religion are meant to take us from this world to the other world. But religion also has this worldly value.

That religion, by religion, meaning certain religious practices, certain religious culture, all this can benefit people in this world also. And to the extent we can demonstrate that, now we don't want to say this is all that religion offers. But to the extent we can demonstrate that, to that extent, we can actually reach out to people.

So for example, the purpose of chanting Hare Krishna is to develop love for Krishna. But for a person who is new, that person doesn't even believe in Krishna, why would that person want to develop love for Krishna? Isn't it? So at that time, we can say, we can quote some studies which devotees have done about how chanting reduces stress, how chanting can counter negative thoughts, chanting can decrease depression. These are concerns of people in this world.

So to the extent we can demonstrate the this worldly value of our practices, and to that extent, people are open to it. Now, we don't want to reduce religion to this worldly value only. That is unhealthy.

But this worldly value is very much important. And there is a lot of this worldly value in religion also. So to the extent we demonstrate that, it could be especially with respect to talking of mental health problems.

Yoga originally was meant for transcending the world. Now yoga is being used to improve health and fitness. Is that good? Is that bad? Well, if that is all that people were doing, that would not be so good.

But there's a funnel effect. Out of a million people who may turn towards yoga for improving their health, a hundred may want to know more yoga philosophy. And that proportion, Manushyanam, Sahasrathi, Krishna talks, that is always there.

So if we can also communicate the this worldly value of our practices, then that can be very helpful. That is why, say for example, now generally sometimes there's some dispute about, say when we do food for life, should we do humanitarian work or not? Prabhupada presented food for life, not as humanitarian work, he said it as devotional work. There are devotees in America, in one place, in Atlanta, they used it very creatively.

What they do is, Georgia Tech is one of the biggest universities, one of the top universities in America. So we had a youth club over there. And the devotees have created a food, they are called food for lives.

So what their purpose is, that in the youth today, there's a lot of spirit of volunteering. I want to make a difference. I want to contribute to something bigger.

So they said they had this food for lives, they call it. And then the kids, they come, they learn to cook, and then they take the food and they go out and serve it to the underprivileged areas. And then here, what they found is that in doing this activity, the kids, the young people, they spend time with devotees.

And they start bonding with devotees, they start becoming open to devotees. So it's not so much whom we are giving the food to, that we are doing outreach to, it is who we are giving the food with, that we do outreach. And many of the, Georgia Tech is not an Ivy League, but among the top universities.

So many of these kids, their parents are also in very well-to-do positions. So the parents tell, oh, we are doing this food, we are doing this charitable activity. They feel very good.

So many times, there are parents, people who are in big, big executive positions who would not come to the temple, but they come to this food for life activity. And then in that process, the devotees do kirtan, they learn offering the food. They basically start associating with devotees.

And then what happens is, they slowly start becoming devotees. So if we just told them directly the philosophy, they would not have appealed to it. But when they saw that through this tradition, we are doing something of this worldly value, then people start becoming open to it.

So this worldly value, for example, we don't teach value education. Now, people are interested in values about how to live better in this world. They're not necessarily interested in values beyond the world, but both can be expertly brought together.

So the idea is that if we give people opportunities to associate with devotees in non-preachy settings, not where they have to hear a philosophy, but they do something of value together, then a lot of people can join. And some of them will rise upward towards Krishna consciousness. So religion can also be communicated, but we communicate it from its this worldly value.

And then people are quite open to it. And last, I don't have time to much talk about it. There is loss of faith in nature itself.

What do I mean by nature? Talking the background last point is that generally, the way society is organized is that there is a natural order to things. But that natural order, instead of accepting and respecting it, the idea is this natural order itself is unfair. So for example, when Prabhupada would talk about free mixing with the genders, he said a man and a woman unite, the man just gets his enjoyment, the woman becomes pregnant and goes away.

So the woman has to depend on the state or whatever, the woman has to get an abortion. So he says that this is bad for women also. So their idea now is that actually nature is unfair to women because nature has burdened them with pregnancy.

So they say that pregnancy is biological slavery and abortion is technological liberation. So it's now actually pregnancy is a gift from nature, the privilege of bringing new life into the world. But the idea is there is a resentment and rebellion against the natural order of things itself.

In the West, if some woman doesn't have children, they don't say I'm childless, they say I'm child free. It's such a terrible way of looking at things. Now, of course, if somebody doesn't have a child, we don't want to make them feel bad about it.

But the idea is like a child is simply a nuisance and I want to be free from it. But then eventually what happens? There is a natural order, the natural way of functioning, that's how humanity has survived for millennia. And many people who don't prioritize their career over having a family, by the time they become 40, 45, they start feeling very empty and lonely in their lives.

Similarly, this whole idea of natural order, nowadays there is this whole transgender craze. Now there are some people who may not, generally the soul is there, the soul comes into a body, the soul identifies with the body that they have. And that is a moha, but that is a moha that enables the person to function.

But sometimes if a soul dies suddenly, or because of some karma that might be there, the soul is like if you come from America to India suddenly, then the body has a jet lag. So the body's clock functions as if you're still in America. So there are a few people, especially if they die suddenly and violently, they may come into a new body, but they still identify with the previous body.

So to identify with the body that we have is itself an illusion. But to identify with the body that we don't have is a much bigger illusion, isn't it? But the idea is that there are few people like that, and these few people, sometimes they are called as transgenders, and there are surgeries by which some people can change their gender. Either a small demographic like that, and for some people, if they're like extremely uncomfortable with their body, then they can change this.

And if they have to change it, it's their life, it's their body, their business. But what has happened is, this is being increasingly glamorized. I recently came to that.

India also does a TV series by a prominent heroine, who said that, you know, she was, she was born a boy, but I always felt like a girl, and then she does surgery and becomes a girl and all those things. And he's such a hero, she was, she fought against the bigotry of society. So she's seen as a champion of the transgender community.

But here, what is happening is, at one level, everybody feels uncomfortable with their body, isn't it? Everybody feels, I'm too tall, I'm too short, I'm too fat, I'm too thin, I'm too fair, I'm too dark, I'm too this, I'm too that. Who is there who can say, I'm perfectly comfortable and happy with my body? No one is there like that. So the degree, so the difference is more a matter of degree than category.

So degree, some people may feel more comfortable, uncomfortable, some people feel uncomfortable. But their idea is, it's a category. And what happens is a rebellion against nature itself.

So the idea is that there are, there are many, there are people who just do this change of gender quite indiscriminately. And there are books written about it. There's one Abigail Shriver, she wrote a book about our lost, our lost daughters.

So especially girls are taught that you are just equal to boys in all ways. And yes, till maybe 8, 9, 10, you know, girls can play with boys, a girl can even beat up a boy. But after 10, when puberty hits, boys just have a growth spurt.

And girls don't have a similar growth spurt. So what happens is that at that time, girls start feeling very insecure. And then such girls are told, maybe you know, I would be better off as a boy.

And then do surgery. They give them hormones to stop, stop the female hormones to start the male hormones. And then it's, there are cases of people who grow up, and then at the age of say, maybe 18, 19, 20, they feel, you know, maybe I should not have changed my gender.

Now they have to do a second surgery. And that you change the body organs, you cannot play with the body like that. So it's what is happening is horrible.

It's a tragedy. And then what has happened is this is seen as the right of the minority community. And anybody who opposes this is a bigot.

He's a bigot. There's one devotee in Canada, one of his close friends, an American friend, this happened to his daughter. This boy, this devotee was so alarmed, just packed up and he came back from Canada to India.

He said, I don't want this to happen to my daughter. Now here what happens is children are also told that your parents are bigots. They will not understand you.

So children are given the right to do irreversible surgeries, even without informing their parents. What to speak of taking consent. So it's horrible.

I'm not saying this is happening everywhere. And there's a significant pushback even in America, because the people have a basic level of sanity. But this is happening and the way it is happening, it's even worse.

As transgender has become a right, there are men who claim to be women and they do transgender surgery. And after doing transgender surgery, there are men who have entered into women's sports and they have a clear physical advantage. So there are men who have entered into women's sports and they're just swimming.

There is a man who claimed to be a woman and he said that it's my right now to participate in girls' sports. And there are girls who are participating lifelong, preparing lifelong, and just easily defeated by the boy. And if the girls say that, you know, this boy should not be participating, they say, you are a bigot.

At least till now, it has not come in contact sports. Now in swimming, people are competing. But if a boy who claims to be a girl starts boxing with a girl, it could lead to irreparable damage.

So there is significant opposition to this. Now, so the point I'm making is that there is a rejection of nature itself and that is not sustainable. And there is a pushback in the West also.

But the problem is that from the perspective of Abrahamic religions, they have the idea of only one life. And they say, if you are having some gender identity, which is different from the normal, they just have no explanation for it. Why did God make you like that? And you say, you're not like that.

It's just your imagination. Well, our philosophy has an explanation for that. And okay, it is okay, if you feel uncomfortable with your body, it's because your soul is identifying with the previous body.

But that does not mean that you should change your gender. Just as the previous body was temporary, even this body is temporary. Learn to seek a purpose bigger than this body, bigger than simply seeking bodily gratification.

So we're making full sense of reality. Our philosophy has a lot to offer. And if rather than simply condemning things like this, just rejecting people who have, who are concerned about such ideas, you could just say this is all this is Kali Yuga and it's all dark.

It is. But there is a logic to why people think like that. There's a tragic logic.

It's a, rather than simply singing these people as sinful or fallen or terrible, we see them as misled. And if you see it that way, then even such people, such people, those who are extreme activists, we can never reach out to them. Those who are activists, those who are campaigners for this.

But there's a large number of people who are rational, who are looking for sensible, compassionate explanations. If we give that, there is so much opportunity for sharing Krishna Bhakti in a way that can reach a large number of people. So Krishna Consciousness, what Prabhupada says, it can deliver the world, but it has to be to deliver the world, it has to be delivered properly.

So to the extent we can deliver it in a compassionate, empathic way, to that extent, we can actually contribute to raising both individual and global consciousness. So I'll summarize. I talked today, first three points mainly, I talked about empathy.

When we are doing outreach, just as the sages, they're saying, oh sage, you are empathic and you understand our suffering, therefore you will give charity to us. So we also need to cultivate empathy in our outreach to others. And then with respect to that, we talked about four broad points.

Why consciousness has gone down, human consciousness and how it can be raised. What was the D, what was it? Divinity. So how people believe God to be irrational and judgmental.

So when this can, we present God rationally and we present God as a loving person who cares for us. That's what the Bhakti tradition is all about. That's what Prabhupada did.

If you do that, it's a lot of appeal. And third was authority, that people suspect authority, but authority instead of assuming authority and condemning people who don't respect authority, instead of that, we earn authority by our behavior, by our not being authoritarian, but authoritative, by quoting the appropriateness of authority. Then people are seeking wisdom, people are seeking, there's openness, but it has to be present appropriate.

Then R was religion. So when people see religion as a cause of conflict, then they get completely put out of it. But if they can see religions, this worldly value, how your practices can make, can improve this world.

That's not our ultimate purpose. But as a starting point, if we do that, then we can actually reach out to a lot of people. And the last was nature.

So DAAN was the acronym I used. So there's a rebellion against nature, whether it is the difference between the male-female genders, or there's a difference, the idea that I just don't accept the kind of body that I have. But in all these cases, the problem is, there's a rebellion against, in one sense, bodily limitations.

And the idea is, we will remove these bodily limitations through technology, the body limitation of pregnancy will remove through abortion, body limitation of my particular gender, I'll remove through surgery. But instead of that, if we talk to people about their higher identity, if you want a better life, yes, you can have it, not necessarily by changing the body or its limitations, but by realizing that you have identity beyond the body. So through this, as darkness is spreading, there is also spreading the opportunity to share light.

And it's our responsibility to share that light as compassionately as possible. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.

Is there any one question? Hare Krishna. Thank you very much. This was actually a very mind-opening kind of session that you conducted.

Mild opening. Because there were many things that we didn't know which could be an obstacle in our empathy towards others. But there is one confusion that is in my mind, which I would like to paraphrase in one of the examples that you gave about yoga.

How yoga is today, it's perhaps almost impossible to reinstate the pristine glory of yoga. It's practically now treated by everyone as a health booster or some way in which we can correct our health problems. Similarly, when we introduce religion in order to prevent it from being rejected completely, when we talk about the other worldly purpose and then we introduce it as this worldly values, then there is a risk.

There is a risk in all kind of bridge preaching, but especially in this, when it goes too much into this worldly values, then we may struggle to introduce the other worldly purpose as today we are struggling with redefining yoga as something as connecting the humans with the divine. So, how do we balance that? We may struggle with that. Good point, yeah.

So, as far as yoga being used for this mundane purposes, one of the popular books on yoga in the West is Yoga for Better Sex. And that is the complete opposite purpose of yoga, isn't it? But, okay, that's unfortunate, but I have spoken at many, so what you're saying is, is it true? It's a hazard, but I have spoken at many yoga studios in the West. I find that people who come to yoga studios, they, many of them are contemplative.

See, even if somebody wants to improve, say, their health or their fitness or their looks, whatever it is, it's completely bodily, they want to improve that. We could say this purpose is Rajasic, okay? It's just I want to look better, so I can attract a better partner or whatever, but they could pursue this by Sattvic, Rajasic or Tamasic means, isn't it? So, a Tamasic means would be, they could just pump their body with chemicals, they could use Botox and other things, and sometimes people try to lose weight, and they start taking some treatments for that, which are, they're not treatments actually, they're mistreatments, but they could do it in Tamasic way. They could do it in Rajasic way, where some people just say to improve their health, they subject themselves to very heavy workouts.

Now, exercise is good, no doubt, but very heavy workouts. There's quite a popular South Indian star, who got a heart attack while he was doing HIIT kind of exercise, and he died. You know, the body is meant to do exercise, but when people try to do too much heavy exercise, just for the purpose of losing weight, they can sometimes lead to bodily malfunction.

So, as compared to other means, yoga is relatively a Sattvic means. The purpose may be Rajasic, but the means that they're adopting is Sattvic. And just the mode of doing yoga, you're trying to sit peacefully, regulate your breath, that brings some level of Sattvic.

And yes, for some people gradually, they will, as they do this Sattvic, as they adopt the Sattvic method, gradually start rethinking their Rajasic goals also. So, it will happen gradually, but it is happening. A lot of people are interested in yoga philosophy, yoga wisdom.

So, people need to experience this worldly benefits, then they will look for other worldly benefits also. So, I would say a majority of our Western outreach that is happening today is through the yoga circle only. That's where we are able to attract Western people.

So, is it a bad thing? Well, it depends. I would say that in terms of raising human consciousness, broadly speaking, is yoga leading to people misunderstanding yoga or is yoga leading to people raising their consciousness? My understanding, at least to some level, people are coming to Sattva Guna. People are also appreciating India because the World Yoga Day is still in the West.

Somehow, the way the narrative has gone is that everything good from India comes from Buddhism. Everything bad from India comes from Hinduism. So, yoga comes from Buddhism and the caste system comes from Hinduism.

That is the idea. But slowly that narrative is being changed. And unfortunately, what happens, there are some yoga teachers, they say that they want to universalize yoga.

There are Christians who said that yoga is coming from Hinduism and Hinduism has come from the devil. So, Christians should never practice yoga. So, but you know, there are Christians who want to practice yoga and they are interested.

There are some teachers like Deepak Chopra and others say that, to reach out to these people, they say, actually yoga is pre-Hindu. It is not Hindu. It is pre-Hindu.

And they say that it is from a, so that way they are trying to, some people are trying to divorce yoga from Hinduism. So that they say, you can have bigger appeal. But the other side is many Hindus are concerned that it is coming part of the Hindu tradition.

So, there is a big complicated battle over here. But the point is that there is overall positivity towards Eastern wisdom, towards India, towards India's traditions that is coming. So, net effect, my understanding is positive.

Because if you say people are in bodily consciousness, well, people are mostly going to be in bodily consciousness. What else do we expect in the material world? But they are in bodily consciousness, at least they are seeking something sattvic. Similarly, if we consider with respect to this worldly value of religion, so I would say the real problem is not that people are using yoga for mundane things.

The real problem is that we do not have enough yoga teachers who will also tell people about the higher purposes of yoga. If they do that, then it is, lot of people are receptive, especially those who want to become yoga teachers. Almost all yoga teachers in the West, they study two books, Yoga Sutra and Bhagavad Gita.

So, they do get introduced to Bhagavad Gita. Unfortunate till now, in our moment, no one has actually written a Bhagavad Gita for the yoga audience. For them, the Bhagavad Gita as it is seems too directly, directly devotional.

But till now, the idea that any devotee can write a Bhagavad Gita, and Prabhupada's Bhagavad Gita is already there, that is still very objectionable. But the point is there is a need. So, the thing is that if rather than condemning the idea that yoga is being used for mundane purposes, if we can provide more and more yoga teachers, who also talk about the higher purpose of yoga, then there is a lot of opportunity for spiritual outreach, devotional outreach through yoga.

And similarly, with respect to this worldly religion, this worldly value of religion, if this worldly value is completely divorced from its other worldly purpose, then it can be a problem. So, for example, if you give free food to somebody who comes in the temples, you know, that is wonderful. They come to a temple, they experience Krishna, getting free food is an additional incentive.

Now, if we start an organization just for giving free food, and in that organization, because of secular considerations, you know, we cannot even talk about Krishna, then is that really a worthwhile endeavor? Maybe it is, because it is doing good PR. But if that becomes, that starts consuming more of our energy than our direct outreach, then that would be a problem. So, if this is just one of the many activities that we do, then I don't think demonstrating this worldly value is a problem.

So, for example, we have the Govardhan Eco-Village. A lot of people are concerned about the environment. And if we can, not just Govardhan Eco-Village, there are many other farm communities also that we have, which devotees are trying to work at.

And people are concerned about the environment. So, if we can demonstrate that our philosophy can make a positive difference in terms of addressing the environmental challenges, then people are very open. They see that it works, and then they want to know more about it.

I stayed in Florida for about several months in the early days of 2017-18 in my outreach. Several young boys who joined at that time, joined means they started joining the courses that I was conducting, and they were sort of iffy serious, not very serious, but interested. But then one of the, two of the boys were studying environmental science.

Then we invited them up to the Eco-Village. They came and stayed in the Eco-Village. They did a project in the Eco-Village for three months as part of the project.

And after staying in the Eco-Village, when they went back, both of them became not just devotees, but initiated devotees afterwards. And one of them is now further doing his PhD in insights for environmental conservation from the Bhagavad Gita, or rather more from the Bhakti Yuga tradition specifically. So there are people who, if we didn't have something like a eco-friendly community, they would never have become attracted.

So the problem is not doing this activity, doing such activities which demonstrate this worldly value. The problem is doing only this and neglecting our main activities. So for example, we do mantra chanting.

If there are some devotees who are in neuroscience, and they study, they try to demonstrate how mantra chanting and its benefits can be demonstrated at the scientific level through brain imaging. That's a valuable service. But suppose devotees stop chanting Hare Krishna and start doing only brain studies.

That is not healthy. So it's a step-by-step process. As long as the subsequent steps of the ladder are also well built and constructed, then extending the ladder downwards further is not the problem.

But if you get so caught in building the lower steps of the ladder, there is no upper steps of the ladder. Then that is where it's a problem. Thank you very much.